SUDAN’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters are committing war crimes in the Darfur town of el-Fasher, the rights group Amnesty International has alleged in a new report. The report was published on Tuesday, just hours after the RSF declared that it would immediately enter into a three-month humanitarian truce “in response to international efforts” led by United States President Donald Trump. Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country. In its latest report, Amnesty said it had…
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BOLLYWOOD star Dharmendra has died in the Indian city of Mumbai at the age of 89. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the actor, saying his passing “marks the end of an era in Indian cinema”. Dharmendra, who often described himself as “a simple man”, commanded extraordinary affection and loyalty from his tens of millions of fans. Best known as Veeru, the lovable petty criminal in the 1975 blockbuster Sholay, he appeared in over 300 films, many hits, captivating audiences for decades. Songs featuring him topped the charts, and his romance and marriage with Hema Malini made headlines.…
EBERECHI Eze scored his first senior hat-trick as Arsenal thrashed north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur to move six points clear at the top of the Premier League. Spurs boss Thomas Frank picked a five-man defence as he looked to keep things tight at Emirates Stadium, but his side could not contain the league leaders. Leandro Trossard opened the scoring for an utterly dominant Arsenal in the 36th minute, finishing well after a lovely through ball from Mikel Merino. Then Eze, who almost joined Spurs in the summer from Crystal Palace before a late swoop by Arsenal, doubled the hosts’ advantage…
ISRAEL has violated the United States-brokered Gaza ceasefire at least 497 times in 44 days, killing hundreds of Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October, according to the Gaza Government Media Office. Some 342 civilians have been killed in the attacks, with children, women and the elderly accounting for the majority of the victims. “We condemn in the strongest terms the continued serious and systematic violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Israeli occupation authorities,” the office said in a statement on Saturday. “These violations constitute a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law and the humanitarian protocol…
NEW York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani says he still believes United States President Donald Trump is a fascist, despite a surprisingly warm meeting between the two politically polarised men at the White House this week. “That’s something that I’ve said in the past; I say it today,” Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, said about the Republican president in an interview aired on NBC News on Sunday. Mamdani’s comments came two days after he met with Trump, setting aside months of mutual recriminations and promising to cooperate on the city’s future Trump, who grew up in New York, called Mamdani a…
THERE are growing concerns over the possibility of armed conflict between Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent weeks. Landlocked Ethiopia’s calls for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has triggered a fierce war of words. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in 2023 that his nation’s access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrea dismissed. Relations between the two countries have frequently been strained. After a decades-long battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, officially seceded from Ethiopia in 1993,…
THE G20 summit in South Africa, a gathering of the world’s major economies, has ended with a joint declaration committing to “multilateral co-operation”. The declaration, which covered climate change mitigation and economic inequality, was adopted despite objections from the US, which boycotted the meeting in Johannesburg. Speaking at the closing ceremony on Sunday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the agreement showed “shared goals” outweighed the countries’ differences. American President Donald Trump chose to abstain from the G20 because of a widely discredited claim that South Africa’s white minority is the victim of large-scale killings and land grabs. It was…
NEWCASTLE dented Manchester City’s Premier League title challenge as Harvey Barnes’ brace sealed a controversial 2-1 victory on Saturday. Pep Guardiola’s side trailed to Barnes’ second-half opener at St James’ Park before Ruben Dias equalised for the visitors. Moments after Dias levelled, Barnes bagged Newcastle’s contentious second goal, which was allowed to stand after a lengthy VAR check for a potential offside against Bruno Guimaraes. Guardiola was also aggrieved over a first-half penalty claim by Phil Foden. City’s fourth league defeat this season left them in third place, four points behind leaders Arsenal, who host Tottenham on Sunday. Guardiola said…
ISRAEL’s military has launched a wave of air attacks across Gaza, killing at least 24 Palestinians, including children, in its latest violation of a six-week old ceasefire in the war-torn territory. The attacks on Saturday also wounded 87 others, according to authorities in Gaza. Witnesses said the first strike hit a car in northern Gaza City, and was followed by more attacks in central Deir el-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp. The drone attack in Gaza City killed at least 11 people and wounded 20 others, according to the managing director of al-Shifa Hospital, Rami Mhanna. It happened in the…
UKRAINIAN and US officials will soon meet in Switzerland to discuss Washington’s plan for ending the war with Russia, Kyiv said Saturday, as it seeks to fix the draft that heeds to some of Moscow’s hardline demands. US President Donald Trump gave Ukraine less than a week to approve the 28-point plan to end the nearly four-year conflict, which would see the invaded country cede territory, cut its army, and pledge to never join NATO. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European allies, who were not included in drafting the agreement, said the plan requires “additional work” as they scrambled at the G20 summit…
WORLD leaders from the G20 adopted a declaration at the start of their summit in South Africa, despite opposition from the United States. The US is boycotting the two-day talks over a diplomatic rift with the host country. The Trump administration had put pressure on South Africa not to adopt a leaders’ declaration in the absence of an American delegation, South African officials said. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responded to that earlier this week by saying “we will not be bullied.” There were no immediate details of what was in the declaration, but South Africa hailed it as a…
NIGER Republic’s president Abdourahamane Tchiani this weekend said the country’s border with Benin would remain closed “as long as the security situation does not evolve” on the Beninese side. The head of state spoke during a Saturday rally in Gaya, a town located just a few kilometres from the border. He accused Benin of hosting French troops on its territory and claimed Benin was allowing Western countries to “finance and support terrorism” in order to destabilise the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Niger’s military authorities have used similar arguments in the past but Benin keeps denying these allegations. Tchiani also…
BENJAMIN Sesko will be out of action “for a few weeks” after hurting his knee before the international break, manager Ruben Amorim said on Friday. The forward, who joined United from RB Leipzig for £74 million ($97 million) in August, was injured during the 2-2 draw at Tottenham on November 8 and missed Slovenia’s World Cup qualifiers. Amorim was initially “more concerned” about the issue due to the fact it related to a knee, but the United boss is confident the 22-year-old has avoided a lengthy lay-off. “He is going to stay out for a few weeks, I don’t know…
AT least 67 Palestinian children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect last month, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says. Speaking during a news conference in Geneva on Friday, UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said the death toll includes a baby girl who was killed in an Israeli air strike on a home in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis on Thursday. It also includes seven other children killed a day earlier, as Israel carried out a wave of attacks across the enclave. “This is during an agreed ceasefire. The pattern is staggering,”…
A UNITED States district judge has sentenced Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a member of 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, to 14 years in prison for illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former US President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Michel declined to address the court before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him on Thursday. The trial in Washington, DC, included testimony from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio. This week’s sentencing came after a federal jury convicted Michel on 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, in April…
SOUTH Africa has classified violence against women a national disaster following an online campaign culminating in countrywide protests on Friday. Women were urged to “withdraw from the economy for one day”, and lie down for 15 minutes at 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT) in honour of the 15 females who are murdered in the country every day. The state had refused to make the categorisation but changed tack after “evaluating the persistent and immediate life-safety risks posed by ongoing acts of violence”. South Africa experiences some of the world’s highest levels of gender-based violence (GBV), with the rate at which…
QATARI Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), days after the government and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group signed a framework agreement for a peace deal aimed at ending fighting in the country’s east. On his first trip to the African country, the Qatari leader was welcomed in the capital Kinshasa on Friday by DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and other officials. The frameworkd agreement was the latest in a series of documents signed in recent months as part of efforts, backed by the United States and Qatar, to end decades of fighting…
FOR Palestinians held within Israel’s prison network, torture, abuse and contempt for life isn’t just the norm, it’s the system. That’s according to report released this week [PDF] by the NGO Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI). In the report, PHRI reveals the details of at least 94 Palestinian prisoners killed while in Israeli detention. The true number is likely far higher, the report’s authors concede. All of those killed died from either torture, assault, wilful medical neglect or malnutrition. The report builds upon a tranche of evidence of abuse and torture published by a variety of human rights organisations, both…
A FLORIDA congresswoman has been charged with stealing $5m (£3.8m) in federal disaster funds. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is accused of laundering some of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) money into her 2021 election campaign. The 46-year-old Democrat is under investigation by the House of Representatives Ethics Committee and could be expelled from the chamber. Attorney General Pam Bondi called it a “particularly selfish, cynical crime”. In a statement, Ms Cherfilus-McCormick – who was elected to Congress in 2022 – maintained she was innocent and vowed to clear her name. She faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted. The…
THE UN human rights council has given unanimous backing to a fresh, independent investigation into mass killings reported in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher. “Our wake-up calls were not heeded. Bloodstains on the ground in el-Fasher have been photographed from space. The stain on the record of the international community is less visible, but no less damaging,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk said at an emergency meeting in Geneva on Friday. Since the civil war began over two years ago, more than 150,000 people have been killed and about 12 million have been forced from their homes. The new…