Author: Editor

TWO more Palestinians, including a weeks-old baby, have succumbed to starvation, director of al-Shifa Hospital tells Al Jazeera, as UN says thousands in Gaza on the “verge of catastrophic hunger”. At least 116 Palestinians, including 38 people near food aid sites in Rafah, killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza today. Meanwhile, Hundreds of Palestinian students in Gaza are taking a crucial end-of-secondary-school exam organised by the besieged enclave’s Ministry of Education in the hope of entering university studies. Earlier this month, the ministry announced Saturday’s exam, which will be the first since Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza after…

PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s administration said Friday the United States was rejecting changes agreed last year for the World Health Organization on its pandemic response, saying they violated the country’s sovereignty. Trump on returning to office on January 20 immediately began his nation’s withdrawal from the UN body, but the State Department said the language from last year would still have been binding on the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is a longtime critic of vaccines, said the changes “risk unwarranted interference with our national sovereign right to…

THE Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda-backed armed group M23 signed a ceasefire deal on Saturday to end fighting that has devastated the country’s mineral-rich but conflict-torn east. The truce was agreed in a Declaration of Principles signed by the two sides after three months of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, which follows a separate Congolese-Rwandan peace deal signed in Washington last month. “The Parties commit to uphold their commitment to a permanent ceasefire,” including refraining from “hate propaganda” and “any attempt to seize by force new positions”, said the agreement. The M23, which seized vast swathes of territory…

A HIGHLY respected police officer has shaken South Africa’s government – and won the admiration of many ordinary people – with his explosive allegations that organised crime groups have penetrated the upper echelons of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration. Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi did it in dramatic style – dressed in military-like uniform and surrounded by masked police officers with automatic weapons, he called a press conference to accuse Police Minister Senzo Mchunu of having ties to criminal gangs. He also said his boss had closed down an elite unit investigating political murders after it uncovered a drug cartel with tentacles in…

MANCHESTER United have had a £65m bid for Bryan Mbeumo accepted by Brentford. The Cameroon international could undergo a medical with the club before Ruben Amorim’s squad fly to the United States on Tuesday for their pre-season tour. The 25-year-old winger is set to become United’s third signing of the summer after the arrivals of forward Matheus Cunha and left-back Diego Leon. United submitted their first bid – worth an overall £55m – at the start of June. They failed with a second bid of £62.5m at the end of that month. But the Bees are satisfied with United’s latest…

ISRAELI forces have shot and killed a Palestinian child in the occupied West Bank amid more violent raids by soldiers and settlers, and as Israeli authorities position to confiscate more land. Local Palestinian sources reported on Friday that 13-year-old Amr Ali Qabha was hit with live ammunition in a street in Yabad, located south of Jenin, and was denied medical treatment as soldiers prevented ambulances from reaching him. Qabha’s father also tried to reach him, but was severely beaten and detained by Israeli soldiers, according to the Wafa news agency, which said the child was pronounced dead at the hospital…

BRAZIL’s former president Jair Bolsonaro must wear an electronic monitoring device as he awaits a verdict in his trial on charges of plotting a coup, a Supreme Court judge ruled on Friday. Judge Alexandre de Moraes, a Bolsonaro adversary who is overseeing the trial now in its final stages, said the far-right leader and his son Eduardo had incited “hostile acts” against Brazil. Bolsonaro is accused of seeking to stay in power by overturning the 2022 election won by his left-wing opponent, current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He lashed out at the monitoring device order, calling it a…

A LIBYAN man suspected of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity has been arrested in Germany on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, commonly known as “Al-Buti”, is alleged to have been one of the most senior officials at the Mitiga Prison complex in the capital, Tripoli, where thousands of people were detained. He is suspected of having committed, ordered or overseen crimes including murder, torture and rape. The atrocities were allegedly committed in the detention unit near Tripoli in the five years from 2015. There is no record of him…

BURKINA Faso’s military rulers have disbanded the country’s electoral commission calling it a waste of money. The interior ministry will handle elections in the future, state-run RTB TV reported. Since seizing power in September 2022, the coup leaders have initiated sweeping reforms, including the postponement of elections which would lead to a return to civilian rule. A nationwide vote was due last year, but the junta extended the period of transition to democracy until July 2029, allowing leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré to remain in power and free to contest the next presidential election. The AFP news agency quotes Territorial Administration…

LIVERPOOL are in advanced talks to sign Eintracht Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike in a deal worth more than £70m. Multiple sources have indicated that Liverpool aim to have the transfer wrapped up by this weekend. Newcastle have had a £70m offer for Ekitike rejected by Frankfurt, with Liverpool’s offer expected to surpass it. Ekitike is open to joining the Premier League champions, who want to sign a central striker. The 23-year-old scored 15 goals in 31 starts as Frankfurt finished third in the Bundesliga last term. However, Ekitike is a provider as well as a scorer, with his eight assists…

ISRAELI forces have bombed Gaza’s only Catholic church, killing three people and wounding at least 10 others, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, as the military continues its assault across the besieged enclave. At least one person is in critical condition as a result of Thursday’s strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, the Patriarchate said in a statement. The church’s priest was also lightly wounded, it added. Among those killed were the parish’s 60-year-old janitor and an 84-year-old woman who was receiving psychosocial support inside a Caritas tent in the church compound, according to the Catholic charity…

A FIRE tore through a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut overnight, killing at least 61 people mostly women and children, authorities said Thursday as grief-stricken families searched for missing relatives. Officials said many people suffocated in bathrooms, while one person told AFP his five relatives died in an elevator. The blaze, the latest in a country where safety regulations are frequently neglected, broke out late Wednesday, reportedly starting on the first floor before rapidly engulfing the five-storey Corniche Hypermarket Mall. The cause was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner…

IF you believe the viral videos online, R. Kelly and Pope Leo XIV agree on one thing — that Burkina Faso’s junta chief, Captain Ibrahim Traore, is a fantastic leader. The images are AI-generated propaganda, part of what experts have called a vast disinformation campaign spreading the “personality cult” of the West African country’s strongman. Beyoncé and Justin Bieber are among the other celebrities whose faces and voices have been altered through artificial intelligence to shower praise on Traoré. In one video, attributed to R&B star R. Kelly, the lyrics praise Traore, who seized power in a 2022 coup: “for…

THE Trump administration is treating South Africa almost like a pariah, blacklisting its envoys, refusing to send top-level officials to meetings it hosts, and threatening to hit the nation with such high tariffs that its economic crisis is likely to deepen. The latest sign of this came with the revelation by the second-biggest party in South Africa’s coalition government, the Democratic Alliance (DA), that the US government had rejected President Cyril Ramaphosa’s special envoy, denying him a diplomatic visa in May and refusing to recognise him as an “official interlocutor”. Ramaphosa had created the post for Mcebisi Jonas, the non-executive…

REAL Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham is expected to miss up to 12 weeks recovering from a shoulder operation after the Spanish giants said Wednesday he had successfully undergone surgery. “Our player Jude Bellingham has undergone successful surgery for a recurrent left shoulder dislocation,” said Real Madrid in a statement. “Bellingham will now begin a period of rehabilitation prior to his return to recovery work.” While Madrid did not specify the expected length of his recovery time, Spanish media have reported it will take around 12 weeks for him to return to action. Bellingham has been struggling with shoulder discomfort after…

THE Israeli army has launched air attacks on the Syrian Defence Ministry and near the presidential palace in the capital, Damascus, killing at least three and wounding 34. The strikes come after Israel threatened to increase attacks if Syrian government forces are not withdrawn from the south of the country where there has been fighting between Druze and security forces. In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, the Health Ministry says at least 21 people have been killed at a food distribution site of the controversial US- and Israeli-backed GHF. Gaza’s Ministry of Health has disputed the allegation from the controversial United…

RUSSIA said Wednesday it had seized 820 kilograms (1,800 pounds) of cocaine hidden under a shipment of bananas, calling it its largest bust of drugs from Latin America this year. Cocaine smuggling into Russia has surged over the past two years, according to Russia’s Izvestia newspaper. Drug traffickers are increasingly looking to the country as a transit hub, in part because the Ukrainian port of Odesa has become inaccessible due to Russia’s offensive, the paper said. Russia’s customs service, working jointly with the FSB security service, said it had uncovered a batch worth “more than 12 billion rubles ($153 million)”…

BRITAIN’s Prince Harry visited Angola on Wednesday to back landmine clearance efforts, retracing the steps of his late mother, the charity leading the project said. The southern African nation hosts the continent’s largest minefield, a legacy of the 27-year civil war that began after independence from Portugal in 1975. The Duke of Sussex visited a remote village in the southeast to “deliver life-saving messages to children,” the Halo Trust mine-clearing organisation said. “The Duke repeated simple phrases in Portuguese, including  ‘stop, go back and tell your elders’ to prevent children from detonating lethal devices,” the British charity said in a statement.…

THE government of the tiny, landlocked African country of Eswatini has confirmed that it received five individuals deported from the United States under President Donald Trump. In a statement on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Eswatini government said the deportations were “the result of months of robust high-level engagements”. “The five prisoners are in the country and are housed in Correctional facilities within isolated units, ‘where similar offenders are kept’,” spokesperson Thabile Mdluli wrote. But she appeared to concede there were human rights concerns about accepting deported individuals whose countries of origin were not Eswatini. “As a responsible member of…

BARCELONA star Lamine Yamal is facing an investigation regarding the presence of a group of people with dwarfism as entertainers at his 18th birthday party last weekend, Spain’s Ministry of Social Rights told AFP Tuesday. The winger celebrated with a private event in Olivella, around 50 kilometres west of Barcelona, which the ministry asked the prosecutor’s office to probe, following a complaint from the Association for People with Achondroplasia and Other Skeletal Dysplasias with Dwarfism (ADEE). Yamal turned 18 on July 13, the day after his party on Saturday night, which many of his team-mates attended, along with celebrities from…