Author: Editor

BURKINA Faso’s military government says it has arrested eight members of a Dutch-based humanitarian organisation, accusing them of “spying and treason”. They are three Europeans, a Malian, and four Burkinabé – among them the NGO’s country director and deputy. The organisation said they were detained some time ago but it was not previously reported. Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said the NGO had “collected and passed on sensitive security information that could be detrimental to national security and the interests of Burkina Faso, to foreign powers”. The International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), which provides safety information to aid workers, has “categorically”…

FORMER England captain and Liverpool legend, Steven Gerrard, has launched a scathing critique of his generation of England stars, describing them as “egotistical losers” who failed to achieve their potential due to club rivalries, inflated egos, and lack of team unity. Gerrard, 45, who earned 114 international caps and played under five full-time managers across six major tournaments, admitted that despite the immense talent in the squad, the so-called Golden Generation, which included stars like David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, and John Terry, never became a cohesive unit. “We were all egotistical losers,” Gerrard said bluntly while…

HAMAS and Israel have concluded a second day of indirect negotiations on United States President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the war on Gaza, as senior Qatari and US officials headed to Egypt to join the talks. Speaking at the White House on the second anniversary of the start of the war, Trump said that there was a “real chance” of a Gaza deal, as Tuesday’s talks wrapped up in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. However, the day had opened with an umbrella of Palestinian factions – including Hamas issuing a statement that promised a “resistance stance by…

BRITON John Clarke, Frenchman Michel Devoret, and American John Martinis won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work on quantum physics in action, the Nobel jury said. The trio was honoured “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit,” the jury said. Quantum mechanics describes how differently things work on incredibly small scales. For example, when a normal ball hits a wall, it bounces back. But on the quantum scale, a particle will actually pass straight through a comparable wall — a phenomenon called “tunnelling”. Tuesday’s prize was awarded for experiments…

CAMEROON’s President Paul Biya on Monday made his first major appearance of the election campaign in his run for an eighth straight term as the world’s oldest head of state. With five days to go before the vote, Biya, aged 92, and in power since 1982 — addressed supporters at a stadium in Maroua, in the Far North region, AFP journalists saw. It was his first public appearance since May of this year. “My determination to serve you remains intact,” he told the crowd of several hundred supporters from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement. “I ask you once again…

THE mother of missing former Tanzanian diplomat Humphrey Polepole has made an emotional appeal for police to help bring him home. “If he is alive, return him to me. If he is not, bring his body and let me bury my child myself. They should not go and throw him into the sea,” Annamary Polepole said, in an interview with the BBC about her son’s disappearance. The ex-ambassador to Cuba, who had become an outspoken critic of the government, was abducted from his home in Tanzania’s main city Dar es Salaam in the early hours of Monday, according to his…

MOHAMED Salah is Liverpool’s “Egyptian King”, but the forward’s crown has lost a little of its lustre during a disappointing spell in which his work ethic has come under fire. Salah was below his best again in Liverpool’s damaging 2-1 defeat at Chelsea on Saturday as he wasted several chances and failed to help out in defence. He has been absent from the scoresheet in five of Liverpool’s seven Premier League games this season and the champions have suffered as a result. The loss at Stamford Bridge was Liverpool’s third in eight days as Arsenal leapfrogged them to the top…

NEGOTIATORS from Hamas and Israel have begun indirect talks in Egypt on US President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the war on Gaza. Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian state intelligence, said on Monday the delegations that gathered in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh “are discussing preparing ground conditions for the release of detainees and prisoners”, in line with the US plan. “Egyptian and Qatari mediators are working with both sides to establish a mechanism” for the exchange, it added. The talks, which come on the eve of the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel…

A MAN on trial in the Albanian capital, Tirana, has allegedly shot and killed the presiding judge. Appeals court judge Astrit Kalaja died on Monday as he was being transported to the hospital, Albanian police said. The 30-year-old suspect fled the scene but was later detained, and the revolver he is believed to have used was also found, police added. The gunman also shot a father and son who were party to the trial. They were both rushed to the hospital, where their injuries were deemed not to be life-threatening. The Albanian press reported that the court case concerned a…

A SUDANESE militia leader has been found guilty of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region more than 20 years ago. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, was one of the leaders of the Janjaweed, a government-backed group that terrorised Darfur, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Kushayb is the first person to be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the atrocities in Darfur. He had argued it was a case of mistaken identity. The conflict lasted from 2003 to 2020 and was one of the world’s gravest humanitarian disasters, with…

MADAGASCAR’s President Andry Rajoelina has appointed Ruphin Fortunat Zafisambo as prime minister, as anti-government protests once again eruped in the country. The appointment of Zafisambo, a military general, on Monday comes a week after the government was dissolved in response to the protests. However, protesters are now calling on Rajoelina himself to resign. Police fired tear gas at demonstrators on the streets of the capital, Antananarivo, on Monday, the start of a third consecutive week of protests. The unrest began over water and electricity cuts, but has evolved into broader anti-government anger against Rajoelina’s administration. Protesters have gathered in cities…

ERLING Haaland continued his prolific form as Manchester City battled to a narrow victory over Brentford and gave boss Pep Guardiola his 250th Premier League win. Guardiola is the 16th manager to reach the milestone with a single club, but has done so in just 349 games – 74 games quicker than anyone else. Haaland outmuscled Sepp van den Berg to gather Josko Gvardiol’s looping cross, then wriggled away from the defender before precisely slotting past Caoimhin Kelleher. It is the Norwegian striker’s third goal this week and his 18th in 11 games for club and country this season. City…

NEGOTIATORS converge on Egypt ahead of talks aimed at ending Israel’s nearly two-year war on the Gaza Strip. Israeli attacks on Gaza have continued unabated, with at least 19 Palestinians reported killed today. One person has also died of forced starvation, the Health Ministry in the besieged territory says. This is as international activists deported from Israel after joining an intercepted Gaza aid flotilla have given further accounts of mistreatment by guards during their detention. The latest claims made by participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla added to the growing scrutiny of Israel on Sunday for its treatment of the…

AT least three Indian states have banned a cough syrup after several children died allegedly after consuming the product, said local authorities and reports. The death of at least nine children, all aged under five, since late August, in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have been linked to a cough medicine they were prescribed. India’s health ministry Saturday said laboratory tests on samples of the syrup the children had consumed revealed it was contaminated with diethylene glycol (DEG), a toxic substance used in industrial solvents that can be fatal if ingested even in small amounts. “The samples are…

SEVEN al-Shabab militants who attacked a high-security prison in Somalia’s capital have all been killed, the country’s government has said. A huge explosion and gunfire were heard coming from Godka Jilicow, a detention centre that holds al-Shabab militants in Mogadishu on Saturday evening. In a statement, al-Shabab said it released “all the prisoners” from the facility and inflicted heavy casualties on those guarding the centre. The militants disguised themselves as soldiers in order to enter the prison, government-run news agency Sonna Live reported on Sunday. The government did not indicate how many of its security forces were killed during the…

THE son of Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe has appeared in a Harare court charged with drug possession. Robert Mugabe Jr, 33, was arrested on Wednesday morning as he drove the wrong way down a one-way street, according to court documents. Police searched a black sling bag he was wearing at the time and allegedly found two small sachets of cannabis. Following the incident, police said in a statement that five people in a “syndicate linked to him” were also arrested. Mr Mugabe’s lawyer told the BBC they plan to deny the charges, and contested the factual claims made by…

JUST three days after a “phenomenal” display against Olympiakos in the Champions League, things are not looking so positive once again for Martin Odegaard. The Arsenal captain made history in the 2-0 win over West Ham on Saturday when he had to be withdrawn after only 30 minutes, becoming the first player in Premier League history to be substituted before half-time in three consecutive starts. It continues a frustrating opening few weeks of the season for the 26-year-old Norwegian, having also come off early in victories against Leeds and Nottingham Forest. On those occasions it was because of an ongoing…

ISRAELI attacks across the besieged Gaza Strip have killed at least 70 Palestinians, medical sources said, despite calls from United States President Donald Trump for Israel to stop its bombardment after Hamas said it had accepted some elements of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war. At least 45 of the victims killed in bombardments and air strikes on Saturday were in the famine-struck Gaza City, where the Israeli army has been pressing an offensive in recent weeks, forcing some one million residents to flee to the overcrowded south. Eighteen people were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli…

A RUSSIAN strike has hit two trains at a train station in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, killing one person and injuring at least 30 others, as Moscow continues its near-daily targeting of Ukraine’s railway infrastructure. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that 30 were wounded on Saturday, calling the strike on Shostka station in Sumy “savage”. “The Russians could not have been unaware that they were striking civilians,” added Zelenskyy. Hours later, local prosecutors said that a 71-year-old man was found dead in one of the wrecked carriages. The site is around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Russian border. Russia struck…

MOROCCO is currently building what will be the globe’s largest football stadium in preparation for co-hosting the 2030 World Cup. But for the demonstrators who have taken to the streets each night across the country since last Saturday, this 115,000-capacity showpiece and all the other football infrastructure in development, costing a reported $5bn (£3.7bn), are an affront – an example of a government that has got its priorities wrong. “I am protesting because I want my country to be better. I don’t want to leave Morocco, and I don’t want to resent my country for choosing to stay,” says Hajar…