THE president of Guinea-Bissau on Thursday sacked the West African country’s prime minister and appointed his successor, the latest move to position President Umaro Sissoco Embalo for a likely second term in elections due in November. According to a presidential decree, Rui Duarte de Barros, who served as prime minister since December 2023, was replaced by Braima Camara, a former coordinator of the Madem G15 opposition party. There has been much controversy over Embalo’s term ahead of the November general elections. The small West African nation has endured multiple coups since gaining independence from Portugal more than 50 years ago.…
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MANCHESTER United have completed the signing of RB Leipzig striker Benjamin Sesko in a move worth £73.7m. The deal for the Slovenia international, who has joined on a five-year contract, includes a guaranteed payment of £66.3m, with the remainder in add-ons. He is United’s third major signing in attack following the arrivals of Matheus Cunha for £62.5m and Bryan Mbeumo for £65m with £6m in add-ons, with the trio presented to the club’s fans prior to Saturday’s pre-season home game against Fiorentina. Sesko, 22, was also a target for Newcastle United but has chosen to join Ruben Amorim’s side. United…
ISRAELI attacks have killed at least 39 people, including 21 seeking humanitarian aid and 11 who starved to death, over 24 hours in Gaza, Palestinian health authorities say. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday that the total number of malnutrition deaths has reached 212, including 98 children, since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. Most of the deaths have occurred in recent weeks as Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on aid supplies entering Gaza after partially lifting a total blockade in late May. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told…
NEW York is waging a war on multiple fronts to combat the near-ubiquitous rats that plague city streets and the subways, leaving some residents afraid to let their children walk on sidewalks. Faced with an overwhelming and ever-growing problem, officials have moved beyond gassing burrows to suffocate rodents and are now using high-tech mapping tools to try and sterilise the population. Alongside targeted interventions, officials are mounting an effort to educate the public about the need to avoid leaving behind food waste that feeds and sustains the rat population. Caroline Bragdon, director of neighbourhood interventions for Pest Control Services within…
A COURT in Chad jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra for 20 years Saturday, convicting him of hate speech, xenophobia and having incited a massacre. The court in N’Djamena jailed Masra, one of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno’s fiercest critics, for his role in inciting inter-communal violence in which 42 people were killed on May 14. Most of the massacre victims were women and children in Mandakao, southwestern Chad, according to the court. On Friday, the state prosecutor had called for a 25-year sentence. “Our client has just been the object of a humiliation,” lead defence lawyer…
A BUS carrying mourners from a funeral has crashed in western Kenya, killing 25 people, local authorities say. The driver lost control, veered off the road and overturned into a ditch along the Kisumu-Kakamega Highway on Friday afternoon, a police report seen by the BBC says. This area is notorious for many deadly accidents. Police said 10 women, 10 men and one girl died at the scene, with 20 passengers injured, five of them seriously. Four people later died in hospital, officials said. The passengers were returning from a burial ground and are all believed to be from one family.…
“ON the ground floor there were no windows. It felt like you were in a hospital in the basement. It was a slightly gloomy place, a gloomy rabbit warren.” Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s first impressions of Carrington gave him no illusions as to what one of his first tasks should be if he succeeded in buying into Manchester United. Two years on, Ratcliffe is describing those initial thoughts at the re-opening of the club’s revamped training ground. He has invested £50m in the upgrades. The work took 12 months and was “on time and within budget”. “Manchester United is one of…
GERMANY has suspended all military exports to Israel that could be used in Gaza after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to take over Gaza City, an escalation in the 22-month war. Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced the decision on Friday, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the security cabinet voted in favour of a plan to seize the largest city in the besieged Palestinian territory. A day earlier, Netanyahu had declared that Israeli forces were aiming to take full military control of the entire Gaza Strip despite mounting international condemnation over Israel’s war, which has killed tens…
FAMILIES of the victims of June’s deadly Air India crash demanded on Friday the immediate release of the aircraft’s two flight recorders, saying delays were eroding their trust in the investigation. A total of 241 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner were killed when the plane crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad in western India on June 12. Another 19 people were killed on the ground. A preliminary investigation report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said fuel to the jet’s engines was cut off moments before impact. The report did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame…
GHANA’s President John Mahama has promised a full investigation into Wednesday’s helicopter crash that killed two government ministers and six other people. Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment, Science and Technology Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, both 50, were among those killed when a military aircraft crashed in the central Ashanti region. In a televised address to the nation, Mahama said the crash represented “a personal loss” for him. The president confirmed that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders – often referred to as the “black boxes” – had been retrieved and that the armed forces had “initiated a…
A SOUTH African court has ruled that Zambia’s former president, Edgar Lungu, who died in South Africa, should be buried in Zambia against his family’s wishes. Lungu’s burial has been the subject of a two-month dispute between Zambia’s government, which had planned a state funeral for him in Lusaka, and his family, who wanted him buried in South Africa. Lungu, Zambia’s head of state from 2015 to 2021, died in South Africa on June 5 while receiving medical treatment. South Africa’s high court halted plans for Lungu to be buried in Johannesburg on June 25, hours before a private ceremony…
MANCHESTER United have agreed a deal worth £73.7m with RB Leipzig to sign Slovenia striker Benjamin Sesko. The agreement includes a guaranteed payment of £66.3m with the remainder in add-ons. Sesko will now complete the formalities, including a medical on Friday, before finalising his move to Old Trafford. The 22-year-old, who was also wanted by Newcastle, has scored 39 goals in 87 appearances for the German side. United have already signed forwards Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo this summer for a combined fee of about £130m. Those payments have been arranged in a favourable way to allow United to keep…
GAZA health authorities say nearly 200 people, including 96 children, have died of hunger in Gaza, as the starving population battles against the odds to get food from dangerous airdrops and deadly aid hubs run by the GHF. As Israel’s man-made famine under the ongoing blockade tightened its grip on the enclave, hospitals recorded four more deaths from “famine and malnutrition” on Thursday – two of them children – bringing the total to 197. Amid the mounting death toll, World Health Organization (WHO) director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that about 12,000 children younger than five were suffering from acute malnutrition…
THE family of a missing man whose body was discovered on a melting glacier in Pakistan after 28 years said Thursday its recovery had brought them some relief. The body of 31-year-old Nasiruddin was spotted by locals near the edge of the shrinking Lady Meadows glacier in the Kohistan region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. His family said he and his brother had fled to the mountains after a dispute in their village in 1997 when he fell into a crevasse. “Our family left no stone unturned to trace him over the years. Our uncles and cousins visited the glacier several…
SIX people have been killed after a light aircraft belonging to a medical charity crashed in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, according to a local officials. Charity Amref Flying Doctors said the Cessna plane took off from Wilson airport on Thursday afternoon and was en route to Hargeisa in Somalia when it crashed and burst into flames at a residential building in Nairobi’s Githurai area. Kiambu County Commissioner Henry Wafula said four people on the plane were killed, including doctors, nurses and the pilot – as well as another two people on the ground, while two others were seriously injured. Investigators have…
THE Zambian government has dismissed claims of dangerous pollution in the Copperbelt mining region, following safety concerns raised by the US embassy. On Wednesday, the US embassy issued a health alert, ordering the immediate withdrawal of its personnel in Kitwe town and nearby areas due to concerns of “widespread contamination of water and soil” linked to a February spill at the Sino-Metals mine. The spill happened when a tailings dam, used to store toxic waste and heavy metals, collapsed into the Kafue River, a key drinking water source, following heavy rain. The US embassy said there was new information that…
MANCHESTER United have made contact with Brighton to explore the conditions of a deal for midfielder Carlos Baleba, according to reports. The 21-year-old enjoyed an impressive campaign for the Seagulls, featuring 34 times in the Premier League and scoring three goals for Fabian Hurzeler’s side. United, who are closing in on their third major addition of the summer in RB Leipzig striker Benjamin Sesko, are among the many suitors of the Cameroon international and have made contact with Brighton through intermediaries, a report has claimed. According to The Athletic, the Red Devils have relayed their interest in the midfielder, who…
GAZA’s already battered healthcare system is in a state of collapse as blood banks run dry and Israeli forces continue targeting clinics and facilities housing patients and displaced families while maintaining an aid blockade. Healthcare officials in the besieged enclave reported on Wednesday that there is a severe shortage of blood as many would-be donors are too malnourished due to a severe Israeli-induced hunger crisis that has so far claimed the lives of 193 Palestinians, including five in the past 24 hours. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said blood donations are desperately needed across the remaining operational…
UNITED States President Donald Trump has issued an executive order imposing an additional 25 percent tariff on goods from India, as penalty for importing Russian oil. Wednesday’s hike comes in addition to the 25 percent tariff India already faces, making it subject to one of the US’s highest import tax brackets under Trump, at a total of 50 percent. In his executive order, Trump explained that Russia’s continued military actions in Ukraine constituted a “national emergency” and it was therefore “necessary and appropriate” to place heightened tariffs on India, a major consumer of its petroleum products. “I find that the…
A UGANDAN university student who mysteriously went missing two months ago after posting a TikTok video that harshly criticised President Yoweri Museveni’s leadership has been jailed. Elson Tumwine disappeared on 8 June – sparking accusations from opposition figures and activists that he had been abducted and illegally detained by military agents. Following an outcry over his disappearance, he was then reportedly left at a police station in Entebbe in mid-July and was subsequently charged with offensive communication and computer misuse. He pleaded guilty and asked for forgiveness. The magistrates’ court in Entebbe sentenced him to two months in jail on…