Author: Editor

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…

ISRAEL’s military killed more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn including starving people desperate for food aid at a US-Israel-run site. Israel launched air strikes on the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, killing at least 12 people, as well as attacking Syrian troops in the city of Suwayda. Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes have killed at least 12 people, including five Hezbollah fighters, in eastern Lebanon, according to Lebanese state media reports, in what Israel said was a warning to the armed group against trying to re-establish itself. Eight other people were wounded on Tuesday in the Israeli air strikes…

THE United Kingdom set up a secret plan to resettle thousands of Afghans in Britain after an official accidentally disclosed the personal details of more than 33,000 people, putting them at risk of reprisals from the Taliban, court documents have showed. A judge at London’s High Court said in a May 2024 judgement made public on Tuesday that about 20,000 people may have to be offered relocation to Britain, a move that would likely cost “several billion pounds”. Britain’s current Defence Minister John Healey told Parliament that some 4,500 affected people “are in Britain or in transit … at a…

AMNESTY International on Tuesday slammed a call by the Kenyan President William Ruto to shoot protesters, saying it would fuel more violence at a time of mounting anger and deadly anti-government rallies. At least 38 people died last week during demonstrations, rights groups say, marking the deadliest day of protests since the start of youth-led rallies against Ruto. The demonstrations have shaken the country, and Ruto recently said protesters who engaged in violence “should be shot in the leg”. Amnesty International’s Kenya director, Irungu Houghton, said the president’s comments were “unlawful”. “It is extremely dangerous for politicians to instruct police…

AN investigation by medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) into the “execution” of three of its workers during a humanitarian mission in Ethiopia’s war-hit northern Tigray region has found evidence that the country’s army was responsible for the killings four years ago. MSF’s report includes claims that Ethiopian troops were present at the scene of the killing of the three – a Spanish national and two Ethiopians. “They were executed,” MSF Spain’s general director Raquel Ayora told the BBC. “They were facing their attackers [and] were shot at very close range… several times.” The BBC has asked the Ethiopian government…

REAL Madrid signed defender Alvaro Carreras from Benfica on a six-year deal, the Spanish giants said on Monday. The 22-year-old Spanish left-back, who played for Madrid’s youth academy before joining Manchester United in 2020, is reported to have cost close to 50 million euros ($58 million). “Real Madrid and Benfica have reached an agreement for the transfer of Alvaro Carreras, who will be under contract with our club for the next six seasons, until 30 June 2031,” said Los Blancos in a statement. The defender played 62 times for Benfica, scoring five goals for the club, including an initial loan…

TWO prominent Israeli politicians have criticised plans by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set up what it calls a “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza, saying the proposal would amount to interning Palestinians in a “concentration camp”. Former Prime Ministers Yair Lapid and Ehud Olmert levelled the criticism on Sunday as Israeli forces continued to bombard Gaza, killing at least 95 Palestinians over the course of the day. Lapid, the leader of Israel’s biggest opposition party, told Israeli Army Radio that “nothing good” would come out of the plans to establish the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of…

UNITED States President Donald Trump has confirmed the US will send Ukraine more weapons and has threatened to levy steep tariffs on Russia amid his growing frustration over Russia’s refusal to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. Speaking at the White House on Monday during a meeting with NATO chief Mark Rutte, Trump said the US would be sending “billions” of dollars in military equipment, including Patriot air defence systems and other missiles. These weapons, said Trump, will be paid for by NATO members. “In a nutshell, we’re going to make top-of-the-line weapons, and they’ll be sent to NATO,”…

CAMEROON’s President Paul Biya said Sunday that he would be seeking an eighth term in office in October’s elections in a bid to extend his nearly 43 years in power. Biya, 92, posted the announcement on X in French and English. “I am a candidate for the 12 October 2025 presidential election. Rest assured that my determination to serve you is commensurate with the serious challenges facing us,” he wrote. “Together, there are no challenges we cannot meet. The best is still to come.” Biya was already the de facto candidate of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), of which…

SOUTH Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has placed Police Minister Senzo Mchunu on an immediate “leave of absence” after allegations of links to organised crime groups were made against him. In Sunday’s live televised speech to the nation, Ramaphosa also announced a judicial commission would investigate the claims, which he said undermined the constitution and threatened national security. He added that law professor Firoz Cachalia had been appointed as interim police minister. Mchunu denied any wrongdoing, saying in a statement that he “stood ready to respond to the accusations” against him. In his speech, the president said that the allegations against…

COLE Palmer inspired a stunning Chelsea performance as they downed European champions Paris St-Germain to win the first edition of the newly expanded Club World Cup. The England attacking midfielder scored twice and set up a brilliant third goal for new signing Joao Pedro in a comprehensive 3-0 win over in-form PSG at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Palmer placed a low shot past goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma in the 22nd minute after Malo Gusto ran in behind Nuno Mendes, adding a second with a neat dummy and identical shot from the edge of the box just eight minutes later.…