Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday becomes the first British monarch to reign for 70 years, heralding the start of her Platinum Jubilee year despite her retreat from public view. But the landmark date this weekend will see little fanfare, as the 95-year-old monarch traditionally spends the anniversary of the...
WORLD
The heaviest flooding to hit Ecuador in two decades has killed at least 24 people in Quito, inundating homes, swamping cars, and sweeping away athletes and spectators on a sports field, officials said Tuesday. A dozen people are missing and 48 injured, Ecuador’s SNGRE emergency service said on Twitter....
Sustained gunfire was heard on Tuesday near the seat of government in the coup-prone West African state of Guinea-Bissau, AFP reporters said, as a regional bloc condemned what it called an “attempted coup”. Heavily-armed men surrounded the Palace of Government, where President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno...
Separatist rebels have killed four Senegalese soldiers and are holding seven hostage after a clash on the border between Senegal and The Gambia last week, the Senegalese army said in a statement. Three soldiers died in the fighting on January 24 between the Senegalese army and rebels from the...
A female lion in an Iranian zoo has attacked and killed a keeper and escaped with a mate before the pair was captured again, local media reported on Monday. “The lioness, which has been in the zoo for several years, managed to open a door of the cage, get...
Five people were killed Monday when a minibus in northeast Kenya was destroyed by a roadside bomb during an ambush by armed men near the border of Somalia, police said. The attackers opened fire on the 14-seater vehicle after it ran over the explosive about eight kilometres (five miles)...
The African Union said Monday it had suspended Burkina Faso in response to the January 24 coup that ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore. The bloc’s 15-member Peace and Security Council said on Twitter it had voted “to suspend the participation of #BurkinaFaso in all AU activities until the...
Italy’s parties Saturday voted overwhelmingly for outgoing President Sergio Mattarella to remain for another term, averting the political chaos that a failure to elect his successor could have sparked in the eurozone’s third-largest economy. Electing the 80-year-old ended weeks of hand-wringing over whether prized Prime Minister Mario Draghi should...
A baby in his car seat. A man in bed. A girl walking with her mother: Stray bullets killed each of them days apart as surging gun violence ripples through the United States. In addition to the people killed in suicides or the homicides hitting record levels in some...
European states combating militants in Mali will try to find a way to keep their mission going. But there are limits to the price that France is prepared to pay to remain there, French Defence Minister, Florence Parly, said on Saturday. Relations between Mali’s military junta and its international...
US President Joe Biden sought to maintain pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin over Ukraine Friday, announcing a small troop deployment to eastern Europe even as top Pentagon officials backed a renewed push for diplomacy. As President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western leaders to avoid stirring “panic” over the massive...
Boris Johnson could finally get sight of the highly-anticipated “partygate” inquiry as early as this weekend, after police insisted they had not delayed its publication. Reports circulated of a potential outside challenger for the Tory leadership as the wait continued for the official investigation by senior civil servant Sue...
The West African bloc ECOWAS on Friday suspended Burkina Faso following a coup, but will not impose other sanctions for the time being, a participant at a virtual summit said. ECOWAS is also calling for the new junta to release ousted president Roch Marc Christian Kabore and other officials...
President Joe Biden said Thursday he will nominate a Black woman to the US Supreme Court for the first time in history, filling the vacancy left by retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. “I’ve made no decision except (the) person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience,...
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold an extraordinary summit on Burkina Faso and Mali on Friday, Ivory Coast’s information minister said, after military takeovers in both countries. Army officers in Burkina Faso ousted President Roch Kabore on Monday in West Africa’s third coup...
A Saudi tourist was trampled to death by an elephant during a game drive at a popular park in Uganda, a wildlife official said Wednesday. The attack happened on Tuesday at the Murchison Falls National Park when the man left the vehicle he was travelling in with friends, said...
The military coup in Burkina Faso deals another heavy blow to France’s fading efforts to stabilise the Sahel region, where Islamist militants have grown in strength and people’s attitudes towards former colonial masters have hardened. Successive coups in Mali, Chad, and now Burkina Faso have weakened Paris’ local alliances,...
Southern African disaster institute on Tuesday said Tropical storm which made landfall in Mozambique killed two people and injured 66, citing preliminary information. The National Institute for Management and Disaster Risk Reduction said in a statement that the Moderate tropical storm, Ana, partially destroyed 546 homes and completely destroyed...
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday strongly condemned any attempt to take over government by the force of arms in Burkina Faso. His call followed Sunday’s coup in the landlocked West African nation by sections of her armed forces. Guterres, in a statement issued by his Spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric,...
Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera on Monday sacked his entire cabinet over graft concerns, vowing to “confront all forms of lawless conduct by public officials”. “I have dissolved my entire cabinet effective immediately, and all the functions of cabinet revert to my office until I announce a reconfigured cabinet in...