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...
WORLD
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...
Soldiers in Burkina Faso on Monday announced on state television that they have seized power in the West African country following a mutiny over the civilian president’s failure to contain an Islamist insurgency. A junior officer announced the suspension of the constitution, the dissolution of the government and parliament,...
French adventurer Jean-Jacques Savin, who set off in a rowboat from Portugal on Jan. 1 to cross the Atlantic solo has vanished at sea. Portugal’s navy on Monday reported that his boat was found overturned and empty near the Azores archipelago. The 75-year-old Savin’s support team had said in...
The president of Burkina Faso was arrested on Monday and detained by soldiers along with members of his cabinet, security sources said, one day after troops staged a mutiny in the jihadist-wracked country. Soldiers rose up at several army bases across the West African state on Sunday, demanding the...
Cameroon’s government said Sunday that 16 people were killed in a fire caused by fireworks in a nightclub in the capital Yaounde, the tragedy occurring as the nation hosts the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament. “The initial report shows 16 dead and eight seriously injured” after the “accidental...
Armenian President Armen Sarkisian on Sunday announced that he was resigning his largely ceremonial position, citing the inability of his office to influence policy during times of national crisis. The announcement comes on the back of a period instability in the small and economically struggling ex-Soviet Caucasus nation in...
Pope Francis said Sunday he was following “with concern” rising tensions in Ukraine, and called for a day of prayer for peace next week. “I am following with concern the rising tensions that threaten to inflict a new blow to peace in Ukraine, and call into question the security...
Burkina Faso’s government denied that the army had seized control of the country on Sunday after exchanges of gunfire took place at multiple army barracks, including two in the capital. “Information on social media would have people believe there was an army takeover,” government spokesman Alkassoum Maiga said in...
The UK government and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) are set for a court battle over a story the broadcaster wants to air which would reportedly identify a spy. The Telegraph has reported that the programme would reveal the identity of the intelligence worker operating overseas, and it is...
At least 70 people were killed in an air strike on a prison as Yemen’s long-running conflict suffered a dramatic escalation Friday that drew condemnation from UN chief Antonio Guterres. The Huthi rebels released gruesome video footage showing bodies in the rubble and mangled corpses from the attack, which...
A truck carrying explosives collided with a motorcyle in western Ghana on Thursday, causing an immense conflagration and the “loss of lives”, President Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo has said. The accident happened around noon in Apiate, near the city of Bogoso some 300 kilometres (180 miles) west of the mineral-rich...