ABIDJAN – In Africa’s turbulent Sahel region, the Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM jihadist group is expanding its influence by repeated massacres, food distribution and signing pacts with local authorities to position itself as a key political player. The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has not ruled out governing states and has condemned bloody attacks allegedly carried out by...

NAIROBI – The impact of US aid cuts has already taken a toll in South Sudan and children are dying, Action Against Hunger told AFP on Tuesday. The east African nation has remained deeply poor and unstable since independence in 2011 and is massively dependent on international aid despite its oil wealth.It is among the countries facing shortfalls following US...

WASHINGTON – Republican senators struggled yesterday for a second day to pass president Donald Trump’s flagship spending bill, which would slash welfare programmes for the poor while adding an eye-watering US$3 trillion to the national debt. The president wants his “One Big Beautiful Bill” – which polls show is wildly unpopular among Americans – to extend his expiring first-term tax...

LISBON – Portugal recorded its highest-ever single-day temperature in June   46.6 degrees Celsius while last month was the hottest in Spain, the countries’ weather services said yesterday.  The IPMA agency said the record temperature — the equivalent of 115.9 degrees Fahrenheit — was registered on Sunday at Mora, about 100 kilometres east of the capital, Lisbon. That beat the...

MOSCOW – The Kremlin yesterday slammed Azerbaijan’s detention of Russian journalists and urged Baku to release them, further escalating a diplomatic rift between the ex-Soviet neighbours. Moscow and Baku been been embroiled in a spat after two ethnic Azerbaijanis died over the weekend following Russian police raids targeted at the diaspora in Yekaterinburg in a decades-old criminal case. The incident...