PARIS – When a mosquito tries to bite biology professor David Inouye during fieldwork among orchids in Colorado, he pauses before swatting the bug. If it’s dusted with pollen, he lets it live. “I give those mosquitoes a pass to help the orchids,” Inouye said. Mosquitoes are better known as bloodsuckers that spread malaria, dengue...
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa ruled out resigning on Monday and said he would mount a legal challenge to impeachment proceedings against him in court over a US$4 million cash-heist scandal. The case resurfaced last week after a court decision overturned the rejection of a 2022 parliamentary report that concluded Ramaphosa “may have...
FREETOWN – The leader of Sierra Leone’s opposition voiced alarm on Monday over alleged links between the West African country and international drug trafficking and organised crime networks. In an open letter to President Julius Maada Bio, Abdulai Kargbo, leader of the main opposition APC party, pointed to a multi-million-dollar seizure last week of drugs...
DUBAI – The United Arab Emirates’ main gas-processing complex, one of the world’s largest, will not resume full capacity until next year, its operator said Tuesday, after it was targeted in the Middle East war. ADNOC Gas said the Habshan site in the capital Abu Dhabi, which supplies gas across the UAE, was operating at...
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday that “opportunists” had orchestrated anti-immigrant attacks on foreigners as he sought to reassure other African countries, which have expressed concern about their nationals. “We must make it clear that there is no place in South Africa for xenophobia, ethnic mobilisation, intolerance or violence,” Ramaphosa said in...
KANO – Dozens of Nigerian fishermen are feared dead after a Chadian army attack against jihadists on Lake Chad, a civilian militia member and a union official told AFP on Sunday. The militia member said the number of dead was unknown, as the operation on the vast expanse of water and marshland between Nigeria, Cameroon,...
GRANADILLA DE ABONA – Occupants of a cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has sparked international alarm began flying home from Spain’s Canary Islands yesterday in a complex repatriation operation. Three passengers from the MV Hondius — a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman — have died, while others have...
BUNIA – A militia attack killed at least 69 people in Ituri province in the conflict-torn northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local and security sources told AFP Saturday. For more than 30 years the mineral-rich eastern DRC has been a battleground between various armed groups, vying for control of its many mines.Two...
TEHRAN – The naval stand-off in the Gulf threatened to boil over yesterday following days of clashes and tit-for-tat accusations, as a cargo ship was hit off Qatar and Iran warned it could target US interests in the region. Qatar’s defence ministry said the freighter had been arriving in the country’s waters from Abu Dhabi...
BEIJING – China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would play a “greater role” in ending hostilities in the Middle East during talks with his Iranian counterpart yesterday, a week before US President Donald Trump is due to meet Xi Jinping. China is a key customer for Iranian oil, defying sanctions imposed by the United...