SYDNEY – Sydney police deployed pepper spray and scuffled with protesters yesterday as a rally against a visit to Australia by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog turned violent. Herzog’s tightly secured, four-day visit was aimed at consoling Australia’s Jewish community in the wake of the December shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people at...
MANDERA – For nearly a year, repeated misdiagnoses of the deadly kala-azar disease left 60-year-old Harada Hussein Abdirahman’s health deteriorating, as an outbreak in Kenya’s arid regions claimed a record number of lives. Kala-azar is spread by sandflies and is one of the most dangerous neglected tropical diseases, with a fatality rate of 95% if...
PORTUGAL – Spanish rescuers on Thursday desperately searched for a woman missing after a new storm hit the Iberian Peninsula while Portugal warned of a heightened flood risk after several months’ worth of rain fell in a few hours. One death has already been confirmed in Portugal from the seventh storm to hit the peninsula...
LONDON – UK prime minister Keir Starmer, battling for his political future, apologised Thursday to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein for appointing disgraced Peter Mandelson, a friend of the sex offender, as US ambassador. Starmer, who also indicated he would not resign over the scandal, issued the apology after being dogged for days by his...
JOS – Nigeria’s president Bola Ahmed Tinubu deployed an army battalion to a troubled state after gunmen killed as many as 162 people in one of the country’s deadliest attacks in recent months. The attack late Tuesday on Woro village in Kwara State came after the military recently carried out operations in the area against...
DAKAR – Anger is mounting in Senegal over the alleged use of expired materials in sanitary pads and diapers by a leading Chinese firm, which denies any wrongdoing or bribery. The west African country’s pharmaceutical regulator late last year accused Softcare of possessing some 1 300 kilograms (2 865 pounds) of expired and unsuitable raw...
KINSHASA – The UN will soon send a mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east to help enforce a ceasefire that has been breached despite peace agreements, mediator Qatar said on Tuesday. The announcement came a day after a meeting in Doha between representatives of the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group and envoys from...
NIGERIA – Gunmen have killed at least 35 people in the Kwara state in western-central Nigeria, authorities said Wednesday. “This morning, I was told that 35 to 40 dead bodies were counted,” Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, a local lawmaker in the Kaiama region, told AFP. The attack was confirmed by police, which did not provide casualty...
TEHRAN – Iran yesterday denied it had received an ultimatum from president Donald Trump to reach a nuclear agreement, after the US leader said he had given the Islamic Republic a deadline to enter talks and threatened military action. Asked at a news conference whether Iran had received a precise ultimatum from the United States,...
RAFAH – Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing was reopened to Palestinians yesterday, an Israeli security official said, but Egyptian state-linked media said only 50 people would be allowed to cross in each direction in the early days. The resumption of operations comes after Israeli forces seized control of the gateway to Egypt in May 2024...