MOGADISHU – Mogadishu is rising, literally, from the ashes of decades of war. Pavements remain scarred by bullet holes and ruined buildings still line many streets, but the city’s cacophony is now one of construction, not destruction. The east African nation saw civil war in the 1990s mutate in the 2000s into an Islamist insurgency...
LUANDA – European and African leaders gathered in Angola yesterday for a summit to deepen economic and security ties, with emergency talks on Ukraine also on the cards. France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Kenya’s William Ruto are among dozens of European Union and African leaders expected in Luanda amid a US-European rift over...
GAZA CITY – Gaza health authorities said fresh Israeli air strikes killed four people on Thursday as Qatar, a mediator of the weeks-long ceasefire, warned that renewed attacks threatened to undermine the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas. The new strikes came the morning after one of the deadliest days in the Gaza Strip since...
DUBAI – The UAE is coming under increasing fire on social media over claims it is embroiled in Sudan’s civil war, with calls to boycott its crown jewel: the financial and entertainment hub of Dubai. Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), despite accusations from the Sudanese government, UN experts,...
HANOI – A court in Vietnam sentenced a former beauty queen to two years in jail yesterday for falsely promoting gummies as rich in fibre on her social media channels, state media reported. The judges found Nguyen Thuc Thuy Tien guilty of deceiving customers, saying she was aware the fibre content of the candy was...
Tokyo – One person was killed as a major fire damaged 170 buildings in a residential area of the Japanese city of Oita, the local government said on Wednesday. Firefighters were still struggling to extinguish the blaze in the southern city as it spread to a nearby forested mountain. Footage showed firefighters hosing ferocious flames...
TAIPEI – Taiwanese prosecutors charged seven people, including a Chinese national, yesterday with violating national security after they allegedly collected military secrets for China. China claims democratic Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to take it, while Taipei accuses Beijing of using espionage and infiltration to weaken its defences....
WASHINGTON – The United States yesterday said it has delivered a new treatment to prevent HIV in two African countries, months after President Donald Trump dramatically cut global aid. The US plans to expand the rollout of the drug Lenacapavir by working with an international group, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,...
LONDON – The UK government was set to announce sweeping changes to its asylum system yesterday, including drastically cutting protections for refugees and threatening visa bans for countries that refuse to take back irregular immigrants. Here’s what is known so far about the plans, which have been dubbed by the government as the “most sweeping...
RIYADH – A fatal accident involving a bus filled with Indian pilgrims killed at least 45 people near Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Medina, Indian police said yesterday, in one of the deadliest crashes in the Gulf kingdom in years. “The tragic bus accident involving Indian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia is deeply distressing,” V.C. Sajjanar,...