ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia yesterday appointed a new leader of the interim administration in the northern Tigray region following months of tensions between rival factions that threatened a fragile peace agreement. The area still suffers from the aftermath of a brutal two-year conflict, ended by a 2022 peace deal that established the interim administration. The...
MANILA – The Philippine and United States (US) air forces kicked off joint exercises yesterday aimed at boosting operational coordination and enhancing “strategic deterrence”, Manila’s military said. The drills follow months of confrontations between Beijing and Manila over disputed areas of the South China Sea, with significantly larger US-Philippine air, land and sea exercises set...
NEW YORK – Boeing was poised to face a jury trial from yesterday over the fatal 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX plane, the first civil case related to the disaster to reach court. The Chicago trial, expected to last two weeks, was to feature two plaintiffs who lost family members in the...
DAKAR – Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso on Sunday said they have withdrawn their ambassadors from Algiers, accusing Algerian forces of shooting down a Malian drone. The three military-run African allies announced the move in a joint statement after Mali accused Algeria of shooting down one of its drones over its territory in late March....
A United States citizen detained in Russia and due to go on trial this month has been forcibly sent to a psychiatric hospital, TASS state news agency reported yesterday. The 46-year-old man, Joseph Tater, was arrested in Moscow in August 2024 and accused of assaulting a police officer after abusing staff at a hotel. If...
The artist who painted US president Donald Trump in what he criticised as a “purposefully distorted” portrait says his remarks have harmed her business. Colorado removed the official portrait of Trump from display in the state’s capitol building last month after the president complained that it was deliberately unflattering. “Nobody likes a bad picture or...
Moses Magadza GABORONE, BOTSWANA – SADC executive secretary Elias Magosi has hailed the recent signing of the agreement to amend the SADC Treaty to transform the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) into a regional parliament by Botswana’s president, Duma Boko. He, however, called for the active involvement of the region’s parliaments to ensure swift ratification...
Emmanuel Koro ‘Gauteng Province’s Benoni Lake is dead and buried under the invasive water weed, never to be seen again!’ This view highlights the despair of many Benoni residents who have witnessed the gradual decline of Benoni Lake, now completely covered by the water weed also called water hyacinth, a notorious invasive plant. For locals,...
Gaza City – The Israeli army said it targeted Hamas militants in a strike on a UN building in Jabalia refugee camp yesterday that Gaza’s civil defence agency said killed 19 people, nine of them children. The army said in a statement that it struck the militants “inside a command and control centre that was...
LAGOS – President Bola Tinubu dismissed the entire leadership of Nigeria’s state-run oil company yesterday, naming a former Shell executive to lead the outfit in a sweeping overhaul that one commentator described as “long-overdue”. The National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited’s group chief executive, Mele Kyari, as well as its chairman Pius Akinyelure — a close...