MAPUTO – Heavy rains and strong winds lashed northern Mozambique yesterday as the region was hit by its third cyclone in four months, the weather service said.Cyclone Jude made landfall in the morning with winds of 140 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 195 kilometres per hour, the National Institute of Meteorology (INAM)...
BERLIN – The German government said yesterday that Israel’s decision to halt aid deliveries and cut off the electricity supply to Gaza could prompt a fresh humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory. Referring to the decision to stop aid, foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer told a regular press conference Gaza was “again threatened with a...
BAGHDAD – Washington has declined to renew a sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to buy electricity from neighbouring Iran, a spokesperson for the American embassy in Baghdad said yesterday.Despite having immense oil and gas reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs, and Iran supplies a third of the country’s gas and...
DAMASCUS – Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa called yesterday for peace and national unity after days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of the former government that have killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Alawite civilians.“We must preserve national unity (and) civil peace as much as possible and, God willing, we will be...
“A grandiose failure” – take it from the best Ukrainian news site. That’s how Strana.ua has summed up the visit of Vladimir Zelensky, past-best-by-date leader in embattled Kiev, to Washington. And no one who watched the no-holds-barred shouting match between Zelensky, on one side, and US president Donald Trump and vice president J.D. Vance, on...
WASHINGTON – US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky told him Kyiv was ready for talks with Russia and the finalisation of a US minerals deal, days after the pair’s explosive White House meeting. The dramatic collapse of Kyiv and Washington’s wartime alliance has played out in the open since the...
On Monday, Rwanda said London was obliged to pay the remaining sum from a controversial agreement to receive deported migrants that Britain abandoned last year, as diplomatic tensions run high between the two countries. Britain announced last week it was suspending most financial aid to Rwanda for backing the M23 group’s offensive in the Democratic...
Gabon’s military leader General Brice Oligui Nguema, who led a 2023 coup to end 55 years of Bongo dynasty rule, announced on Monday that he will run for president in April. Nguema had pledged to hand power back to civilians in the oil-rich central African nation after an interim period following the ousting of president...
Pope Francis, hospitalised with pneumonia in both lungs, slept all night and was resting yesterday after suffering two bouts of acute respiratory failure the day before, the Vatican said. The 88-year-old was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14 with bronchitis, which developed into pneumonia in both lungs, sparking alarm. On Monday, the Pope...
Laura Kuenssberg “Bruised but motivated”, was how one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s entourage described how they had been feeling, as a small group of journalists crammed into what felt like an even smaller room at Stansted Airport. The British state had done its best to give the Ukrainian president “all bells and whistles” when he arrived...