KAMPALA – Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye is “critically ill” in jail, three days after starting a hunger strike to protest his detention, one of his lawyers yesterday told AFP. “We visited him in the prison yesterday, but his medical condition is worrying. He is critically ill, and needs urgent medical attention,” lawyer Erias Lukwago...
MUNICH – At least 20 people were hurt after a car crashed into a crowd in the German city of Munich yesterday, emergency services said, a day before the city hosts a high-profile security conference. The incident also came 10 days before Germans head to the polls in a key election on 23 February. “At...
KAMPALA- Ugandan former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye has gone on hunger strike, his lawyer told AFP yesterday, months into his detention by authorities after he was snatched from neighbouring Kenya. Besigye was once president Yoweri Museveni’s trusted personal doctor but has become a government target since joining the opposition 25 years ago and unsuccessfully running...
ABIDJAN – In a few days, France will hand over its only military base in Ivory Coast, its former star colony in west Africa, and both sides say the run-up is proceeding seamlessly without any rancour. The 230-hectare Port-Bouet military camp flanking Ivory Coast’s main city has been a fixture in the country’s life for...
GAZA CITY – Mediators Qatar and Egypt were yesterday pushing to resolve a crisis in the Gaza ceasefire, a Palestinian source told AFP, after Israel and the United States told Hamas to release hostages this weekend, or face a return to war. Under the terms of the truce, which has largely halted more than 15...
JOHANNESBURG – On the streets of Johannesburg’s student district, US President Donald Trump’s offer to accept white Afrikaners as refugees landed as both “ridiculous” and “lame”, among South Africans of all races. On Friday, Trump cut off aid to South Africa and claimed, without evidence, that the Pretoria government is seizing white-owned land and persecuting...
MAIQUETÍA – Venezuela sent two planes to bring nearly 200 undocumented migrants back from the United States, saying it hoped for a “new beginning” in ties with Washington, which does not recognise Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president.United States (US) president Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in American history,...
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis launched a stinging critique Tuesday of United States (US) president Donald Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, describing it as a “major crisis” that “damages the dignity of men and women”. In a letter to US bishops, he urged Catholics and others “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against...
DAMASCUS Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in an interview released yesterday that “thousands” of people were joining the country’s new army following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and the dissolution of his military. “I did not impose mandatory conscription in Syria. Instead, I opted for voluntary enlistment, and today, thousands are joining the new...
PORT SUDAN – The United Nations yesterday accused Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of blocking aid to the war-torn country’s famine-threatened Darfur region. The RSF, which has been at war with the regular army since April 2023, controls nearly all of Darfur, a western region the size of France. Since May, it has besieged North...