GABORONE – A United Nations human rights expert on Friday urged the Botswana government to grant constitutional recognition and stronger protections to indigenous communities, citing longstanding discrimination against the San people. The San are hunter-gatherers who were evicted from their ancestral land in the Kalahari, where there are diamond deposits. They have lived in southern...
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said 19 Russian drones flew over Poland overnight, of which up to four were shot down – the wreckage of 16 have so far been found scattered across the Polish countryside, smashing into homes and damaging cars. It marks the first time Russian drones have been downed over the...
MOSCOW – US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s decision to attack the leadership of Palestinian movement Hamas in the Qatari capital of Doha was not wise, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported, citing senior US officials. Trump also expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that he was not informed about...
SANGOUINÉ (Ivory Coast) – Abou Fofana spent his student years making the most of the opportunities on offer in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s bustling economic capital of six million people. But after finishing his studies and newly qualified in farming, the 33-year-old decided to move back to his hometown in the country’s west. Sangouine, a fraction...
KYIV, (Ukraine) – A Russian strike yesterday in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region killed at least 20 people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in a social media post. Moscow has claimed the industrial region as part of Russia despite not having full control over it, and Kyiv says the Kremlin has massed 100 000 troops...
MAIDUGURI – Umar Bulama lay among the corpses, hoping Boko Haram fighters would mistake him for one of the dead after a brutal weekend attack on a northern Nigerian town. Pressing his face “into the blood-soaked sand”, Bulama (34) was lucky: he survived Friday’s assault on the northeastern town of Darul Jamal near the Cameroonian...
GUBA – Ethiopia inaugurated the continent’s largest hydroelectric project yesterday, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed calling it a “great achievement for all black people” despite years of diplomatic rancour over the dam with downstream neighbour Egypt. For Ethiopia, the Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD), located on a tributary of the River Nile, is a historic national...
SEOUL – South Korea’s foreign minister departed for Washington yesterday for further negotiations following the detention of hundreds of South Koreans in an immigration raid. US immigration officials arrested some 475 individuals, including South Korean workers, during the raid Thursday at a Hyundai-LG battery plant being built in the southern state of Georgia. Officials in...
MADRID – Israel yesterday accused Spain of antisemitism and barred two government ministers from entry after Spanish leader Pedro Sanchez announced measures aimed at stopping what he called “the genocide in Gaza”. The spat marks a new low in relations over the devastating Israeli offensive in the Palestinian territory, launched after an unprecedented Hamas attack...
MAPUTO – Insurgents linked to the Islamic State group attacked a key Mozambique port town near a major international gas hub, clashing with troops and beheading at least two civilians, locals reported yesterday. The raid on Mocimboa da Praia, around 80 kilometres south of a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas project operated by French energy giant...