WORLD - The African Mirror

Jun

16

2024

Sweden and Iran exchange prisoners in breakthrough deal

WORLD

SWEDEN and Iran carried out a prisoner exchange, officials said, with Sweden freeing a former Iranian official convicted for his role in a mass execution in the 1980s while Iran released two Swedes being held there. The prisoner swap was mediated by Oman, the country's foreign ministry said in a statement. "Omani efforts resulted in the two sides agreeing on a mutual release, as those released were transferred from Tehran and Stockholm," it said. Sweden freed former Iranian official Hamid Noury, who had been convicted for his part in a mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. Iran's…

Jun

16

2024

By JAMES MACKENZIE and NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

Eight Israeli soldiers killed as fighting continues in Rafah

WORLD

EIGHT Israeli soldiers were killed in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said, as forces continued to push in and around the southern city of Rafah and strikes hit several areas of Gaza, killing at least 19 Palestinians. The soldiers, all members of a combat engineering unit, were in an armoured carrier that was hit by an explosion that detonated engineering materials being carried on the vehicle, apparently in contravention of standard practice, the military said. It said the early morning incident, in the Tel al-Sultan area in the west of Rafah, was being investigated. The armed wing of the…

Jun

16

2024

By STEVE HOLLAND and DAVE GRAHAM

World leaders join Ukraine summit in test of Kyiv’s diplomatic clout

WORLD

WORLD leaders gathered at a Swiss mountain resort to try to build support for Ukraine's peace proposals at a summit skipped by U.S. President Joe Biden, shunned by China and dismissed as a waste of time by Moscow. More than 90 countries will take part, but China's absence in particular has dimmed hopes the summit would show Russia as globally isolated, while recent military reverses have put Kyiv on the back foot. The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has also diverted the world's attention from Ukraine. The talks will focus on broader concerns triggered by the war, such as food and nuclear…

Jun

15

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

In northern Gaza, starved families survive on bread alone

WORLD

IN the north of the Gaza Strip where Palestinians have been hit hardest by hunger, residents say acute shortages of vegetables, fruit and meat means they are surviving on bread alone. Food that can be found in the market is being sold at exorbitant prices, they said: a kilo of green peppers, which cost about a dollar before the war, was priced at 320 shekels or nearly $90. Traders demanded $70 for just a kilo of onions. "We are being starved, the world has forgotten about us," said Um Mohammed, a mother of six in Gaza City. She has remained…

Jun

15

2024

By JOHN KRUZEL

Supreme Court’s Clarence Thomas took additional trips paid for by benefactor, senator says

WORLD

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took at least three additional trips funded by billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow that the conservative justice failed to disclose, the Democratic chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said. Crow, a Texas businessman and Republican donor, disclosed details about the justice's travel between 2017 and 2021 in response to a Judiciary Committee vote last November to authorize subpoenas to Crow and Leonard Leo, another influential conservative figure, according to Senator Dick Durbin. Thomas has previously come under criticism for failing to disclose gifts from Crow. Thomas on June 7 revised his 2019 financial disclosure form to acknowledge that Crow paid…

Jun

15

2024

By ABBEY MAKOE

“Impossible to resolve Ukrainian conflict without Russia” – Putin

WORLD

AS the Ukraine Peace Summit gets underway in Switzerland - backed by the Western powers engaged in a “proxy war” against Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin has, in a rare public commentary, waged in on the debate. “It was the West that prepared and provoked the Ukrainian crisis, and now it is doing everything to ensure that the crisis continues,” President Putin said this week, before adding: “The real masters of Ukraine are not the people, but the elites of the West.” The war in Ukraine that broke out in February 2022 over the expansion of NATO eastward to the…

Jun

14

2024

By HELEN COSTER and TED HESSON

Pro-Trump influencers fire up fears of migrant ‘invasion’ ahead of U.S. election

WORLD

ONE late afternoon in mid-May, a half dozen Hispanic day labourers were paid $20 each to parade in front of the White House on camera, holding signs with slogans like "I Love Biden" and "I Need Work Permit for My Family." The stunt was orchestrated by Nick Shirley, a pro-Trump online influencer who often asks migrants on camera if they support Democratic President Joe Biden or think he made it easier for them to come to the U.S. "We want to take you to the White House," Shirley told the men he recruited at a Home Depot parking lot, where…

Jun

14

2024

By LUCY PAPACHRISTOU and RIHAM ALKOUSAA

Russian-German lawyer detained in St Petersburg, media say on suspicion of treason

WORLD

A man with dual Russian-German nationality has been detained in St Petersburg, according to news reports and people who know him, with some Russian independent media reporting that he is suspected of treason. German Moyzhes, a 39-year-old lawyer who grew up partly in Germany but had returned to live and work in his native country, joins a growing list of foreign nationals detained in Russia who have found themselves caught up in the crisis in relations between Moscow and the West during the Ukraine war. The German Foreign Ministry confirmed Moyzhes' arrest in a statement to Reuters and said its…

Jun

13

2024

By EMMA FARGE

‘Immense’ scale of Gaza killings amount to crime against humanity, UN inquiry says

WORLD

BOTH Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, a U.N. inquiry found, saying that Israel's actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. The findings were from two parallel reports, one focusing on the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and another on Israel's military response, published by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI), which has an unusually broad mandate to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel does not cooperate with the commission, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The…

Jun

13

2024

By MICHELLE NICHOLS

Israel, Hamas, Sudan rivals added to UN list for killing children

WORLD

UNITED Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres named and shamed Israel's armed and security forces, Palestinian militants Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Sudan's warring parties for killing and maiming children in 2023, adding them to an annual global list of offenders for violations against children. In a report to the U.N. Security Council - seen by Reuters - Guterres also called out the armed forces of Israel and Sudan for attacking schools and hospitals and Hamas and Islamic Jihad for abducting children. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have been fighting the Sudanese armed forces since April last year, was also named…