WORLD - The African Mirror

Apr

26

2024

TikTok bans: What could they mean for you?

WORLD

THE U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give Chinese tech company ByteDance about six months to divest video-sharing app TikTok or face a U.S. ban. Driven by national security concerns, lawmakers have agreed to fast-track a vote on the legislation in the most significant move against the app since former president Donald Trump unsuccessfully tried to ban it in 2020. This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users," Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House of Representatives select China committee, said after the bill was agreed. "America's…

Apr

25

2024

By GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER

Gaza could surpass famine thresholds in six weeks, WFP official says

WORLD

THE Gaza Strip could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, an official from the World Food Programme said on Wednesday. "We are getting closer by the day to a famine situation," said Gian Caro Cirri, Geneva director of the World Food Programme (WFP). "There is reasonable evidence that all three famine thresholds -- food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality -- will be passed in the next six weeks." A U.N.-backed report published in March said that famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July. On…

Apr

25

2024

By ALEXANDER RATZ, DIEGO ORÉ and GRAM SLATTERY

Trump 2.0: How US allies are preparing for a second term

WORLD

GERMANY is waging a charm offensive inside the Republican Party. Japan is lining up its own Trump whisperer. Mexican government officials are talking to Camp Trump. And Australia is busy making laws to help Trump-proof its U.S. defence ties. Everywhere, U.S. allies are taking steps to defend or advance their interests in the event former President Donald Trump returns to power in the November elections, an even chance based on recent opinion polls in swing states. They want to avoid the cold slap that Trump's "America First" policies dealt them last time around, which included trade wars, a shakeup of…

Apr

25

2024

By AMANDA FERGUSON

Northern Ireland’s Donaldson appears in court over rape, other sexual offence charges

WORLD

THE former leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Jeffrey Donaldson, faces 11 historical sex offence charges, including one count of rape, prosecutors told a Northern Irish court. Donaldson, 61, stepped down suddenly as head of the British region's largest unionist party last month after the DUP said he had been charged with allegations of an historical nature. He is one of Northern Ireland's best-known politicians. He appeared in court for the first time on Wednesday, where prosecutors said as well as a rape charge, he was accused of one count of gross indecency towards a child and nine counts of…

Apr

24

2024

By EMMA FARGE

UN rights chief ‘horrified’ by mass grave reports at Gaza hospitals

WORLD

U.N. rights chief Volker Turk said that he was "horrified" by the destruction of the Nasser and Al Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies there, according to a spokesperson. Palestinian authorities reported finding hundreds of bodies in mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis this week after it was abandoned by Israeli troops. Bodies were also reported at the Al Shifa site following an Israeli special forces operation. The Israeli military said claims by Palestinian authorities that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had buried bodies were "baseless and unfounded". It said forces searching…

Apr

24

2024

By LUC COHEN, JACK QUEEN and ANDY SULLIVAN

In Trump hush money trial, tabloid publisher testifies he helped candidacy

WORLD

THE first witness in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, testified that he used his supermarket tabloid to suppress stories that might have hurt Trump's 2016 presidential bid. Pecker, 72, testified in a New York court that the Enquirer paid two people who were peddling stories of Trump's sexual misbehaviour but never published them -- a practice known as "catch and kill." “When someone’s running for public office like this, it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories," Pecker testified. Pecker said…

Apr

24

2024

By YVES HERMAN and HANNAH ELLISON

Migrants drown in English Channel hours after UK passes Rwanda policy

WORLD

FIVE migrants, including a child, died in an attempt to cross the English Channel from France to Britain in an overcrowded small boat, hours after Britain passed a bill to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in a move to deter the dangerous journeys. The deaths occurred when a boat carrying 112 people set out to cross one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and panic took hold among the passengers not far from the shore. Rescuers picked up 49 people, with four taken to hospital, but others stayed on the boat, determined to get to Britain. The French coastguard was…

Apr

23

2024

By JACK QUEEN, LUC COHEN and ANDY SULLIVAN

On first day of Trump hush money trial, prosecutors say he corrupted 2016 election

WORLD

NEW York prosecutors said on the first day of Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial that the former president broke the law and corrupted the 2016 election by trying to cover up sexual encounters with a porn star and a Playboy model, while his defence lawyer said he committed no crime. Jurors in the historic trial also heard briefly from the prosecution's first witness: former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who prosecutors say participated in a "catch and kill" scheme to suppress unflattering stories about Trump and help him get elected. In the first-ever trial of a former U.S. president, Trump is charged with…

Apr

23

2024

By The African Mirror

Israeli troops storm back into eastern Khan Younis

WORLD

ISRAELI troops fought their way back into an eastern section of Khan Younis in a surprise raid, residents said, sending people who had returned to abandoned homes in the ruins of the southern Gaza Strip's main city fleeing once more. Elsewhere in Khan Younis, scores more bodies were recovered from what Palestinian authorities said were mass graves on the site of the city's main hospital, abandoned by Israeli troops. Further south there were fresh air strikes on Rafah, the last refuge where more than half of the enclave's 2.3 million people have sought shelter. Israel abruptly pulled most of its ground troops…

Apr

23

2024

By The African Mirror

Russian man gets 5 years labour for street interview about Ukraine war

WORLD

A Russian man was sentenced to five years' forced labour for spreading "deliberately false information" about the army in a street interview with U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in which he talked about the war in Ukraine. The sentence against Yuri Kokhovets, 39, was announced by the Moscow city courts service. RFE/RL journalists had approached him in July 2022 and asked him in a "vox pop" interview if he thought a detente between Russia and NATO countries was needed. "Of course we need (a de-escalation), but it all depends on our government. It is our government that started it all...…