WORLD - The African Mirror

Jan

08

2024

North Korea vows military strike if any provocation, fires artillery rounds

WORLD

NORTH Korea will launch a military strike immediately in response to any provocation, Kim Yo Jong, the sister and key ally of leader Kim Jong Un, said, as it fired artillery shells near its border with the South for the third day in a row. The remarks come after South Korea's military said the North had fired more than 60 artillery rounds on Saturday near their disputed maritime border, following a similar volley of more than 200 the previous day. North Korea again fired about 90 rounds on Sunday, the South said. The North's army said they did not pose…

Jan

08

2024

By KEVIN BUCKLAND

Japan prosecutors make first arrest in political funding scandal

WORLD

A lawmaker from Japan's ruling party was arrested for suspected fundraising violations, the first arrest in a scandal that has battered support for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Yoshitaka Ikeda, 57, a lower house lawmaker and former vice minister for education, was arrested by Tokyo prosecutors, Kishida told reporters, adding that Ikeda would be expelled from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). "This is very regrettable. I take it very seriously," Kishida said in broadcast remarks. "As a party, we must work to restore trust in politics with a strong sense of urgency." Ikeda allegedly received a kickback of some 48 million…

Jan

07

2024

By JONATHAN STEMPEL

Epstein invoked 5th Amendment right to silence 600 times in Virginia Giuffre case

WORLD

THE late financier Jeffrey Epstein invoked his constitutional right against incriminating himself about 600 times in testimony for a lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual abuse. Epstein's refusal to answer questions in Giuffre's lawsuit against his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was disclosed in a filing on Friday in Manhattan federal court, as part of a trove of documents being unsealed this month from the civil defamation case, which settled in 2017. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives people the right not to incriminate themselves. In the September 2016 filing, Giuffre's lawyers said Epstein routinely…

Jan

07

2024

By RUMA PAUL and SUDIPTO GANGULY

Bangladesh poll booths burn on election eve, as train arson kills four

WORLD

POLLING booths were set ablaze in Bangladesh on the eve of the general elections, while four people, including two children, were killed in a train fire that the government described as arson targeting democratic values. Friday's fire broke out at about 9 p.m. (1500 GMT), injuring eight passengers as it spread to four compartments of the Benapole Express headed for the capital, Dhaka. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has asked people to shun the poll and called a two-day nationwide strike from Saturday. "The timing of this tragedy, just a day before the election ... shows an absolute…

Jan

07

2024

By The African Mirror

What Israelis, Palestinians, US and others say about ‘the day after’ the Gaza war

WORLD

AS the conflict in Gaza nears a three-month milestone, Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and others have begun talking more openly about what comes next once the war is over. None of the plans being discussed will satisfy the desires of all of the parties but they do provide a framework for any negotiations that might emerge. Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 240 by Israel's count in a cross-border rampage from Gaza on October 7. More than 22,000 Palestinians have died since Israel's counterattack in Hamas-run Gaza, Palestinian health officials say. ISRAEL Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday became the…

Jan

06

2024

By The African Mirror

Iran arrests suspects over bomb blasts, mourners demand revenge – state TV

WORLD

MOURNERS wept over the coffins of victims of two deadly blasts in Iran, and the interior minister said a number of suspects had been arrested over the attacks claimed by Islamic State. Crowds chanted "revenge, revenge" in state TV footage of the funerals in the city of Kerman, the scene of Wednesday's explosions, the bloodiest such attacks in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Nearly 100 people were killed in the blasts at a memorial service for military commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a U.S. drone. The explosions took place amid a tense…

Jan

06

2024

By GRAM SLATTERY and JAMES OLIPHANT

In Iowa, school shooting prompts Republican prayers, while Trump campaigns by proxy

WORLD

A school shooting in Iowa, where Republican nominating contests begin next week for the U.S. presidential election, prompted prayers from among those wanting to be the party's candidate, but elicited no substantial policy proposals among the top contenders. The incident saw a sixth-grade student killed and five people wounded after a 17-year-old opened fire on the first day of classes following the winter break, law enforcement officials said. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is locked in a close battle for second place in Iowa with former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, said in an interview with NBC News and the Des Moines Register…

Jan

06

2024

By NOBUHIRO KUBO

Exclusive: Doomed Japan plane on third quake mission when runway disaster hit

WORLD

A Coast Guard plane was making its third emergency trip to an earthquake zone within 24 hours when it collided with a passenger jet at a very busy Haneda airport, a Coast Guard official told Reuters. The official declined to be named due to an ongoing investigation into the runway crash between the De Havilland Dash-8 turboprop and a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 passenger jet. Five of the six Coast Guard crew died but all 379 people on the JAL plane escaped. Details of the Coast Guard plane's movements before the collision have not previously been reported. The surviving pilot from the Coast…

Jan

05

2024

By The African Mirror

Former Harvard head said she was called ‘N-word,’ got death threats

WORLD

FORMER Harvard President Claudine Gay said she received emailed death threats and was called the "N-word" countless times before resigning after her congressional testimony on antisemitism and plagiarism allegations. Gay made the comments in a New York Times opinion piece on Wednesday, a day after she yielded to pressure from Harvard's Jewish community and members of Congress to step down over the December 5 congressional hearing and allegations about her academic work. "My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I've been called the N-word…

Jan

05

2024

By MOHAMMAD AZAKIR, NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and ARAFAT BARBAKH

Israel shells southern Gaza as Hamas deputy buried in Lebanon

WORLD

ISRAELI shelling killed more than 20 Palestinians, including 16 in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area of the Gaza Strip packed with people who had fled from other parts of the enclave, Gaza health officials said. Among the dead were nine children, they said. Separately five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Al-Nusseirat refugee camp, health officials told Reuters. Gaza residents said Israeli planes and tanks had also bombarded two other refugee camps, prompting many to head south. The Israeli military did not comment on the attacks but reported fighting and air strikes…