WORLD - The African Mirror

Dec

28

2023

Trump wins Michigan state court battle to qualify for primary election ballot

WORLD

DONALD Trump scored a victory in his fight against challenges to his eligibility to run for the White House again when Michigan's top court declined to hear a case seeking to disqualify him from the state's presidential primary ballot. The Michigan Supreme Court said it would not hear an appeal from four voters in the state seeking to bar the former president from the February 27 Republican primary for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The voters argued that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, could not serve as president under a…

Dec

28

2023

By HYONHEE SHIN and SOO-HYANG CHOI

Actor Lee of Oscar-winning ‘Parasite’ found dead amid drugs probe

WORLD

LEE Sun-kyun, a South Korean actor who drew global attention with his performance as the wealthy patriarch in the Oscar-winning film "Parasite", was found dead in an apparent suicide in a Seoul park, officials in the capital said. Lee, 48, who met a gory end in the 2019 film, South Korea's first to win any Oscar, had faced police questioning three times over accusations of illegal drug use amid a government crackdown, with one session running 19 hours over the weekend. The actor had said he was tricked into taking drugs by a bar hostess trying to blackmail him, the…

Dec

27

2023

By The African Mirror

Four children and their mother murdered in France

WORLD

POLICE in France arrested a man suspected of murdering his wife and four children in a knife attack early on Christmas Day, a public prosecutor said. Their bodies were found on Monday night in a bloodied apartment in the town of Meaux, 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Paris. Local prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said the mother and two daughters had been stabbed so many times it was impossible to determine how many blows they had received. The family's two younger sons appeared to have been suffocated or drowned. Police detained the children's father, 33, at his residence in a nearby…

Dec

27

2023

By ANDREW OSBORN and OLZHAS AUYEZOV

Russia’s Navalny describes harsh reality at ‘Polar Wolf’ Arctic prison

WORLD

JAILED Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny confirmed his arrival at what he described as a snow-swept prison above the Arctic Circle and said he was in excellent spirits despite a tiring 20-day journey to get there. Navalny posted an update on X via his lawyers after his allies lost touch with him for more than two weeks while he was in transit with no information about where he was being taken, prompting expressions of concern from Western politicians. His spokeswoman said on Monday that Navalny, 47, had been tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony north of the Arctic Circle located in…

Dec

27

2023

By The African Mirror

Israeli airstrike in Syria kills senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards member

WORLD

AN Israeli airstrike outside the Syrian capital Damascus killed a senior adviser in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, three security sources and Iranian state media said. The sources told Reuters that the adviser, known as Sayyed Razi Mousavi, was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran. "I won't comment on foreign reports, these or others in the Middle East," IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in response to a reporter's question at a nightly press conference. "The Israeli military obviously has a job to protect the security interests of Israel." Iran's state television interrupted its regular news broadcast…

Dec

26

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI, BASSAM MASOUD and EMILY ROSE

Israel’s Netanyahu vows no let-up in war against Hamas as Gaza deaths mount

WORLD

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up the fight against Hamas militants while Palestinians mourned more than 100 people who Gaza health officials said were killed overnight in Israeli airstrikes. Netanyahu visited Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip just hours after one of the besieged enclave's deadliest nights in the 11-week-old battle between Israel and Hamas. Retaliating against Hamas for its deadly October 7 cross-border rampage, Israel has been under pressure from its closest ally the United States to shift operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase and reduce civilian deaths. But Netanyahu told lawmakers from his…

Dec

26

2023

By PHILIP PULLELLA

In Christmas Day message, pope decries Gaza’s ‘appalling harvest’ of civilian deaths

WORLD

POPE Francis said in his Christmas message that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the "little Jesuses of today" and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an "appalling harvest" of innocent civilians. In his Christmas Day "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and world) address, Francis also called the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants "abominable" and again appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza. Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, he took another swipe at the armaments industry,…

Dec

26

2023

By The African Mirror

Plane passengers held pending human trafficking inquiry leave France for India

WORLD

A plane carrying 276 Indian passengers took off for Mumbai, the French interior ministry's local office said, after it was grounded for four days pending an investigation into possible human trafficking. The flight, carried out by Romanian charter company Legend Airlines, had departed from Dubai and landed at the small Vatry airport on Thursday for a technical stopover when police intervened, the Marne prefecture said. Bound for Nicaragua, the flight arrived in France with 303 Indian passengers onboard. After being interrogated by police, two people investigated for human trafficking have been placed under "assisted witness" status while the investigation continues, according to…

Dec

25

2023

By The African Mirror

Sombre Bethlehem marks Christmas with vigil as bombs rain on Gaza

WORLD

PALESTINIAN Christians held a sombre Christmas vigil in Bethlehem, with candle-lit hymns and prayers for peace in Gaza instead of the usual festive celebrations at the spot where they believe Jesus Christ was born. Most years Bethlehem basks in the central place it holds in the Christian story of Jesus' life, born there in a stable because there was no room for his parents at the inn, and placed in an animal's manger, the humblest of all possible beds. Some 2,000 years later, pilgrims usually flock to the reputed location of that stable in Bethlehem's Byzantine-era Church of the Nativity,…

Dec

25

2023

By CIRO DE LUCA

‘Blasphemous’ same-sex nativity scene angers conservatives in Italy

WORLD

A church nativity scene which features two mothers of the Baby Jesus, instead of the conventional Mary and Joseph figurines, has sparked anger among conservative Catholics and politicians in Italy. Nativity scenes are popular in the largely Catholic country, but in recent years they have been increasingly mired in culture wars as its society becomes more secular and multi-cultural. The priest at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, in Capocastello di Mercogliano, a hamlet in the province of Avellino about one hour's drive east of Naples, has defended its depiction of the birth of Jesus. "I wanted to show…