WORLD - The African Mirror

Dec

08

2023

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs accused in gang-rape of teenager in New York

WORLD

HIP-HOP star Sean "Diddy" Combs was accused in federal court of taking part in the gang rape of a 17-year-old girl in his Manhattan recording studio in 2003, marking the fourth lawsuit leveling sexual assault allegations against him in recent weeks. Combs, 54, founder of the landmark label Bad Boy Records and a hugely successful rap performer, issued a statement on Wednesday categorically professing his innocence and declaring his accusers were "looking for a quick payday." The plaintiff in the latest lawsuit was identified as Jane Doe, described as a high school student at the time she met associates of…

Dec

08

2023

By KRISHN KAUSHIK

India PM Modi’s Sikh separatist fight driven by security, politics

WORLD

INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focussed on combating Sikh separatism, despite its scant support among the country's small religious minority, due to security and political concerns, officials and experts say. The movement for a Sikh homeland in northern India, crushed decades ago, has burst onto the global stage in recent months as the United States and Canada accused Indian officials of involvement in assassination plots against Sikh separatist leaders in North America. New Delhi denies any connection to a June murder in a Vancouver suburb but has announced an investigation into U.S. concerns about an alleged plot in New York. It says such plots were not government…

Dec

07

2023

By HUMEYRA PAMUK, JONATHAN SAUL and MAGGIE FICK

Despite Gaza death toll soaring, U.S. unlikely to rethink weapons supplies to Israel

WORLD

FACING a soaring death toll from Israel's renewed offensive in southern Gaza, the Biden administration is trying to pressure its ally to minimize civilian deaths while stopping well short of the kind of measures that might force it to listen, such as threatening to restrict military aid. Top U.S. officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have urged Israel publicly to conduct a more surgical offensive in the south to avoid the heavy civilian casualties inflicted by its attacks in the north. About 900 people in Gaza were killed in Israeli airstrikes between Friday when a truce…

Dec

07

2023

By LEIGH THOMAS

Mathematics, reading skills in unprecedented decline in teenagers

WORLD

TEENAGERS' mathematics and reading skills are in an unprecedented decline across dozens of countries and COVID school closures are only partly to be blamed, the OECD said in its latest survey of global learning standards. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said it had seen some of the steepest drops in performance since 2000 when it began its usually triennial tests of 15-year-olds reading, maths and science skills. Nearly 700,000 youths took the two-hour test last year in the OECD's 38 mostly developed country members and 44-non members for the latest study, closely watched by policymakers as the…

Dec

07

2023

By TIM REID

Trump: I won’t be a dictator if I become U.S. president again

WORLD

DONALD Trump said that he will not become a dictator if he becomes U.S. president again except "on day one", after warnings from Democrats and some Republicans that America was in danger of becoming an autocracy if he wins the 2024 election. Republican presidential candidate Trump had to be asked twice during a televised town hall event in Iowa to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected to the White House. "No. No. Other than day one," Trump said when asked to deny he would become a "dictator" if he wins the November…

Dec

06

2023

By BASSAM MASOUD

Gaza families flee again to shrinking, overcrowded pocket of land

WORLD

FEARFUL of being killed in an Israeli bombardment, families in Gaza were packing up and fleeing, heading for a pocket of land further south already crammed with displaced people without enough food, water or toilets. Some were fleeing for the third or fourth time in less than two months. Most of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people have been made homeless by the war between Israel and Hamas, and the new phase of displacement since a week-long truce ended on December 1 is worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian situation. In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where Israel was launching a…

Dec

06

2023

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE

In Russia, some women demand return of their men from Ukraine front

WORLD

Maria Andreeva, whose husband has been fighting in Ukraine for more than a year, is also waging a battle in Moscow: to get him home. She is not alone. A growing movement of Russian women is demanding the return from the front of their husbands, sons and brothers who were mobilised after a decree by President Vladimir Putin in September last year. Initially, the movement pledged loyalty to what the Kremlin calls its "special military operation" (SVO) but what they regard as the perfunctory response they have received is hardening some of their opinions. Since Andreeva's husband was mobilised last year and…

Dec

06

2023

By MICHAEL HOLDEN

Prince Harry challenges ‘unfair treatment’ over UK security in London court

WORLD

PRINCE Harry has been subjected to unlawful, unfair and unjustifiable treatment by the British government over the decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain, his lawyer told London's High Court. Harry, along with other senior royals, had received full publicly-funded security protection provided by the state before he decided to step back from his royal duties and move to California with his American wife Meghan in 2020. But the Home Office — the ministry responsible for policing, immigration and security — decided in February that year that Harry would cease to automatically receive personal police…

Dec

05

2023

By ARAFAT BARBAKH and MOHAMMED SALEM

Israel presses ground offensive in southern Gaza, air strikes intensify

WORLD

INTENSE Israeli air strikes hit the south of the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, including in areas where Israel had told people to seek shelter, residents and journalists on the ground said. Israeli troops and tanks also pressed the ground campaign against Hamas militants in the south of the enclave after having largely gained control of the now-devastated north. Early on Monday, Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of Gaza's main southern city, Khan Younis. But residents said that areas which they had been told to go to were also coming under fire. Israel's military posted a…

Dec

05

2023

By MAKINI BRICE and RICHARD COWAN

Indicted Republican lawmaker George Santos expelled from US House

WORLD

INDICTED Republican George Santos' brief career in the U.S. House of Representatives came to an end, when fellow lawmakers voted to expel him over criminal corruption charges and accusations of misspending campaign money. The House voted 311-114 to immediately remove the controversial freshman lawmaker, above the two-thirds majority required to oust one of its own. Besieged by revelations of lies about his past, a federal criminal indictment and a congressional ethics probe, Santos, 35, became only the sixth member to be expelled from the House. The New York congressman was the first to be kicked out without having fought for the Confederacy…