WORLD - The African Mirror

Jul

05

2023

Eight hurt in Palestinian car-ramming, stabbing in Tel Aviv

WORLD

A Palestinian rammed a pickup truck into pedestrians in Tel Aviv and then went on a stabbing rampage, wounding eight people on Tuesday in an attack claimed by the Hamas militant group. The 20-year-old Palestinian, from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was shot dead by an armed civilian, police said. Israel's Shin Bet security agency said he entered Israel without a permit and had no record of security offences. Hamas claimed him as a member, saying he struck Israel's commercial capital in retaliation for the ongoing military raid in the flashpoint West Bank town of Jenin, in which 10 Palestinians have been killed…

Jul

05

2023

By The African Mirror

Putin reassures Asian allies of Russia’s stability after mutiny

WORLD

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin reassured Asian leaders of Russia's stability and unity in his first appearance at an international forum since the country was rocked by a brief armed mutiny last month. "The Russian people are consolidated as never before," Putin told a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group that also includes China and India. "Russian political circles and the whole of society clearly demonstrated their unity and an elevated sense of responsibility for the fate of the Fatherland when they responded as a united front against an attempted armed mutiny." Putin's emphasis on Russia's unity at…

Jul

05

2023

By The African Mirror

Vietnam bans ‘Barbie’ movie over South China Sea map

WORLD

VIETNAM has banned Warner Bros' highly-anticipated film "Barbie" from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China's unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media reported. The U-shaped "nine-dash line" is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions. "Barbie" is the latest movie to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China's controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated in an international arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016. China…

Jul

04

2023

By ANDREW OSBORN

Russia’s Medvedev says standoff with West to last decades, Ukraine conflict ‘permanent’

WORLD

DMITRY Medvedev, Russia's former president, has warned that Moscow's confrontation with the West will last decades and that its conflict with Ukraine could become permanent. Medvedev, once seen in the West as a liberal moderniser, has emerged as one of Russia's most outspoken hawks since Moscow launched what it called a "special military operation" in Ukraine last year. Now deputy head of the Security Council, his views reflect some of the thinking at the Kremlin's top level, according to Russian officials. In an article for the government's Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, he said tensions between Russia and the West were "much…

Jul

04

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

In conservative Gaza, a woman finds rare job niche by repairing phones

WORLD

WALAA Hammad has found a niche repairing mobile phones from her home, offering services to other women in the conservative Palestinian enclave of Gaza who fear allowing male technicians access to their photos and social media accounts. Hammad set up her business with the help of 'Amjaad for Community Creativity and Development', a non-governmental organisation that aims through workshops and other activities to empower unemployed female graduates and help them to find jobs Economic opportunities in the blockaded Gaza Strip, where half the population is unemployed, are hard to come by, especially for women. But sometimes, being a woman can…

Jul

04

2023

By The African Mirror

Explosion rips through Tokyo building; four injured

WORLD

AN explosion tore through a building in downtown Tokyo, scattering debris across a busy intersection and sending smoke into the air, but the fire was soon contained, Japanese media said. Four people were injured, three seriously, but all were conscious, said public broadcaster NHK, which aired video images of flames through the windows of the shattered second floor of the building in the Shinbashi area of the Japanese capital. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear but witnesses said they had smelled gas before the explosion. "I'd just got to work and was starting preparations when there was…

Jul

03

2023

By ENOIT VAN OVERSTRAETEN and ELIZABETH PINEAU

France riots: Shot teenager’s grandmother says violence must stop

WORLD

THE grandmother of the teenager shot dead by police during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb said she wanted the nationwide rioting triggered by his killing to end, after a fifth night of unrest. She said the rioters were using 17-year-old Nahel's death last Tuesday as an excuse to cause havoc and that the family wanted calm. "I'm telling them [the rioters] to stop," the grandmother, identified as Nadia by French media, told BFM TV. "Nahel is dead. My daughter is lost ... she doesn't have a life anymore." Asked about a crowdfunding campaign that had received pledges of…

Jul

03

2023

By GABRIELLA BORTER and SHIVANI TANNA

Baltimore mass shooting leaves 2 dead, children among 28 injured

WORLD

TWO people were killed and 28 others were injured, including four children, in a mass shooting in Baltimore, Maryland, on Sunday, according to police and hospital officials. An 18-year-old woman and 20-year-old man were killed and three victims were still in critical condition Sunday morning, according to police in Baltimore, a city about 40 miles (64 km) north of Washington, D.C. At least four victims were treated in the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Pediatric Emergency Department, the hospital said, without providing details on their ages. The suspect or suspects were still at large. "This investigation is ongoing, and we…

Jul

03

2023

By The African Mirror

Russia launches first overnight drone attack on Kyiv in 12 days, Ukraine military says

WORLD

PAVEL POLITYUK RUSSIA launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region after a 12-day break, with air defence systems destroying all the weapons on their approach, Ukrainian military officials said. The country's air force said that the attack included eight Iranian-made Shahed drones and three cruise missiles which were shot down. "Another enemy attack on Kyiv," Serhiy Popko, a colonel general who heads Kyiv's military administration, said in a post on the Telegram channel. Three private houses were damaged as a result of falling drone debris in the Kyiv region, injuring one person, the military head of…

Jul

03

2023

By The African Mirror

Iran holds off sending ambassador to Sweden in protest over Koran incident

WORLD

IRAN will refrain from sending a new ambassador to Sweden in protest over the burning of a Koran outside a mosque in Stockholm, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said. A man tore up and burned a Koran outside Stockholm's central mosque on Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al Adha holidays. Swedish police charged the man who burned the holy book with agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban it. Iran's foreign ministry summoned Sweden's charge d'affaires on Thursday to condemn what it said was an…