WORLD - The African Mirror

Jan

11

2023

‘Land covered in corpses’ as Russia strives for first big Ukraine gains in months

WORLD

TOM BALMFORTH and VLADYSLAV SMILIANETS BRITAIN said Russia had probably captured most of a salt mining town in eastern Ukraine where Kyiv accused Moscow of sacrificing wave upon wave of soldiers and mercenaries in a horrific and senseless battle over the wasteland. The British Defence Ministry said Russian troops and fighters of Wagner, a mercenary company run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin, "are likely in control of most of the settlement" of Soledar after four days of advances. If confirmed, it would be Russia's most substantial gain since last August, after a series of humiliating retreats throughout much…

Jan

11

2023

By The African Mirror

Trump executive Weisselberg prepares for jail on Rikers Island

WORLD

KAREN FREIFELD A longtime executive for Donald Trump is expected to be sent to New York's notorious Rikers Island jail after being sentenced on Tuesday for helping engineer a 15-year tax fraud scheme at the former president's real estate company. Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty in August, admitting that from 2005 to 2017 he and other executives received bonuses and perks that saved the company and themselves money. Weisselberg is expected to be sentenced to five months behind bars, after paying nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest and testifying at the criminal…

Jan

11

2023

By The African Mirror

Iran sentences former president’s daughter to a five-year prison term

WORLD

THE activist daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sentenced to five years in prison, her lawyer said. The lawyer did not give detail of the charges against Faezeh Hashemi. But Tehran's public prosecutor indicted Hashemi last year on charges of "propaganda against the system", according to the semi-official ISNA news agency. State media in September reported she had been arrested for "inciting riots" in Tehran during protests triggered by the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody. The demonstrations have posed one of the biggest challenges to Iran's clerical rulers since the 1979 revolution.…

Jan

09

2023

By The African Mirror

Brazil riot police deploy at Bolsonaro backers’ camp after capital stormed

WORLD

ANTHONY BOADLE and SERGIO QUEIROZ BRAZILIAN police deployed at a camp of supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro in the capital on Monday, a day after rioters launched the worst attack on Brazil's state institutions since its return to democracy in the 1980s. Hundreds of police in riot gear and some on horseback amassed at the encampment near Brasilia's army headquarters, while soldiers in the area withdrew, Reuters witnesses said, after Sunday's storming by thousands of Bolsonaro's backers of Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's leftist rival who took office on Jan.…

Jan

09

2023

By The African Mirror

Chinese rush to renew passports as COVID border curbs lifted

WORLD

YEW LUN TIAN and EDUARDO BAPTISTA PEOPLE joined long queues outside immigration offices in Beijing, eager to renew their passports after China dropped COVID border controls that had largely prevented its 1.4 billion residents from travelling for three years. Sunday's reopening is one of the last steps in China's dismantling of its "zero-COVID" regime, which began last month after historic protests against curbs that kept the virus at bay but caused widespread frustration among its people. Waiting to renew his passport in a line of more than 100 people in China's capital, 67-year-old retiree Yang Jianguo told Reuters he was planning…

Jan

09

2023

By The African Mirror

Prince Harry says UK royals got into bed with tabloid press ‘devil’

WORLD

MICHAEL HOLDEN PRINCE Harry has said he had made public his rifts with the British royal family and taken on the press to try to help the monarchy and change the media, the latter described by his father King Charles as a "suicide mission". In the first of a series of TV interviews broadcast on Sunday ahead of the launch of his memoir, Harry accused members of his family of getting into bed with the devil - the tabloid press - to sully him and his wife Meghan to improve their own reputations. He told Britain's ITV he had fled Britain with…

Jan

07

2023

By The African Mirror

‘We threw ourselves to the floor’: Mexican passenger plane caught in cartel crossfire

WORLD

SARAH MORLAND "THAT'S an attack plane, Dad," said one of David Tellez's young children as they spotted Mexican military aircraft touching down alongside their Aeromexico passenger plane early. Then the gunfire began. "As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that's when we all threw ourselves to the floor," Tellez said after the incident in the northern city of Culiacan. Violence broke out on Thursday throughout Culiacan after the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, the son of the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, and a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel. Aeromexico said…

Jan

07

2023

By The African Mirror

‘What ceasefire?’: shells fly at Ukraine front despite Putin’s truce

WORLD

HERBERT VILLARRAGA RUSSIAN and Ukrainian forces exchanged artillery fire at the front line in Ukraine, even after Moscow said it had ordered its troops to stop shooting for a unilateral truce that was firmly rejected by Kyiv. President Vladimir Putin ordered the 36-hour ceasefire from midday on Friday to observe Russian Orthodox Christmas. Ukraine has said it has no intention to stop fighting, rejecting the purported truce as a stunt by Moscow to buy time to reinforce troops that have taken heavy losses this week. "What ceasefire? Can you hear?" said a Ukrainian soldier, using the nom de guerre Vyshnya,…

Jan

08

2023

By The African Mirror

Putin praises Russian Orthodox Church for backing troops in Ukraine

WORLD

ANDREW OSBORN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin praised the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Moscow's forces fighting in Ukraine in an Orthodox Christmas message designed to rally people behind his vision of modern Russia. The Kremlin issued Putin's message after the Russian leader attended an Orthodox Christmas Eve service on his own inside a Kremlin cathedral rather than joining other worshippers in a public celebration. In his message, accompanied on the Kremlin website by an image of him standing before religious icons, Putin made it clear he saw the Russian Orthodox Church as an important stabilising force for society at a time…

Jan

07

2023

By The African Mirror

Taliban criticises Prince Harry over Afghan killings comment

WORLD

THE Taliban administration has criticised Prince Harry after the British royal said in his memoir that he had killed 25 people in Afghanistan when serving as a military helicopter pilot, describing them as "chess pieces removed from the board". Harry's highly personal book "Spare" went on sale in Spain days before its global launch on January 10. It discloses the depth of the rift between the prince and his brother William, the heir to the throne, and other revelations such as drug-taking and how he lost his virginity. In one section, the 38-year-old recounts his two tours of Afghanistan, first…