WORLD - The African Mirror

Dec

04

2021

Boy who survived gondola crash returns to Italy after custody battle

WORLD

A six-year-old boy, the sole survivor of an Italian cable car disaster who was kidnapped and taken to Israel by his grandfather, flew back to Italy on Friday night following a nearly three-month custody battle, the boy's aunt said. Israel's Supreme Court this week rejected a request by Eitan Biran's maternal grandfather to appeal previous court rulings which said the boy must be sent back to his paternal aunt in Italy. It ordered him returned by December 12. The child, who was born in Israel but moved to Italy with his family when he was one month old, had been…

Dec

03

2021

By The African Mirror

Ghislaine Maxwell was ‘lady of the house’, ex-Epstein employee testifies

WORLD

KAREN FREIFELD and LUC COHEN GHISLAINE Maxwell was the "lady of the house" at now-deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach estate, a former house manager testified at the British socialite's sex abuse trial in Manhattan federal court on Thursday. Juan Alessi, who worked full-time for Epstein from 1991 to 2002, said Maxwell was with Epstein "95% of the time" he was at the property. Maxwell, whom he called "the girlfriend of Mr Epstein," primarily supervised him and advised him not to look the globetrotting financier in the eye, Alessi, 71, testified. "Jeffrey doesn't like to be looked at in his…

Dec

03

2021

By The African Mirror

Gender equality takes one step forward, three back during COVID

WORLD

GOVERNMENTS, companies and investors must do more to reverse the blow dealt to gender equality by the COVID-19 pandemic and try to cement some silver linings of the crisis for women, experts told a panel at the Reuters Next conference on Thursday. "It is one step forward and three steps back," said Carlien Scheele, director of the European Institute for Gender Equality, noting that women had taken on the bulk of the extra caregiving responsibilities during lockdowns. Women have been hit harder than men by job losses around the world due to the pandemic and their employment levels are likely…

Dec

02

2021

By The African Mirror

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer seeks to undermine accuser’s account of abuse

WORLD

LUC COHEN A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell on Wednesday sought to cast doubt on the account of a woman who said the British socialite set her up for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein starting when she was 14 and took part in some encounters. The woman, known by the pseudonym Jane, first took the stand for the government on Tuesday at Maxwell's sex abuse trial in Manhattan federal court. She is the first of four women expected to testify that Maxwell "groomed" them for abuse by Epstein when they were teenagers. Maxwell attorney Bobbi Sternheim indicated in her opening statement…

Dec

02

2021

By The African Mirror

Deadly Michigan school shooting baffles police as young suspect keeps silent

WORLD

STEVE GORMAN INVESTIGATORS sifted through a bloody crime scene and pored through surveillance video, social media and eyewitness accounts as they sought clues to what drove a 15-year-old boy to go on a deadly shooting spree at his Detroit-area high school. The young suspect, whose name was withheld by officials because he is a minor, opened fire on Tuesday with a semi-automatic handgun his father had purchased four days earlier, killing three fellow Oxford High School students. A teacher and seven other students were wounded, some critically, police said. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told a news briefing hours after…

Dec

02

2021

By The African Mirror

For stranded father, bittersweet reunion as Singapore-Malaysia border reopens

WORLD

EBRAHIM HARRIS and JOSEPH CAMPBELL BEFORE the coronavirus pandemic, Mohammad Faris Abdullah's daily commute between his home in Malaysia and his job in Singapore took just 30 minutes. But when the countries' border shut without warning in March 2020, the 37-year-old food delivery driver was left stranded and homeless in the city-state. Almost two years later, an easing of restrictions this week finally allowed him to see his family again. "It is like you have been locked up in the prison... then you finally get to see your son and family," said Mohammad Faris, speaking from Singapore before heading to…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

Accuser says Ghislaine Maxwell watched her have sexual contact with Jeffrey Epstein

WORLD

LUC COHEN A woman testified at Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial on Tuesday that she had sexual contact with Jeffrey Epstein multiple times when she was 14 years old, sometimes with Maxwell in the room looking on after helping to bring her into the late financier's orbit. The testimony from the woman, known by the pseudonym Jane, came on the second day of Maxwell's sex abuse trial in Manhattan federal court. Maxwell, 59, faces sex trafficking and other charges for allegedly recruiting and grooming Jane and three other underage girls for deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

Germany jails Islamic State member for life over role in Yazidi genocide

WORLD

A German court has jailed a former Islamic State militant for life for involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity against minority Yazidis in Iraq and Syria, including the murder of a five-year-old girl. It was the first genocide verdict against a member of Islamic State, an offshoot of al Qaeda that seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 before being ousted by U.S.-backed counter-offensives, losing its last territorial redoubt in 2019. In a landmark ruling, the court in Frankfurt found Taha al-Jumailly, 29, an Iraqi national, guilty of involvement in the slaughter of more than 3,000 Yazidis…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

Jury selection begins in trial of ex-Minnesota officer who shot Daunte Wright

WORLD

NATHAN LAYNE JURY selection began on Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of a white former Minnesota police officer charged in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright, a Black man whose April death sparked protests in a state already on edge over George Floyd's killing. Kimberly Potter, who was a police officer in the city of Brooklyn Center just north of Minneapolis, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter charges. Her lawyers have said Potter, 49, mistakenly used her handgun instead of her stun gun in the death of Wright, a 20-year-old shot during a traffic stop. Her lawyers…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

Ukrainians near conflict zone try to guess Putin’s next move

WORLD

MARGARYTA CHORNOKONDRATENKO ANATOLIY Hrebeniuk was a child of the Soviet Union - he grew up after World War Two in a land where Russians and Ukrainians were united as neighbours within the bloc. Today he lives some 50 km (30 miles) from the front line of fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in a conflict that has simmered for seven years. If Kyiv's worst fears are realised, the region could soon be subsumed in a wider war between Russia and Ukraine. "We have a huge fear that Russia will come here again. We have a huge fear. It…