WORLD - The African Mirror

Sep

19

2020

Amal Clooney quits UK envoy role over ‘lamentable’ international law breach

WORLD

HUMAN rights lawyer Amal Clooney has quit her role as Britain’s special envoy on media freedom in protest at the country’s intention to breach international law over Brexit-related legislation. The British government has drafted a bill which it acknowledges would violate its international legal obligations and undercut parts of the divorce deal it signed before Britain formally left the European Union in January. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the bill was essential to counter “absurd” threats from Brussels but it has prompted resignations and the threat of a rebellion by lawmakers, which appears to have been averted after a…

Sep

17

2020

By The African Mirror

Hurricane Sally weakens to tropical storm, leaves massive floods on U.S. Gulf Coast

WORLD

DEVIKA KRISHNA KUMAR and CATHERINE KOPPEL HURRICANE Sally has moved northeast, where it was expected to bring more than a foot of rain to some areas, one day after it flooded streets and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Sally made landfall early on Wednesday near Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity. As of late Wednesday, it was moving north at 9 mph (15 km per hour) after being downgraded to a tropical depression, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, with…

Sep

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Gaza rockets, Israeli air strikes accompany Israel-Gulf pacts

WORLD

MILITANTS in Gaza launched rockets into Israel and Israeli aircraft hit targets in the Palestinian enclave in an explosive backdrop to the signing of pacts for formal ties between Israel and two Gulf Arab countries. The Israeli military said it launched about 10 air strikes in Hamas Islamist-run Gaza early on Wednesday and that 15 rockets had been fired from the territory at Israeli communities near the border, where sirens sounded before dawn. On Tuesday, a rocket from Gaza struck the coastal Israeli city of Ashdod, wounding two people, at the same time as Israel and the United Arab Emirates…

Sep

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Japan’s Suga to formally take up PM job, announce cabinet

WORLD

ELAINE LIES and LINDA SIEG JAPANESE ruling party president Yoshihide Suga was poised to become the nation's next prime minister on Wednesday, pulling together a "continuity" cabinet, about half of which will not change from the current makeup, local media reported. Suga, a longtime aide and chief cabinet secretary under outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on Monday won a landslide victory to take over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He pledged to carry on many of Abe's programmes, including his signature "Abenomics" economic strategy. He faces numerous challenges, including tackling COVID-19 while reviving a battered economy and dealing with a…

Sep

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Pandemic sharpens ‘battle for the soul’ of United Nations between U.S. and China

WORLD

MICHELLE NICHOLS LONG-simmering tensions between the United States and China have hit boiling point at the United Nations over the coronavirus pandemic, spotlighting Beijing's bid for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to Washington's traditional leadership. Chinese President Xi Jinping has accelerated his U.N. power play as President Donald Trump's disregard for international cooperation led to the United States quitting global deals on climate and Iran and leaving the U.N. Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, diplomats say. "There's definitely, in my mind, a battle for the soul of the U.N. going on," said a senior European diplomat,…

Sep

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Greek police arrest 5 over Lesbos fire, migrants resist new camp

WORLD

VASSILIS TRIANDAFYLLOU GREEK police have detained five migrants over a fire that razed the Moria refugee camp to the ground, the government said on Tuesday, as thousands of displaced people refused to move to a new facility and demanded to leave Lesbos island. Authorities were searching for one more person, Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrisohoidis said. More than 12,000 people, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, Africa and Syria, were left without shelter, proper sanitation or access to food and water after a fire tore through the overcrowded Moria migrant camp last Wednesday. Greek authorities believe the fire was deliberately lit by…

Sep

15

2020

By The African Mirror

Israeli who killed Palestinian baby, parents gets life imprisonment

WORLD

AN Israeli court has sentenced a Jewish settler to life imprisonment for killing a Palestinian couple and their baby in a 2015 arson attack in the occupied West Bank. The deaths of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents Saad and Riham in the village of Duma contributed to a surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence after peace talks stalled in 2014. Amiram Ben-Uliel, 21 at the time of the killings, was convicted in May of three counts of murder and two charges of attempted murder in what a court determined were racially-motivated crimes. Israel's Shin Bet internal security service, which had interrogated…

Sep

15

2020

By The African Mirror

Trump blames ‘forest management’ as Western wildfires become election issue

WORLD

TREVOER HUNNICUTT and JEFF MASON THE wildfires sweeping the west coast states have assumed centre stage in the U.S. election campaign, with President Donald Trump visiting California after blaming the blazes on poor forest management and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, stressing the role of climate change in stoking the fires. The Republican president, seeking re-election on November 3, is due to meet with firefighters and emergency officials in Northern California. Democrats have blasted Trump for remaining mostly silent about the largest wildfires in state history, except for his efforts to blame the blazes on failures by the state government.…

Sep

15

2020

By The African Mirror

Turkish, Russian officials to meet in Ankara for talks on Syria, Libya

WORLD

TURKISH and Russian officials will meet in Ankara this week for a new round of talks on developments in Syria and Libya, where the two countries back opposing sides, Turkey's Foreign Ministry has announced. "Consultations between Turkish and Russian interagency delegations on Libya and Syria will continue at a technical level on 15-16 September 2020 in Ankara," the ministry said. Khalifa Haftar Ankara and Moscow are the main power brokers in Libya's war and have been holding talks on a lasting ceasefire and political settlement. Russia supports the eastern-based forces of Khalifa Haftar, while Turkey has helped the internationally recognised…

Sep

13

2020

By The African Mirror

‘Jumping for joy’: Japanese welcome Osaka forcing discussion on racism

WORLD

HIDETO SAKAI AS they celebrated Naomi Osaka's victory in the final of the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows on Saturday, Tokyoites were eager to embrace their heroines' stand against racial injustice. Osaka, who won her third Grand Slam title with victory over Victoria Azarenka, has used her platform to support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, wearing a mask bearing the name of a different Black American before each of her seven matches in the championship. Osaka, who has a Japanese mother and Haitian father, has become the face of a changing Japan coming to terms with challenges to its…