WORLD - The African Mirror

Oct

18

2020

Trump slams Republican critic who warned of November ‘bloodbath’

WORLD

TIMOTHY GARDNER U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday attacked a longtime congressional critic who warned this week that his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and authoritarian leaders could cause a "Republican bloodbath in the Senate" in the November 3 elections. U.S. Senator Ben Sasse is the least effective of the 53 Republican senators, Trump wrote on Twitter, calling him "a liability to the Republican Party, and an embarrassment to the Great State of Nebraska. Other than that, he's just a wonderful guy." Sasse criticized Trump in a town hall with constituents on Wednesday, and questioned whether the president would ultimately…

Oct

18

2020

By The African Mirror

French police face worst nightmare: an attacker they never saw coming

WORLD

TANGI SALAUN THE teenager identified by prosecutors as Abdoulakh A. lived with his family and had never appeared on the radar of French intelligence agencies. But he propelled himself into their sights in a horrific manner on Friday evening when he beheaded a school teacher in broad daylight. The 18-year-old had a record of juvenile delinquency but was too young for police to have built up a file on him. He lived in a Chechen community that is not well understood by intelligence services. He used a knife to decapitate the middle school history teacher, Samuel Paty, who had shown…

Oct

18

2020

By The African Mirror

New Zealand’s Ardern storms to re-election with ‘be strong, be kind’ mantra

WORLD

PRAVEEN MENON JACINDA Ardern turned speaking from the heart and smiling through adversity into a winning formula for a blowout re-election as New Zealand's leader yesterday. Now Ardern, who made a name for herself by crushing COVID-19 in the country and healing the nation after a massacre of Muslims by a white supremacist, faces a challenge to show her leadership extends beyond crisis management and kindness. Her Labour Party won a landslide victory in the general election, a resounding mandate that ushers in New Zealand's first purely left-leaning government in decades and may allow her to form a single-party government.…

Oct

17

2020

By The African Mirror

Canada will continue to stand up against Chinese human rights abuses, PM Trudeau says

WORLD

CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will continue to stand up against China's "coercive diplomacy" and human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang after being rebuked by Beijing for similar comments earlier this week. "We will stand up loudly and clearly for human rights all around the world, whether it is talking about the situation faced by the Uighurs, whether it is talking about the very concerning situation in Hong Kong, whether it's calling out China for its coercive diplomacy," Trudeau said in a news conference. However, Trudeau added that he was not looking to escalate tensions with…

Oct

17

2020

By The African Mirror

French police shoot dead man who slit teacher’s throat

WORLD

TANGI SALAUN and GEERT DE CLERCQ FRENCH police shot dead a man who minutes earlier had killed a middle school teacher by slitting his throat in the street in a suburb of Paris. The teacher had shown pupils in his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, which are considered by Muslims to be blasphemous, according to a police source. France's anti-terror prosecutor said it was investigating the attack, which took place in Conflans Sainte-Honorine, a suburb north-west of Paris. The suspected attacker was spotted by a police patrol while carrying a knife a short distance from the scene of the…

Oct

17

2020

By The African Mirror

Biden, Trump blaze a U.S. campaign trail as early vote surges with 18 days to go

WORLD

MICHEAL MARTINA and STEVE HOLLAND U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden planned to hit the campaign trail again on Friday with visits to three battleground states, after displaying their sharply contrasting styles in dueling televised town halls. Trump lags in opinion polls and latest figures from his campaign show he is also behind in fundraising in the final weeks before the November 3 election. Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee raised some $247.8 million in September, his campaign manager said on Twitter, well behind the $383 million haul of Biden and the Democratic Party. As the…

Oct

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Kickboxer throws down challenge to Pakistan’s TikTok ban

WORLD

UMAR FAROOQ A mixed martial arts specialist is challenging a Pakistani ban on TikTok, the video sharing app on which he was pinning his hopes of gaining a mass audience and helping people get fit. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) last week blocked access to TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, citing unspecified public complaints about "immoral and indecent content". Muhammad Ashfaq Jutt, 34, told Reuters he joined TikTok a year ago because it was becoming a popular platform and was cheaper than traditional advertising. "All kinds of people, from street sweepers to day labourers, have come to be…

Oct

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Senate panel sets Oct. 22 vote on Trump court pick despite Democrats’ protests

WORLD

ANDREW CHUNG, PATRICIA ZENGERLE and LAWRENCE HURLEY THE Republican-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled an October 22 vote to advance conservative appellate judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court to the full Senate, moving ahead with the confirmation process over Democratic objections. The fourth and final day of the confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's nominee wrapped up in the early afternoon after committee Democrats protested what they called the needlessly rushed nature of proceedings and complaining that Barrett sidestepped questions about presidential powers, abortion, climate change, voting rights and Obamacare. "I believe that this rushed, sham…

Oct

16

2020

By The African Mirror

‘Things will get worse’: London goes into stricter lockdown

WORLD

GUY FAULCONBRIDGE and SARAH YOUNG LONDON, the world's international financial capital, will enter a tighter COVID-19 lockdown from midnight today as Prime Minister Boris Johnson seeks to tackle a swiftly accelerating second coronavirus wave. The respiratory pandemic, which emerged in China last year and has killed over a million people worldwide, is spreading in most parts of Britain, whose official death toll of 43,155 is the highest in Europe. Anger, though, is rising over the economic, social and health costs of the biggest curtailment of freedoms since World War Two. One former government adviser warned some people would have trouble…

Nov

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Philippines’ typhoon deaths rise as worst floods in 45 years hit north

WORLD

THE death toll from the deadliest cyclone to hit the Philippines this year has climbed to 67, while many areas remained submerged in a northern region hit by the worst flooding in more than four decades, officials said on Sunday. President Rodrigo Duterte flew to Tuguegarao province to assess the situation in Cagayan Valley region, which was heavily flooded after Typhoon Vamco dumped rain over swathes of the main Luzon island, including the capital, metropolitan Manila. Twenty-two fatalities were recorded in Cagayan, 17 in southern Luzon, eight in Metro Manila, and 20 in two other regions, said Mark Timbal, the…