U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday the killing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh was not helpful for reaching a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza. There has been an increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran drew threats of retaliation against Israel. Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, who had participated in internationally-brokered indirect talks on reaching a ceasefire in Gaza. Anxious residents in Israeli-besieged Gaza feared that Haniyeh’s killing on Wednesday would prolong the war. Iran said the killing took place hours after he attended a swearing-in…
Author: KahawaTungu Editor
At least three protesters were killed in Nigeria’s Kaduna state on Thursday, Reuters reporters and eyewitnesses said, as demonstrators rallied across the West African nation against rising cost of living and governance issues. Kaduna state police spokesperson Mansur Hassan said the police fired tear gas at protesters and not live ammunition. Also police fired tear gas in the capital city Abuja to disperse crowds of protesters, according to eyewitness accounts. Protesters demonstrated in Abuja, the commercial capital Lagos and several other cities to show discontent with economic reforms that have led to rampant inflation and inflicted increasing hardship on ordinary Nigerians. President…
Top Iranian officials will meet the representatives of Iran’s regional allies from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Thursday to discuss potential retaliation against Israel after the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran, five sources told Reuters. The region faces a risk of widened conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies after Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on Wednesday and the killing of Hezbollah’s senior commander on Tuesday in an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut. Representatives of Iran’s Palestinian allies Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, as well as Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi movement, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi resistance groups will attend the…
North Korea wants to reopen nuclear talks with the United States if Donald Trump is re-elected as president and is working to devise a new negotiating strategy, a senior North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea told Reuters. The escape of Ri Il Gyu from Cuba made headlines globally last month. He was the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to defect to the South since 2016. In his first interview with international media, Ri said North Korea has set Russia, the U.S. and Japan as its top foreign policy priorities for this year and beyond. While bolstering relations with Russia, Pyongyang…
Shops and public transport across Venezuela shut down on Wednesday as tensions over a fiercely disputed presidential election and rumors of more opposition arrests and sporadic violence kept many people home. Socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has ruled since 2013, was proclaimed the winner of the Sunday vote by the electoral council. But the opposition says its tally of about 90% of votes shows that its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, received more than double the support attracted by Maduro. As the dispute entered its third day amid growing calls for more transparency, the government insisted it had not produced comprehensive vote totals at…
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran early on Wednesday morning, an attack that drew threats of revenge on Israel and fuelled further concern that the conflict in Gaza was turning into a wider Middle East war. The Palestinian Islamist militant group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed Haniyeh’s death. The Guards said it took place hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for Iran’s new president. Although the strike on Haniyeh was widely assumed to have been carried out by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government made no claim of responsibility and said it would make no…
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran early on Wednesday morning, an attack that drew threats of revenge on Israel and fuelled further concern that the conflict in Gaza was turning into a wider Middle East war. The Palestinian militant group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed Haniyeh’s death. The Guards said it took place hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for Iran’s new president. Although the attack was widely assumed to have been carried out by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government made no claim of responsibility and said it would not make any comment on the…
A high court in Ghana has blocked civil society groups from holding protests in the capital Accra, one of the organisers said, joining other African governments in trying to quell youth-led demonstrations over the high cost of living. Organisers said the protests would draw over two million people onto the streets to demand more action from President Nana Akufo-Addo on corruption and living conditions, as well as to protest delays in signing an anti-LGBT bill into law. High court Justice Abena Afia Serwaa approved a request by Ghana’s police to ban a handful of organisations from carrying out protests planned…
Thousands of people are stranded on the streets of the eastern Sudanese city of Kassala as a deluge of rain compounds the suffering of more than a million Sudanese who sought refuge in the region from a 15-month-old war. The rainy season that began earlier this month has already damaged shelters, made roads unusable, and will put millions at risk of water-borne diseases across large areas of the country. It comes as the number of displaced people within Sudan, currently more than 10 million, continues to tick up as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) expands its territory in the…
Thousands of Palestinians fled a community in the central Gaza Strip on Monday in the face of new Israeli evacuation orders, worsening the humanitarian plight in an area already inundated with displaced people fleeing an assault in the south. Islamist group Hamas accused Israel of blocking a ceasefire, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had inserted new conditions into a longstanding truce proposal at the lastest talks, conducted through international mediators. Israeli forces, which have now captured nearly the entire Gaza Strip in nearly 10 months of war, have spent the last several weeks launching major operations in areas where…
Venezuela’s opposition said it had voting-tally proof it had won the election claimed by President Nicolas Maduro, as anti-government protests erupted across the country, with police firing tear gas to disperse protesters in the capital Caracas. Protesters took to the streets after Maduro was declared winner of the disputed poll, including near the presidential Miraflores palace in Caracas. Many staged “cacerolazo” demonstrations across the country – a traditional Latin American protest in which people bang pots and pans. Some who later marched took their pots and pans with them. “I don’t want gold, I don’t want CLAP (the government food…
Ethiopia has secured an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a new financing program worth $3.4 billion, the IMF said on Monday. Ethiopia’s central bank floated the country’s birr currency on Monday, a key step to secure IMF support, and to make progress on a long-delayed debt restructuring. The Horn-of-Africa nation, which is struggling with high inflation and chronic foreign currency shortages, became the third economy on the continent in as many years to default on its debt at the end of last year. It has been in talks with the IMF since last year to establish a new lending program, after the…
Saboteurs struck France’s TGV high-speed train network in a series of pre-dawn attacks that caused chaos on the country’s busiest rail lines ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday. The coordinated sabotage took place as France rolled out an unprecedented peacetime security operation involving tens of thousands of police and soldiers to lockdown the capital for the Games, sucking in security resources from across the country. The state-owned railway operator said vandals had damaged signal boxes along the lines connecting Paris with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west and Strasbourg in the east. Another…
The rotunda of an office building in the United States Capitol complex filled in minutes with hundreds of people who appeared as if from nowhere, as part of a surprise protest against Israel’s war in Gaza. “Let Gaza live,” they chanted in unison inside the Cannon House Office Building, removing their outer garments to reveal matching red T-shirts. One side of the shirt read, “Jews say stop arming Israel.” The other side: “Not in our name.” Tuesday’s coordinated protest, led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), took Congressional staffers and law enforcement agents aback, as it came together within minutes. But the…
Ugandan security forces detained a number of young people on Tuesday in downtown Kampala who were taking part in a banned rally against what the protesters say are rampant corruption and human rights abuses by the country’s rulers. A Reuters witness saw the detentions being made, while a video posted by NTV Uganda on the X social media platform also showed a small group of young people being intercepted and detained by police while they were marching. The protesters were holding placards and shouting slogans denouncing corruption. One wore a T-shirt bearing the words “Speaker Must Resign”. A police spokesman…