At a house party in Kwazakhele township, police claim that two unidentified gunmen “randomly shot at guests” who were dancing and mingling.
One of the victims was Vusumzi Sishuba, who would have turned 51 today.
Police have urged the public to share any information about the shooting despite the fact that no one has been arrested.
Mr Sishuba’s family is “in a state of shock and disbelief,” a relative told Reuters news agency.
Five men and three women, aged 20-64, have been identified as victims of Sunday night’s shooting.
“These victims were killed by criminals, and we will not rest until we find out what happened and who was responsible for [this] callous and cold-blooded attack on these unsuspecting victims,” said Eastern Cape Police Commissioner Nomthetheleli Lillian Mene.
The motive behind the attack is unknown.
Police Minister Bheki Cele visited the scene of the shooting on Monday and asked for patience while the investigation continued.
“We know everybody is angry and would love that we respond quickly, but we request a little bit of space so that we do the work thoroughly,” he told reporters in Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth.
South Africa has one of the highest gun crime rates in the world but random mass shootings are uncommon.
On Monday, Stoltenberg made the appeal in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
He is in the city for the first leg of a trip to Asia that will also stop in Japan and is intended to strengthen ties with the democratic allies in the region in light of the conflict in the Ukraine and the escalating rivalry with China.
In meetings with senior South Korean officials, Stoltenberg argued that events in Europe and North America are interconnected with other regions, and that the alliance wants to help manage global threats by increasing partnerships in Asia.
Speaking at the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies in Seoul, he thanked South Korea for its nonlethal aid to Ukraine but urged it to do more, adding there was an “urgent need” for ammunition. Russia calls the invasion a “special operation”.
He pointed to countries like Germany and Norway that had “longstanding policies not to export weapons to countries in conflict” that were revised after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
“If we believe in freedom, democracy, if we don’t want autocracy and totalitarian to win then they need weapons,” he said.
South Korea is an increasingly important global arms exporter and has recently signed deals to sell hundreds of tanks to European countries, including NATO-member Poland. But South Korean law bans the export of weapons to countries in active conflict, which Seoul has said makes it difficult to provide arms directly to Kyiv.
South Korea opened its first diplomatic mission to NATO last year.
Stoltenberg said it was unclear when the conflict in Ukraine would end, saying Putin was preparing for “more war” and actively acquiring weapons from countries, including North Korea.
Pyongyang on Sunday denied sending weapons to Moscow, accusing the United States of spreading a “groundless rumor”.
“Trying to tarnish the image of [North Korea] by fabricating a non-existent thing is a grave provocation that can never be allowed and that cannot but trigger its reaction,” said Kwon Jong Gun, director general of North Korea’s Department of US Affairs.
He also called it “a foolish attempt to justify its offer of weapons to Ukraine”.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden promised 31 Abrams tanks, one of the most powerful and sophisticated weapons in the US army, to help Kyiv fight off Moscow’s invasion.
Allowing Russia to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics, according toUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, would amount to demonstrating that “terror is somehow acceptable.”
He mentioned that he had discussed the matter with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France.
He continued, “Moscow must not be permitted to use the Olympics for propaganda.”
According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), athletes from Belarus and Russia may participate in the Olympics as neutrals.
But Ukraine has threatened to boycott Paris 2024 if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete.
Attempts by the IOC “to bring Russian athletes back into the Olympic Games are attempts to tell the whole world that terror is somehow acceptable”, Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Russia must not be allowed to use the Games “or any other sport event as propaganda for its aggression or its state chauvinism”, he added.
The IOC said this week that Russian and Belarusian athletes could compete as “neutral athletes”, stating that “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport”.
But Mr Zelensky says there can be no neutrality in sport while his country’s athletes are dying on the battlefield.
He also drew comparison with the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin when the Nazis were in power.
“There was a major Olympic mistake,” he said. “The Olympic movement and terrorist states definitely should not cross paths.”
The UK government has also condemned the plan to allow athletes to compete neutrally as a “world away from the reality of war”.
Image caption,Russian forces have been bombarding Kherson all weekend
Six others were wounded, two of them when a hospital was hit, local officials say.
The Kherson regional administration said the region was shelled almost 40 times on Saturday and was pounded continually on Sunday.
Kherson was the only regional capital to have fallen to Russian forces since the February 2022 invasion, but they were forced into a humiliating retreat in November.
President Zelensky said Russia had also stepped up its attacks in the eastern Donetsk region. He said his forces needed new weapons to confront a “very tough” situation of constant attacks.
“Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We have to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options for Ukraine,” he said.
The Western policies towardRussia and the Balkans have received repeated criticism from President Zoran Milanovic.
On Monday, the president of Croatia criticised the West for arming Ukraine with heavy tanks and other weapons for its defence against invading Russian forces, saying that such deliveries would only serve to prolong the conflict.
Zoran Milanovic told reporters in the Croatian capital that it is “mad” to believe that Russia can be defeated in a conventional war.
“I am against sending any lethal arms there,” Milanovic said. “It prolongs the war.”
“What is the goal? Disintegration of Russia, change of the government? There is also talk of tearing Russia apart. This is mad,” he added.
Milanovic won the presidential election in Croatia in 2019 as a left-leaning liberal candidate, a counterpoint to the conservative government currently in power in the European Union and NATO-member state.
But he has since made a turn to populist nationalism and criticised Western policies toward Russia as well as the Balkans.
Milanovic has built a reputation of being pro-Russia, which he has repeatedly denied.
Yet in recent months, he has openly opposed the admission of Finland and Sweden into NATO as well as the training of Ukrainian troops in Croatia as part of EU aid to the embattled country.
After months of hesitation, the US said last week that it would send 31 of the 70-ton Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, and Germany announced it will dispatch 14 Leopard 2 tanks and allow other countries to do the same.
Milanovic said that “from 2014 to 2022, we are watching how someone provokes Russia with the intention of starting this war.”
“What is the goal of this war? A war against a nuclear power that is at war in another country? Is there a conventional way to defeat such a country?” Milanovic asked on Monday.
“Who pays the price? Europe. America pays the least,” he said. “A year has passed and we are only now talking about tanks,” Milanovic said.
“Not a single American tank will go to Ukraine in a year. Only German tanks will be sent there.”
Although the presidential post is mostly ceremonial in Croatia, Milanovic is formally the supreme commander of the armed forces.
After a US general raised eyebrows with a memo predicting war in two years, a top Republican in the US Congress claims the likelihood of conflict with China over Taiwan “is very high.”
In a memo dated February 1 but released on Friday, General Mike Minihan, who heads the Air Mobility Command, wrote to the leadership of its roughly 110,000 members, saying, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”
Michael McCaul, the new chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives, on Sunday told Fox News “I hope he is wrong… I think he is right though.”
General Minihan’s views do not represent the Pentagon, but show concern at the highest levels of the US military over a possible attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
Both the US and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action, Minihan wrote.
If China failed to take control of Taiwan bloodlessly then “they are going to look at a military invasion in my judgement. We have to be prepared for this”, McCaul said.
He accused the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden of projecting weakness after the bungled US pullout from Afghanistan, which could make war with China more likely.
“The odds are very high that we could see a conflict with China and Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific,” McCaul said.
The White House declined to comment on McCaul’s remarks.
‘Highly unlikely’
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said he disagreed with Minihan’s assessment.
Smith told Fox News Sunday that war with China is “not only not inevitable, it is highly unlikely. We have a very dangerous situation in China. But I think generals need to be very cautious about saying we’re going to war, it’s inevitable”.
The United States needs to be in a position to deter China from military action against Taiwan, “but I’m fully confident we can avoid that conflict if we take the right approach”, Smith said.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month that he seriously doubted that ramped-up Chinese military activity near the Taiwan Strait was a sign of an imminent invasion of the island by Beijing.
On Saturday, a Pentagon official said the general’s comments were “not representative of the department’s view on China”.
A major mining company Rio Tinto, has apologised for losing a tiny radioactive capsule that was being transported across Western Australia.
Along the 1,400 km (870 mile) route, there is an urgent search for the object, which is about the size of a pea.
A tiny amount of radioactive Caesium-137 is present in the capsule, and anyone who comes into contact with it runs the risk of developing serious illness.
This might involve burns, radiation sickness, or skin damage.
Radiation detectors and other specialised equipment are being used by emergency services to find the device.
But Australia’s Department for Fire and Emergency Services said the silver capsule – which is just 6mm (0.24 inches) in diameter and 8mm long – was so small it might have become lodged in the tyre of a vehicle passing along the road.
The capsule may have gone missing up to two weeks ago.
Rio Tinto, which has big mining operations in Australia and has been the subject of a series of controversies in recent years, said it was sorry for the alarm that had been caused.
The firm would be launching its own investigation into what had happened, it said in a statement.
The lost device is part of a density gauge, common in the mining industry. It was being used at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in the remote Kimberley region.
The gauge was being transported by a subcontracted company, who picked it up from the mine site on 12 January to move it to a storage facility in the north-east suburbs of Perth.
When it was unpacked for inspection on 25 January the gauge was found broken apart and the radioactive capsule was gone. One of four mounting bolts and screws were also missing.
The authorities said vibrations during transit may have caused the bolts to become loose, allowing the capsule to fall through gaps in the casing and truck.
Analysis, Phil Mercer, Sydney
The search route is huge. It is roughly equivalent to the distance by road from John O’Groats in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall, or from Washington DC to Orlando, Florida.
Specialist radiation detection equipment is being fitted to patrol vehicles that will cover the length of it. Over five days, they will travel in both directions along the Great Northern Highway at speeds of around 50km/h (30mph).
Emergency authorities in Western Australia say the chances of finding the tiny device are “pretty good”. But if it has become lodged in another vehicle’s tyre it could be well outside of the search zone already.
Or if it is found by a member of the public, they might inadvertently keep it as a souvenir.
So the authorities are keen to stress that holding the capsule could result in radiation burns, while long-term exposure could cause cancer.
“As part of this investigation we are working closely with the contractor to better understand what went wrong in this instance,” said Simon Trott, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s iron ore division.
“Rio Tinto engaged a third-party contractor, with appropriate expertise and certification, to safely package the device in preparation for transport off-site ahead of receipt at their facility in Perth.
“Prior to the device leaving the site, a Geiger counter [a device to detect radioactivity] was used to confirm the presence of the capsule inside the package,” said Mr Trott.
Image caption,Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine is in a remote region of Western Australia
State officials have issued a radiation alert across a vast swathe of Western Australia as the search for the capsule continues.
Exposure to trace quantities of the metal is like “receiving 10 X-rays in an hour, just to put it in context, and… the amount of natural radiation we would receive in a year, just by walking around,” said Western Australia’s chief health officer Andrew Robertson.
The state’s desert is remote and one of the least populated places in the country. Only one in five of Western Australia’s population lives outside of Perth, the state’s capital.
However, officials say they are concerned that someone could pick up the capsule, not knowing what it is.
“If you have contact or have it close to you, you could either end up with skin damage, including skin burns… and if you have it long enough near you, it could cause what is called acute radiation sickness, and that will take a period of time,” Mr Robertson added.
This incident comes as Rio Tinto tries to repair its reputation in Australia after it was hit by a backlash for destroying sacred Aboriginal rock shelters in Western Australia.
In 2020, Rio Tinto blasted the 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge to expand an iron ore mine, sparking a major outcry that led to several of the company’s top bosses standing down.
And last year, a parliamentary inquiry found sexual harassment was rife at Australia’s mining firms, after an internal review at Rio Tinto found more than 20 women had reported actual or attempted rape or sexual assault over five years.
In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson says Vladimir Putin threatened him with a missile strike during an “extraordinary” phone call.
It “would only take a minute,” according to the then-prime minister, who quoted Mr. Putin.
The remark, according to Mr. Johnson, was made following his warning that the war would be an “utter catastrophe.”
A BBC documentary on Mr. Putin’s interactions with world leaders over the years makes the assertion that this was a “lie,” the Kremlin spokesman declared.
Mr Johnson warned Mr Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more Nato troops on Russia’s borders.
He also tried to deter Russian military action by telling Mr Putin that Ukraine would not join Nato “for the foreseeable future”.
But Mr Johnson said: “He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that. Jolly.
“But I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate.”
President Putin had been “very familiar” during the “most extraordinary call”, Mr Johnson said.
No reference to the exchange appeared in accounts released to the media of the call given by both Downing Street and the Kremlin.
From the 2014 seizure of Crimea to the invasion of Ukraine, this is the inside story of a decade of clashes – as told by the Western leaders who traded blows with Putin’s Russia
It is impossible to know if Mr Putin’s threat was genuine.
However, given previous Russian attacks on the UK – most recently in Salisbury in 2018 – any threat from the Russian leader, however lightly delivered, is probably one Mr Johnson would have had no choice but to take seriously.
Image caption,Boris Johnson received a call from President Putin the day after he met Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv
In his response, Mr Putin’s spokesman said the former prime minister’s claim was “either a deliberate falsehood, in which case you need to ask Mr Johnson why he lied, or it was not a deliberate lie. That is, he didn’t understand what President Putin was saying to him”.
“There were no threats to use missiles,” Dmitry Peskov told the BBC.
The Kremlin leader, he said, had simply pointed out that “if Ukraine joined Nato the potential deployment of Nato or US missiles near Russia’s border would mean that any missile could reach Moscow within minutes”.
Since the invasion, President Putin has warned countries that may try to interfere, that Russia’s response would be immediate – even hinting at the use of nuclear weapons.
Nine days after Mr Johnson’s conversation with President Putin, on 11 February, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace flew to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.
The BBC documentary Putin Vs the West reveals Mr Wallace left with assurances that Russia would not invade Ukraine, but he said both sides knew it was a lie.
He described it as a “demonstration of bullying or strength, which is: I’m going to lie to you, you know I’m lying and I know you know I’m lying and I’m still going to lie to you.
“I think it was about saying ‘I’m powerful’,” Mr Wallace said.
He said the “fairly chilling, but direct lie” had confirmed his belief that Russia would invade.
As he left the meeting, he said Gen Valery Gerasimov – Russia’s chief of general staff – told him “never again will we be humiliated”.
Another significant encounter in the months leading up toRussia’s invasion of Ukraine was with CIA director William Burns, who landed in Moscow on 2 November 2021.
Mr Burns had been circling the Russian capital for hours, as heavy fog prevented his landing, but when he finally arrived at the Kremlin he discovered Mr Putin was not there. Instead, he was sheltering in the southern Russian city of Sochi amid a spike in Covid infections.
The pair spoke over the phone.
The CIA director said he was direct in laying out the message President Biden had sent him to deliver: the US knew what Mr Putin was up to and he would pay a heavy price if he launched such an invasion.
He said the Russian president did not deny planning was underway and listed grievances about Ukraine and the West.
“I was troubled before I arrived in Moscow. And I was even more troubled after I left,” Mr Burns added.
Less than a fortnight after theUK defense secretary left Moscow, as tanks rolled over the border on February 24, Mr. Johnson received a phone call in the middle of the night from President Zelensky.
“Zelensky’s very, very calm,” Mr Johnson recalled. “But, he tells me, you know, they’re attacking everywhere.”
Mr Johnson says he offered to help move the president to safety.
“He doesn’t take me up on that offer. He heroically stayed where he was.”
Putin vs. the West will be broadcast on Monday, January 30 on BBC Two at 21:00 and will be available on the iPlayer in the UK.
Controversial Young Ghanaian actress Rosemond Brown, popularly known as Akuapem Poloo in the entertainment industry, has disclosed that, at one point in her life, she had to have affairs with married men in order to survive in Accra.
“I’ve been through a lot. I had to sleep with other people’s husbands, which I hated doing but had no choice. Because they are the ones who can help me”, Akuapem Poloo revealed
The actress stated that she had to resort to that because she was responsible for a baby who resided with her mother.
“When my baby was six months old, my mother took him and told me to go back to Accra to continue with my life. So I came back and started working as a salesperson, an actress, in music videos, and a whole lot more.
“Just imagine leaving my six-month old baby, it was hectic,” Akuapem Poloo told BRYT TV in an interview monitored by MyNewsGH.com.
She further revealed that, some women she dated their husbands cursed her at a point.
“I’ve gone through a lot to the extent that women I dated their husbands had to curse me. But after I became enlightened and started acting and met my new man, I stopped that,” she added.
With her undeniable talent, relentless work ethic, and keen business acumen, 34-year-old singer and entrepreneurRobyn “Rihanna” Fenty has cemented her place in history by becoming the youngest self-made billionaire in America, according to Forbes.
This extraordinary accomplishment is a testament to her unwavering dedication to her craft, her astute understanding of the fashion industry, and her ability to identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities in the market.
Rihanna’s multi-faceted success can be attributed to her flourishing cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty, her illustrious music career, and her innovative lingerie line, Savage X Fenty. Her net worth stands at $1.4 billion due to a slight decrease from the previous year’s valuation of $1.7 billion.
Her music career has been a major source of income for Rihanna, with hit albums and sold-out tours generating millions of dollars in revenue. But it’s her forays into the beauty and fashion industries that have truly propelled her to billionaire status.
Fenty Beauty, which she launched in 2017, has become a global phenomenon, for its inclusivity and wide range of shades for women of all skin tones. The brand has since expanded to include a variety of products, from concealers to lip glosses, and has been a major contributor to her fortune.
Similarly, her lingerie line Savage X Fenty, launched in 2018, has become a popular destination for women looking for comfortable and sexy undergarments.
These are the three assets that have helped Rihanna achieve billionaire status:
#1 Fenty Beauty
Her stake in the cosmetics company is worth $1.1 billion
Rihanna, the third R&B and hip-hop artist to become a billionaire, earned the majority of her $1.4-billion fortune from her cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty.
Launched in 2017 as a partnership with LVMH, the company’s products are available on Sephora shelves and online in over 150 countries, with 2020 revenue exceeding $550 million.
In 2022, Fenty Beauty launched in eight African countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, and Kenya, as part of a strategy to expand the business and capitalize on opportunities on the continent.
In addition to Fenty Beauty, Rihanna’s lingerie line Savage x Fenty has also achieved billion-dollar success. In February 2021, the brand raised $125 million in a funding round led by Neuberg Berman, valuing the company at $1 billion. This brings its total venture capital funding since its launch to an impressive $310 million.
The company which is 30-percent owned by Rihanna launched in 2018 in partnership with TechStyle Fashion Group, boasts investors such as Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners and private equity firm L. Catterton, which includes Bernard Arnault as a shareholder.
#3 Rihanna’s net earnings from her career
With a successful career spanning across music and acting, Rihanna has amassed a significant fortune, with estimates placing her net earnings at approximately $30 million. However, this figure has yet to be officially confirmed by the artist herself or by reputable sources such as Forbes.
What you should know
Rihanna is expanding her Fenty brand even further with the filing of two applications for Fenty Hair with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
This move signals her intention to launch a comprehensive haircare line that will complement her already successful Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty lingerie lines.
Fenty Hair collection will encompass a wide array of hair accessories, including hairbands, bows, clips, ribbons, scrunchies, wigs, curlers, pins, brushes, and combs, further solidifying the Fenty brand’s dominance in the fashion and cosmetics industries.
Being elected as President of Ghana can be a daunting task that requires allies, friends, loyalists, and even family members at certain times.
In Ghana’s fourth republic, it has been somewhat accepted for presidents to appoint close family members to key positions in government, although the trend is frowned upon by many.
However, the term “family and friends government” has been coined in certain administrations of the two major political parties, the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress.
GhanaWeb shines a light on the siblings of Ghana’s presidents during the Fourth Republic, who you may not be familiar with.
Jerry John Rawlings and Judy Nkansah Nee John
The late Flight Lieutenant Colonel Jerry John Rawlings was Ghana’s first president in the Fourth Republic. He was born on June 22, 1947, to his mother, Victoria Agbotui, and James Ramsay John, his father.
Although little is known about his siblings, the late former president is known to have a paternal sister by the name Judy Nkansah Nee John, who is his only surviving sister.
Her maiden name was Judy John and she was the youngest daughter of James Ramsay John, their father.
Paying her final respects to a beloved elder brother in her tribute in November 2020, Mrs. Nkansah narrated how she got separated from J.J. Rawlings after they had to change schools because there had been a relocation of their basic school to a different area.
Despite this, however, she added that they continued to be a beautiful pair of siblings as she regularly got ‘constant Sunday afternoon visitations’ during their high school days.
John Agyekum Kufuor – Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor and 8 others
After Jerry John Rawlings left office, the New Patriotic Party, under the leadership of John Agyekum Kufuor, assumed office.
Right by his side were appointees and loyalists who served him through thick and thin.
Key among them was his brother, Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor who served as Minister of Defence in the early 2000s.
Although, J.A. Kufuor faced criticism over the move, the pair’s striking resemblance and speech were almost similar in nature.
In a book authored by Kwame Addo Kufuor, titled “Gold Coast Boy (A Memoir),” the brother of the former president details who his siblings are.
He revealed that in all, they were 10 children born to their mother, Nana Ama Ampomah Dapaah. Their father was Nana Kojo Agyekum III, the Oyokohene of Kumasi.
Their oldest sibling is Nana Akua, Francis was the second sibling, Rebecca comes third in the family while the fourth child, Kofi Boakye died in his infancy.
Marian who was as Chief State Attorney is the fifth child in the family. The sixth sibling is Cecilia who is a lawyer.
J.A. Kufuor was the seventh child who later became Ghana’s president from 2001 to 2008 while Kwame Addo Kufuor was the eighth child.
The ninth sibling who is George passed away in 2011 and the tenth sibling of the family was Josephine, who is also deceased.
John Evans Atta Mills – Dr. Cadman Mills – Samuel Atta Mills
John Evans Atta Mills served as president of the Republic of Ghana from 2009 until his demise in 2012. Prior to this, he was vice president of Ghana from 1997 to 2001 under the leadership of late former president Jerry John Rawlings.
He had two siblings who both served in his administration in different capacities.
Dr. Cadman Atta Mills is the senior brother of Prof J.E.A. Mills. He served as an economic adviser to the president in 2011.
Samuel Atta Mills is the younger brother of the late president. He also served as a Presidential Aide in the Office of the President from 2009 to 2012.
Samuel Atta Mills is the current Member of Parliament for Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem constituency.
John Mahama – Ibrahim Mahama and 2 others
Former president John Mahama assumed office in July 2012 following the demise of Prof. J.E.A. Mills. He was elected president later that year and served until 2017.
He is the second born of four siblings. His elder sibling is Alfred Abdullai Mahama who is a project coordinator and environmental consultant.
Ibrahim Mahama is the third child of the Mahama family. He is the founder of a renowned engineering company and owner of a cement manufacturing company.
Ghana is known as a secular country with a high Christian population and a favorable Islamic following too. In spite of these two dominant religious groups the country also enjoys the existence of shrines and traditional deities.
It is believed a greater part of the population Christians and Muslims alike patronize these shrines for quick solutions to their problems, request and otherwise.
In view of that MyNewsGh.com brings to you a regional breakdown of the most popular, powerful and feared shrines in Ghana. Many of these shrines have interesting statues and architecture.
Ashanti Region – Antoa Nyamaa
Antoa Nyamaa is a popular river god deity, with its shrine located at Antoa in the Ashanti Region in Ghana. The Antoa Shrine is harboured in a small stream called Asuo Nyamaa.
Antoa is about seven miles away from Kumasi specifically in Kwabre East. Antoa Nyamaa is a very renowned deity and the people in the Ashanti Region often use it to seek answers to their problems.
In 2015 however thieves broke into the strong room of the shrine and stole its gold ornaments, idols and other valuables worth thousands of cedis.
Upper East Region – Tengzug Shrine in the Tongo Hills
Located in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region, the shrine requires you to be topless before entering the spiritual and holy space whether man or woman.
The Tengzug Shrine, is very famous for its religious animal sacrifices for good luck and to please the ancestors of the Talensis land.
During the Talensi in July 2015, Bernard Antwi Boasiako alias Chairman Wontumi, Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), led some party members to the shrine, including the then-parliamentary candidate now DCE for the area.
Eastern Region – Akonedi Shrine
This is a shrine located at Larteh Kubeasi in the Eastern Region of Ghana, 56km north of Accra, on the Akwapim Ridge. It is very popular and believed to be one of the most powerful shrines among the Akuapims.
The shrine is an important place of traditional healing and religious ceremonies where herbal medicine, as well as psychic healing, is practiced by the fetish. A fee is charged to observe religious ceremonies. Major spirits worshiped at the Akonnedi shrine in Larteh include: Akonnedi, Esi Ketewa, Adade Kofi, Asuo Gyebi and Tegare.
Volta Region – Nogokpo
Nogokpo is considered by many to be the quickest results-oriented shrine in Ghana. It is located in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region of Ghana along the Trans–West African Coastal Highway.
It is patronized both by locals and foreigners to seek answers of whatever kind either their destiny or revenge. Sometimes people jokingly use the name to frighten people but it is believed such acts can anger the gods.
Volta Region – Klikor Shrine
This shrine is in the Volta region. The natives in that area get ‘spiritual summons’ when they are alleged to steal an item.
It is believed that when someone reports you to the shrine and you are unable to pay the debt, your relative (mostly women) will have to serve the deity.
Bono East – Nana Yaw Bosam
This shrine has been in existence for several years. It served as a spiritual connection between the living and the living and the dead.
It’s very popular within the Bono and Ahafo enclave where people go to seek insight into their destiny, go for spiritual healing and make requests of the gods.
It is a shrine that connects with only male priests who serve as the mouthpiece of the gods.
Greater Accra – Brekete Shrine
The Brekete shrine in Ghana features northern gods dancing at a triennial cow sacrifice. There are major and minor gods.
The major gods are Kunde (father and hunter); Ablewa/Tseriya (Mother); Sanya Kompo (God of the stone, linguist and secretary); Bangle/Ketetsi (warrior and soldier); Sakra Bode (god of the land and Bangle’s stool); and Wango (god of the waters and roads).
The minor gods, all of which work with Bangle, are Tsengé (god of the seven knives), Gediya (policeman), and Surugu (lieutenant).
Brekete is a relatively new cult that found its way around the 1930s to the southeastern coastal villages of what was then the Gold Coast and has since spread throughout.
Ashanti Region – ‘Kofi o Kofi’ shrine (Akomadan)
This is a shrine that is managed by Nana Kwaku Bonsam, whose name, “Bonsam” translates literally as “Devil”.
Kwaku Bonsam a well-known witch doctor in Ghana and beyond, gained international prominence when he claimed to put a voodoo curse on the Portuguese footballer and superstar Cristiano Ronaldo not to score against Ghana in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
He has also said in the past some popular pastors in Ghana come to his ‘Kofi O Kofi’ gods and shrine for charms and powers to woo their congregations.
Greater Accra Nana Agraada Sika Gari
It was seen as a powerful place where those who patronized the shrine got their answers until the priestess of the shrine one day announced she was no more interested in the work of smaller gods but in the Almighty God.
Nana Agradaa, known in real life as Patricia Asiedua, has since burnt all the idols in her shrine after she confessed giving her life to Christ. The shrine was destroyed by a team of prayer warriors and powerful prophets selected by herself.
Some of her famous spiritual activities were the ‘Sika Gari’ where she claimed to double money for people.
Nana Agradaa christened her evangelism as ‘Agradaa Ministries International’ however some people believe her activities as a vessel of God are even worse than when she used to be a fetish priestess duping people in the process.
These are just a few of such shrines in Ghana; however, there are some community shrines in several parts of the country that people revere and go to for spiritual interpretations and powers.
According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of severe Covid cases and fatalities is on the decline.
It added that despite the fact that many people gathered with their families for the Lunar New Year holidays last week, there had been “no obvious rebound.”
Concerns have long been voiced regarding Covid reporting from China.
However, experts claim that the reported decline now fits with the anticipated timing of this major wave’s end.
The virus tore through Chinese cities and towns after authorities lifted zero-Covid restrictions in December. However, fever clinic visit rates have dropped over 90% through January, and hospitalization rates are down over 85%.
Fears that the virus could surge again during the festive period have also not yet been realised.
In its report, the CDC said: “There has not been an obvious rebound in COVID cases during the Lunar New Year holidays.”
“In this time, no new variant has been discovered, and the country’s current wave is coming to an end.”
It also reported a sharp decline in the daily Covid death toll reported by hospitals – from a peak of 4,300 deaths on 4 January to 896 deaths on 23 January.
Infectious diseases expert Hsu Li Yang told the BBC: “This drop in deaths follows the decline in the first huge wave of cases after China relaxed its restrictions, which is understandable and has been seen in virtually every country experiencing a large COVID wave.”
“We will know soon if the Lunar New Year celebrations will trigger another surge in China cases, but it is unlikely to match what was experienced in December and the earlier part of January 2023.”
One of China’s leading epidemiologists and former heads of the CDC, Zeng Guang, had earlier this month warned that cases would surge in rural areas during the new year.
However, the CDC said there had been no immediate spike following the holiday period.
It’s estimated that 226 million passenger trips were taken during the Lunar New Year festive season from 22-27 January – a 70% increase from last year when pandemic restrictions were still in place across many parts of China.
According to CDC data, Covid deaths halved in consecutive weeks in January. A total of 12,658 deaths were recorded between 13-19 January, while 6,364 deaths were recorded the following week.
In December, Beijing abruptly ended draconian Covid curbs that had seen millions of its citizens locked down over the past three years.
That led to a severe spike in Covid infections and deaths, with some experts estimating a majority of the population contracted Covid in the weeks following.
A Peking University study said that as of January 11, some 900 million people in China had been infected with the coronavirus, amid multiple reports of overcrowded hospitals and crematoria.
However, Chinese authorities initially maintained that there had only been seven deaths since the end of zero-COVID on December 7, after narrowing their definition of what counts as a COVID death.
The National Health Commission later reported almost 60,000 Covid-related deaths between 8 December and 12 January, after it began including deaths from underlying conditions as well as respiratory failure caused by Covid.
China’s official Covid data is believed to be vastly underreported, and authorities stopped releasing daily caseload reports last month.
Beijing has said it has been sharing COVID data in “a timely, open, and transparent manner in accordance with the law.”
According to authorities, an explosion at a mosque in the Pakistani city of Peshawar resulted in more than a dozen fatalities and numerous injuries.
At least 25 people were killed and at least 140 injured in the blast, a Peshawar police official told Al Jazeera.
The blast took place at the mosque where a large number of people had gathered for prayer, police official Sikandar Khan told Reuters news agency on Monday.
“A portion of the building had collapsed and several people are believed to be under it,” Khan added.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said emerging details suggested that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.
“The suicide bomber [was reportedly] sitting in the front row of the congregational prayer inside the mosque,” he added.
A 38-year-old police officer Meena Gul said he was inside the mosque when the bomb went off. He said he doesn’t know how he survived unhurt. He could hear cries and screams after the bomb exploded, he said according to AP news agency.
There were more than 150 worshippers inside the mosque when the bomb went off, Gul added.
Army soldiers and police officers clear the way for ambulances rushing toward a bomb explosion site, at the main entry gate of police offices, in Peshawar, Pakistan [Muhammad Sajjad/AP Photo]
As pressure over his tax affairs grew, Nadhim Zahawi was removed from office.
The investigation into Mr. Zahawi’s financial affairs, according to theprime minister, revealed a “serious breach of the ministerial code,” according to the prime minister.
After learning that Mr. Zahawi had paid a penalty to HMRC for previously unpaid tax while serving as chancellor, Rishi Sunak ordered the investigation.
According to Mr. Zahawi, HRMC acknowledged that the error was “careless and not intentional.”
In a letter to Mr Zahawi, Mr Sunak said the MP could be “extremely proud of your wide-ranging achievements in government over the last five years”.
He specifically cited Mr Zahawi’s work overseeing the Covid vaccine, saying it was “critical to ensuring our country came through this crisis and saved many lives”.
Mr Zahawi had come under increased scrutiny after he confirmed he had made a payment to settle a dispute with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
The BBC understands the dispute was resolved between July and September last year, when he was chancellor and in charge of the tax system.
The total amount paid was in the region of about £5m, including a penalty, the BBC understands.
On Monday, Mr Sunak had asked his independent ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, to look into the disclosures about Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs, saying there were “questions that need answering”.
In his findings, sent to Mr Sunak on Sunday morning, Sir Laurie said Mr Zahawi had shown “insufficient regard for the principles of the general principles of the ministerial code and the requirements in particular under the seven Principles of Public Life, to be honest, open and an exemplary leader through his own behaviour”.
“I also fully appreciate the pressures faced by ministers as they address the complex issues of government and the difficulties they encounter in balancing the demands of their personal lives and their ministerial responsibilities.
“These factors, however, cannot mitigate my overall judgement that Mr Zahawi’s conduct as a minister has fallen below the high standards that, as prime minister, you rightly expect from those who serve in your government.”
Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs have been a headache for the government for the past 10 days.
Rishi Sunak has argued that due process is important. But he’s faced accusations he was weak for not acting earlier to get rid of Mr Zahawi.
The PM got the report from his ethics adviser early this morning. He spoke to Mr Zahawi to tell him he was being sacked, then it was confirmed publicly.
The report from Sir Laurie Magnus left little room for any other conclusion than Mr Zahawi’s departure.
The police chief “permanently deactivates” the unit that included the five officers charged over the death of Tyre Nichols.
The city of Memphis in the United States has disbanded a police unit that included five officers charged with the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist.
Cerelyn ‘CJ’ Davis, the Memphis police chief, announced the move on Saturday, citing a “cloud of dishonour”.
Davis said in a statement it was imperative that the police “take proactive steps in the healing process” and that it was in “the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit”.
She said she made the decision after speaking with members of Nichols’s family, community leaders and other officers.
Her announcement came a day after harrowing videos emerged of the police beating Nichols. It showed the 29-year-old Black man repeatedly screaming “Mom!” as officers kicked, punched and struck him with a baton in his mother’s neighbourhood after a January 7 traffic stop. He was hospitalised and died of his injuries three days later.
Five Black officers involved in the beating were charged on Thursday with murder, assault, kidnapping and other charges.
All have been dismissed from the department.
Protesters marching through downtown Memphis cheered when they heard the unit had been dissolved. One protester said over a bullhorn that “the unit that killed Tyre has been permanently disbanded”.
The unit is composed of three teams of about 30 officers whose stated aim is to target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime.
It had been inactive since Nichols’s January 7 arrest and subsequent beating.
Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, lawyers for the Nichols family, said the deactivation was “a decent and just decision”.
“We must keep in mind that this is just the next step on this journey for justice and accountability, as clearly this misconduct is not restricted to these specialty units. It extends so much further,” they said.
Demonstrators gather during a protest in Times Square on Saturday, January 28, 2023, in New York City, in response to the death of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police during a traffic stop [Yuki Iwamura/ AP]
Nichols’s death is the latest high-profile instance of police using excessive force against Black people and other minorities.
The 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes, galvanised worldwide protests over racial injustice.
Rallies calling for justice for Nichols took place in cities across the US on Saturday. Several dozen demonstrators in Memphis blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River towards Arkansas, while crowds also marched in New York City, Los Angeles, California, and Portland, Oregon.
Human rights activists said the video of Nichols’s beating left many unanswered questions about the traffic stop.
“It just went to 100. … This was never a matter of de-escalation,” she said. “The young man never had a chance from the moment that he was stopped.”
Goss Andrews added that the video also raised questions about the other law enforcement officers who stood by as Nichols lay motionless on the pavement. “Nobody tried to stop anything,” she said. “They have a duty to intervene, a duty to render care.”
Davis, the Memphis police chief, told The Associated Press news agency that the department could not substantiate the reason for the stop.
“We don’t know what happened,” she said, adding, “All we know is the amount of force that was applied in this situation was over the top.”
Davis has said other officers are under investigation, and Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said two deputies were relieved of duty without pay while their conduct is investigated.
Rodney Wells, Nichols’s stepfather, said the family would “continue to seek justice”, and those who failed to render aid are “just as culpable as the officers who threw the blows”.
A Memphis police spokeswoman declined to comment on the other officers’ conduct.
Reverend Al Sharpton, a prominent human rights activist, said on Saturday that the beating was particularly egregious because the officers were also Black.
“Your Blackness will not stop us from fighting you,” Sharpton said in a speech in Harlem, New York. “These five cops not only disgraced their names, they disgraced our race,” he added.
Denial follows US accusations that North Korea had provided rockets and missiles to the Wagner Group, a Russian military contractor.
After the United States accused North Koreaof supplying rockets and missiles to the Russian Wagner Group and supporting Moscow’s forces in Ukraine, Pyongyang denied arming Russia.
In a statement released on Sunday, a senior North Korean official denounced the US accusations as “baseless rumour” intended to support Washington’s own military assistance to Ukraine.
As a result of the private military organization’s alleged weapons transactions with North Korea, which are forbidden by United Nations Security Council resolutions, the US designated Wagner as a “transnational criminal organisation” earlier this month.
The White House also showed what it said were US intelligence photographs of Russian rail cars entering North Korea, picking up a load of infantry rockets and missiles, and returning to Russia.
But the director general of the North Korean Department of US Affairs, Kwon Jong Gun, rejected the accusations on Sunday, warning that the US will face a “really undesirable result” if it persists in spreading the “self-made rumour”.
“Trying to tarnish the image of [North Korea] by fabricating a non-existent thing is a grave provocation that can never be allowed and that cannot but trigger its reaction,” Kwon Jong Gun said.
He added that the US move was “a foolish attempt to justify its offer of weapons to Ukraine”.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden promised 31 Abrams tanks, one of the US army’s most powerful and sophisticated weapons, to help Kyiv fight off Moscow’s invasion.
The move drew a rebuke Friday from Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who accused Washington of “further crossing the red line” by sending the tanks into Ukraine.
Kwon Jong Gun reiterated Pyongyang’s concerns over the tank transfer on Sunday, calling it an “unethical crime” aimed at perpetuating an unstable international situation.
Along with China, Russia is one of North Korea’s few international friends.
Russia, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has long held the line against increasing pressure on nuclear-armed North Korea, even asking for relief from international sanctions for humanitarian reasons.
Meanwhile, other than Syria and Russia, North Korea is the only country to recognise the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk, two Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.
In November, after the White House said Pyongyang was covertly supplying Russia with a “significant” number of artillery shells, North Korea said it had never had arms dealings with Russia and had no plans to do so.
26 opposition party members who were detained for hosting what the police claimed was an unlawful gathering were granted bail by aZimbabwean court on Friday.
Before a crucial election this year at a yet-to-be-announced date, fears of a crackdown on opposition politicians were stoked by the arrest of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) members, including two Members of Parliament.
“This confirms that the arrest was an abuse of process in the first place,” CCC spokeswoman Fadzayi Mahere told journalists outside court. “All this shows that the regime’s paranoia has reached fever pitch and they notice that they are staring defeat in the face.”
Zimbabwean police on Jan. 14 fired teargas at the CCC party gathering in Harare and arrested its members. The defendants’ lawyers argued that the arrests were unlawful as the gathering was at a private space.
Arguing against bail, prosecutors said the party had not sought clearance to hold the meeting. Zimbabwe laws require that political parties apply for approval from police two weeks in advance before holding a gathering.
The arrests came after a wave of politically motivated violence against opposition supporters in rural Zimbabwe, raising fears of repression ahead of this year’s presidential election.
The CCC, led by the youthful Nelson Chamisa, will battle President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF for the second time at the poll.
The opposition party, born out of the old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), enjoys massive urban support and is seen as a threat to ZANU-PF’s 43-year-old stranglehold on power.
Analysts caution that Netanyahu’s action could fuel the violence that has seen 32 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this month.
In response to the rising violence in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to make it simpler for Israelis to obtain firearms. This move is viewed as “collective punishment” and may lead to increased violence.
After calling a meeting of his security cabinet, which was populated by hardline politicians, in response to two shootings, including one in occupied East Jerusalem, Netanyahu announced the measure late on Saturday.
In the Friday shooting outside the East Jerusalem synagogue, seven people died.
The weekend shootings took place towards the end of a month of growing confrontation and follow an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin that killed nine Palestinians and exchanges of fire between Israel and Gaza.
In all, Israeli forces have killed 32 Palestinians this month.
Israel had not carried out a raid on the scale of its operation in Jenin in years, but it is part of intensified military incursions by the Israeli army into the occupied West Bank, which killed at least 200 Palestinians in the past year.
On Saturday, Netanyahu promised to expedite gun permits for Israeli citizens and to step up efforts to collect “illegal weapons”. He added that the homes of the suspected assailants would also be sealed immediately ahead of demolition “in order to exact an additional price from those who support terrorism”.
His office later said social security benefits for the families of attackers will also be cancelled.
In addition, it promised new steps to “strengthen” illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank but gave no details.
‘Breach of human rights’
Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said Netanyahu’s plans to approve more gun permits for Israeli citizens come as Israeli police were also encouraging those with existing licenses to carry their guns.
“While Netanyahu is urging Israelis not to take the law into their own hands, he’s also putting more weapons into those very same hands,” said Bays, who went on to describe the measures against the Palestinian families as “collective punishment” and “a clear breach of human rights”.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, said arming civilians in Israel could further escalate violence.
“They are trying to further arm already armed people in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Bishara said.
“More violence and more suffering will only play to the hands of the most extreme of the extremes [groups] in Israel and potentially in Palestine.”
A spokesperson for the Israeli military said an additional battalion had been sent to the occupied West Bank for reinforcement.
Analysts in Israel said Netanyahu was under pressure from hardliners in his cabinet, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The government in Israel is the most right-wing in Israeli history.
Ben-Gvir, who had pushed for more gun permits, said on Saturday that he would also push for the death penalty against “terrorists”.
“Itamar Ben-Gvir has a reputation of being a fireman and now Netanyahu is giving him a full container of oil,” said Akiva Eldar, a contributor to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.
“I am afraid that Netanyahu’s hands are tied. Between two evils, he has to decide which side he takes, and I am afraid that there is no responsible adult in his cabinet that can stop him,” Eldar told Al Jazeera.
The latest measures on Saturday were announced as tens of thousands of protesters also gathered in the city of Tel Aviv to protest separate plans by Netanyahu’s government, which took office in December, to overhaul the country’s judicial system and weaken the Israeli Supreme Court.
The marchers also held a moment of silence in memory of the Jerusalem shooting victims.
The increasing violence has meanwhile raised questions about a third Palestinian uprising.
Basem Naim of Hamas, the group that rules the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that they were ready to respond to further Israeli raids. He said the group was committed to defending its people and families, as well as Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
“We are not planning or initiating any escalation or any violence campaigns. We are also ready, at the same time, to respond [to attacks] as usual,” he said.
Naim said Hamas would seek its people’s freedom with all available means, including diplomatic, political and armed means.
The Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank also upheld its decision to halt security coordination with Israel to protest the deadly raid in Jenin.
After a meeting headed by President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority called on the international community and the United States to force Israel to halt its raids in the West Bank.
New recommendations for how pediatricians should handle childhood obesity have drawn some criticism in the US.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has advised children as young as six to receive intensive therapy, and those in their early teens to receive weight-loss medications or surgery.
However, some worry that this strategy will compromise living a healthy and active lifestyle.
In the US, one in five children is obese.
According to doctors, early intervention is necessary to avert chronic conditions like diabetes.
I meet Tracy and her 14-year-old daughter, Jaelynn, in a suburb of Washington. They live in a residential complex surrounded by highways and a few patches of green grass.
Tracy is upset – she’s just received the news that Jaelynn’s school is getting rid of the Physical Education class and replacing it with a health course taught in the classroom.
She’s worried because her daughter already doesn’t get much chance to move and socialise with her classmates. She thinks the new class will make it even more difficult.
Jaelynn tells me that last year she enrolled in a summer camp organised by the YMCA. She would go on field trips during the day and spend plenty of time outside.
“It was really fun,” she says. “I felt better, I felt healthier, and I loved making friends.”
Jaelynn has suffered from kidney disease since she was a child, and her being overweight negatively impacts her condition. But her mum says during the summer things started to improve.
“She lost twelve pounds in three months,” Tracy says. “Her nephrologist was really impressed that she could lose so much so quickly. Her health improved and her confidence as well.”
This change, Tracy tells me, showed her how important it was for her daughter to do activities outside.
For years, doctors have promoted a healthy lifestyle as the best way to fight childhood obesity. But in recent weeks the debate over this issue has reignited, as the American Academy of Paediatrics issued new guidelines for the first time in 15 years.
They say that eating well and exercising is not always enough.
“Medical treatment and prevention need to go hand in hand,” says Dr Nazrat Mirza, one of the authors of the guidelines.
“Obesity is a chronic medical condition and in addition to healthy lifestyle changes, we have shown that medication works, and surgery also works.”
Dr Mirza says the guidelines want to shatter the double standards that people with obesity face by making medical treatments readily available, like for any other condition.
“Just like asthma, just like hypertension,” she says. “In hypertension you would tell somebody to cut salt, but then the blood pressure is still high, so you’re still going to give them medication.”
But some doctors are concerned by the emphasis on intensive early intervention.
Dr Katy Miller works with teenagers struggling with eating disorders at Children’s Minnesota, and she fears these guidelines might be “setting kids up for a challenging relationship with their bodies”.
“We are proposing treatment strategies that are expensive and even in the best circumstances are often unsuccessful,” she says.
“How can we ask someone to diet when we’re not addressing things like poverty, food scarcity and housing instability?”
“I had a 15-year-old patient who had been told by doctors to lose weight,” she adds, “and his family has been living in extreme poverty. They had a change in their financial circumstances, and he said to me ‘do you know what the best part about having money is? You can buy fruit that isn’t mouldy’.”
On a cold grey day, I meet Julia. She’s a mum of three and she has just finished a year-long support group on healthy cooking organised by the YMCA.
Image caption,Mother of three Julia Guevara was diagnosed with high cholesterol and prediabetes during pregnancy
“I am the one who cooks at home,” she tells me proudly, “so if I cook healthy food, my family stays healthy.”
She was referred to the program because she had been diagnosed with high cholesterol and prediabetes during pregnancy. Her teenage son, she tells me, was starting to have health issues as well, and that motivated her.
While she cuts some fruit for her toddler, I ask her what she thinks of the new guidelines.
She shakes her head.
“As a parent, I’d first try changing the food we eat and getting my children to do sports,” she says.
“In our country, kids don’t have that many opportunities to exercise, and schools don’t have enough sports programs. Only if I had tried everything, would I consider it.”
On the opposite side of town, Tracy agrees. “Surgery and medication should be the last resort,” she says.
Flybe has cancelled all flights to and from the United Kingdom as a result of going into administration.
The airline “ceased trading,” according to a statement on its website, and advised any passengers expecting to fly with it not to go to the airport.
It added that it would not be able to assist travellers in finding substitute flights.
The affected parties will receive guidance and information, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The business, which was only relaunched in April of last year, has been taken over by administrators.
In March 2020, it announced it would cease trading, citing the coronavirus pandemic as a contributory factor.
The company was rescued after being bought by Thyme Opco, a firm linked to US hedge fund Cyrus Capital and subsequently renamed Flybe Limited.
The airline resumed operations in April 2022, with a plan to operate up to 530 flights per week across 23 routes.
Until the most recent collapse, Flybe operated flights on 21 routes from Belfast City, Birmingham, and Heathrow to airports across the UK as well as to Amsterdam and Geneva.
A statement published on the Flybe website early Saturday said the High Court had appointed joint administrators for Flybe Limited.
“Flybe has now ceased trading, and all flights from and to the UK operated by Flybe have been cancelled and will not be rescheduled,” it read.
“If you are due to fly with Flybe today [Saturday] or in the future, please do not travel to the airport unless you have arranged an alternative flight with another airline.”
It added that anyone who had booked a flight with the airline via an intermediary should contact that intermediary directly.
One passenger who was due to take a Flybe service this morning was Chris Donnelly, who was scheduled to fly from Belfast City to Heathrow at 07:25 GMT.
At 03:07 he received an email from Flybe which stated his flight had been cancelled and the company had gone into administration, advising passengers not to travel to the airport.
Mr Donnelly, a school principal and political commentator, was on his way to the airport when he saw the email.
Image caption,Chris Donnelly was on the way to the airport when he read an email about his cancelled Flybe flight
He was able to book an alternative flight from Belfast to Gatwick, but doing so at short notice was inconvenient.
He added that he had booked train tickets from Heathrow into central London costing £50, which were of no use to him now.
Matthew Hall, chief executive of Belfast City Airport, which has the highest number of Flybe staff in the UK, with 138 employees, said his thoughts were “with Flybe employees and passengers”.
He said anyone booked onto Flybe flights should not travel to the airport, and eight of its 10 Flybe routes were covered by other providers.
‘How are they making a profit?’
The airline also flew from Cornwall, with routes from Newquay to London Gatwick and Manchester.
Louis Gardner, economy leader for Cornwall Council, said the news had come as a “real shock” and efforts would be made to find other providers for the routes.
Seamus McCoy, who used Flybe regularly to travel between Newquay and London, told BBC Radio Cornwall: “Every time I’ve flown, I’ve always thought: ‘How are they making a profit?’ because the planes have never been more than 50% full.”
CAA consumer director Paul Smith said: “It is always sad to see an airline enter administration and we know that Flybe’s decision to stop trading will be distressing for all of its employees and customers.
“For the latest advice, Flybe customers should visit the Civil Aviation Authority’s website or our Twitter feed for more information.”
The government said its “immediate priority” would be to support anyone trying to get home and Flybe staff who have lost their jobs.
“This remains a challenging environment for airlines, both old and new, as they recover from the pandemic, and we understand the impact this will have on Flybe’s passengers and staff,” it said.
It said most destinations served by Flybe in the UK were accessible through alternative means of transportation.
Customers should “almost certainly” get their money back from their card issuer or travel agent, the Independent’s travel correspondent Simon Calder said.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “Of course finding alternative flights is going to be a problem, and they are going to be more expensive than the ones they originally bought with Flybe.”
He said while there had been a recent surge in demand for air travel, Flybe had “fairly thin pickings” of travel routes when it returned to operation, and had struggled with passenger loads on its flights.
The Sukhoi-30 and Mirage 2000 pilots are receiving assistance from rescue operations taking place in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
In an apparent midair collision that occurred during training about 300 kilometres (185 miles) south of the capital, New Delhi, two fighter jets of the Indian Air Force have crashed.
On Saturday morning, both aircraft took off from the Gwalior airbase, which is located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of where they crashed.
“We have located the wreckage of one of the planes and found an injured pilot in the Pahadgarh forests,” officer Dharmender Gaur told AFP news agency.
“The other plane has likely fallen further away from the site and we have sent teams to locate it.”
Meanwhile, local administrator Ankit Asthana told Reuters news agency two of the three crew members from one jet were rescued and rushed to hospital.
The status of the third crew member was not immediately clear, and no details were released on the crew of the second plane.
The aircraft that crashed in India’s Madhya Pradesh state were a Sukhoi-30 and a Mirage 2000, ANI news agency said in a tweet, citing defence sources.
Saturday’s is the latest in a string of aviation accidents involving India’s military air fleet.
Five army soldiers were killed last October when their helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh state, near the country’s militarised and disputed border with China.
It was the second military chopper crash in the northeastern state that month, coming weeks after a Cheetah helicopter came down near the town of Tawang, killing its pilot.
Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with murder following a traffic stop, and video of the incident shows them punching and kicking a driver for several minutes as he cries out for his mother.
Tyre Nichols, 29, is beaten by police in the videos from his arrest on January 7; there are no indications that he was resisting.
US Vice President Joe Biden described the “horrific” video as “deeply painful.”
Attorneys for Mr. Nichols’ family compared the assault to the 1991 beating by Los Angeles police of motorist Rodney King.
Peaceful protests took place in Memphis on Friday night after the video was released, with some demonstrators blocking a major highway in the city, while small-scale demonstrations were held elsewhere in the country.
Many protesters held banners demanding justice for Mr Nichols and an end to “police terror”.
This article contains descriptions of violence that some people may find distressing
Police initially said Mr Nichols had been stopped on suspicion of reckless driving, which has not been substantiated. He died in hospital three days later, on 10 January.
Mr Nichols was black, as are all five officers charged in the case.
Memphis Police Department released four graphic videos of the traffic stop and its violent aftermath on Friday, totalling more than an hour of footage.
Image caption,Mr Nichols died three days after an encounter with police at a traffic stop
The first clip shows officers pulling Mr Nichols out of his vehicle and shouting at him to get on the ground.
“Get on the [expletive] ground!” one officer shouts, as another is heard saying: “Tase him!”
An officer shouts: “Put your hands behind your back before I break your [expletive].”
“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Mr Nichols says to the officers. “I’m just trying to go home.”
Within seconds one of the officers fires a Taser at Mr Nichols, who leaps up and manages to run away.
A separate video, from a CCTV camera mounted on a utility pole, shows officers beating Mr Nichols after catching up with him in a residential area.
Two officers are seen holding Mr Nichols down while others take turns kicking and punching him and striking him with an expandable baton.
They drag him across the ground and prop him up against a squad car. More than 20 minutes elapse until an ambulance is seen arriving.
The third and fourth videos show police body camera footage of the beating, with Mr Nichols being held down, pepper-sprayed and assaulted as he repeatedly shouts: “Mom!”
The videos also show officers milling about recounting details of the incident as Mr Nichols lies slumped against the car.
Some of them claim Mr Nichols “swung” at them or reached for their guns, though neither allegation is clear from the released video.
Officers can also be heard saying that nothing was found in his car.
Mr Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, has said her son was only about 230ft (70m) from home when Memphis police officers “murdered him”.
Representatives of the family have described Mr Nichols as the father of a four-year-old son and a keen skateboarder who had recently enrolled in a photography class. He worked for the FedEx parcel delivery firm.
One of the lawyers, Antonio Romanucci, said: “This young man, by definition of the law in this state, was terrorised.”
Image caption,From left: Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean
The five officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith – were fired last week.
They were taken into custody on Thursday and each faces charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
Four of the five posted bail and were released from custody by Friday morning, according to jail records.
Lawyers for Mr Martin and Mr Mills have said their clients will plead not guilty.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis described the five officers’ actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane”.
With protests anticipated, she told US media that local officials had decided to release the video on Friday evening so that schoolchildren and commuters would have time to get home.
Dozens of protesters shut down a road bridge in the Memphis area on Friday night, while small-scale demonstrations were held in other US cities, including New York and Washington DC.
The protests around the country were largely peaceful, which Mr Nichols’ family had called for, saying they didn’t “want any type of disturbance”.
One protester at the Memphis rally, 21-year-old Kyrion, told the BBC he had dreamed as a child of joining the city’s police force, but now that dream was shattered.”It’s just wicked, the system is forever going to be wicked,” he said. “Which is why I’m out here today, as of right now I can’t count on [police] to protect me.
“How do I know the man is not going to put his knee into my neck, or hold me down and beat me into a pulp?”
New regulations that have been announced in state media seem to be intended to prevent any significant opposition to the military.
The strict new law on political parties that Myanmar’s military, which took control in a coup almost two years ago, has announced is likely to cause more concerns about the integrity of the elections that are scheduled for August.
The law, which repeals legislation from 2010, prohibits parties and candidates from supporting people or groups that have been “designated as committing terror acts” or are otherwise deemed to be “unlawful.”
Parties that want to contest the national election will also need to secure at least 100,000 members within three months of registration and have funds of 100 million Myanmar kyat ($45,500), 100 times more than previously. The money has to be deposited with the state-owned Myanma Economic Bank.
The law, signed by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, was published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar on Friday.
The military detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and seized power on February 1, 2021, in the wake of an election that returned her National League for Democracy to office in a landslide.
The generals claimed without evidence that there was fraud in the poll. International monitors who observed the November 2020 election found it to be largely free and fair.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains hugely popular, has been jailed for more than 30 years following secretive trials on charges from illegally owning walkie-talkies to corruption that critics say are designed to remove her from the country’s political life. Other senior members of her party, including removed President Win Myint, have also been tried and jailed.
Amid widespread international criticism of the coup and sanctions from the United States and other countries, the military initially announced it would hold new elections within a year. It then backtracked to say they would be held between February and August 2023.
The new law states any existing party must apply for registration within two months of the legislation being announced or be “automatically invalidated”. Parties can also be suspended for three years, and ultimately dissolved, for failing to comply with the provisions of the new law.
The legislation also says parties are not allowed to lodge an appeal against election commission decisions on registration.
The coup plunged Myanmar into a political crisis as the military’s brutal crackdown on anti-coup protests led civilians to take up arms and join forces with ethnic armed groups in the country’s border regions.
Nearly 3,000 people have been killed by the military since it seized power, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a civil society group monitoring the crackdown.
Thousands more have been detained with groups fighting against the military designated as “terrorists”.
Video footage of 29-year-old father Tyre Nichols being beaten by policein Memphis is being released later, with the city braced for protests. So what do we know about what is in it?
“Sickening” and “appalling” are just some of the words used by the few people to have already seen footage of Mr Nichols’s fatal encounter with police in the US city of Memphis, Tennessee.
He died in hospital days after being pulled over for alleged reckless driving, and struggling with five officers who have since lost their jobs and been charged with his murder.
Bodycam video of the arrest, which includes Mr Nichols calling out for his mother, is due to be made public on Friday.
Only a small number of people have seen it, including the family, their legal team and several officials.
Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for the Nichols family, described the father-of-one as being treated like a “human piñata” in the footage.
The arrest “was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes,” he said.
Image caption,Mr Nichols died three days after an encounter with police at a traffic stop
The video will be released in four parts from around 18:00 local time (00:00 GMT).
In all, there is thought to be about an hour of footage, including a few minutes of Mr Nichols interacting with thefive officers accused of his murder. There will be redactions to anonymise those not employed by the police or the city.
An audio file of the police radio, which has been shared by various US outlets, gives some indication of the struggle that took place.
While details have so far been limited, the hope is that the video will provide a clear picture of the sequence of events that ultimately led to Mr Nichols dying.
This is what we know about the events of the night of 7 January which the video is expected to depict:
Mr Nichols, a black man, was stopped by five officers, who are also black, on his way home after taking photos of a sunset at a local park, an attorney for the family said
He was pulled over for alleged reckless driving, at which point the first confrontation occurred
A second confrontation took place after Mr Nichols fled on foot, and officers caught up with and tried to arrest him
Mr Nichols later complained of shortness of breath and was taken to hospital, where he was listed in a critical condition
Officials said Mr Nichols “succumbed to his injuries” on 10 January but provided no further details. An official cause of death has not yet been disclosed
At another press conference, David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said he was “sickened” by what he had seen.
The city’s police chief Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman to hold the role in Memphis, recalled hearing Mr Nichols “call out for his mother” in the video.
“The disregard for humanity… that’s what really pulls at your heartstrings,” she told CNN.
The five officers are in custody facing the same charges: second degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
Poland will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine on top of the 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged, the Polish prime minister said in an interview with Canadian television.
Warsaw, which has positioned itself as one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies, had pressed hard for Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and to allow other countries to do so as well, a demand which Berlin agreed on Wednesday.
Zelenskyy thanked the Polish prime minister on Twitter; in Polish, he wrote, “Thank you, Andrzej Duda, Mateusz Morawiecki, Mariusz Blaszczak, Jacek Siewiera, and the nation of Poland for such important decisions to hand over 60 Polish tanks to Ukraine, 30 of which are the famous PT-91 Twardy and 14 Leopard-2 tanks. Like 160 years ago, we are together, but this time the enemy doesn’t stand a chance. Together, we will win!”
The International Olympic Committee says it will “explore a pathway” for athletes fromRussia and Belarus to compete in the Paris Games.
However, Ukraine has warned that ,if Russian and Belarusian athletes are permitted to compete in the Paris Games, it will boycott the 2024 Summer Olympics.
According to the Ukrainian sports minister, Vadim Guttsait, Russian and Belarusian athletes shouldn’t participate in international competitions as long as there is a war in Ukraine.
Russia’s major ally, Belarus, served as a staging area for Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
After the International Olympic Committee (IOC) declared it would “explore a pathway” for athletes from the two countries to compete as neutrals, Guttsait made his remarks.
“Work is currently under way on further possible steps and first steps to continue sanctions and prevent Russians and Belarusians from international competitions,” Guttsait said in a post on Facebook.
“If we are not heard, I do not rule out the possibility that we will boycott and refuse participation in the Olympics,” he added.
Guttsait, who is also the president of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee, added that talks with national sports federations over a possible boycott had already begun.
IOC ‘disregarding Russian war crimes’
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, many international sports bodies have suspended Russian and Belarusian teams or athletes in protest against the war. Others have been permitted to compete under a neutral flag.
Just days after Russia launched its offensive on February 24, the IOC had urged sporting governing bodies and organisers to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from international events.
But on Wednesday, in an apparent change of course, it said the possibility of athletes from the two countries competing in sporting events as neutrals should be “further explored”.
“No athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport,” the IOC said in a statement following a meeting of its executive board.
Following that announcement, the Olympic Council of Asia said on Thursday it had offered athletes from both countries the chance to compete in this year’s Asian Games, giving them a qualification pathway for the Paris Games through Asia rather than Europe, where they could face boycotts and hostility.
The move was met with dismay and anger in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday that Russia should have “no place” in the Olympics.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also weighed in, urging all “sports figures to make their stance known”.
“[The] IOC has been disregarding Russian war crimes, claiming that ‘No athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport’, while Ukrainian athletes continue to be killed by Russia because of their passports,” Kuleba said.
‘The wrong path’
There was no immediate response from the French government, but other European countries backing Ukraine in the war also criticised the IOC’s decision.
British Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said the organisation’s stance was “a world away from the reality of war being felt by the Ukrainian people”.
In Germany, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called it “the wrong path”.
But in Russia, there was praise for the IOC’s approach from Igor Levitin, an aide to President Vladimir Putin and senior vice president of the Russian Olympic Committee.
“I think it is already a success. Olympic society understands that the Olympic Games cannot be staged without Russia,” Levitin was quoted as saying by the state-owned TASS news agency.
“We wish to reiterate that we hope and pray that the conflict comes to an end, that no more lives are taken, and that we can run sports and politics separately,” Andrew Parsons, the IPC’s president, said in a statement.
The Paris Games are scheduled to take place from July 26 to August 11 next year.
In an effort to further its goal of transforming Africa’s largest economy into a cashless society and saving the nation foreign transaction fees, Nigeria’s central bank has launched a domestic card programme to compete with foreign cards like Mastercard and Visa.
Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), made the announcement on Thursday. The CBN had previously introduced the e-naira, Africa’s first digital currency, in October 2021.
Emefiele stated during the virtual launch of the AfriGo card programme that even though card payments have become more prevalent in Nigeria over time, many people are still left out.
“The challenges that have limited the inclusion of Nigerians include the high cost of card services as a result of foreign exchange requirements of international card schemes and the fact that existing card products do not address local peculiarities of the Nigerian market,” he said.
Emefiele said Nigeria was joining China, Russia, India and Turkey in launching a domestic card scheme. AfriGo is owned by CBN and Nigerian banks.
The operations of international card service providers like Mastercard and Visa would not end, he said, as AfriGo is meant to provide more options for domestic consumers in a “cost-effective and competitive manner”.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, has more than 200 million people and the majority still use cash because they live in rural areas where there are no banks.
To promote “financial inclusion” in remote areas, the central bank announced last week the launch of a cash swap programme introducing a redesigned version of the local currency, the naira.
In relation to alleged sexual offences, 98 officers from the second-largest police force in England are either under investigation or will face misconduct hearings.
This makes 1.2% of 8,000 officers he Greater Manchester Police (GMP).
After Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick recently admitted raping nine women, all forces have been asked to check their staff.
According to GMP, all complaints are “extremely seriously” considered and “objectively investigated.”
Kate Green, the newly-appointed deputy mayor for policing in Greater Manchester, said the figure of 98 officers being accused of sexual misconduct was “very, very disturbing.”
The number, which was revealed at a police and crime panel meeting on Thursday, included 82 police officers under investigation and 16 police officers awaiting a misconduct panel hearing.
Ms Green told BBC Radio Manchester: “That represents a small minority of GMP but we don’t want a single officer in our police service who is abusing their public office.
“I think it’s not different from wider society – we know we still have real issues around gender-based violence and misogyny.
“If we’ve got one officer responsible for this kind of behaviour, it means everyone loses trust in all of our policing and we can’t have that.”
‘Fully assessed’
Dismissals of GMP officers for sexual offences or misconduct more than doubled in the past twelve months, from five in 2021 to 12 in 2022, the force said.
Following Carrick’s guilty plea, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) asked forces to check staff recruited before the introduction of tougher vetting in 2006.
Ms Green said GMP was “absolutely determined to root out every single officer who is responsible for this kind of sexual abuse” and they would be dismissed.
Image caption,Deputy Mayor for Policing Kate Green says the number of officers being investigated is “very disturbing”
“Where people believe officers have acted wrongly, I encourage them to make a complaint and assure them that all complaints are ethically recorded, fully assessed, and investigated objectively.”
US forces have reportedly killed 10 of Bilal al-Obaida’s Sudanese operatives and an Islamic State leader in northern Somalia, according to American officials.
After US special forces raided a remote mountainous cave complex in an effort to seize him, he was killed.
According to Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, “Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa.”
Mr. Austin added that he is also accused of funding the group’s operations around the world.
Analysts say the fact that US troops were sent under orders of President Joe Bidento kill or capture Sudani, rather than using a less risky drone strike, indicates his significance.
Details about the nature of the operation have not been released, however the soldiers were drafted in via helicopter, according to the New York Times with Sudani killed after a gunfight broke out.
The operation comes after President Biden redeployed hundreds of US troops to the country after his predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled them out. However, those forces are reportedly only there to train Somali soldiers, rather than conduct operations.
In recent years, the Islamic State group has reportedly expanded its activities into several African countries, including Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
However Islamic State is a relatively small group in Somalia, with the al-Qaeda linked group al-Shabab far more prominent – it controls many southern areas.
Prior to joining Islamic State, Sudani allegedly did operational work for al-Shabab, assisting with training fighters.
He is accused of playing a “financial role with specialized skills which made him an important target for US counterterrorism action,” an anonymous US official told the AFP news agency.
The operation to target Sudani is said to have taken months to plan.
Somalia has welcomed the killing of Sudani, according to the Voice of America news site.
“It’s a very positive and welcoming,” said Somali government security adviser Hussein Sheikh Ali.
He stressed that Islamic State was not as big a threat as al-Shabab in Somalia, but that Sudani was “dangerous”.
“The message is, that the leaders of all terror groups in Somalia are not safe,” he continued.
IS Somalia is one of the group’s smaller branches – claiming 32 attacks in 2022, mostly in the capital of Mogadishu.
One UN report from last year estimated the number of Islamic State fighters in Somalia was around 200 to 280 and that the country is used as a significant base to finance IS activity in Iraq and the Levant, but this has not been independently verified by the BBC.
Just last week IS published a rare propaganda video from its Somalia branch, which showed combat footage of clashes with Somali forces in a mountainous region in the north-eastern Bari region.
The raid comes less than a week after the US said a drone strike had killed 30 al-Shabab militants.
In recent months, pro-government forces in Somalia have been making progress against al-Shabab.
In response to rocket fire, Israel has launched airstrikes on Gaza as tensions rise following a deadly army raid in the occupied West Bank.
According to Israeli reports, six rockets were fired, and Israel responded by attacking what it claimed were militant sites.
No one on either side was reported to have been injured.
After nine Palestinians were killed in the Jenin raid, which Israel claimed was carried out to stop “imminent terrorist attacks,” militants threatened to retaliate.
Two rockets were fired around midnight (22:00 GMT Thursday) but were intercepted by Israel’s anti-rocket Iron Dome system, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. Air strikes swiftly followed, targeting what the IDF said was an “underground rocket manufacturing site” in the central Gaza Strip belonging to the Islamist militant group Hamas, which governs the territory.
A second salvo of rockets was fired hours later, landing in open ground, shot down or falling back down in Gaza, the military said. Israel subsequently hit a site which it said was “a significant centre of Hamas terrorist activities” in the northern Gaza Strip.
No group admitted to firing the rockets, though Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks from Gaza.
The overnight exchange followed the deadliest incident of its kind in years after Israeli forces entered the West Bank city of Jenin to arrest an Islamic Jihad “terror squad”. The IDF said it was acting on accurate intelligence about plans by the cell to attack Israelis.
Forces surrounded a building in the city’s urban refugee camp where an intense gun battle erupted. Israel said three armed suspects were “neutralised” after they opened fire, while a fourth suspect surrendered. The IDF said troops were shot at by other Palestinian gunmen and returned fire, hitting targets.
The militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and Hamas said their fighters had targeted the troops with gunfire and improvised explosive devices.
The Palestinian health ministry said two civilians, including a 61-year-old woman, were among those killed. Twenty people were also wounded, four of them seriously, it said.
The Palestinian presidency accused Israel of a “massacre” and later announced it had ended co-ordination with Israel on security matters.
A 10th Palestinian was meanwhile shot and killed during a confrontation with Israeli troops in the town of al-Ram, near Jerusalem, as residents protested against the Jenin raid, Palestinian officials said.
At least 30 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in theWest Bank so far this year, including militants and civilians, as the military continues operations there.
Last year in the West Bank more than 150 Palestinians were killed, nearly all by Israeli forces. The dead included unarmed civilians, militant gunmen and armed attackers.
A series of attacks by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs targeting Israelis, as well as militant gunfire at troops during arrest raids, meanwhile killed more than 30 people including civilians, police and soldiers.
They wanted to know if the FBI had additional information to support a ban in their state amid dire warnings by the law enforcement agency’s leadership and Republican governors that the Chinese-owned app posed serious threats to privacy and national security.
“Good morning gentlemen. We’re looking for any recommendations on TikTok after Maryland moved to ‘ban’ its use,” Jeff Brown, the chief information security officer for Connecticut, said in an email to a contact at the FBI on December 7.
“Our logic is captured below, but we’d be interested in your thoughts. Appreciate any feedback,” Brown said in the email, which was also sent to contacts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Homeland Security.
Brown included in his message an email chain in which he and Mark Raymond, Connecticut’s chief information officer (CIO), expressed agreement that Maryland’s ban appeared to be a case of “overreach”.
Offered a chance to provide additional information in support of a ban, the FBI contact declined.
[Connecticut Department of Administrative Services]
“I asked one of my analysts to reach out to our HQ,” the FBI agent, who leads a team in Connecticut focused on cybercrime, said in an email to Brown.
“She emailed me towards the end of the day to say that she couldn’t find evidence that we had any additional information to share.”
Maryland and other states that had announced TikTok bans appeared to have “based their decisions on news reports and other open source information about China in general, not specific to Tik Tok,” the FBI agent quoted his analyst as saying.
“Sorry we don’t have more to offer,” the FBI agent said.
The CISA contact, a cybersecurity adviser for Connecticut, told Brown he had “no additional” information and would recommend deferring to the guidance of the FBI.
Al Jazeera obtained the Connecticut state government emails, along with emails from several other state governments, after submitting public records requests with the 50 US states and the District of Columbia.
Cybersecurity officials in Connecticut last month asked the FBI for advice on banning TikTok [File: Yuri Gripas/Reuters]
Raymond, the Connecticut CIO, ultimately determined that the risk of TikTok was “low” based on the fact that, among other criteria, he had received no information suggesting Tiktok had misused data, concerns about the app appeared to have nothing to do with the platform itself, and a ban could “drive additional Chinese cyber activity and interest in Connecticut.”
He recommended that Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, “take no action at this time” but continue to monitor the situation.
[Connecticut Department of Administrative Services]
When contacted by Al Jazeera for comment, Raymond said protecting state networks is an “extremely high priority for us”.
“We regularly review security threats against the state and act as warranted,” he said. “We are supportive of national action on topics that may threaten our national security and continue to work with all our partners on the most appropriate recommendations for our state.
The episode in Connecticut, which has not been previously reported, stands in contrast to the dire public warnings FBI Director Christopher Wray has made about TikTok.
Wray has repeatedly warned that China could use TikTok to “manipulate content” to carry out influence operations and steal personal data for espionage purposes.
“All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States,” Wray told a University of Michigan event last month. “That should concern us.”
In response to a request for comment, the FBI National Press Office directed Al Jazeera to past comments by Wray in which he said the agency is advising the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) amid its discussions with TikTok on ways to address national security fears and expressed concern about the Chinese government forcing companies to hand over sensitive data.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has repeatedly described TikTok as a national security threat [File: Graeme Jennings/pool via Reuters]
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which has its headquarters in Beijing and is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, argues that the FBI’s warnings about the app relate to purely hypothetical concerns and no evidence has been presented of wrongdoing.
ByteDance has long insisted it would never share user data with the Chinese government and says it is working to address hypothetical national security risks as part of a deal it is negotiating with CFIUS.
“As we have said before, these state and university bans are not driven by specific intelligence about TikTok and are driven by misinformation about our company and our service,” TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter told Al Jazeera.
“We stand ready to fully brief state and local officials about our comprehensive plan to address national security concerns, plans developed under the oversight of our nation’s top national security agencies.”
Even as bans on TikTok gather steam, tech experts — and even some government officials, as in the case of Connecticut — acknowledge there is little technical evidence to justify the level of fear and anxiety the video-streaming platform, one of the world’s most popular apps, has inspired.
Instead, most arguments for restricting the app have rested on broader mistrust of Beijing, including fears the Chinese government could access users’ personal data or manipulate public opinion for nefarious ends.
“We haven’t seen any evidence that TikTok is a greater risk than any other social media platform,” Cliff Lampe, a professor of information at the University of Michigan, told Al Jazeera.
“The sole concern expressed is that its main owner is a Chinese company — even though most TikTok traffic in the US is managed on US servers. The logic is that the Chinese government could importune TikTok for private user data.”
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has denied claims that the popular app poses a threat to privacy or national security [File: Dado Ruvic/Illustration]
While the Trump administration first put TikTok in the crosshairs in 2020 with proposals for an outright ban, efforts to stymie the app gained momentum after South Dakota announced its ban in November last year.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem claimed the Chinese Communist Party used the app to “manipulate the American people” and said her state would have no part in the “intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us”.
Among Republicans, the party affiliation of Noem and other governors that rolled out early bans appears to have had some influence in persuading other states to follow suit.
In December last year, the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee (RGPPC), a public policy organisation for promoting conservative policy at the state level, sent out a newsletter to Republican-led state governments highlighting recent bans in South Dakota, South Carolina, Maryland and Texas.
“Within the past week, four Republican governors banned or limited the social media platform, TikTok, on state devices,” Zach Swint, a senior policy adviser for the RGPPC, wrote in the December 7 newsletter.
In North Dakota, which banned TikTok on state devices on December 13, the newsletter prompted the chief of staff to Governor Doug Burgum to request state cybersecurity officials to “quickly determine if we have any state devices using TikTok and if we should consider an action like other governors below”.
“Please expedite this and send a recommendation as quickly as possible,” Jace Beehler said in an email dated December 8.
Lampe, the University of Michigan professor, said that states appear to have looked to each other for lessons on how to handle TiKTok “given their lack of expertise in the area”.
“The danger of that, however, is that if the legislation is misguided then it will replicate itself quickly with little critical examination. My sense is that part of this is that legislatures are mostly run by older people, who may see a youth-oriented social platform as banal, so the danger of being too strict is low.”
Bipartisan concerns
At least 28 US states, including Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia, have introduced bans on TikTok for government devices so far. While a majority are led by Republican governors, Democratic-led states such as Wisconsin and North Carolina have also rolled out bans, which have increasingly attracted bipartisan support.
In December, US President Joe Biden signed legislation containing a ban for federal government devices, while a number of Republican politicians are pushing legislation to ban the app outright. Universities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Georgia and Iowa have in recent weeks also announced bans for official devices.
Marc Faddoul, codirector of AI Forensics, a European non-profit that researches the mechanics of TikTok, said that concerns that the app has access to large amounts of personal data and could be used to sway public opinion are both reasonable and mired in hypocrisy.
“The concerns, I think, are legitimate but I think the US government’s position is hypocritical because the same concern is true for any other country with respect to the American platforms,” Faddoul told Al Jazeera, adding that it is also important to acknowledge that the US government has more respect for democratic norms than its Chinese counterpart.
“The US government could and has in the past leverage their power, their domestic companies for national security interests and could in the context of a war make use of it potentially to filter to promote specific types of information.”
Faddoul said discussions should focus more on protecting user data across the industry instead of just TikTok alone.
“I do believe that a better approach is to do something that is systematic for the whole industry in terms of data protection laws,” he said.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has not announced restrictions on TikTok [File: Jessica Hill/AP]
Even as a majority of US states have rolled out TikTok bans, some state officials have expressed ambivalence about the app.
In some cases, state governments have carved out exemptions in recognition of the app’s usefulness for some official business.
In Utah, which banned TikTok on state devices on December 12, officials at the Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services sought an exemption to allow some staff to access the app, emails obtained by Al Jazeera through a public records request show.
In South Carolina, one of the first states to announce a ban, officials retroactively introduced changes to allow “identified” law enforcement personnel to access TikTok, according to emails obtained via a public records request.
In New Jersey, where Democrats control the governorship and both branches of the legislature, the state’s top cybersecurity official last month expressed a preference for restricting the app to “separate and isolated devices” rather than a total ban, according to emails revealed by Al Jazeera last month. New Jersey, like most other Democratic-led states, has yet to publicly announce restrictions on the app.
Some states appear to have preferred a quiet approach to limiting the use of TikTok.
In Michigan, Caleb Buhs, the state’s director of communications, told colleagues TikTok would be added to a list of social media platforms not approved for official use from the following month, emails show.
Michigan has not yet announced a ban on the app and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s governor, continues to operate a TikTok account where she regularly posts videos.
Sara Collins, an expert in data protection and consumer privacy at the non-profit Public Knowledge, said TikTok’s links to China deserve scrutiny, but the controversy around the app has distracted from the broader lack of privacy protections in the internet age.
“Given China’s authoritarian government and its control of its corporations mean that TikTok rightly deserves additional scrutiny,” Collins told Al Jazeera.
“However, the discourse surrounding the TikTok bans have mostly moved away from addressing specific risks and become a convenient way for politicians to signal they are anti-China. TikTok, like all social media platforms, collects enormous amounts of data about its users. As we have seen with other major tech companies, this constant surveillance can cause harm.”
The biggest luxury brandin the world reported healthy sales fueled by the holiday shopping season.
LVMH claimed that despite geopolitical unrest and a high cost of living, they had a second consecutive record year for revenue and profits.
In the last three months of the year, sales increased by 9% to almost $25 billion (£19.9 billion).
Strong growth experienced by the company in the US, Europe, and Japan offset losses incurred in China as a result of COVID lockdowns.
In Asia, LVMH did experience a 20% drop in growth in the first nine months as the world’s second largest economy doubled down on its zero-COVID policy.
However, LVMH chairman and chief executive Bernard Arnault said he felt cautiously optimistic about “green shoots” in China.
“We have every reason to be confident, indeed optimistic about China,” Mr Arnault said at the group’s earnings presentation.
He pointed to their Macau stores as a sign of what could come. “Business is back, the Chinese are buying,” he said.
LVMH brands include Tiffany’s, Christian Dior, Sephora, Hennessey and Moët.
Its designer label Louis Vuitton did exceptionally well. Its revenue surpassed $21.7bn for the first time. The label recently launched a new collaboration with Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, who is known for her art made of colourful dots.
LVMH’s earnings are viewed by analysts as a bellwether in the luxury market.
Bain and Company said they see a boost in spending on personal luxury goods overall.
“The personal luxury market is projected to see further growth of at least 3-8% next year, even given a downturn in global economic conditions,” according to a report from the consulting company.
Earlier this month, LVMH made changes to its leadership staff. Mr Arnault, one of the world’s richest men, appointed his daughter as the head of the fashion house Dior. Delphine Arnault, 47, replaced Pietro Beccari – who took over as chief executive of Louis Vuitton.
All five of Mr Arnault’s children hold management positions at brands in the group.
iNCOVACC, a product of Bharat Biotech, is a nasal drop that triggers an immune response in the tissues lining the nasal cavity.
A spray-based Covid vaccine for inhalation was authorised in China in September 2022.
In the lining of the nose and upper airways, where Covid typically enters the body, nasal vaccines, according to scientists, may provide supplemental immunity.
Nasal spray vaccines have also been the subject of investigation by research teams in the US and the UK.
In November, India’s drug regulator approved the use of iNCOVACC as a heterologous booster dose – a booster for people who had previously received two doses of Covishied or Covaxin, the two main Indian vaccines – in emergency situations among adults.
In December, it was approved by the drug regulator as a primary vaccine and as a subsequent booster shot in adults.
The vaccine will cost 800 rupees ($10; £8) per dose in private hospitals and 325 rupees per dose in government hospitals and can be booked on the government’s online platform. Two doses are to be taken 28 days apart.
iNCOVACC uses a adenovirus as a carrier for the genetic code that teaches the body how to fight the infection. Adenoviruses used in the vaccines are harmless transporters which have been modified so they cannot replicate or cause infection.
Dr Krishna Ella, chairman of Bharat Biotech, told ANI news agency that the vaccine was “easy to deliver” as it didn’t need a syringe or needle, and that it produced a broader immune response as compared to injectable Covid vaccines.
India has administered over two billion Covid jabs so far. More than 70% of the Indian population has taken at least two doses, according to the federal health ministry.
In January 2022, India began giving boosters to healthcare and frontline workers, and those above 60 years with comorbidities. It was later expanded to all adults. However, the pace of booster doses administrated has been slow.
Kuala Lumpur has declared that it is “appalled” by the recent recurrence of Islamophobic acts in the two European nations.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Swedish and Dutch embassies in Kuala Lumpur to protest the recent destruction of the Quran in both nations. Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned “in the strongest terms” the desecration of the Quran by a far-right activist in the Netherlands.
The ministry’s statement on Friday was directed at Dutch far-right leader Edwin Wagensveld, who on Sunday tore pages from a Quran and trampled them in front of the parliament in The Hague.
On Thursday, the foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s envoy to express theMalaysian government’s “objection and disappointment” with Sweden for not taking action to stop Rasmus Paluda, a Danish far-right political leader, from burning a Quran on Saturday near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
“Malaysia is appalled that such an Islamophobic act has been repeated within the last few days despite global condemnation,” the ministry said.
“Malaysia reiterates that bigotry, racism and any form of desecration of the Holy Scriptures, regardless of religion is unacceptable and should be condemned,” it said.
The right to freedom of expression involves “certain responsibilities and should not be abused”, the ministry said, calling on the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the UN’s Human Rights Council to “urgently address” the issue of protection of religious scriptures around the world.
The foreign ministry pressed Sweden on Thursday to take “serious measures to combat all forms of violence and hatred against Islam”.
Failing to do so would allow Islamophobia and xenophobia to continue to prevail, the ministry said in a statement after its meeting with the Swedish charge d’affaires.
Local media in Malaysia reported that groups of protesters had gathered on Friday at offices housing the embassies of Sweden and the Netherlands to protest the desecration of the Quran. Estimates of the numbers of protesters ranged from dozens to 100 and possibly as many as 1,000, according to one report.
Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said anger generated by the burning of the Quran had not diminished and the protesters had marched to the Swedish embassy to hand in a protest note.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had also weighed in on the matter, according to Looi, describing the desecration of the Quran as a “vile act” a “hate crime” and a “grave provocation to Muslims worldwide”.
Azmi Abdul Hamid, president of the Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organisation, said there would be international consequences for what had taken place.
“You cannot say that this is a small matter. This will have an international repercussion,” he said at the protests.
Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said anger generated by the burning of the Quran had not diminished and the protesters had marched to the Swedish embassy to hand in a protest note.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had also weighed in on the matter, according to Looi, describing the desecration of the Quran as a “vile act” a “hate crime” and a “grave provocation to Muslims worldwide”.
In New Jersey, a 29-year-old woman has been detained on suspicion of pretending to be a high school student.
Police have charged the woman, Hyejeong Shin, with enrolling in New Brunswick High School using a false identification.
Before teachers learned her age, Ms. Shin had been a student at the school for four days.
Police are looking into the situation, according to school officials, and the district’s enrollment procedure will be examined.
The matter was brought up at a local education board meeting on Tuesday, when Superintendent of the New Brunswick Public School District Aubrey Johnson informed the audience that Ms. Shin had been discovered at the institution.
The matter was brought up at a local education board meeting on Tuesday, when Superintendent of the New Brunswick Public School District Aubrey Johnson informed the audience that Ms. Shin had been discovered at the institution.
“Last week, by filing some false documents, an adult female posing as a student was able to be enrolled in our high school,” Mr Johnson said.
He added that she had been in a few classes and spent some time with guidance counselors, who tried to find out more information about her.
Ms Shin’s false age was then uncovered, Mr Johnson said, and the school immediately notified police.
She has since been arrested for providing a false birth certificate “with the intent to enroll as a juvenile high-school student,” the New Brunswick Police Department has said.
Students said the woman had texted some of them, asking them to hang out.
One told CBS New York that the girls “never showed up, and she [Ms Shin] started acting weird with them”.
This is not the first time an adult has been caught posing as a high school student.
A man named Brian MacKinnon posed as a fifth-year student in a high school near Glasgow in 1993 when he was 30 years old. He claimed to be a 17-year-old from Canada.
MacKinnon remained enrolled at the school for a whole year. He was exposed a year later when he was a student at Dundee University’s medical school, after a newspaper reported on his real identity.
His story drew worldwide attention and was the subject of a 2022 documentary film.
The Treasury Department has placed restrictions on 16 organizations, including the Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute.
The company has offices in Beijing and Luxembourg and is also known as Spacety China.
Wagner provides Russia with thousands of fighters for the conflict in Ukraine.
Spacety According to a statement released on Thursday by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, China had given Terra Tech, a technology company with offices in Russia, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images of locations in Ukraine.
“These images were gathered in order to enable Wagner combat operations in Ukraine,” it said. The department has also sanctioned Spacety’s Luxembourg-based subsidiary.
Under the sanctions, there can be no transfer, payment, or export of any property or interests in the United States to the targeted entities.
Spacety China has yet to respond to the move.
China, a close ally of Russia, has attempted to position itself as a neutral party with regard to the Ukraine war. It has been criticised by the US and its allies for refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On its website, Spacety China describes itself as a “pioneer” in providing commercial SAR technology and says it wants to “make SAR imagery of every point on earth accessible and affordable” to users all over the world.
SAR is a type of radar technology that can deliver higher resolution images using shorter antennas.
The site also lists a number of working partners, including state-owned enterprises such as China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, as well as the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Image caption,On its website, Spacety China describes itself as a “pioneer” in providing satellite technology
In addition to Spacety China, 15 other entities, eight individuals and four aircraft – many of them based in Russia – that allegedly form part of Wagner’s global support network also received US sanctions.
These include Sewa Security Services based in central Africa and Kratol Aviation based in the United Arab Emirates, which allegedly provided aircraft to move personnel and equipment between central Africa, Libya and Mali.
Wagner now commands some 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, according to estimates from the White House. The organization plays a key role in Russia’s war efforts, and has been heavily involved in attempts to capture Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine.
“Today’s expanded sanctions on Wagner, as well as new sanctions on their associates and other companies enabling the Russian military complex, will further impede Putin’s ability to arm and equip his war machine,” said US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
President Joe Biden is pleading with demonstrators in Tennessee to keep their demonstrations peaceful as authorities prepare to release video of an arrest that resulted in the death of a motorist.
Tyre Nichols, 29, was severely beaten, according to bodycam video of the encounter that will be released on Friday, according to the family’s attorneys.
After Mr. Nichols passed away a few days after a traffic stop on January 7, five now-fired police officers are being charged with murder.
Police in Memphis have increased patrols amid reports that the city is on edge.
“I’m sickened by what I saw,” Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch said on Thursday after reviewing the footage, describing the officers’ actions as “absolutely appalling”.
Image caption,From left: Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean
Mr Nichols, a black man, was stopped by five police officers, who are also black, on his way home after taking photos of a sunset at a local park, an attorney for the family said.
Officials say he was suspected of reckless driving.
A first confrontation occurred as Mr Nichols attempted to flee on foot when officers approached his car, the local authorities said.
They said a second confrontation happened when officers tried to arrest him.
Mr Nichols later complained of shortness of breath and was taken to hospital, police said, where he was listed in a critical condition.
A lawyer for Mr Nichols’ family said the bodycam footage showed Mr Nichols being pepper-sprayed, struck with a stun gun, restrained and kicked.
He likened the incident to the notorious footage of Los Angeles police officers beating black motorist Rodney King more than 30 years ago.
All five of the officers face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were booked into jail on Thursday. They all joined the Memphis Police Department in the last six years, and were fired last week.
‘Failing of basic humanity’
President Biden released a statement on Thursday appealing for calm as authorities prepare to release the footage on Friday evening, local time.
“I join Tyre’s family in calling for peaceful protest,” he said. “Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable.”
The city’s police chief, Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman in that role in Memphis, also called for calm amid what she said was a “failing of basic humanity toward another individual.”
“He was a human piñata,” lawyer Antonio Romanucci said of its contents. “It was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes.”
In a news conference on Thursday, lawyers for two of the ex-officers said their clients planned to fight the charges.
“No-one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die,” said a lawyer for one of the men.
Officials said Mr Nichols “succumbed to his injuries” on 10 January, but provided no further details. An official cause of death has not yet been disclosed.
His family say he will be remembered as a “good kid” who enjoyed photography and skateboarding.
The father-of-one, who worked at the parcel delivery company FedEx, had Crohn’s disease and suffered severe weight loss, relatives say.
Reverend Al Sharpton, a US civil rights leader, told the BBC the alleged crime was particularly painful because of the officers’ race.
“We fought to put blacks on the police force,” he said. “For them to act in such a brutal way is more egregious than I can tell you.”
Watch: Emotional testimony by residents over deadly traffic stop
“I do not believe these five black police officers would have done this had he been a young white man,” he added.
California-based trial lawyer Adanté Pointer said instances of black men being killed by black officers rarely make the news.
“This case exemplifies that it is not simply a white versus black issue, but instead that this is a power dynamic that plays itself out no matter the race of the police officers,” he told the BBC.
The officers involved are members of a special team known as Scorpion – short for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods”.
The unit, which was created to police high-crime areas, is now under review, along with all of the city’s specialised units, according to the city’s police chief.
This week, the threats were faxed to colleges and high schools from a Tokyo-registered number.
Police say they have not discovered any explosives in school buildings, and there have been no reports of attacks on students or staff to date.
In Japan, which is renowned for having a low crime rate, bomb threats are uncommon.
The first wave of messages began on Monday, reaching schools and universities across the country. In one prefecture, Saitama, more than 170 schools received bomb threats, according to officials.
Local media reported that one message claimed that over 330 bombs had been set up, while another read: “I planted a major bomb.”
Some reports said the messages demanded ransoms ranging from 300,000 yen (£1,870; $2,320) to 3 million yen.
On Tuesday, messages threatening to kill students and teachers with homemade weapons were sent from the same number to high schools in various prefectures including Osaka, as well as Saitama and Ibaraki near Tokyo.
The threats saw many schools in Japan shutting down as a precaution, though most had re-opened by Thursday.
France has granted a request from the military authorities of Burkina Faso to remove all of its personnel from the nation.
Burkina Faso claims it wants to defend itself as it fights an Islamist insurgency at the moment.
Currently stationed in Burkina Faso are 400 French special forces, who have one month to leave.
France announced on Thursday that it would also summon its ambassador to the nation for consultations.
Burkina Faso’s junta had demanded the ambassador’s replacement over his comments about the country’s deteriorating security situation.
Last year French troops also left neighbouring Mali, where they had spent eight years fighting jihadists.
France has kept close military links with many of its former colonies in West Africa and has been helping several of them fight jihadists who are active across the region under the now terminated Operation Barkhane.
Some 3,000 French soldiers are still deployed in West Africa, mostly in Niger and Chad.
Its continued ties, especially economic, have led to some resentment of its influence, which Russia has tapped into.
Both Mali and the Central African Republic are now working with the Russian mercenary group, Wagner.
Burkina Faso has denied reports it will also engage the Wagner Group against the jihadists but a liaison team from the mercenaries has already visited, according to the AFP news agency.
A French foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed that the Burkinabè government had sent a written request for its troops to leave.
“We will respect the terms of the agreement by honouring this request,” the spokesperson said.
Burkina Faso has been hit by a decade-long insurgency that has forced nearly two million people from their homes.
Most recently, suspected jihadists kidnapped around 60 women who were foraging for food in the north of the country, and at the start of the month bodies of 28 people who had been shot dead were found in the north-western town of Nouna. The women have since been released.
The president of Ukraine thanked Western leaders for sending tanks to aid in the conflict with Russia, but he urged that they be delivered as soon as possible.
Volodymyr Zelensky also implored the West to send fighter jets and long-range missiles in his nightly address.
After the US and Germany said they would send Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine, he made his remarks.
The announcement was denounced by Russia as a “blatant provocation,” and any tanks supplied would be totally destroyed.
The tanks would “burn like all the rest,” said Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. “They are just very expensive.”
Mr Zelensky said he told Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that “progress must be made in other aspects of our defence co-operation” – with Ukraine seeking supplies of long-range missiles and artillery.
He pressed not only for a prompt delivery of Western tanks but also for significant numbers: “We must form such a tank force, such a freedom force that after it strikes, tyranny will never again rise up.”
While Mr Zelensky is likely to focus now on equipping the Ukrainian air force with more technologically advanced fighter jets after securing the tanks, many Western governments remain opposed to such a move – fearing the aircraft could be used to strike targets inside Russia.
In his speech to the Bundestag in Berlin on Wednesday outlining the details of the tanks plan, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted there would be “no fighter jet deliveries to Ukraine”.
US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that the US would send 31 M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine.
The decision to deliver the tanks was announced hours after Germany said it would send 14 of its Leopard 2s to the Ukrainian battlefield.
Berlin also cleared the way for other European countries to donate German-made tanks from their own stocks.
Ukraine has lobbied Western allies to send the equipment for months.
It hailed the twin announcements as a turning point that would allow its military to regain momentum and take back occupied territory almost a year after Moscow invaded.
It also said the tanks could help deter a potential Russian offensive in the spring.
Watch: Biden says tanks are not an offensive threat to Russia
Announcing the decision to put its tanks on the battlefield, US President Joe Biden said Mr Putin had expected Europe and the United States to “weaken our resolve”, adding: “He was wrong from the beginning and he continues to be wrong.”
“We’re also giving Ukraine the parts and equipment necessary to effectively sustain these tanks in battle,” he said.
“This is about helping Ukraine defend and protect Ukrainian land. It is not an offensive threat to Russia.”
A Ukrainian tank battalion typically consists of 31 tanks, which is why that number has been agreed upon, Mr Biden added.
The US decision, however, marks a reversal in their position as the Biden administration has insisted for some time that the heavy M1 Abrams tanks would be difficult to deliver, expensive to maintain and challenging for Ukrainian troops to operate.
The US-made military vehicle is one of the most modern battle tanks in the world and requires extensive training to operate.
The $400m (£323m) US package also includes eight recovery vehicles that can tow the tanks if they become stuck, as well as ammunition, equipment, and funding for training and maintenance.
But it is likely to be many months before the tanks reach the battlefield.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said there were no excess Abrams tanks in the US inventory. As such, they will have to be purchased from private contractors or bought from another country,
The German-made Leopard 2 tanks, however, will be drawn from existing inventories and are expected to arrive in two to three months. They are widely seen as one of the most effective battle tanks available.
The decision to send the heavy weapons follows weeks of diplomatic wrangling. Germany faced mounting international pressure to send the tanks, and there are reports that the eventual decision to do so was conditional on the US doing the same.
When asked if the US decision was designed to give Germany cover to send tanks, Mr Kirby said: “I wouldn’t use the word cover. What this decision does do is show how unified we are with our allies.”
He attributed the change in Washington’s position to the conditions on the ground as well as Russia’s tactics, without giving further details.
Ukrainian crews would soon be trained to use the Leopard tanks in Germany, officials in Berlin said.
While the acquisition of tanks from the West will be considered a diplomatic coup for Mr Zelensky, he said on Tuesday that his country required at least 300 of them to defeat Russia.
Several European countries have Leopard 2 tanks in their inventories, and the German decision means some of these can also be sent to Ukraine. Germany hopes around 90 will ultimately be delivered to the battlefield.
Poland wants to export 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and Norway announced later on Wednesday that it would send some of its armoured vehicles – although it did not state how many.
The UK was the first Nato member to donate modern tanks to Ukraine when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government announced that 14 Challenger 2s – the British army’s main battle tank – would be provided.
After spraying the deodorant in her bedroom, 14-year-old Derby resident Giorgia Green suffered a cardiac arrest.
Since then, her parents have learned of other cases of young people who unintentionally choked to death on deodorant.
The British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association (BAMA) responded by stating that deodorants have “very clear warnings.”
By law, aerosol deodorants must be printed with the warning “keep out of reach of children”.
However, Giorgia’s parents said the writing is small.
They believe many parents buy deodorant for their children without noticing the warning.
“People don’t know how dangerous the contents of those tins can be,” said her father Paul.
“I would like it so that no-one else in the country – or the world – would end up having to go through what we’ve personally gone through.
“We don’t want our daughter’s death to be in vain.”
Giorgia had autism and her father said she liked to spray deodorant on blankets as she found the smell comforting.
“The smell of it gave her a certain sense of relaxation,” said Mr Green.
“If she was feeling in any way a little bit anxious, she would spray this spray and it would give her a sense of comfort because it’s a deodorant my wife used.”
Giorgia’s older brother found her unresponsive in her bedroom on 11 May 2022.
“Her door was open, so it wasn’t as if it was an enclosed environment,” said her father.
“At some point her heart stopped as a result of breathing it in.”
An inquest was held into Giorgia’s death and the coroner recorded the conclusion as misadventure.
Her medical cause of death was “unascertained but consistent with inhalation of aerosol”.
Image caption,RoSPA said it is a “common misconception” that people only die when abusing aerosols
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), “deodorant” was mentioned on 11 death certificates between 2001 and 2020.
However, the actual number of deaths is likely to be higher than this, due to the fact that specific substances are not always mentioned on death certificates.
Giorgia’s death certificate referred to “inhalation of aerosol” rather than “deodorant”.
Butane – the main ingredient of Giorgia’s deodorant – was recorded as having been involved in 324 deaths between 2001 and 2020. Propane and isobutane – also in Giorgia’s deodorant – were mentioned in 123 and 38 deaths respectively.
The ONS said the substances have been linked to a number of deaths, noting: “The inhalation of butane or propane gas can lead to heart failure.”
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said a number of people have died after over-spraying deodorants.
Ashley Martin, public health adviser at RoSPA, said: “It’s easy to assume they are completely safe and totally free from risk. The truth is they’re not.
“Inhaling large quantities of aerosols, not just deodorants, can lead to a whole host of life-endangering scenarios – from blackouts and breathing difficulties, to heart rhythm changes and sadly, death.
“There’s a common misconception that fatalities from aerosols only happen in a substance abuse scenario, but this is absolutely not true.
“We have seen a number of fatalities over recent years where children and young adults have over-sprayed aerosols – from teenagers conscious of body odour, to children seeking reassurance from familiar smells.”
What warnings are printed on aerosol deodorants?
Image caption,Giorgia’s parents believe warnings need to be clearer
By law, aerosol deodorants must be printed with the warning “keep out of reach of children”.
Most aerosol deodorants also have a warning that says “solvent abuse can kill instantly”. This is not a legal requirement, but is recommended by BAMA due to the risk of people inhaling aerosols to intentionally get high.
Giorgia’s parents believe the warning should be changed to “solvent use can kill instantly”, because Giorgia was not abusing deodorant.
Aerosol deodorants must also contain instructions on their correct usage, which are written following risk assessments carried out by the manufacturer. For example, the instructions might say “use in short bursts in well-ventilated places”.
If an aerosol deodorant is flammable there must also be a warning about this.
Image caption,The British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association said it was “deeply saddened” to learn of Giorgia’s death
BAMA said in a statement: “The British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association (BAMA) takes very seriously any incident involving aerosol products, and we were deeply saddened to learn of the death of someone so young.
“As an industry association we work with manufacturers to ensure that aerosols are made to the highest safety standards and are labelled with very clear warnings and usage instructions and recommend that anyone using an aerosol does so in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.
“We also recommend applying a number of additional warnings and usage instructions, beyond those required by regulation, and continue to review these to encourage the safe use of aerosols.”
During the weekend, Operation Hadin Kai troops in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno were able to capture at least 100 Boko Haram terrorists.
On January 23, 2023, in Damboa, Borno state, troops from the 25th Task Force Brigade nullified a number of ISWAP terrorists as part of Operation Hadin Kai.
Along the road from Damboa to Maiduguri, the terrorists attempted to ambush the soldiers who were on fighting patrol in Komala village.
One Guntruck, MRAP, and three motorcycles were confiscated from the terrorists. ISWAP terrorists have continued to suffer strings of humiliating defeats at the hands of Nigerian troops. On January 13, the troops eliminated several of the terrorists and destroyed their MRAPs when they attacked their own troops in Azir.
In early January, Boko Haram took control of the operational bases of the Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP, forcing 11 leaders and militant clerics to flee.
Three organisations, 22 people, a think tank, and eight UK officials have all been blacklisted by the foreign ministry in Tehran.
Iran has increased its sanctions against individuals and organisations from Europe for “supporting terrorism” and “fomenting unrest” inside Iran.
On Wednesday, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs blacklisted three entities and 22 individuals from the European Union, as well as one entity and eight UK officials.
The European Friends of Israel in the European Parliament, Radio J, and the Heberger construction company were singled out for “participation in the construction of factory equipment” for allegedly being used to produce chemical weapons used in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
It also blacklisted several members of the European Parliament, city officials, police and military commanders, and three executives of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which recently published a string of caricatures mocking Iranian leaders.
Two Dutch far-right political leaders, Rasmus Paludan and Edwin Wagensveld, were sanctioned for “insulting the holy Quran”.
In the United Kingdom, Tehran blacklisted the Henry Jackson Society think tank in addition to the prosecutor general, several senior current and former military and intelligence officials, and a prisons authority chief.
The new measures are similar to several rounds of previous sanctions announced by Tehran, the latest of which came last month. They include entry bans into Iran and confiscation of any assets the targets may possess in the country.
The measures were announced two days after the EU and UK hit dozens of Iranian officials and entities with sanctions.
The EU, however, has said moving forward with a proposal to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp as a “terrorist” organisation faces legal challenges.
Tehran has harshly condemned the proposal, which was one of several that were overwhelmingly ratified in a resolution by theEuropean Parliament last week.
It is reported that about 600 French soldiers were deployed to take part in a military drill at a NATO battlegroup in Romania.
The aim was to test the 30-nation military alliance’s readiness on its eastern flank amid Russia’s war in neighbouring Ukraine.
The drill at a training range near Romania’s eastern town of Smardan on Wednesday involved some 200 military vehicles, including four French Leclerc battle tanks that practiced firing live ammunition.
A French serviceman takes part in an exercise at a training range in Smardan, eastern Romania (Vadim Ghirda/AP)
Romania’s defense ministry said the main purpose of the exercise was to train the battlegroup “on the rapid deployment capability and execution of a combat mission” within a collective NATO defense operation.
The Leclerc tanks used are the same model French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday he asked his defence minister to “work on” possibly sending to Ukraine.
Kyiv has persistently requested tanks from its western allies to help its war efforts.
After much hesitation, that request was finally granted by Germany on Wednesday when Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government would provide German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks and also approve requests by other countries to do the same.
A French serviceman stands on a Leclerc main battle tank during the exercise (Vadim Ghirda/AP)
In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Nato bolstered its presence on Europe’s eastern flank, including by sending additional multinational battlegroups to alliance members Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia.
This month, the alliance deployed two surveillance planes to Romania, from where they will fly missions for several weeks to monitor Russian military activity near Nato’s borders.
The Awacs aircraft, which Nato refers to as its “eyes in the sky”, belong to a fleet of 14 usually based in west Germany.
Since the war started, Awacs have patrolled regularly over eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea region to track Russian warplanes.
According to the GMB union, about 300 employees at Amazon’s warehouse in Coventry went on strike in protest of a “derisory” 5% pay increase to £10.50 per hour.
Workers complained to the BBC about “severe” working conditions, saying they are constantly watched and reprimanded for taking “idle time” that only lasts a few minutes.
A system “that recognises great performance” exists, according to Amazon.
If an employee isn’t meeting their performance goals, it “also encourages coaching to help them improve,” a spokesman said.
Two Amazon workers, who are members of the GMB, said the robots in the warehouse “are treated better than us”.
Darren Westwood and Garfield Hilton described to the BBC how even a trip to the toilet can lead to questions by managers.
“The thing with stopping work is that they want to know why,” said Mr Hilton. “So if the time is beyond a couple of minutes they can see it on the system.”
‘They will question you’
Mr Hilton, who has diabetes, said it is not always possible to find toilets close by in the building and the process of locating one and returning can sometimes take upwards of 15 minutes.
“They will then question you, ‘what were you doing?’”
Image caption,Amazon workers in Coventry voted in December to take strike action
The men said that managers track staff performance, and time that is not spent scanning items is accrued.
Workers at the Coventry warehouse scan stock which is sent out to Amazon fulfilment centres, to be shipped to consumers.
Instead of scanning, workers might be asked to handle pallets. “So when there’s problems with a pallet or a box, that time will accrue,” said Mr Westwood.
“Technically it could add up to 30 minutes. [The managers] will come down and say, ‘during today, you’ve had 34 minutes of idle time. What were you doing?”
A spokesman for Amazon said: “Performance is only measured when an employee is at their station and logged in to do their job.
“If an employee logs out, which they can do at any time, the performance management tool is paused.”
But Mr Westwood and Mr Hilton said some colleagues were working 60-hour weeks to keep up with the cost of living.
Mr Hilton said that he has seen workers falling asleep on the short bus ride to Amazon’s warehouse. “There’s a huge amount of them in the building virtually in ghost mode.”
He said Amazon wants “every minute in that building to be maximised”.
“You have to look at it this way, if the box with the product is not moving, you’re not making money. This is Amazon. If there’s a problem with a box, it’s a loss-maker. If the box leaves a building it is making money.”
In August, Amazon offered UK workers a 5% payrise, which was worth 50p outside London and the South East.
Inflation, the rate at which prices rise, is at a 40-year high, putting pressure on household budgets.
Bogdan, who is 29, has worked for Amazon since 2015. He said after workers put their health at risk to work during the height of the pandemic, the pay offer “insulted” staff.
He said one reason for striking was the public needed to “understand what is going on” behind the scenes every time they make an order.
He claimed Amazon portrayed an image that “everything is fine”, but he added: “It’s actually not true.”
Image caption,Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos, seen here with his partner Lauren Sánchez, has a $120bn fortune
An Amazon spokesman said it was “proud” of its “competitive” pay rates. He said the starting pay for workers was £11.45 an hour in London and the South East, and £10.50 an hour in the rest of the UK.
He said this marked a 29% increase in the minimum hourly wage paid to Amazon employees since 2018.
But union members want to be paid £15 an hour. Mr Westwood said the 50p offer was “a smack in the mouth”.
“These people had worked two years through the pandemic, that had seen Amazon’s shares go through the roof. They had seen the profits just become unimaginable,” he said.
Amanda Gearing, a senior GMB union organiser, told the BBC’s Today programme that Wednesday’s strike action would have a “massive impact” on the Coventry warehouse.
‘Only the start’
Of the 1,500 workers at Amazon’s Coventry site, around 300 will walk out, the union says.
“Coventry might be the start [of the strikes], but it won’t be the finish,” Ms Gearing said from the picket line. “We know there are workers in other centres that feel exactly the same.”
She added: “People are having to choose between heating their homes and… eating really, so it’s not good enough, not from someone like Amazon that’s got billions and billions of pounds of profit during the pandemic.”
Amazon’s global sales and profits soared as Covid restrictions forced people to shop online. Between 2019 and 2020, profits nearly doubled to $21.3bn (£17.2bn) and rose again the following year to $33.3bn.
Growth has been uneven since economies have reopened and after taking on thousands of staff since 2019, Amazon is now laying off 18,000 workers worldwide.
Mr Westwood said “people might think we’re being greedy” by asking for £15 an hour. But he pointed to Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, executive chairman and space adventurer, who has a $120bn fortune according to Forbes magazine.
“We don’t want his boat or his rockets,” said Mr Westwood. “We just want to be able to live. I just want to be able to pay my bills at the end of the week. That’s all we’re asking for.”
Image caption,Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin, a “space tourism” business
Amazon said a “tiny proportion” of its workforce was involved in the industrial action. It said “only a fraction of 1%” of its UK employees voted in the ballot, which included those who voted against industrial action.
But Mr Westwood said the numbers were “brilliant”. Amazon does not recognise unions but, according to the GMB, there are members scattered throughout the UK in varying numbers.
Amazon has been battling against unionisation in the US.
More than half of the 8,000 workers at a warehouse on Staten Island, New York, voted to join the Amazon Labor Union which has now been officially certified. However, the company has vowed to appeal the certification.
Mr Westwood said there was a huge range of different nationalities who work at Coventry. “They don’t understand this is the UK – we can organise a union, we can protest, we can withdraw our labour,” he added.
“[Our workers] need someone. I know it’s going to be a long slog, but these people need someone who’s not frightened. And I’m not frightened.”
According to the Chinese government, Washington should stop pressuring Beijing to reduce Zambia’s debt and instead concentrate on preventing a domestic government default that might have an impact on the world economy.
“The biggest contribution that the US can make to the debt issues outside the country is to cope with its own debt problem and stop sabotaging other sovereign countries’ active efforts to solve their debt issues,” the Chinese embassy in Zambia said in a statement on Tuesday.
The US government has a cap of $31.4 trillion on how much it can borrow, and it reached that limit on Thursday.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen implemented “extraordinary measures” to ensure the US government can continue paying its bills in the short term and then travelled to Africa. On a visit to Zambia, she said it was crucial for the country to address its heavy debt burden with China.
The country failed to make a $42.5m bond payment in November 2020, becoming Africa’s first sovereign nation to default during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s taken far too long already to resolve this matter,” Yellen said on Monday.
Washington is trying to woo African nations as the influence on the continent of its rivals Russia and China grows.
During her visit to Africa, which also included Senegal and South Africa, Yellen pushed to expand US trade and business ties.
“The United States is all in on Africa, and all in with Africa,” Yellen said on Friday in Dakar as she touted the fruits of a new “mutually beneficial” US economic strategy towards Africa.
In responding to Yellen, China zeroed in on the battle between Republican lawmakers and Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration over raising the US debt limit to allow more borrowing to keep the government running.
“Even if the US one day solves its debt problem, it is not qualified to make groundless accusations against or press other countries out of selfish interests,” the Chinese embassy statement said.
Chinese development banks have emerged as major lenders to poor countries around the world for natural resources, transport and power projects although that lending has fallen sharply and steadily since 2016, according to Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.
New loan commitments dropped to eight projects totalling $3.7bn in 2021, down from a peak of 151 projects worth $80bn in 2016, according to data compiled by the centre.
At present, 22 low-income African countries are either already in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress, according to the UK-based Chatham House. Chinese lenders account for 12 per cent of Africa’s private and public external debt, which increased more than fivefold to $696bn from 2000 to 2020.
Washington has repeatedly expressed concern in recent weeks over Beijing’s alignment with Moscow as Russia wages its invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in December said he expected his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit in 2023. If it were to take place, analysts say the visit could be interpreted as a public show of solidarity amid the war in Ukraine.
He also blamed the US for the deterioration in relations between the world’s two largest economies, saying Beijing has “firmly rejected” Washington’s “erroneous China policy” of applying pressure on trade and technology and criticising China over human rights and its claims to a broad swath of the Western Pacific.
While the US is finalising plans to send about 30 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, Germany has agreed to send Leopard 2 aircraft to that country.
Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, has approved sending its Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine.
The announcement coincides with rumours that Washington is preparing to send dozens of M1 Abrams tanks to the front lines in Ukraine.
The United States had been on the fence, just like Germany.
While Washington cited the logistical and maintenance difficulties the Ukrainians might encounter if they were to receive the Abrams, Berlin worried about the war’s potential to escalate.
Both armoured vehicles are considered state-of-the-art and are more powerful than many Soviet-era tanks fielded by both Russian and Ukrainian forces.
“The Leopard and American Abrams are actually twins,” Sydney Freedberg, contributing editor of the digital magazine, Breaking Defence, told Al Jazeera.
The Leopard 2 was first produced in 1979 by Krauss-Maffei for the German Ministry of Defence.
They are in service with the armies of Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Turkey.
The first M1 tank was manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) in 1978 and was delivered to the US Army in 1980.
“They are very similar. Big vehicles, heavily armoured. Much better protected than anything the Soviets built, or anything the Russians currently have,” said Freedberg.
The main difference between the Abrams and the Leopard is the engine.
The Leopard 2 has a diesel-powered MTU MB 873 engine, which is much easier to maintain and more widely used across Europe, while the Abrams uses a more powerful and more complex turbine engine.
According to Freedberg, because the Abram tanks are used significantly less across Europe, Ukraine may struggle to cope with logistic infrastructure such as obtaining spare parts, warehousing and general maintenance. The four-person tank will also require additional training on the complex machinery.
Russia’s ambassador to the US said the possible delivery of Abrams tanks to Kyiv by Washington would be “another blatant provocation” against Moscow and that the West would regret its “delusion” that Ukraine can win on the battlefield against Russia.
According to Alex Gatopoulos, Al Jazeera’s defence analyst, the latest-generation main battle tanks are vital for Ukraine if it wants to punch holes in Russian defensive lines and retake territory that Russian forces seized in the opening weeks of the invasion.
Southern Ukraine is flat and ideal tank territory. Russia has been building rows of trenches and fortified bunkers to stop a Ukrainian advance in the area.
In a Ukrainian offensive, tanks and troops protected by infantry fighting vehicles like the American Bradley, German Mardar and even the Russian-made BMP-2 would advance.
Amazonian indigenous communities are under attack as corporate interests aggressively expand their operations.
As illegal gold miners threaten them with violence and obstruct the delivery of supplies like food and medicine to their troubled region, Brazilian officials claim that the Yanomami Indigenous people are forced to live in appalling conditions.
Weibe Tapeba, the Indigenous Health Secretary, stated on Tuesday that the government needs to remove the miners, some of whom are heavily armed, from a section of the Yanomami reservation close to the Venezuelan border.
“It looks like a concentration camp,” Tapeba said of the Yanomami’s living conditions in a radio interview. “It’s an extreme calamity. Many Yanomami are suffering from malnutrition and there is a total absence of the Brazilian state.”
Under former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, critics have said the government largely stood by as Indigenous rights were violated and forests were torched, allowing business interests to illegally extend their reach into the Amazon.
An April 2022 report by the Hutukara Yanomami Association found a 46-percent increase in the area of land on the Yanomami reservation that was scarred by “garimpo”, or wildcat gold mining, in 2021.
Tapeba also said that an invasion of about 20,000 illegal gold miners contaminated rivers and their fish with mercury, poisoning a food source for the Yanomami and causing children to lose their hair.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections and was sworn in earlier this month, visited the region last weekend after photos were published of Yanomami children and elderly so malnourished that their ribs were protruding.
Lula has promised to crack down on illegal business activity in the Amazon, protect Indigenous communities and reverse the massive deforestation that proliferated during Bolsonaro’s time in office.
On Monday, Justice Minister Flavio Dino also stated that there was “evidence of genocide” that was under investigation.
“Health teams cannot get here because of the heavily armed bandits. This can only be resolved by removing the gold miners, and that can only be done by the armed forces,” said Tapeba, who was appointed by Lula’s government.
The group Survival International warned in December that malnutrition among the Yanomami was reaching critical levels, citing a report by UNICEF showing that children under the age of five were dying of preventable disease at 13 times the national average.
In a statement, Survival International director Fiona Watson called the situation “a deliberate, man-made crisis, stoked by President Bolsonaro, who has encouraged the mass invasion and destruction of the Yanomami’s lands”.
Bolsonaro’s government, which was in power from 2019 to 2022, has faced widespread criticism for turning a blind eye to illegal activities in the Amazon, leading to increased violence as the interests of loggers, miners and other illicit operations clashed with Indigenous people and land defenders.
In October 2021, the Catholic Church’s Indigenous Missionary Council said there were 182 murders of Indigenous people in 2020, compared with 113 murders in 2019, a 61-percent increase.
On Monday, Brazilian authorities said that a fish trader was likely behind the 2022 assassination of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Amazon.
The suspect, Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, allegedly ordered the murders because Pereira, a former employee of Brazil’s federal Indigenous agency FUNAI, was causing losses to his illegal fishing operation.
Deforestation also reached dizzying heights during Bolsonaro’s tenure, increasing 150 percent in December over the previous year. Bolsonaro, a noted agribusiness ally, had pushed for development in the Amazon as a way to increase economic activity and address poverty.
In response to the musician’s anti-Semitic remarks, pressure has increased to deny him an entry visa if he attempts to travel to Australia.
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, the famous rapper, may not be granted a visa to enter Australia because of his anti-Semitic remarks, according to a minister in the Australian government.
In response to media reports that the American celebrity planned to visit the family of his new Australian partner Bianca Censori in Melbourne the following week, Australia’s Education Minister Jason Clare issued a statement on Wednesday.
Clare said he was unaware of Ye’s visa application but noted that anti-Semitic individuals have previously been denied entry to Australia.
“I don’t know if he’s applied for a visa yet but google it and you’ll see that it seems like he’s a pretty big fan of a person who killed six million Jewish people last century,” Clare told the Today show on Australia’s Nine Network television.
“People like that who’ve applied for visas to get into Australia in the past have been rejected. I expect that if he does apply, he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions they did.”
A spokesperson for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Seven Network News reported that Ye and Censori intend to visit her family who live in the northeast Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe next week.
Last month, Ye praised Hitler in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Twitter suspended Ye after he tweeted a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David. Ye has also been dropped by major corporate partners, including Adidas, over his comments.
Australia’s Migration Act sets security and character requirements for non-citizens to enter the country. Any decision on whether Ye gets an Australian visa would be made by Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, whose office said he could not comment on individual cases due to privacy reasons.
Australia has previously refused or revoked visas to far-right figures for failing the “good character” test. British conspiracy theorist David Icke had his visa revoked in 2019, just before starting a speaking tour.
Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, a male-only group who identify as “Western Chauvinists”, was denied a visa in 2018 after a public campaign that included a petition with 81,000 signatories, according to local media.
Australia’s opposition leader Peter Dutton said if he were in government, he would be inclined to bar Ye on character grounds.
“My inclination would be not to allow him in,” Dutton told Melbourne’s Radio 3AW on Tuesday.
“His conduct and his behaviour is appalling, and he’s not a person of good character,” Dutton said.
The Liberal Party’s David Coleman said on Wednesday the decision to deny Ye a visa should be “easy”.
No way Kanye West passes the character provisions of the Migration Act. Easy decision for @andrewjgiles if he applies for a visa.
Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, met government officials on Tuesday to argue for Ye’s entry ban.
“We had a sympathetic hearing,” Wertheim said on Sky News.
In his new memoir, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned that in February 2019, India and Pakistan were “close” to a “nuclear conflagration.”
Following an assault on Indian troops in Kashmir, Delhi launched airstrikes against militants in Pakistani territory.
At that time, Pakistan claimed to have downed two Indian military aircraft and captured a fighter pilot.
Kashmir is a region that both India and Pakistan claim as their own but only partially govern.
India has long accused Pakistan of backing separatist militants in the Kashmir valley – a charge Islamabad denies. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars since independence from Britain and partition in 1947. All but one were over Kashmir.
In Never Give An Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, Mr Pompeo says he does not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019″.
“The truth is, I don’t know precisely the answer either; I just know it was too close,” he writes.
Mr Pompeo says he will “never forget the night” he was in Hanoi at a summit “negotiating with the North Koreans on nuclear weapons” when “India and Pakistan started threatening each other in connection with the decades-long dispute over the northern border region of Kashmir.”
After the attack on Indian troops that killed more than 40 soldiers – “an Islamist terrorist attack… probably enabled in part by Pakistan’s lax counter-terror policies”, according to Mr Pompeo – India had responded with air strikes inside Pakistan. “The Pakistanis shot down a plane in a subsequent dogfight and kept the Indian pilot prisoner.”
