History has been made in the diplomatic relationship between the United States and communist North Korea as President Donald Trump says he has been speaking directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. President Trump told visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe that the US has started direct talks with the DPRK at “very high levels.”
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will begin his 12 year prison term from Friday, after a judge gave him 24 hours to surrender to police. The order from Judge Sergio Moro, head of Brazil’s huge “Car Wash” anti-graft probe, came as a complete surprise given that lawyers had earlier said the leftist former two-term president had at least until Tuesday before he’d have to go behind bars. Lula, 72, was once one of the most popular politicians on the planet and he easily leads polls in Brazil’s…
An 18-year-old Nigerian teenager, Israel Ogunsola has been stabbed to death in Hackney, London on Wednesday night. The deceased was said to be Facebook friends with a teenage girl killed in London earlier this week, Sky News reports. Ogunsola was said to have approached police suffering from knife wounds shortly before 8pm on Wednesday following the attack. Officers rushed to his aid in Link Street, in the east London borough. Paramedics and staff from the London Air Ambulance attempted to save his life but he was pronounced dead at the…
Abraham Badru, the 26-year old son of a Nigerian lawmaker, Dolapo Badru has been shot dead near his family’s London home in the latest round of bloodshed in the capital. Abraham’s 62-year-old father, Dolapo Badru, represents Lagos Island I at the House of Representatives on the platform of All Progressives Congress. Abraham Badru, who was given a police bravery award as a teenager for saving a woman from a sex attack, was gunned down in the street in Dalston, Hackney, just after 11pm on Sunday. Abraham, who worked as a…
Zambia’s parliament suspended a cabinet minister on Tuesday from its proceedings for one month for slapping a fellow lawmaker within parliament grounds. Verbal abuse is common among members of parliament in Zambia but physical assault is rare. Speaker of the National Assembly, Patrick Matibini, said Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo was suspended for slapping outspoken lawmaker Chishimba Kambwili in October 2017. Kambwili has repeatedly accused government officials of corruption since his dismissal as information and broadcasting minister in November 2016 but the state denies the allegations. Kambwili complained after the…
US President Donald Trump has sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, replacing him with the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo. Thanking Mr Tillerson for his service on Twitter, Mr Trump said the new state secretary would do “a fantastic job”. Mr Tillerson, a former chief executive of ExxonMobil, was only appointed to the job just over a year ago. BBC reports that the president also nominated Gina Haspel to become the first woman director of the CIA. The Department of State said Mr Tillerson had not spoken to the…
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres has announced the evacuation of all humanitarian personnel and the temporary suspension of all humanitarian deliveries in Rann town, in Borno State, Northeast Nigeria. “All humanitarian personnel have been evacuated from Rann, and all humanitarian deliveries in the area have been temporarily suspended”. The body called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to apprehend and prosecute those who carried out the attack on Rann town. He condemned the killing of three aid workers in Rann, following an attack by suspected Boko Haram insurgents on…
President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo has appointed the leader his political party as interior minister on Tuesday to oversee security in the face of rising militia violence and unrest over delayed elections. Henri Sakanyi, secretary-general of Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), replaces Emmanuel Shadari, another senior PPRD official, who had served in the post since December 2016. The reason for the change, announced in a communique read on national television, was not immediately clear. Shadari is considered a staunch Kabila loyalist and has…
A Belgian court on Friday threatened Facebook with a fine of up to 100 million euros (125 million dollars ) if it continued to break privacy laws by tracking people on third-party websites. In a case brought by Belgium’s privacy watchdog, the court also ruled that Facebook had to delete all data it had gathered illegally on Belgian citizens, including people who were not Facebook users themselves. Facebook, which would be fined 250,000 euros a day or up to 100 million euros if it did not comply with the court’s…
Robert Mueller, United States special counsel, announced on Friday that he has criminally charged 13 Russians and three Russian entities for interfering in the 2016 US election to help Donald Trump. In a 37-page indictment by the federal grand jury in Washington DC, it is alleged that the Russians’ operations “included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump … and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” his Democratic opponent. The Russian operation following Trump’s victory promoted allegations of voter fraud by the Democratic party, which coincidentally around that time, Trump claimed…