News & Announcements

A shooting at a South Carolina nightclub left 12 people in “various conditions” early Sunday, a sheriff’s official said.

A Greenville County sheriff’s deputy noticed a “disturbance” at Lavish Lounge just before 2 a.m., and called for backup because of “active gunfire from inside the building,” Lt. Jimmy Bolt said in a statement.

Responding officials took victims inside the lounge to the hospital, while others were taken via private vehicles.

It’s unclear whether anyone was in custody in relation to the shooting. The names and precise conditions of the victims weren’t immediately released.

Rescuers are searching for 14 people missing after floods hit the Kumamoto region on Japan’s southwestern island of Kyushu.

About 34 people are either confirmed or feared dead — including 14 at a nursing home — after torrential rain in Japan triggered massive floods and mudslides, authorities said Sunday.

Rescuers were searching for 14 people missing after floods hit the Kumamoto region of Japan on the southwestern island of Kyushu, destroying houses, sweeping away vehicles and causing bridges to collapse.

The regional government confirmed 18 people had died, while another 16 were in a state of “cardio-respiratory arrest”—a term often used in Japan before a doctor officially certifies death.

Fourteen of the victims were at a nursing home that was inundated when local rivers broke their banks. Emergency services rescued 50 people from the facility.

More than 200,000 people have been urged to evacuate as authorities request those in emergency shelters to wash their hands, wear masks and maintain social distance to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“We will do our utmost to prevent the spread of the infection and make the lives of those who had to flee their home as comfortable as possible,” Disaster Management Minister Ryota Takeda told reporters after visiting a gymnasium in Hitoyoshi city where 600 residents are sheltering.

At a cabinet-level meeting in Tokyo on the disaster, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to offer financial support, while warning residents in Kumamoto to brace for more rain.

“As we speak, more than 40,000 personnel from police, fire, coast guard and Self-Defence troops are conducting search and rescue operations which will continue through the night,” Abe said.

“Saving lives is our priority.” Heavy rain is expected in the region through Monday, Abe added.

“We must remain vigilant,” he said, warning residents to monitor news for further risks associated with flooding and landslides.

Communities along the Kuma River, which passes through Hitoyoshi, have been hit hard by the floodwaters.

Although the rain had eased in Kumamoto by Sunday morning, collapsed bridges and blocked roads due to flooding and mudslides have left many isolated in the region.

The number of people killed in protests in Ethiopia following the slaying of a popular singer has jumped to 156 from the initial tally of 80, a senior regional security official told Reuters on Sunday.

Members of the Oromo Ethiopian community in Lebanon take part in a demonstration to protest the death of the musician and activist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, in the capital Beirut on July 5, 2020.

The protests were sparked by the assassination of Hundeessaa on Monday night and spread from Addis Ababa to the surrounding Oromia region. 

Jibril Mohammed, head of the Oromia Security and Peace Bureau, said the 156 are those who died just in the Oromia region, which was the worst hit by the protests.

He said more deaths might be reported due to the number of injuries being treated in hospitals. Some 145 of the casualties are civilians while 11 are security personnel, he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday appointed Jean Castex to replace Eduoard Philippe as prime minister.

Castex is a senior civil servant who has held several posts in local, regional and national governments. In April, he was charged with managing the easing ofFrance’s lockdown during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Earlier, Philippe resigned along with the rest of the French government.

The move paves the way for a government reshuffle, which was widely expected as French President Emmanuel Macron seeks to boost his credentials with disillusioned voters. Macron aims to reorient his final two years in office.

The rest of the government is expected to be named by Wednesday.

On Sunday, Macron’s centrist political party En Marche collapsed in municipal elections across the country. Although Macron enjoys popularity at the European level, his image domestically has suffered from a series of setbacks, including the yellow vest protests and labor reforms.

The French presidency said Macron and Philippe had agreed that a new government was required to form a “new path” forward.

“I will need to make choices to lead [France] down that path,” Macron said. He praised Philippe’s “outstanding work” during his time in government.

In April, Macron said he wanted to “reinvent” himself to meet the latest challenges facing the French republic. But tackling the fallout of the novel coronavirus pandemic is likely to take center stage for the rest of his presidential term.

Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are spearheading plans to establish a European recovery program for the EU’s hardest-hit countries. However, even those efforts have faced resistance among EU member states that fear pulling debt as part of a recovery fund.

Two Palestinians were shot and wounded during a violent scuffle with settlers in the northern West Bank Sunday afternoon that also put four Israelis in the hospital.

Two Palestinians with gunshot wounds were hospitalized in moderate and light condition respectively in the nearby Salfit governorate, the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said.

Four settlers were lightly injured by thrown stones during the melee and taken to Kfar Saba’s Meir Medical Center for treatment.

The clash erupted between settler youth and Palestinian farmers working land between the settlement of Maaleh Shomron and the Palestinian town of Biddya, southwest of Nablus, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Israeli police did not specify who instigated the clash.

A spokeswoman for the Samaria Regional Council said Israeli farmers were set upon with stones and clubs by 100 Palestinians. One of the farmers, who was armed, opened fire to scatter the rioters, she said.

According to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, as reported by times of Israel.com, the fight broke out due to both sides claiming the same piece of farmland, which the report called an attempted “takeover” by settlers.

Iyad Abid, a member of the Biddya Emergency Committee, told The Times of Israel that the two injured Palestinians were Biddya residents Mohannad al-Sadiq and Daoud Salameh (Abu Karim).

“The settlers say that the land is theirs, and they want to take it by force. But it belongs to private individuals in Biddya,” Abid said.

Abid added that the town had held a protest against what he said were attempts by settlers to take it over on Friday.

Asked about claims by the Samaria Regional Council spokesperson that there had been 100 Arabs who had attacked Jewish farmers, Abid claimed that the two injured were the only ones present on their land during the alleged confrontation, and that the rest only arrived after the settlers had fled.

“They shot and fled,” Abid said, referring to the settlers.

The incident came a week after the sides traded arson accusations regarding fires that broke out in nearby Burin and Givat Ronen in the northern West Bank.

Israel Fire and Rescue Services said it responded to a report of a large brush fire outside the Givat Ronen outpost, which quickly spread due to the wind and topography of the area. A fire service spokesman said that locals reported having seen Palestinians from neighboring Burin setting fire to the field outside Givat Ronen before fleeing back to their village.

As Israeli fire squads worked to put out the blaze, Palestinians from Burin filmed ten masked settlers descending from Givat Ronen, hurling stones at a construction site on the edge of the village, then setting an adjacent field on fire and fleeing back toward their outpost.

A spokesman for the Yesh Din rights group, which distributed the footage, said Burin residents had been aware of a fire that had been set an hour earlier near Givat Ronen, but said that since it had been ignited on fields belonging to their village it could not have been started by one of their own inhabitants.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has set out plans to restart the women qualifiers for the FIFA U17 and U20 World Cup.

According to information obtained, the continental football body will reel out the days for the restart of the qualifiers
Qualifying matches to the women’s football events were canceled due to threats of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Three African nations will qualify from the continent for the Women’s U-17 World Cup. The preliminary and first-round games have already been played while CAF is keen on completing the second round fixture which had been suspended.

The competition will run from February 17 to March 7, 2021, in India.
Uganda, Cameroon, South Africa, Morocco, Ghana, and Nigeria are potential candidates to claim the three spots.

The qualifiers for the U-20 World Cup are also due to restart with the tournaments set to run from January to February 2021 in Costa Rica/Panama.
The date for the event was postponed from 2020 to next year.

Only the preliminary round has been staged. The first-round games programmed for 20 and 22 and 27 as well as 29 March were postponed due to the global health crises. Sixteen teams are in the race for the only two tickets available.

David Moinina Sengeh, the Minister of Education of Sierra Leone, and the country’s Chief Innovation Officer, has lauded the efforts of teachers and other stakeholders after the West African country announced partial resumption of schools.

The youthful minister and his team took time out to tour some schools, particularly in the capital, Freetown, and expressed joy at the level of health compliance and commended even the pupils, where he noted that more than seventy percent of them resumed.
Taking to his Twitter handle, the minister also, who also thanked parents, acknowledged that majority of the pupils observed safety protocol by wearing face masks.

He wrote: “Schools partially reopened today (July 2) for exam classes. 
“I dropped in at three schools. My team plus EOC are all over SierraLeone also monitoring. 
“Thank you school leaders and teachers. Wow! For pupils- majority turned up (>75% in most schools) and many with home made masks. Thank you parents!! He said.
Recall that Sierra Leone recently unlocked the country after months of lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic.

Tragedy struck in Uganda’s South-Western district of Masala after a biker, aged 29, killed himself by setting self ablaze.

Hussein Walugembe’s bike was seized in the south-western district of Masaka, about 135km (85 miles) from the capital, Kampala, on Monday.

Some riders allege that officers had demanded a $40 (£32) bribe from Walugembe to release his vehicle.

A police spokesman says the entire traffic department is now under investigation for bribery.

It is also reported that Walugembe had been living in police quarters and been supplying food to the force.

Riding boda bodas – as motorbike taxis are known in Uganda – is a common source of income for unemployed young men in countries across Africa.

But in Uganda they have been banned from carrying passengers as part of efforts to control the spread of coronavirus.

Boda boda riders are able to operate between 06:30 and 17:00 local time but must only transport cargo.

According to the police, Mr Walugembe had lent his motorbike to a friend, who was caught ferrying a passenger on Monday.

Mr Walugembe reportedly became frustrated with the police after visiting the station several times to demand they release his bike.

On Thursday, he locked himself into a room at the station and set himself alight using petrol concealed in a water bottle.

Officers at the station ferried water in jerrycans to put out the fire.

An officer who was with him at the time suffered minor injuries and several files and computers were destroyed.

Regional police spokesperson Paul Kangave said an investigation had been launched into the self-immolation and into the conduct of the entire traffic department.

He said the force’s Professional Standards Unit would be looking into allegations that the officers were demanding bribes after vehicles were impounded for flouting lockdown restrictions.

The trial in absentia for twenty Saudi Arabian citizens in Turkey in connection to the murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in October of 2018 has begun.

Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

Those being tried include two former top aides to Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Khashoggi was a vocal critic of the prince. Saudi Arabia carried out a separate trial over the killing that was heavily criticised as incomplete.

The trial in Istanbul follows an international outcry over the murder, which tarnished the prince’s reputation.

Turkish prosecutors accuse the former deputy head of Saudi intelligence, Ahmed al-Asiri, and the royal court’s media adviser Saud al-Qahtani of having led the operation and instructed a Saudi hit team.

The other 18 defendants are accused of having suffocated Khashoggi, whose remains have not been found. Turkish officials say his body was dismembered and removed to an unknown site.

The journalist, who was resident in the US, had entered the consulate seeking papers for his impending wedding.

His fiancee Hatice Cengiz is attending the trial alongside the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, who has directly linked the crown prince to the killing, AFP news agency reports.

The Saudi authorities initially denied any involvement in the case, but later called it a “rogue operation”.

In December a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death and three to jail for Khashoggi’s killing, but the trial was secretive and the defendants were not named.

CIA and some Western governments believe the murder was ordered by Crown Prince Salman – something he denies. The crown prince is de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

UN special rapporteur Callamard says Khashoggi was “the victim of a deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible”.

At the time of his death the 59-year-old worked for the Washington Post.

The prosecutors have charged Ahmed al-Asiri and Saud al-Qahtani with “instigating the deliberate and monstrous killing, causing torment”

No fewer that three hundred and twenty seven Nigerians were on Sunday night Evacuated from London to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The evacuation was carried out by one of the foremost indigenous airline operators in Nigeria, Air Peace.
According to a press statement from the company on Monday, the aircraft, a Boeing 777 with registration number 5N-BWI, departed Heathrow Airport London earlier on Sunday afternoon and arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja at night the same day.

The statement by Stanley Olisa, Air Peace Spokesman, said some of the evacuees proceeded to Lagos with the airline from Abuja.

The statement lauded the Federal Government of Nigeria, especially the Nigerian Embassy in London, for choosing the airline to conduct the flight.
He added that the flight was significant to the airline as it gave it the opportunity to further show its capability for long-haul flights.
He said: “We’re delighted to have operated this flight. It unmistakably shows that Air Peace can fly to anywhere in the world, given the required support of the government.”
Since March when the Federal Government banned flight operations across the country as a measure to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Air Peace has been operating a series of ‘special flights’ to and from different countries, including China, Turkey, India, Israel and South Africa. More of such flights are in the offing, according to the airline.