Other News

Gunmen kill Nigerian traditional monarch, kidnap wife

ABUJA, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Gunmen killed a Nigerian traditional monarch and kidnapped his wife after raiding his palace, police said, as outrage grows over a spate of abductions nationwide. The attackers stormed the palace of Oba Aremu Olusegun Cole in southwestern Kwara state, shot him dead and abducted his wife and another person on Thursday, according to police. State police said they had launched an investigation and beefed up security. Similar attacks regularly […]

Man dies after reported fall from London’s Tate Modern: police

LONDON, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – A man died on Friday after reports that he fell from London’s Tate Modern gallery, with the death being treated as “unexpected” but “not thought to be suspicious”, UK police said. The incident late on Friday morning comes nearly five years after a British teenager threw a six-year-old French boy from a 10th-floor balcony at the landmark museum, causing life-changing injuries. It is unclear where exactly the man who […]

Shorthanded Lakers stun Celtics, Maxey scores 51 in 76ers win

LOS ANGELES, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – A Los Angeles Lakers team missing superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis barreled past the NBA-leading Boston Celtics on Thursday as Tyrese Maxey scored 51 points to lead Philadelphia over Utah. Austin Reaves scored a season-high 32 points to lead the Lakers’ in their 114-105 victory, saying afterward he and the rest of the Lakers had taken to heart James’ blunt demand after Tuesday’s loss to Atlanta that […]

Child pneumonia spikes in Pakistan’s smoggy winter

LAHORE, Pakistan, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – In a Pakistan paediatric ward, a chorus of infant coughs and straining lungs is the toll of a frigid winter, compounded by choking smog and lagging vaccination rates. “Please pray for him,” the mother of four-month-old pneumonia patient Ibrahim begs a nurse in Lahore, delicately arranging a blanket around ventilator tubes piping air in and out of his heaving chest. The eastern megacity is blanched every winter by […]

US defies hiring slowdown expectations, adds 353,000 jobs in January: govt

By Beiyi SEOW WASHINGTON, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – The US labor market smashed expectations last month in a surprise hiring pick-up, government data showed Friday, with a resilient jobs market likely good news for President Joe Biden in election year. The world’s biggest economy added 353,000 jobs in January, after December’s figure was significantly revised upwards to 333,000, said the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent for a third […]

Japan’s Aozora Bank shares plunge over bad loans

TOKYO, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Shares in Japan’s Aozora Bank plunged for a second straight day Friday — wiping hundreds of millions of dollars off its market value — after the lender forecast a full-year net loss because of bad property loans in the United States. Prices in the US commercial real estate market have fallen sharply on the back of rising borrowing costs and lower demand as more people work from home following […]

Hamas gives ‘initial’ support to Gaza truce plan as fighting rages

By Adel Zaanoun, with Sharon Aronowicz in Tel Aviv GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Fighting in Gaza raged on Friday with scores reported killed overnight, after mediator Qatar said Hamas had given its “initial” support to a hostage-prisoner exchange deal that would pause its war with Israel. The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said 112 people had been killed over the previous 24 hours, while the Hamas press office reported […]

40 years in prison for ex-CIA coder who leaked hacking tools to WikiLeaks

NEW YORK, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – A former CIA programmer was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Thursday for leaking the US spy agency’s most valuable hacking tools to WikiLeaks. Joshua Schulte, 35, was found guilty in 2022 of espionage and other charges in what the CIA called a “digital Pearl Harbor” — the largest data breach in the history of the intelligence agency. “Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the […]

Three dead, 280 injured in huge Kenya blaze

By Dylan GAMBA, Ammu KANNAMPILLY NAIROBI, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – A truck laden with gas canisters exploded in a densely populated area of the Kenyan capital, setting off a huge blaze that killed three people and injured 280, the government said Friday. The blast ignited a huge ball of fire in a residential area in the southeast of Nairobi, ravaging many properties and vehicles and sending local residents running for their lives. Firefighters managed […]

North Korea fires more cruise missiles in testing spree

SEOUL, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – North Korea fired multiple cruise missiles Friday, Seoul’s military said, continuing a fresh streak of weapons testing as Kim Jong Un’s regime ramps up what it calls “war preparations”. So far this year, Kim has declared South Korea his country’s “principal enemy”, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach, and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement. Pyongyang has also carried out ever more weapons tests, including […]

Russia has created 520,000 new defence jobs, Putin says

MOSCOW, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Russia has created more than half a million new jobs in its defence sector to meet soaring demand on the battlefield, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. The Kremlin has thrown massive resources at its full-scale assault on Ukraine, with the defence sector accounting for much of the sanction-hit economy’s growth. “In the last year and a half alone, 520,000 new jobs have been created in defence,” Putin told […]

Finnish strikes over labour reform empty Helsinki

HELSINKI, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Public transport ground to a halt across much of Finland on Friday as part of mass strikes over the government’s proposed labour reforms, leaving Helsinki’s normally-bustling city centre unusually quiet. About 300,000 people in a wide swathe of sectors were estimated to be taking part in the strike action, which began on Wednesday when day care workers walked off the job. Conservative Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has proposed changes […]