World News Delight

A team of Royal Thai Navy SEAL divers inspecting the water-filled tunnel in the Tham Luang cave during a rescue operation for the missing children’s football team and their coach in Chiang Rai province on June 29, 2018. Handout / Royal Thai Navy / AFP Rescue divers reached several kilometres inside a flooded cave Saturday where 12 boys and their football coach have been trapped for a week, offering a flicker of hope for the harrowing search. There has been no contact with the boys, aged 11 to 16, and their coach since they went into the Tham Luang cave last weekend and were hemmed in by heavy rains that blocked the entrance. The desperate, round-the-clock search for the team has been beset by torrential downpours that submerged tunnels near the entrance, blocking divers from going on. But Navy SEAL divers nearly reached a T-junction in the depths of the cave just two or three kilometres (one to two miles) from where the boys are believed to be, Chiang Rai governor Narongsa...

A relief of Father Petitjean, a priest of the French Societe des Mission, with a group of Japanese “kakure kirishitan” or “hidden christian” displayed at a church in Nagasaki city in Japan’s southern island of Kyushu on July 2, 2007.  Philippe AGRET / AFP A dozen Christian locations in parts of southern Japan where members of the faith were once brutally persecuted were selected for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list on Saturday. The 12 sites include 10 villages, Hara Castle and Oura Cathedral, a Catholic church in Nagasaki that is dedicated to 26 Christians who were executed for their beliefs over four centuries ago. The decision was announced in the Bahraini capital Manama. In a press statement UNESCO said that the 12 sites “bear unique testimony to a cultural tradition nurtured by hidden Christians in the Nagasaki region who secretly transmitted their faith”. Christianity in Japan dates back to 1549, when European Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrived in the...

Mandel Ngan / AFP The 38-year-old gunman who carried out a deadly assault on a newspaper office in Annapolis had barricaded a back door hoping to “kill as many” as he could, authorities said Friday, confirming he pursued a years-long vendetta against the paper. Police said the suspect — identified as Maryland resident Jarrod Ramos — used a legally purchased pump-action shotgun in an onslaught that left five employees of the Capital Gazette dead, and two others wounded on Thursday. A judge ordered Ramos held without bail on five counts of first-degree murder, county prosecutor Wes Adams told a media briefing. Adams said the decision was based partly on evidence suggesting a “coordinated attack” on the newspaper in Maryland’s historic capital, including “the barricading of a back door and the use of a tactical approach in hunting down and shooting the innocent victims.” He “was there to kill as many people as he could kill,” said police chief Timothy Altomare, of Anne Arun...

Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP President Donald Trump said Friday he will announce his nominee to be the next US Supreme Court justice on July 9. “I’ve got it narrowed to about five” candidates, including two women, Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One as he headed to New Jersey. Trump also said he would not ask those being considered as a replacement for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy about their position on the landmark 1973 court decision upholding abortion rights, although on the campaign trail in 2016 he said he would seek to place a “pro-life justice on the court.”

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani speaks during a press conference at Presidential Palace in Kabul on June 30, 2018. NOORULLAH SHIRZADA / AFP  Afghan security forces resumed offensive operations on Saturday after President Ashraf Ghani declared an end to the government’s unilateral ceasefire with the Taliban. Ghani said the ceasefire, which lasted 18 days after it was extended once and overlapped with the Taliban’s unilateral three-day truce for Eid, had been “98 percent successful”. “The ceasefire is over. The Afghan security and defence forces are allowed to restart their military operations,” Ghani told reporters. The three days of no fighting were unprecedented in the nearly 17-year conflict and triggered jubilant scenes across the war-weary country. Taliban fighters and security forces spontaneously celebrated the holiday that caps the holy month of Ramadan, hugging each other and taking selfies. The militants were also mobbed by relieved civilians, who have borne the...

US President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House on June 18, 2018 in Washington, DC. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman had agreed to his request to ramp up oil production, a week after OPEC already announced an output rise. “Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the turmoil & dysfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference,”  Trump  announced in an early morning tweet. “Prices too high! He has agreed!” Trump  has repeatedly lashed out at OPEC on Twitter in recent months, piling pressure on Riyadh, a major ally, to boost output as he hopes for lower pump prices before midterm congressional elections in November. His latest comments come a week after ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — of whi...

French President, Emmanuel Macron                                                          PHILIPPE WOJAZER / AFP France will not host any of the migrant processing centres that the EU agreed on as part of a summit deal on Friday, President Emmanuel Macron said. “France is not a country of first arrival. Because of its situation, France will not open centres of this kind,” Macron told a press conference in Brussels. AFP

Italy’s Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini gestures during a press conference in Rome, on June 25, 2018.  TIZIANA FABI / AFP Italy’s hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini announced Friday that Italian ports would be closed “all summer” to NGO ships which rescue migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe.  “The NGOs will only see Italy on a postcard,” quipped Salvini, who is also the new deputy prime minister and head of the far-right League party. “The ports will be closed all summer,” he said on Italian radio. He added that the ban would concern not only access to ports but also “the furnishing of fuel to the NGOs.” “As the Italian military tells me as well as the Libyans, the NGOs help traffickers, consciously or not,”  said Salvini. But he stressed that Italy with other states  “would continue to save all those who need to be saved.” Salvini’s comments come on the day that a European Union summi...

A handout picture released by the Iraqi Justice Ministry on June 29, 2018 shows blindfolded and handcuffed jihadists of the Islamic State group who have been condemned to death waiting for their sentences to be executed. Handout / Iraq Justice Minister / AFP Iraq said Friday that it executed 13 death row jihadists after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed a forceful retaliation to calm public anger over the Islamic State group’s murder of abducted civilians. While Iraqis have grown accustomed to the atrocities committed by IS, the killing of the eight civilians shocked the nation and doused hopes the jihadists had been defeated. For the first time, the authorities released photographs of the hangings, which came after Abadi on Thursday ordered the “immediate” executions of hundreds of convicted jihadists. The justice ministry said Friday that the 13 convicts put to death at a prison in southern Iraq “had participated in armed operations with terrorist groups, in kidnappi...

A 35-year-old Nigerian on Thursday said he wants to become the country’s youngest presidential candidate, taking advantage of a newly passed law reducing age limits for political office. “Chike Ukaegbu announced his candidacy for President of Nigeria — a country with over 60 percent of the population between the ages of 18 and 35,” his publicist said in a statement. “At the age of 35, Chike aspires to become the youngest civilian president of the youthful African nation.” Ukaegbu, described as a “technology entrepreneur” who lives in New York, is originally from Owerri, in the southern Nigerian State of Imo. He told AFP he was not yet affiliated to any particular party “but will be choosing from one of the current 68 political parties in the coming weeks”. “We are down to five that we are still evaluating before we decide,” he added in an email. Ukaegbu is only able to declare his candidacy because last month President Muhammadu Buhari signed the “Not Too Young To Run” b...

Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Governor Abdul’Aziz Yari (Zamfara State), addressing a press conference in Abuja on June 28, 2018 The Nigeria Governors’ Forum is planning to meet with the service chiefs over the spate of killings in some parts of the country. Chairman of the forum and Zamfara State Governor, Abdul’Aziz Yari, disclosed this to reporters on Thursday after the governors met behind closed-door in Abuja. According to him, the meeting with the security chiefs is to come up with the holistic solution to the security challenges in the country. The governor said, “The forum strongly condemns the recent attack in Plateau State and the spate of the insecurity in the country. Members commiserate with the government and people of Plateau State and other states, including the victims who were caught in the conflicts. “The governors have unanimously called for the prosecution of perpetrators of the attack and resolve to find a quick and common solution ...

The United Nations says 881 children were either killed or maimed by Boko Haram and Nigerians Security Forces in 2017. This was contained in the UN Secretary-General’s report on ‘children and armed conflict’. Many of the casualties were recorded after aerial bombardments and the targeting of children suspected to be carrying person-borne improvised explosive devices. “The United Nations verified a total of 881 children killed (570) and maimed (311) in Nigeria, attributed to Boko Haram (620) and to Nigerian Security Forces (NSF) (261),” the report read in part. Almost half of all casualties resulted from suicide attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram (including the use of children as carriers of person-borne improvised explosive devices) (411). The report added, “With regard to NSF, casualties were caused by aerial bombardments (235) and the targeting of children suspected to be carrying person-borne improvised explosive devices (26).” The Nigerian military has yet to respond ...

The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says emergency officials are clearing the wreckage from the multiple accidents that occurred along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on Thursday. Lagos FRSC Sector Commander, Mr Hyginus Omeje, who gave the update on Friday added that the number of persons who died in still stands at nine. “We’ve not been able to recover any other burnt body,” he said during a telephone interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily. “Yesterday, nine persons burned beyond recognition and, of course, four others that were injured sustained various degrees of burns and were taken to the hospital.” Omeje, who maintained that there is no new information, revealed that FRSC officials, as well as that of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and other agencies, arrived at the scene early this morning. He explained that they were back to the scene of the accident to commence the “actual removal” of burnt vehicles from the road to e...

A general view shows the smouldering debris following a fire that gutted the timber dealership at the Gikomba market and nearby homes in central Nairobi on June 28, 2018. PHOTO: SIMON MAINA/AFP A fire at Nairobi’s Gikomba market on Thursday killed 15 people, less than a year after a blaze destroyed much of the Kenyan capital’s largest open-air market. “We have lost 15 people from this tragedy this morning. “We’re yet to establish the cause of this fire,” he said, which is believed to have started in a timber yard,” said a government official who is the regional coordinator Kangethe Thuku. The pre-dawn blaze left over 70 people injured and destroyed many of the market’s wood and tarp stalls where second-hand clothes, shoes and vegetables are sold on the eastern side of the city. A police officer at the scene said emergency services continued to search the area. “We are still trying to get to some corner [of the market] which has heavy smoke, because part of the ...

Children wrap themselves up with Mylar blankets to ‘symbolically represent the thousands of children separated from families on the border, sleeping on floors and held in cages’, during a protest at the rotunda of Russell Senate Office Building June 21, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.  Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP A US judge has ordered that migrant families separated at the border with Mexico under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy be reunited within 30 days. For children under five, reunification must take place within two weeks of the order issued Tuesday by US District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego. Sabraw made the sternly worded decision in response to a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a seven-year-old girl who was separated from her Congolese mother and a 14-year-old boy who was separated from his Brazilian mother. The judge also issued an injunction against any more family separations, which was part of a polic...