AFP Toni Morrison, the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has died following a brief illness, her family said in a statement Tuesday. She was 88. “It is with profound sadness we share that, following a short illness, our adored mother and grandmother, Toni Morrison, passed away peacefully last night
AFP Dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters appeared in court Wednesday after being charged with rioting, setting the stage for further unrest in a weeks-long crisis that has rocked the global financial hub. The announcement on Tuesday night that 44 people had been charged with rioting an offence that carries a jail term of up
AFP At least 57 inmates were killed during a prison riot in northern Brazil on Monday as rival gang factions fought each other, an official said. Sixteen of the dead were decapitated in the second major eruption of violence to rock the country’s severely overpopulated and deadly prison system in as many months. Fighting broke
AFP Eighteen people were killed when a small military plane crashed into a residential area in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi early Tuesday, officials told AFP. The plane crashed into a poor village near an upscale neighborhood in the garrison city that is home to the army’s headquarters, creating a fireball that lit up the
BBC More than 100 people, including 26 children, have died in government attacks on hospitals, schools, markets and bakeries in the past 10 days, the UN’s human rights chief said. Michelle Bachelet said the deaths were part of a “relentless campaign of air strikes by the government and its allies”, including Russia. The civilian targets
AFP Boris Johnson took over as Britain’s prime minister Wednesday, promising to pull his country out of the European Union on October 31 by any means necessary. A day after winning the leadership of his Conservative party, the former London mayor and figurehead of the 2016 Brexit campaign formally replaced Theresa May. His ascent is
AFP Singapore has made its largest ever seizure of smuggled ivory, impounding a haul of nearly nine tonnes of contraband tusks from an estimated 300 elephants, authorities said on Tuesday. The illegal cargo, discovered Sunday in a container from the Democratic Republic of the Congo being shipped to Vietnam via Singapore, also included a huge
BBC Hong Kong police are facing accusations of failing to protect pro-democracy activists who were attacked by unidentified assailants on Sunday. Opposition lawmakers say police inaction allowed criminals to beat up peaceful demonstrators after a rally. Dozens were injured when they were set upon by masked men wielding sticks. Police say their forces were stretched
CNN Police in Hong Kong have seized what is thought to be the largest ever cache of high-powered explosives uncovered in the city, in a raid Friday night on a suspected bomb-making factory. The discovery comes on the eve of a series of high-profile protests planned over the weekend, amid high tensions in the semi-autonomous
AFP A suspected arson attack at an animation production company in Japan killed 33 people and injured dozens more on Thursday, after a man reportedly doused the building with flammable liquid and shouted “drop dead.” A motive for the apparent attack remained unclear hours after the blaze. If arson is confirmed, the attack will be
Associated Press Benjamin Netanyahu becomes Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, he is solidifying his place as the country’s greatest political survivor and the most dominant force in Israeli politics in his generation. He has persevered through scandals, crises and conflicts, winning election after election even as the country grows more bitterly polarized. His supporters credit him
AFP The US House of Representatives formally condemned Donald Trump on Tuesday for xenophobic attacks on four minority Democratic lawmakers and hostile language targeting immigrants, as the president denied accusations of racism. Top Republican leaders rallied around Trump, but four members of the president’s party voted with the 235 Democrats to condemn him for “racist
Associated Press A passenger train rammed into a freight train at a railway station in southern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 20 people and injuring 74 others, hospital officials said. The freight train was stationary when the speeding passenger train struck it at Walhar Railway Station in Rahim Yar Khan, in the eastern Punjab
AFP President Donald Trump warned Wednesday that sanctions against Iran would soon be “increased substantially” after Tehran said it had exceeded a limit on enriched uranium reserves under a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Washington. “Iran has long been secretly ‘enriching,’ in total violation of the terrible 150 Billion Dollar deal made by John Kerry
AFP Britain’s ambassador to Washington resigned Wednesday after being targeted by US President Donald Trump following the leak of highly critical diplomatic cables. Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May had offered her full support to Kim Darroch after he was revealed to have described the Trump administration as “inept”. But the man tipped to replace her
Associated Press Hong Kong protest leaders opposed to the administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday that they will continue their demonstrations, even after Lam declared the effort to amend a highly contentious extradition bill “dead.” Protesters are persisting in their demands for the bill to be formally withdrawn and an investigation opened into
AFP President Donald Trump on Tuesday called the British ambassador to the United States “a very stupid guy,” one day after declaring he would cut contact with the diplomat following a leak of cables describing Trump as “inept.” “I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool,” Trump wrote in
AFP London summoned Beijing’s ambassador for a dressing down Wednesday in a rapidly escalating diplomatic feud over protests in Hong Kong as China told Britain to keep its “hands off” the city and “show respect”. The demonstrations sweeping the former British colony have also revived tensions inherent in the two sides’ historic agreement on the
AFP At least 18 people were killed in Mumbai on Tuesday when a wall collapsed as the heaviest monsoon rains in a decade brought chaos to India’s financial capital and surrounding areas. Scores more were injured when the structure came down around 02:00 (20:30 GMT Monday) in a slum, said Tanaji Kamble, a disaster management
BBC The European Parliament has re-opened in Strasbourg with an anti-EU protest by the UK’s Brexit Party and a demonstration by Catalan nationalists whose MEPs are barred. The first session after Europe-wide elections in May began as EU leaders went into a third day of talks on who should fill the bloc’s top jobs. A
