WORLD

Qatar has signed a $12bn deal to buy F-15 fighters jets from the US. The sale was finalised at a meeting in Washington between US defence chief Jim Mattis and his Qatari counterpart. It comes days after US President Donald Trump accused Qatar – a major US ally – of funding terrorism “at a very high level” – a charge ...

Sila Sutharat, a roasted chicken street vendor from Phetchaburi, Thailand, has come up with an ingenious way of cooking chicken. Instead of an oven or a charcoal barbecue, he uses 1,000 mobile mirrors that concentrate sunlight into a strong beam. He basically cooks meat with over 300 degrees Celsius of natural sunlight. Like most other street vendors, Sila used to ...

DAKAR, June 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – People smugglers and criminal gangs in Libya are using social media to broadcast the abuse and violence they inflict on African migrants in their captivity and demand ransoms from their families back home, according to the United Nations. In a video posted on Facebook, hundreds of emaciated Somalis and Ethiopians, including several children, ...

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, June 15 (Reuters) – His broken arm is in a bamboo splint, his torso pock-marked with shrapnel and his jaw wired together by a Nigerian army surgeon. But 38-year-old vigilante Dala Aisami Angwalla is undaunted by two nearly fatal brushes in the last year with Boko Haram, one involving a landmine, the other an ambush, and is determined ...

The estranged wife of incoming Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has been shot dead two days before his inauguration. Lipolelo Thabane, 58, was travelling home with a friend when both women were shot by an unknown assailant, the police say. The police add the motive is unknown and an investigation is continuing. The couple had been living separately since 2012 ...

The United Nations (UN) has articulated its willingness to support the Ministry of Interior and the Small Arms Commission in Ghana to tackle the increased circulation of small arms and light weapons. The UN Resident Coordinator, Christine Evans-Klock, speaking in Accra to mark the end of the observation of the “Global Week of Action against Gun Violence”, said the proliferation ...

A top US Republican was among five people wounded in a “multiple shooting” during baseball practice in an upmarket Washington DC suburb. House of Representatives Majority Whip Steve Scalise was hit but expected to survive after the early morning attack at a park in Alexandria, Virginia. Two police officers who engaged in a shootout with the attacker were reportedly among ...

Kidnap for ransom is big business in Nigeria. It has one of the highest abduction rates in the world, with the U.S., U.K. and other governments warning travelers to the West African country that kidnapping is a real possibility. But Nigerian authorities are hoping that the risk has been significantly decreased after they captured alleged kidnapper Chukwudi Dumem Onuamadkie, also ...

Fifteen people are reported missing after a seven-storey building collapsed on Monday night in an eastern suburb of the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The Kenya Red Cross tweeted that response teams were at the scene, in the Kware Pipeline Embakasi area. The Star newspaper said dozens of people had been evacuated moments before the collapse. Witnesses told the paper that the ...

Pope Francis has given an ultimatum to unruly Nigerian priests: Pledge “total obedience” to him and their bishop within a month, or lose their jobs. Francis met with a delegation from the diocese of Ahiara in southern Nigeria at the Vatican and delivered the message Saturday, according to Vatican Radio. Since 2012, the Catholic church has faced problems in Ahiara, ...