World News

Former Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, who made national history in 2005 with extraordinary use of his powers to dissolve parliament and oust an unstable majority government, died on Friday at the age of 81. The cause of death was not disclosed, though Sampaio had been hospitalized since Aug. 27 with breathing difficulties. After an uneventful first term in 1996-2001, the affable Socialist former lawyer won another five-year mandate that turned out to be more turbulent and showed the might of presidential powers in what is usually a ceremonial office. With the budget deficit rising and Portugal teetering on the verge…

  The Taliban has declared Afghanistan an “Islamic Emirate”, and formed a new government to be led by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund. Akhund is one of the founders of the group, which took control of Afghanistan mid-August. “We know the people of our country have been waiting for a new government,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, said while unveiling the cabinet. Abdul Ghani Baradar will be the deputy leader and Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of the founder of the Haqqani network, has been named as interior minister. Baradar was previously head of the Taliban’s political office, and oversaw the signing of the…

Soldiers Seize Power In Guinea, Detain President President Alpha Conde of Guinea is currently in detention in what is believed to be a coup by soldiers. Guinea’s special forces claimed Sunday to have captured President Alpha Conde and “dissolved” the country’s institutions. “We have decided after having taken the president, who is currently with us (…) to dissolve the current constitution, to dissolve the institutions; we have also decided to dissolve the government and the closure of land and air borders,” said one of the uniformed and armed coup plotters in the statement, The statement has been widely circulated on…

A form four student from Kuresoi South, Nakuru County of Kenya, Edmond Kipng’etich has been killed after being caught sleeping with a man’s wife. The 19-year-old student was accosted and stabbed with a sword by one Japheth Bii, who caught him red-handed sleeping with his 35-year-old wife. He was said to have succumbed to injuries inflicted on him while being attended to at Rift Valley General Hospital. Kuresoi DCIO, Peter Obonyo confirmed the incident and also revealed that the incident was reported at Olenguruone police station where a probe was immediately launched, hours before the 19-year-old student succumbed to the…

Preliminary information said, “there were three crew members and 13 passengers on board”. A helicopter with 16 people on board, most of them tourists, has crashed in the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s far east the local government said, with seven passengers unaccounted for. The Mi-8 helicopter came down in Lake Kuril in the Kronotsky nature reserve, it said in a statement on Thursday. According to AP news agency, the helicopter is reportedly lying at a depth of about 100 meters (328 feet) in Lake Kuril, which is up to 316 meters (1,037-feet) deep with an area of 77 square kilometers…

Haitian President Jovenel Moise was shot dead by unidentified attackers in his private residence overnight in an “inhuman and barbaric act” and his wife was injured, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said on Wednesday. He said the police and army had the security situation under control but gunshots could be heard throughout the capital after the attack, which occurred amid a rising wave of politically linked violence in the impoverished Caribbean nation. With Haiti politically divided, and facing a growing humanitarian crisis and shortages of food, there are fears of widespread disorder. “The President was injured and succumbed to those…

A military C-130 plane crashed in the southern Philippines on Sunday with death rising to 52 on Monday. Officials said that investigators have begun to look into what caused the accident. Two injured soldiers died in the hospital, bringing the total number of military personnel killed in the fatal crash to 49. The civilian death toll remained at three. The plane crashed in Patikul town on Jolo Island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, Defence Secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, said. Another 47 soldiers and four civilians were injured in the accident and were being treated in hospital, Mr Lorenzana said. Some of…

A private plane crash has killed all six people on board, including two American missionaries, in Haiti, southwest of capital Port-au-Prince. The New Telegraph, the plane crashed over the weekend en route an airport in Port-au-Prince to the southern coastal city of Jacmel. The newspaper cited a statement by the National Civil Aviation Office (NCAO) and the cause of the crash was not immediately known. The US-based organisation Gospel to Haiti also posted an announcement on its Facebook page confirming that two of its group members, 35-year-old Trent Hostelter, and John Miller, 43, both American citizens, died in the crash.…

Ebrahim Raisi declared Iran’s new president Raisi will take office in early August, replacing moderate President Hassan Rouhani who was not allowed by the constitution to run for a third consecutive term. Conservative judiciary head has been elected Iran’s eighth president, the interior ministry has announced. The ministry confirmed on Saturday that Raisi won 61.95 percent of the vote in Friday’s election on a voter turnout of 48.8 percent – the lowest turnout for a presidential election since the 1979 revolution. Raisi got 28,933,004 votes. At 3,726,870 votes, void votes finished second in the race, also for the first time…