Global News

By Reuters | Posted by TOE More sunny weather is needed across most of Ivory Coast’s cocoa-growing regions to support the September-to-February main crop, farmers ‌said on Monday, after below-average rainfall and a cooling spell last week. • ‌The world’s top cocoa producer is currently in its rainy season, which typically runs from April to ​mid-November. • Several farmers across the country said the soil moisture content was still high enough to support tree development for several weeks. • Farmers said prospects at the moment were promising, but warned that without proper application of fertilisers and pesticides in plantations ‌this month, fruits would die ⁠and reduce the expectation of a good crop. • “It can get very cold at times. Now is the time to treat the crops, ⁠otherwise there will be significant losses,” said Kouassi Kouame, who farms near the western region of Soubre, where 0.6 mm of rain fell last week, 11.6 mm below ​the five-y...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE Armed men killed at least 12 people and abducted women and ​children during a night ‌attack on a village in Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto state, witnesses said. Six members of one family burned to death after ‌the ​attackers set fire ⁠to their house, ⁠one resident told Reuters. The gunmen entered the village of Lajinge around 11 p.m. on Saturday and ​attacked residents until about 3 a.m. on Sunday, locals ⁠said. The region ⁠has seen frequent attacks by ​heavily armed gangs, known as bandits, ​who raid villages, kidnap residents ‌for ransom and steal livestock. “They killed at least 12 people, injured four others, abducted women and ⁠children after rustling many livestock,” resident Auwal Hassan told Reuters by phone. Police ⁠were ‌investigating and would provide ⁠updates later, Sokoto force ​spokesperson ‌Ahmed Rufai said. The attack ​comes ⁠a week after bandits killed at least 24 farmers in neighbouring Zamfara state. from The...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Steven Scheer Reuters | Posted by TOE  Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, killing at least nine Palestinians, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a breakthrough in efforts ‌to implement last year’s Gaza ceasefire agreement. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Sunday that there was no deal to ‌halt attacks on Gaza and that he saw a need for Israel, which already controls 70% of the Strip, to take full control of it. Cohen is a ​member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s security cabinet, a small circle of ministers that oversees security and diplomatic policy. Palestinian health officials said Israeli warplanes carried out separate strikes across the enclave in the northern Gaza City, central city of Deir al-Balah, and the southern area of Khan Younis. A man and his wife were killed and four people were wounded in an airstrike on an apartment in Deir al-Balah, whi...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE Yemen’s Houthi-run maritime ⁠coordination ⁠body denied on ⁠Saturday that it planned to impose ​fees on commercial ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb ‌strait, saying no such ‌decision had been taken and that passage ⁠through ⁠the strategic waterway remained free. The statement follows a ​Reuters report on Wednesday, citing regional sources, that the Iran-aligned Houthis were considering imposing fees on ships ​sailing through the southern Red Sea, a week ⁠after ⁠declaring a maritime blockade ⁠on ​Saudi Arabia. The sources in the Reuters report had said ​the proposal ⁠on fees was discussed with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran by Houthi officials in July, although no timeframe for implementation ⁠had been decided. The Houthi-run Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC) said its “safe ⁠transit service was a voluntary and cost-free service”. “The HOCC categorically confirms that any individual or ent...

By Jay DESHMUKH AFP | Posted by TOE Hamas said Friday it had agreed to a deal announced by US President Donald Trump to end the war with Israel, that includes it handing over its weapons to a Palestinian governing committee and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israel did not immediately comment on the announcement, but shortly beforehand an Israeli political source had told AFP the proposed agreement did not “satisfactorily” address Israeli demands for the full demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip. The source also said that “the issue of Gaza did not come up at all” in this week’s meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump in Washington. The Palestinian Islamist group’s weapons have been one of the key sticking points in implementing a ceasefire deal in place since October, but Trump announced late Thursday an agreement for Hamas’s “complete disarmament”, calling it a critical st...

By Lucía DIAZ AFP | Posted by TOE Madrid said on Thursday it would despatch soldiers to Ceuta to ensure security after hundreds of migrants entered Spain’s north African exclave from neighbouring Morocco and hundreds more headed there. The Spanish government’s delegation in the enclave told AFP that the bodies of nine migrants who died while trying to reach Ceuta by swimming had been recovered. Migration from Morocco into Spain’s two north African territories, Ceuta and Melilla, has long been a politically sensitive issue between the two countries, as thousands cross the border at times. Italy called on Thursday for Spain to be suspended from Europe’s open-borders Schengen zone, prompting a backlash from Spain, which summoned the Italian envoy to Madrid. AFP reporters saw a stream of adults and children, most of them soaked, entering the town of Ceuta after having swum there. Discarded flotation rings and clothes were discarded on the shore n...