Global News

Israeli airstrikes on southern  Lebanon  on Tuesday killed at least 19 people, including four women and three children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, the latest in near-daily attacks from both sides that have not stopped despite the fragile,  U.S.-brokered ceasefire  in the Israel-Hezbollah war. Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the casualties or specific incidents, but said that between Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon, it had targeted more than 25 sites of Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. The  Israel-Hezbollah latest fighting  began on March 2 with the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group firing rockets at Israel, two days after the United States and Israel  attacked Iran . In Beirut, the government said a single strike on the village of Deir Qanoun al Nahr in the coastal Tyre province killed 10 people, including three children and three women. Three were wounded, including a child. The ministry provi...

Four Kenyans died and at least 30 were injured on Monday in fuel price protests triggered by the Middle East war, which saw the country’s public transport system grind to a halt. One of many African countries dependent on fuel imports from the Gulf, Kenya has been heavily affected by Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes. Last week, the Kenyan government announced price hikes in response to rising global oil prices, including a 23.5-percent increase for diesel — triggering a call for the strike by transport workers. Protesters barricaded roads and lit bonfires on the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, early on Monday, attempting to stop cars and “boda boda” motorbikes, an AFP journalist saw. “It’s unfortunate that we lost four Kenyans in today’s violence, which also saw more than 30 people injured,” interior minister Kipchumba Murkomen told re...

By Thomas Maresca UPI North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened a meeting with commanding officers from across the country’s armed forces and called for strengthening frontline defenses along the border with South Korea to create an “impregnable fortress,” state-run media reported Monday. Kim held the meeting at the headquarters of the ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee on Sunday, the official Korean Central News Agency said. It was the first known gathering of all division and brigade commanders since Kim took power in 2011. Kim called for the “rapid modernization of the military and technical equipment of our army” and stressed the need to adapt military training to the changing nature of modern warfare, KCNA said. He emphasized the country’s “territorial defense” policy, including “strengthening the first-line units in the southern border and turning the border line into an impregnable fortress,” a...

The World Health Organization declared an international health emergency on Sunday over an outbreak of an Ebola strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has killed more than 80 and for which there is no vaccine. Fears of further spread grew when a laboratory on Sunday confirmed a case in the major eastern DRC city of Goma, which is controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia. A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever have so far been reported, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa) said in an update on Saturday. “A positive case in Goma has been confirmed by tests carried out by the laboratory. It involves the wife of a man who died of Ebola in Bunia, who travelled to Goma after her husband’s death whilst already infected,” Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Congolese National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), told AFP. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom G...

U.S. and Nigerian forces killed a leader of the  Islamic State group  in Nigeria in a mission carried out Friday, U.S. President  Donald Trump  said. Trump announced the joint operation in Africa’s most populous country in a late-night social media post that offered few details. He said Abu Bakr al-Mainuki was second-in-command of the Islamic State group globally and “thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing.” Al-Mainuki was viewed as the key figure in IS organizing and finance, and had been plotting attacks against the United States and its interests, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share sensitive information. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation and said Al-Mainuki was killed alongside “several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin.” According to the spokespe...

Clashes erupted Thursday in Bolivia’s capital as police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of miners trying to breach the government palace and setting off small dynamite charges, a tactic that has become increasingly common during this second week of nationwide unrest. It was the latest incident in growing social unrest challenging the administration of  President Rodrigo Paz , who was sworn in as president late last year, ushering a new era for the Andean nation after nearly 20 years of one-party rule. Thousands of miners descended on downtown La Paz to demand labor reforms and fuel, among other things, but as the hours passed, they began chanting slogans calling for the president’s resignation. Blockades and marches have paralyzed the Bolivian capital in the past days. Earlier in the day, rural schoolteachers marched through the city center to demand higher wages, further tightening the grip on the capital. SOURCE: Associated Press AND AGENCIES from The ...