Lesotho premier Thomas Thabane failed Friday to show up in court where he was due to be charged with murdering his estranged wife, prompting police to warn they could issue an arrest warrant. His aide initially said Thabane had gone to neighbouring South Africa for “routine” health checks, but later his office issued a statement […]

The global dirty money watchdog placed Iran on its blacklist on Friday after it failed to comply with international anti-terrorism financing norms, a move that will deepen the country’s isolation from financial markets. The decision came after more than three years of warnings from the Paris-based Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) urging Iran to either enact […]

Donald Trump and Russia on Friday both angrily dismissed US intelligence’s account that Moscow is meddling in this year’s election as Democrats accused the president of betraying democracy. US intelligence chief Joseph Maguire, whom Trump replaced on Wednesday with a loyal partisan lacking direct experience in the field, warned lawmakers of Russian interference in a […]

The United States and the Taliban will sign an agreement on Feb. 29 at the end of a week-long period of violence reduction in Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Taliban said on Friday. Afghan, international and Taliban forces will observe the reduced violence period beginning at midnight (1930 GMT), an Afghan […]

Israel confirmed Friday its first case of new coronavirus in a citizen who flew home from Japan earlier this week after being quarantined on the stricken cruise ship Diamond Princess. “One of the passengers who returned home from the cruise ship in Japan tested positive in a checkup by the health ministry’s central laboratory,” a […]

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Tuesday against the use of force to resolve a rail blockade sparked by indigenous protesters and now in its second week. Passenger and freight traffic has come to a halt in eastern Canada as native Americans protest in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en indigenous people in British Columbia, who are […]

South Korea’s coronavirus cases nearly doubled Friday, rising above 200 and making it the worst-affected country outside China as the number of infections linked to a religious sect spiked. A total of 100 new cases were confirmed by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), 85 of them connected to the Shincheonji Church […]

A satellite broadcaster in Denmark linked to a secessionist movement in Iran was on Friday ordered to stop broadcasting over its support for terrorism. According to the Danish TV and radio board, the Ahwazna Foundation violated broadcasting rules by overtly and indirectly supporting terrorism. The board noted that there was a talk show organised by […]

Lesotho premier Thomas Thabane failed to show up on Friday at a court where he was due to be charged with murdering his estranged wife, as his aide said he had gone to South Africa for medical checks. The 80-year-old prime minister is accused of having acted “in common purpose” in the June 2017 killing […]

Togo’s president, Faure Gnassingbe, looks set to claim a fourth term at the polls on Saturday and extend his family’s half-century domination of the West African nation. After weathering protests in 2017 and 2018, Gnassingbe pushed through constitutional changes last year enabling him to run again — and potentially remain in power for another decade. […]