World

US President Donald Trump. PHOTO: MANDEL NGAN AFP/File By the time Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th US president Wednesday, his scandal-tainted predecessor Donald Trump will already be far away, having helicoptered out of the White House a last time earlier that morning, an official said Friday. Trump will be the first president in a century and a half to snub the inauguration of his successor. An official who asked not to be identified said Trump would go to his Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida, which is his legal residence and will become home after the White House.…

A reporter’s laptop shows the Wikipedia blacked out opening page in Brussels January 18, 2012. REUTERS/YVES HERMAN/FILES Wikipedia celebrates its 20th anniversary on Friday and the collaborative, volunteer-produced internet encyclopedia aims to spend the next 20 years further expanding free access to information. Founded on January 15, 2001 by the American-British entrepreneur Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia is now the seventh-most popular website in the world, with its more than 55 million articles being consulted 15 billion times every month. The website started in English but within two months had already launched in German and Swedish. It is now available in 309…

Former South African President Jacob Zuma appears at the Pietermaritzburg High Court in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, on June 23, 2020. – Former President Zuma stands accused of taking kickbacks before he became president from a 51 billion rand (3.4 billion US dollar) purchase of fighter jets, patrol boats and military equipment manufactured by five European firms, including French defence company Thales. (Photo by KIM LUDBROOK / POOL / AFP) / South Africa’s ex-president Jacob Zuma will not appear before a judicial panel probing alleged graft during his time in office, his lawyer said Friday, despite a court application seeking to…

Snow covers the remains of a destroyed building in Patrinja on January 12, 2021, that collapsed during a deadly tremor that hit the region of the central Croatian town of Petrinja on December 29. – Winter shows its teeth,” sighs 75-year-old Bara Vrbanac as she slowly climbs into the snow-covered camping trailer where she is living after her house in central Croatia was badly damaged in an earthquake last month. She is among hundreds of families who have squeezed into vans, containers and other shelters after their homes were made unsafe by the quake that killed seven people. Winter is…

(FILES) In this file photo taken on November 23, 2020 is pictured a bottle reading “Vaccine Covid-19” next to US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech logos on November 23, 2020. – Pharma companies Pfizer and BioNTech on December 1, 2020 filed for European approval for their coronavirus vaccine, following in the footsteps of competitor Moderna, while the OECD predicted the world economy would bounce back to pre-pandemic levels by late 2021. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP) The World Health Organization’s European branch on Thursday said 95 percent of vaccine doses so far administered worldwide were limited…

President Denis Sassou Nguesso has already been nominated as the candidate of the ruling Congolese Labour Party (PCT) in the next presidential ballot, due next March. AFP/File/Bertrand GUAY The Republic of Congo will hold its presidential election on March 21, public television said Thursday, with President Denis Sassou Nguesso, in power for a total of 36 years, named his party’s candidate. The defence and security forces will vote on March 17, enabling them to be deployed on polling day four days later. It is the first time since the Republic of Congo, also called Congo-Brazzaville, has adopted a two-phase ballot…

World Health Organisation PHOTO:AFP The World Health Organization’s emergency committee met, two weeks early, on Thursday to discuss the urgent threat from rapidly-spreading new coronavirus variants. Newly identified mutations of the virus, which appear to be significantly more infectious, come as spiking case numbers force many countries to enforce new restrictions. The committee normally gathers every three months but the WHO brought the meeting forward to discuss the mutations. “There are two urgent issues which need particular attention, and for which we seek your advice,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told members, in his opening remarks. “The first is the…

Twitter chief Jack Dorsey on Wednesday backed the messaging platform's ban of US President Donald Trump, but said it sets a "dangerous" precedent and represents a failure to promote healthy conversation on social networks. "Having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications," Dorsey said in a string of tweets about his take on the company's decision late last week to permanently bar the president. "While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation," Dorsey said, inviting feedback from users. Trump's access to social media platforms that…

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 13: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (C), surrounded by a security detail, walks to her office from the House Floor at the U.S. Capitol on January 13, 2021 in Washington, DC. The House of Representatives is expected to vote to impeach President Donald Trump later today, after Vice President Mike Pence declined to use the 25th amendment to remove him from office after protestors breached the U.S. Capitol last week. Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images/AFP Stefani Reynolds / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP The United States Vice President, Michael Pence, protested, yesterday,…