World

Trump and Republican senator Ted CruzA group of Republican senators led by veteran lawmaker Ted Cruz said Saturday they will challenge Joe Biden’s election win — the latest last-ditch move to support Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the vote. The initiative, which appears certain to fail, flies in the face of rulings in dozens of courts and the findings by officials in several key states, that there were no widespread voting problems. The Republicans’ statement, signed by Cruz and six other current senators along with four senators-elect, asserts that “allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any…

A major avenue for global money laundering and tax evasion has been closed off by a new law requiring disclosure of owners of US shell companies used to hide billions of dollars. The Corporate Transparency Act was included in the US defense appropriations bill passed into law by Congress late Friday, overriding President Donald Trump’s veto. The law forces “beneficial owners” behind shell companies to report their identities to the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. While the law still grants them protection from public knowledge — only the Treasury and law enforcement will be able to access…

Laurent-Desire Kabila DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s office said Saturday that he has pardoned two men convicted over the assassination of former ruler Laurent-Desire Kabila, the father of his political rival Joseph Kabila. The announcement comes during a political crisis that has put Tshisekedi at loggerheads with Joseph Kabila, his immediate predecessor as president. Laurent-Desire Kabila was shot dead in his office by one of his bodyguards on January 16, 2001. The bodyguard was then shot dead. But two senior officials, the slain president’s former aide de camp Colonel Eddy Kapend and former intelligence chief Georges Leta, were among those…

Ruling party candidate and former minister Mohamed Bazoum won the first round of Niger’s presidential vote, the electoral commission announced on Saturday with a runoff set for next month. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) said the close ally of outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou garnered 39.33 percent of the votes at last weekend’s election. Bazoum will face former president Mahamane Ousmane, who won 16.99 percent, for the February 20 runoff in the West African country fighting a bloody jihadist insurgency. Former prime ministers Seini Oumarou and Albade Abouba respectively came third and fourth with 8.95 percent and 7.07 percent of…

Five women were killed in war-torn Yemen when a projectile exploded at a wedding held on New Year’s Day in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, officials said Saturday. The government and Huthi rebel forces blamed each other for the Friday night bombing of the hall near Hodeida’s airport, a frontline between the warring sides on the edge of the Huthi-held town.  It came just two days after at least 26 people were killed in blasts that rocked the airport of the southern city of Aden as government ministers got off a plane. General Sadek Douid, the government representative…

An Afghan radio journalist was shot dead Friday in a car ambush in the central province of Ghor, officials said, the fifth media worker to be killed in two months. Besmullah Adel Aimaq, editor-in-chief of Voice of Ghor radio, was killed en route to Firoz Koh city, the capital of Ghor province, said governor’s spokesman Aref Aber. Aimaq’s murder follows a similar pattern in recent months, where prominent Afghans have been ambushed by gunmen or killed in bomb attacks. No group has yet claimed responsibility for Aimaq’s murder. The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee, a group working for the security of…

Some 2,500 partygoers attended an illegal New Year rave in northwestern France, violently clashing with police who failed to stop it and sparking concern the underground event could spread the coronavirus, authorities said Friday. The revellers had set up the illegal rave in Lieuron south of Rennes in Brittany after skirmishes with police, said a statement from the local prefecture. Many were still on the site Friday as a sanitary cordon was thrown up around it. Local gendarmes tried “prevent this event but faced fierce hostility from many partygoers” who set one of their cars of fire and threw bottles…

(FILES) In this file photo taken on November 17, 2020 An illustration picture shows vials with Covid-19 Vaccine stickers attached and syringes with the logo of US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, on November 17, 2020. – Britain on December 2, 2020 became the first country to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for general use and said it would be introduced next week. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) German firm BioNTech said Friday it was racing to ramp up production of its Covid-19 jab in Europe, to fill the “gap” left by the lack of other approved vaccines.…