Pegasus Realty has officially broken ground on Palladium Residences, a landmark residential development in Achimota designed to redefine urban living with affordability and contemporary elegance.
The sod-cutting ceremony, held at ABC Junction near Guinness Ghana HQ on Tuesday, March 25, marked the commencement of a project that will deliver 24 four-bedroom townhouses and a 70-unit apartment complex, comprising one, two, and three-bedroom options.
The development aims to provide middle-class families and professionals with high-quality homes at flexible payment terms.
Speaking at the event, a Pegasus Realty representative, Jessica Zwennes highlighted Palladium Residences as a high-end addition to the Achimota neighborhood, aligning with the area’s existing prestige.
“Palladium Residences is the first of it kind in Achimota in terms of prestige and the magnitude of the real estate development. Achimota already has quite a prestigious institution. It has the Achimota school, which is quite famous. You also have the Achimota golf club, which is also one of the pinnacles of this area as well as Guinness Ghana and the Achimota mall. So there are quite a few institutions and outlets here that we felt that Palladium Residences will fit right in and further uplift the atmosphere of this area.”
Palladium Residences promises an unparalleled living experience, integrating contemporary architecture with functionality. The townhouses feature distinct architectural styles, creating a vibrant and diverse streetscape, while the apartments embrace open-concept designs, maximizing natural light and airflow for a bright, airy ambiance.
The development offers easy access to key destinations across Accra, including: Achimota Retail Centre (5 minutes) for shopping and entertainment, Accra Mall (15 minutes), a major retail and lifestyle hub, Kotoka International Airport (20 minutes) for seamless travel, University of Ghana, Legon (15 minutes), appealing to academics and students, Achimota School (10 minutes), ideal for families and Central Business District (25 minutes), ensuring quick access to Accra’s economic center.
Developed by Yaw Addo Developments Limited and constructed by Construction Logistics Limited, Palladium Residences is designed as a master-planned community with world-class amenities, including: a private gym and swimming pool, a rooftop lounge with scenic views, a multi-purpose sports court, an on-site restaurant and retail spaces, and a dedicated children’s play area.
Pegasus Realty’s latest venture is set to contribute to Ghana’s housing sector while offering a solid investment opportunity. The company has introduced flexible payment plans to make homeownership more accessible, and early buyers can take advantage of off-plan prices for the next 30 days.
As construction officially kicks off, Palladium Residences stands as a testament to Pegasus Realty’s commitment to shaping the future of modern urban living in Ghana.
For more information, prospective buyers and investors can contact Pegasus Realty directly.
Ghana is presently working to avert a food crisis amidst a prolonged dry spell that has adversely affected eight regions in the Northern part of Ghana.
These regions, Bono, Bono East, Oti, Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West, contribute about 62% of the country’s grain production.
Due to the absence of irrigation to ensure continuous crop production, the government has placed an embargo on the export of grains to ensure the domestic demand is met.
Many citizens are now questioning the relevance of government’s flagship programme, One Village One Dam, which they believe, if it had been effective, would have averted the current crisis the country has found itself.
The government spent GH₵201,113,875.00 of the petroleum revenue to construct 285 dams under the flagship programme, One Village One Dam policy, research findings have revealed.
The research was conducted by the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA), a Convener of Northern Coalition of Civil Society Organisations with funding support from the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) as part of expenditure and performance tracking of the dams.
The findings titled; “Ghana’s Oil Money on Dried Dams” was made known to stakeholders in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.”
The research’s purpose was to ascertain whether the dams constructed in the five regions of the north under the 1V1D policy were supporting all year-round irrigation activities as intended and the amount spent on them.
The research showed that averagely, government spent GH₵670,350.00 on each dam, an amount far higher than the GH₵250,000.00 stated by the government and noted in the contract award letters.
It also uncovered that GH₵10,064,250.00 of the Annual Budget Funding Amount was spent on paying consultancy services for construction supervision of the dams while payment for construction of some dams exceeded the contract sums.
Mr Bismarck Adongo Ayorogo, the Executive Director, NORPRA, who presented the findings, noted that although many of the dams were completed, they were not serving the intended purpose of supporting farmers to engage in dry season farming.
Mr Ayorogo noted that all the dams visited had dried up and farmers could not practice irrigation farming.
“The community members who participated in the focused group discussions and backed with community scorecards said the dams did not contribute to anything and when we visited the dams, almost all the dams were dried up, no single dam was functioning or having water and there was no dry season farming around any of the dams,” he said.
The findings also established that no audit report on the 1V1D projects was found, even though the government had stated in the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policies that the Audit Service was increasing its audit coverage on 1V1D to ascertain value for money.
It also revealed that the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) with institutional capacity of dam construction did not lead in the design, construction, and supervision of the 1V1D projects and the community members were also not involved or consulted and that contributed to the poor implementation of the policy.
The findings therefore recommended that there be an audit into the 1V1D dams while review the policy and including the GIDA and Ministry of Food and Agriculture to ensure that dams were properly constructed to meet the objects of the increasing food security, reducing poverty, and creating jobs.
The government through the then Ministry of Special Development Initiatives in 2018 constructed earth dams as part of the pro-poor policies under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) to address regional imbalances, increase food security and jobs creation.
Mr Ayorogo expressed disappointment at the failed policy and called for attention to be paid towards revamping existing dams that were already supporting farmers to practice dry season farming.
Meanwhile, Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Bryan Acheampong, has clarified that the ongoing drought affecting parts of the country should not be viewed as a failure of the government’s ‘One Village, One Dam’ (1V1D) policy.
In his remarks, the Minister emphasized that the 1V1D initiative was not designed to address the broader irrigation challenges that farmers are currently facing.
“In the situation we find ourselves, what we need is irrigation. All the 574 dams were to hold rainwater and they have been extremely effective and never a failure,” he added.
He further clarified, “With the irrigation, it will require us to pump water from a big water source into a big canal or dam to hold the water.”
State Attorney and Minister for Justice Godfred Yeboah Dame has touted his achievement of successfully safeguarding the already strained national kitty from billions of dollars that would have otherwise been paid as judgment debts.
The young Attorney General, proud of his achievements, averred this feat when his was phoned into a radio interview to respond to claims by former Minister for Power and Member of Parliament for Pru East Kwabena Donkor, over the recent $111m judgement debt awarded against the government of Ghana.
In February 18, 2018, the government of Ghana terminated a power purchase deal with Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) which resulted in some $134 million award a UK tribunal found on January 26, 2021, against Ghana.
An Additional $111 million has been awarded against Ghana after GPGC filed a lawsuit on January 19, 2024, in the U.S. District Court, claiming recovery of the mounting interest on principal debt under the Federal Arbitration Act’s Chapter 2 and the New York Convention.
But Kwabena Donkor, the former Power Minister who supervised the signing of the contract with in 2015 when the country was battling a cringing power crisis was quickly heaped blame on the current Attorney General when he was interviewed on Accra-based Joy FM.
Mr Donkor questioned and blamed the Attorney General and Energy Ministry for defaulting on the payment of the initial debt.
In his defence, Mr Dame rebuffed the claim arguing that he was not the Attorney General when the judgement debt was was awarded.
Indeed in January 2021, Mr Dame was not public officer nor an appointed state attorney as the country had just come out from the 2020 general election.
He added that after the arbitration was concluded, the payment obligation was the solely responsibility of the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Energy.
It the failure of the government of Ghana to pay this judgement entered in 2021 which has lead to the repeated applications in various by GPGC. The government of indeed made some payment but the explanation of the default does not lie with the Attorney General but Finance ministry and Energy Ministry.
Mr Dame went on to tout his works maintaining a clean slate when it come judgement.
“The records will show that in my tenure as AG there’s not been a single judgement debt against Ghana and claims were in billions of dollars.” he added
Another shocking, jaw-dropping scandal has rocked the Akufo-Addo-led administration leaving many Ghanaians wonder the extent rot superintended President Akufo-Addo
The details of this latest scandal is cringing given the circumstances under which payments where made to a private company here in Ghana.
According details as presented by Member of Parlaiment for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, documents from Ghana’s Ministry of Finance, revealing a scandal involving a $34.9 million (GHC416m) payment authorized by former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta just five days before leaving office.
According to Ablakwa, the funds were intended for spare parts for the 307 ambulances distributed under the One District One Ambulance initiative at cost of $54 million in 2019, thus translating GHC342 million at prevailing rate of GHC5.6 to a dollar.
The documents show that on February 9, 2024, Ofori-Atta approved the payment to Service Ghana Auto Group Limited. On the same day, he directed the Controller and Accountant-General to release $10 million (GHS 120,711,000), which the company received on February 23, 2024.
Ablakwa’s analysis reveals that the spare parts cost per ambulance is $113,695.456, exceeding the value of many fully equipped new ambulances. This raises questions about the justification for such a high expenditure when new ambulances could have been purchased for the same or less.
“In his last shockingly sleazy conduct, Ken Ofori-Atta, by a letter dated February 9, 2024, approved a staggering US$34,904,505.00 to be paid to the discredited Service Ghana Auto Group Limited for the procurement of spare parts for the 307 ambulances purchased by the government in 2019.
“On the same February 9, 2024, the busy Finance minister instructed the Controller and Accountant-General to release US$ 10 million, equivalent to GHS120,711,000.00.
“My impeccable tracking of this transaction confirms that the Controller and Accountant-General processed and released the GHS120,711,000.00 on February 23, 2024, which was promptly received in the accounts of Service Ghana Auto Group Limited,” Mr Ablakwa wrote.
He added that “an analysis of this dubiously outrageous transaction valued at US$34,904,505.00 for spare parts for 307 ambulances actually translates into US$113,695.456.00 per ambulance.
“Instructively, checks from many Mercedes Benz ambulance dealers across the world show that US$113,695,456.00 is far more than the value of a considerable number of modern fully equipped new ambulances.”
Further investigations, according to Ablakwa, reveal that Service Ghana Auto Group Limited was incorporated on April 24, 2020, more than a year after President Akufo-Addo commissioned the 307 ambulances in January 2019. He claims the company was awarded the contract without a competitive procurement process, raising suspicions of favoritism and lack of due diligence.
Ablakwa notes that Service Ghana Auto Group Limited had already received GHS 115,342,573 for servicing the ambulances between 2020 and 2023 and that the company stands to make a total of GHS 653 million from the transactions, which is more than double the cost of the ambulances purchased in 2019.
He said the contract awarded to Service Ghana Auto was controversial because a special audit by the Auditor-General cited several issues, including inflated invoices, misuse of National Ambulance Service staff for maintenance, breaches of maintenance schedules, and an unfavorable MoU with the National Ambulance Service.
In his publication, the MP announced plans to formally petition the Office of the Special Prosecutor to conduct criminal investigations into the matter. He emphasized the need to hold those responsible accountable and protect the public purse from further exploitation.
“I intend to formally petition the Office of the Special Prosecutor this week for his office to conduct criminal investigations into this sordid affair,” he stated.
Read the full publication by the MP below:
THE US$34.9 MILLION (GHS538 MILLION) AMBULANCE SCANDAL AND HOW SERVICE GHANA AUTO GROUP LIMITED HAS MADE A COOL GHS653MILLION THROUGH INFLATED INVOICES
Unimpeachable intercepted documents from Ghana’s Ministry of Finance reveal yet another scandal of ginormous proportions.
Five days before leaving the Ministry of Finance after President Akufo-Addo’s lame-duck Valentine Day reshuffle, Ken Ofori-Atta decided to teach us one more unforgettable bitter lesson. Perhaps, it was his special way of exiting with a vengeance after incessant and relentless calls from suffering Ghanaians to have him sacked.
In a grand ‘lootocratic’ conspiracy with the outgoing Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu who was also affected by the reshuffle, the two abysmal performing ministers decided to cause more financial loss — it seems from the Sputnik V scandal, mismanagement of billions of covid funds, benefiting directly from loans accumulated, all the way to Ghana’s current bankruptcy — the two outgoing disastrous ministers didn’t think they have already wreaked enough havoc to have mercy on us.
In his last shockingly sleazy conduct, Ken Ofori-Atta by a letter dated 9th February, 2024 approved a staggering US$34,904,505.00 to be paid to the discredited Service Ghana Auto Group Limited for the procurement of spare parts for the 307 ambulances purchased by government in 2019.
On the same 9th February, 2024, the busy Finance Minister instructed the Controller and Accountant-General to release US$10million, equivalent to GHS120,711,000.00.
My impeccable tracking of this transaction confirms that the Controller and Accountant-General processed and released the GHS120,711,000.00 on February 23, 2024 which was promptly received in the accounts of Service Ghana Auto Group Limited.
An analysis of this dubiously outrageous transaction valued at US$34,904,505.00 for spare parts for 307 ambulances, actually translates into US$113,695.456.00 per ambulance.
Instructively, checks from many Mercedes Benz ambulance dealers across the world show that US$113,695,456.00 is far more than the value of a considerable number of modern fully equipped new ambulances.
Why sign a rip-off and an unconscionable sweetheart deal of US$113,695.456.00 just for spare parts when you can buy a new fully equipped modern Mercedes Benz ambulance for the same value, and even less?
What happened to value for money and love for country?
Further parliamentary oversight reveals that Service Ghana Auto Group Limited was incorporated on April 24, 2020.
Service Ghana Auto Group Limited was therefore incorporated more than a year after the 307 new ambulances were commissioned by President Akufo-Addo on January 28, 2019.
Typical of how this incurably corrupt government operates, the company was handpicked without a competitive procurement process.
Additionally, Government appears not to have done much due diligence on the directors of the company — I shall return to this in much detail later.
Deeper parliamentary oversight through GIFMIS assessments also confirms that even before this US$34.9million scandalous Ken Ofori-Atta/Agyeman-Manu send-off package, Service Ghana Auto Group Limited has received a colossal GHS115,342,573 in payments for shoddy servicing of the ambulances between 2020 and 2023.
This means, so far, Service Ghana Auto Group Limited alone will be making a mind-boggling GHS653million from these ambulances. This figure is more than double of how much the ambulances cost us in 2019. (Prevailing exchange rate of US$54million which was the cost of the 307 ambulances in 2019.)
One wonders if the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government procured the ambulances to save lives or they were procured to serve as an unbridled cash cow for corrupt politicians and their business collaborators.
What is even more depressing, the Auditor-General’s special audit titled — Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General on Fleet Management of the National Ambulance Service which was published on May 25, 2022 had the following extremely damning conclusions about Service Ghana Auto Group Limited:
I) Service Ghana Auto Group Limited inflated invoices;
II) Service Ghana Auto Group Limited in many instances used staff of the National Ambulance Service for its maintenance even though all payments went to their company;
III) Service Ghana Auto Group Limited consistently breached maintenance schedules and procedures and
IV) The Service Ghana Auto Group Limited MoU with the National Ambulance Service did not inure to the benefit of the National Ambulance Service.
How can any Government which claims to care about protecting the public purse be aware of this damning audit report and still proceed to award an even bigger contract of US$34.9million (GHS538million) when Ghana did not get value for money after previously paying Service Ghana Auto Group Limited GHS115million?
It is also worth remembering that this is the same company which was exposed in a viral video a couple of years ago when an ambulance sent to them to be serviced was rather used to cart cement by their unscrupulous staff. (See attached the pathetic apology they issued at the time).
Who would have predicted that a government trying everything by hook or crook to have Minority Leader, Hon. Dr. Ato Forson convicted in that infamous ambulance trial for allegedly causing financial loss of €2.37million will itself be recklessly, mindlessly and criminally causing real financial loss in excess of US$34.9million through another ambulance transaction.
Tomorrow is indeed pregnant.
I intend to formally petition the Office of the Special Prosecutor this week for his office to conduct criminal investigations into this sordid affair.
Stinky create, loot and share shall be fearlessly defeated!
The High Court in Accra has ruled that the secret audio recording between Attorney-General Godfred Yeboah Dame and Richard Jakpa does not endanger a fair trial in the ongoing ambulance case involving Minority Leader Cassiel Ato Forson.
Court has no jurisdiction to undertake an enquiry into the conduct of the Attorney-General. Jurisdiction in criminal proceedings must be implied. It cannot be inferred. It must be by law. There is no such law.
On the invitation of A1 for the Court to order a mistral. Court says it does not apply in summary trials. It applies only in jury trials. Applicant did not refer the court to any authority in Ghana or anywhere for a mistral in summary trials. On the contrary, the Respondent rightly, as stated by the judge, referred the court to a Ghanaian case. None of the grounds for a mistrial exists in this case.
In a trial that has gone on for over 3 years, in which the Republic has closed its case, A1 closed his case and A3 started testimony, how can the alleged interference by the Attorney-General with A3, which is alleged to have occurred only a few weeks ago when either A3 has started testifying, lead to a mistrial? Application for mistrial is therefore dismissed.
On the application to prevent the Attorney-General from instituting criminal proceedings, the court is cautious in injuncting constitutional bodies from performing their functions. The applicant has demonstrated any serious basis for such an order. It is this dismissed.
On the admissibility of the secret recording, because it is a criminal proceeding, it would be admitted. However, having admitted the weight to be attached is something else.
The court finds that the words regarding whether the Attorney-General asked A3 to help him to make a case against A1, did not come out of the mouth of the Attorney-General.
The most important factor in this case is whether fair trial has been endangered or prejudiced.
Is there any evidence that the conversation between the parties can reasonably endanger a fair trial? Judge says no.
The suggestion that the accused should obtain a medical report is one that raises discomfort.
Renowned broadccaster Bridget Otoo’s story about her relationship with Dr. Evans Ago Tetteh is quite intriguing, showcasing the complexities and doubts that can arise in the early stages of a relationship. Her initial impressions of Dr. Ago based on his WhatsApp display picture and her subsequent reluctance to engage with him demonstrate the influence of first impressions and preconceived notions.
Her decision to finally meet him after two years, driven partly by the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, reflects the unpredictable nature of life and how unexpected events can lead to significant changes in perspective.
However, the most striking aspect of Bridget’s story is her admission that she had Dr. Ago investigated by a friend with connections to British intelligence. Her reasons for doing so, including concerns about his background and potential political affiliations, reveal the depth of her skepticism and the extent to which external factors can influence trust in a relationship.
“It was through a friend, Fati. I was there, and she sent me a WhatsApp message that her friend is interested in me; he had seen my picture on her WhatsApp status,” she recalled the events of 2018.
“She gave my number to him, and he texted me on WhatsApp… So I went to look at his WhatsApp DP, and there was this guy; well-built, having a good time, with a tattoo on his shoulder. As soon as I saw that, I said no, never,” she said.
Despite these initial doubts and investigations, Bridget eventually found that Dr. Ago’s personality was different from her initial impressions, highlighting the importance of giving people a chance and not judging solely based on superficial factors.
Overall, Bridget Otoo’s story is a reminder of the complexities of human relationships and the importance of keeping an open mind, even when faced with uncertainty and doubt.
“He had roots in the NPP, so I said maybe the NPP had sent him to come… because they realized that she is probably doing a lot of things for Mahama, so this is her weakness… it was one of the things that my investigator had to look for; has he been planted? Apart from the drugs and the sakawa, (they needed to investigate) if he has been sent by someone,” she said.
Kumawood actor Kwadwo Nkansah popularly known in showbiz as “Lilwin” has been granted bail by the Asokore Mampong District Court after his arrest in connection with a tragic accident that claimed the life of a three-year-old boy.
The court set bail at GH¢50,000 with two sureties.
Lilwin was taken into custody on Monday, June 3, after the incident, which occurred on May 25 at Amakom, Kumasi.
The accident involved a collision between Lilwin’s branded Mercedes-Benz and another vehicle. The circumstances leading to the collision are still under investigation.
The case, which has drawn significant public and media attention due to Lilwin’s celebrity status, has been adjourned to June 27, 2024.
The actor, known for his roles in various Ghanaian movies and comedic skits, is yet to comment publicly on the incident.
The court’s decision to grant bail allows Lilwin to remain free under specified conditions as the case continues.
The Bank of Ghana has announced a loss of GHC10.50 billion for the financial year ending 2023.
This significant loss is primarily attributed to an increase in total interest expenses on its open market operations.
During the period under review, these expenses surged by GHC6.7 billion.
This GH₵10.50 billion loss is, however, a substantial improvement compared to the GHC60.9 billion loss the Central Bank reported in 2022 following the impairment of its holdings of marketable government stocks and non-marketable instruments during the domestic debt exchange program.
The Bank explained that the rise in expenses was necessary to manage the economy’s excess liquidity.
It was also meant to support the disinflation process as part of the broader macroeconomic adjustment programme.
The Bank of Ghana and its subsidiaries had total liabilities surpassing total assets by GH₵65.36 billion as of December 31, 2023.
The total operating expenses for 2023 were GH₵19.2 billion, a significant decrease from the GH₵66.9 billion recorded in 2022.
This reduction is attributed to lower impairment charges on loans and advances and the Bank’s holdings of Government of Ghana securities.
The Bank of Ghana further explains that “this Open Market Operations activity, which accounted for a major portion of the loss incurred, yielded positive results.”
The Bank of Ghana’s 2023 Annual Report and Financial Statement revealed that “the aggressive mopping up operations, contributed to slowing down inflation to 23.2 per cent by the end of 2023, significantly down from the rate of 54.1 per cent at the end of 2022.”
According to the report, no funds were allocated for reserve appropriation, as the reserve amount was in deficit as of December 31, 2023.
The Central Bank promptly added a note on policy solvency, emphasizing its ability to generate sufficient realized income to cover the costs associated with conducting monetary policy operations.
In the opinion of the Board of Directors and Management, the policy solvency outcome for 2023 is consistent with the perspective held in 2022.
It was 11:00 am on July 6, 2023, at one of Ghana’s prestigious senior high schools, Accra Academy. Students had gathered in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) lab, tapping their fingers impatiently on keyboards with exasperating sighs. In contrast, others muttered under their breaths in frustration, desperately trying to connect to the internet. With time slipping away and their assignment deadline fast approaching, disappointment was etched on their faces as the blank screens on their computer monitors flashed with the inscription, “No internet access.”
Accra Academy Senior High School (SHS) was one of over 700 schools connected to the internet as part of the government’s Wi-Fi for Schools programme. For a while, jumping on the information superhighway was a breeze for both students and tutors. But within a year, the internet was no longer available. The school was disconnected.
“The internet stopped working when we were in Form 2,” says a final-year student. “We no longer use it at the ICT lab.”
The headmaster, Emmanuel Ofie Fiemawhle, explains that the government-supplied internet only worked for a year but was always unstable. Complaints have been filed. He claims that the company responsible for the network has failed to respond positively or meaningfully.
The Old Students Association has since intervened to keep Accra Academy’s vital administrative functions connected to the Internet. Currently, it is only the school’s administration, accounts office and data room that are connected, said the headmaster. The ICT lab and the libraries, where students usually go for research, are without an internet connection.
Although Labone SHS has the IT infrastructure installed by the government, the internet has never worked. The school relies on Telecel Ghana’s internet service. The government has, however, been paying for internet for the school. Drone Shot by: Clement Edward Kumsah/The Fourth Estate
The situation is no better at Labone SHS, also in Accra. Although the school has the IT infrastructure installed by the government, the internet has never worked. A member of the management of the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they currently rely on Telecel Ghana’s internet service. However, this service is only accessible in the school’s administrative block, which houses the headmaster and other management staff.
At the Bolgatanga SHS (Big Boss), an E-learning centre sits in the heart of the school. The centre was put up to facilitate teaching and virtual learning among students while assisting teachers to undertake academic research and prepare their lessons. But a year after it was opened, Wi-Fi internet connectivity stopped working.
This has not only affected the E-learning centre and the purpose it was supposed to serve. It has also affected the preparation of lesson notes by teachers. Since the Wi-Fi stopped working, staff have had to use their mobile data to conduct online research.
Authorities say several complaints to the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education have yielded no results. Despite this challenge, Bolgatanga Senior High qualified for two national championships – the National Science and Maths Quiz in 2023 and the Energy Commission’s Senior High Schools Renewable Energy Challenge in 2022. However, the unavailability of internet connectivity affected preparations as the students could not hold virtual lessons and conduct research work online, forcing the school to opt out of both competitions.
“This is frustrating and demoralizing,” a student, who did not want to be named, said of the situation.
The free Wi-Fi for schools’ programme was in fulfilment of a 2016 manifesto promise by the governing New Patriotic Party to collaborate “with the private sector [to] provide free Wi-Fi coverage for senior secondary and tertiary institutions nationwide, dedicated to learning, administration and enhancing the capacity to do research.”
According to the project contractor, the policy resulted in the connection of over 1,000 institutions to the Internet as of February 2024. Apart from the SHSs, 16 regional education offices, 46 colleges of education and 260 district education offices were also expected to be connected within a year.
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who launched the initiative in February 2020 said it will be “a [leveler] of academic opportunities
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who launched the initiative in February 2020, said it was part of a broader programme to bridge the technology gap in the country and improve learning through internet use.
“There is much knowledge on the internet and we have to allow senior high schools to access that knowledge. We promised free Wi-Fi and we are going to deliver,” Dr Bawumia said at a town hall meeting in Kumasi in 2020.
The project, Dr Bawumia said, will be “a [leveler] of academic opportunities” and provide “an equal opportunity window to the world of [the] Internet of Things.”
Almost four years after the launch of the programme, the lofty promises are yet to be fulfilled and a number of schools are without internet connection in Ghana. Yet, GHS56 million has been paid to Busy Internet, an internet service provider, which appears to have since folded up, and its contract is now assigned to a company called Lifted Logistics, which only secured a conditional internet service provider (ISP) license in February 2024.
When the contract was awarded for the provision of internet services to schools in December 2019, the intent was to have school administration blocks, libraries and the ICT labs connected. However, 48 of the 50 schools Evans Aziamor-Mensah of The Fourth Estate visited between June and July 2023 had no internet connectivity.
Service provider’s unresponsiveness angers school IT co-ordinators
To ensure effective communication on the internet connection, Busy Internet (now Lifted Logistics) created a dedicated line for the schools to lodge complaints about disruptions. It also created a WhatsApp platform for school IT coordinators across the country. In the Bono and Ahafo regions, though the coordinators reported the challenges they were facing with the Wi-Fi connectivity, Busy Internet failed to act.
“The network has been down for a long time. At the regional level, we always get complaints but when we channel it, we don’t get any proper response from your end. I can say for a fact that all schools, districts and regional offices are facing the same challenge. The internet is not working especially Bono Region,” one of the co-ordinators wrote on the WhatsApp platform in May 2023.
At another time on May 15, 2023, when one of the Busy Internet supervisors asked for an update in the WhatsApp group, it drew the anger of the IT coordinators.
“There’s no Wi-Fi anywhere. It’s a white elephant,” one of the coordinators responded.
“At times, it is irritating to ask such a question,” another coordinator wrote.
“Why?” the Busy supervisor asked.
“Are you not the managers and providers of the service? You should know best,” the IT coordinator responded.
Busy Internet, Education Ministry’s responses
Mr Agyapong-Bempa’s excuse that they could not provide the information on whether a school’s internet was functional or not until August 2023 because Busy Internet suspended its operations for those years is not accurate
Business Lead of Lifted Logistics, Dickinson Agyapong Bempa, told The Fourth Estate that the company did not present any bill to the government of Ghana for the months it did not provide service to certain schools. But this claim is false.
Accra Academy, Labone Senior High School, and Bolgatanga Girls have been without internet under the Busy Internet project for periods of up to 24 months. However, they featured prominently on a list of schools whose internet services Lifted Logistics invoiced and received payments for.
The company also received payments for St Mary’s SHS, Korle Gonno, Fafraha Community Day SHS, Ada Technical, Nungua SHS, Presby SHS, Teshie Presbyterian SHS, Ashaiman SHS, Kpedze SHS, Toase SHS, Bawku and Adugyama SHSs between 2020 and 2023 but all of these schools had no internet access for those years.
A policy advocacy organisation, Africa Education Watch, has also conducted research and found that 107 schools out of 150 visited across the country were not enjoying any benefits under the free Wi-Fi for schools project.
Demand for value-for-money audit
Divine Kpe, senior programmes manager at Africa Education Watch says if teachers and students cannot access the internet on campus then there’s no value for money
Divine Kpe, a senior programmes manager at Eduwatch, says Ghana seems to be paying for a service that is not being rendered and called for an investigation into the project.
“… if we have invested about GHS 84 million for installation,” he says “and we have to pay GHS6.3 million for the next five years and yet the students and the teachers cannot access the service then there’s no value for money.” Mr Kpe says there is a need for the Auditor-General to look into that.
The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has refused to provide information on how much the government has paid Busy Internet since January 2020
The Fourth Estate wrote to the Minister of Education for responses to these revelations. The Minister directed that we speak to the Executive Director for the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling, Nana Gyamfi Adwabour, who revealed that a monitoring system was set up to review the contract with Busy Internet in September 2023, almost three years into the implementation of the project.
Nana Gyamfi Adwabour also admitted that apart from the manual verification by a committee, there was no real-time monitoring system in place for the project until September 2023. Such a monitoring system was to be installed as part of Busy Internet’s obligations under the contract.
One of the legal wires that binds the government and Busy Internet in the contract was that, if Busy Internet failed to deliver its service to a school for 15 days, the company would not be paid. This legal wire was tripped not just for 15 days in some schools. As The Fourth Estate has learned, some schools did not have internet for as long as two years.
President of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) who is also the headmaster of Opoku Ware Senior High School in Kumasi, Rev Fr Stephen Owusu Sekyere, said the internet outages have been affecting teaching and learning in schools.
“At times, it goes off for about 2-3 weeks, other times, a month and then it’s restored but as we speak, my school has been off for over a month now and it’s not helping us at all,” he told The Fourth Estate on May 4, this year.
He continued: “We can’t use the service to improve teaching and learning in our schools.”
When The Fourth Estate sent a list of 53 schools without internet spanning 2020 to July 2023 to Lifted Logistics, the company failed to provide any information on that, stating “Busy Internet, which was in charge of this implementation at the time, has since suspended operations.”
Mr Agyapong-Bempa, however, said, “We have from August 2023 provided a monitoring system, which we gave you a briefing at our last meeting.”
Mr Agyapong-Bempa’s excuse that they could not provide the information on whether a school’s internet was functional or not until August 2023 because Busy Internet suspended its operations for those years is not accurate. This is because Lifted Logistics bought Busy Internet in 2018, a year before the contract was awarded and all payments for work done were made to Lifted Logistics.
If some schools did not have internet for more than 15 days as stipulated in the contract, why did the government of Ghana continue to pay the company for services in these schools? The Fourth Estate asked Nana Gyamfi Adwabour of the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling.
“I think this is a clear case for us to review again those two monitoring mechanisms to protect the public purse,” was his response.
Despite multiple requests for information, since July 2023, the Ministry of Education has refused to provide a monthly breakdown of what it has paid Busy Internet since January 2020.
Nana Gyamfi Adwabour also failed to provide information on how much the government has paid Busy Internet
Nana Gyamfi Adwabour also promised to provide the data after the interview on May 6, 2024, but failed to do so.
The Business lead of Lifted Logistics, Mr Bempa denied knowledge of how much his agency has so far received from the contract from the government.
But so far what we know is that the company received GHC56 million for work it supposedly did for nine months for which it cannot show any tangible results because most schools don’t have the services they were supposed to provide. This period includes the months The Fourth Estate visited and observed that the internet was not working in 48 out of 50 schools.
The soldiers were attacked on Thursday at a checkpoint in Aba town in Abia state. The separatists were enforcing a lockdown to remember the Republic of Biafra, which fought a war in 1967 to become independent from Nigeria.
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) wants to create their own country in the southeast. They use lockdowns to try to make this happen, even though many people died in a war in the past. Many people have been killed in violent lockdowns and attacks by a group that says it wants to peacefully break away from the country.
The Nigerian army sent soldiers to keep peace in Aba town, but the militants unexpectedly attacked their security outpost. “Buba said that six innocent people were also killed in the fighting. ”
The IPOB group is asking for their leader Nnamdi Kanu to be released from jail. He is facing charges of treason and terrorism.
The southeast of Nigeria used to be very safe, but now it has violence and more people are becoming poor because of the lockdowns that are hurting the economy.
Biden said that the result of Trump’s criminal trial shows that everyone must follow the law, no matter who they are.
He said the jury listened to evidence for five weeks before making a decision. Trump can also appeal the decision, like anyone else who is found guilty of a crime in America. The president said Trump is trying to make it seem like the case against him is only because of politics, which is not true.
“It’s not okay for someone to say the decision is unfair just because they don’t agree with it,” said Biden. He said, “We should respect the justice system and not let anyone destroy it. ”
Biden was at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. , remembering his son Beau who died in 2015 from brain cancer, when the jury decided on their verdicts. He didn’t say anything about the trial then. But he came back to Washington on Friday for a gathering at the White House with the Kansas City Chiefs, who won the Super Bowl. He talked to reporters about what’s happening in the Middle East and then answered questions about Trump’s situation.
The president said this soon after Trump talked to reporters at his building in New York on Friday. Trump wanted to inspire his followers. He talked about being a victim and said that if it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.
“I’m ready to do anything to protect our country and our Constitution. ” “I don’t care,” Trump said.
Biden had been trying to stay out of Trump’s legal problems and not give him more reasons to say that he’s being unfairly targeted for political reasons. However, when the trial in New York finished, Biden’s campaign started to talk about it more.
His campaign made suggestive comments about the trial to criticize Trump’s policies. Then Biden joked in a video that he heard Trump was “free on Wednesdays” when agreeing to debate him.
During the closing arguments on Tuesday, Biden’s campaign had actor Robert De Niro and two former police officers outside the Manhattan courthouse. They wanted to draw attention to the former president’s involvement in the Jan 6, 2021 US Capitol insurrection and refocus the presidential race. The campaign decided this because they thought people weren’t paying attention to their message about the election because they were too focused on the trial.
Soon after the decision on Thursday, Biden’s campaign for reelection wanted to make sure people were thinking about the options for voters in November and what would happen if Trump was president for a second time.
“A second term for Trump would bring chaos and take away American’s freedoms, causing political violence. The American people will reject this in November,” said Biden’s spokesperson, Michael Tyler.
The Ukrainian prisoners, including four people who were not soldiers, were brought back to the northern Sumy region on buses. They shouted happily as they got off the boat and called their families to say they were back home. Some people knelt down and kissed the ground, while others covered themselves with yellow-blue flags.
They hugged each other and started crying. Many looked very thin and wore clothes that were not good.
The exchange was the fourth time this year that prisoners were swapped, and it was the 52nd time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The Foreign Ministry in Kyiv said that the United Arab Emirates helped to arrange the release of 150 prisoners of war.
Both sides are blaming each other for a decrease in the swaps.
Ukraine has asked Russia before to exchange all prisoners and there are weekly protests in Ukraine asking for the release of prisoners of war. A Ukrainian official named Vitalii Matviienko said that Ukraine is always prepared to coordinate exchanges at the headquarters.
Tatyana Moskalkova, who is responsible for protecting people’s rights in Russia, said that Kyiv is asking for new things without explaining what they are.
On Friday, one of the people who came back to Ukraine was Roman Onyschuk. He works in IT and he joined the Ukrainian forces as a volunteer when the Russian invasion began. He was caught in March 2022 in the Kharkiv area.
“I just want to listen to my wife and son talking. ” He said he missed his friend’s birthday three times. He was in captivity for over 800 days and did not talk to his family. He doesn’t know what city they are in now.
“It’s a bit too much to handle,” Onyschuk said.
Ukraine has received a total of 3,210 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians back since the war began, including those coming back on Friday.
Ukraine and Russia do not say how many prisoners of war there are.
Dmytro Kantypenko was taken as a prisoner on Snake Island in the Black Sea at the beginning of the war. He was one of the people who were released on Friday. He called his mother to tell her that he was back in Ukraine.
“He said he will come home soon and wiped his tears. ” He found out that his wife had gone to Lithuania with their son. The Kantypenko family is from Izium in the Kharkiv region, which was taken over by Russia.
Kantypenko said that the Russians unexpectedly woke him up in the middle of the night without saying why, and gave him only a little time to get dressed before leaving.
The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of POWs says that at least one-third of Ukrainians who came back home had injuries, severe illnesses, or disabilities.
On Friday, 19 Ukrainian fighters came back from Snake Island, 14 people were released from Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and 10 fighters returned from Mariupol city which was taken by Russia.
Five women were released from being prisoners in Ukraine. One of them was Nataliia Manuilova, who was a cook in the Azov regiment and was held captive for over two years. The Russians grabbed her from her home in Mariupol, put a bag over her head, and tied her hands, she said.
I don’t like them. “They stole two years of my life,” she said, hugging her son on Friday. Nataliia Manuilova said, “I can’t believe how much he has grown up. ”
The prisoners traveled through little towns. Then they went to Sumy where they would go to hospitals for two weeks to get better.
Ukrainians with blue and yellow flags went out on the streets and cheered loudly for their military members returning home.
Defense experts who looked at pictures of the wreckage from an Israeli bomb that caused a big fire in a camp for Palestinians who had to leave their homes, are wondering why Israel did not use smaller and more accurate weapons when there were so many innocent people close by. They said the bombs were probably made in the US.
The attacks, aimed at Hamas members, killed about 45 people who were staying in a temporary camp in southern Gaza near Rafah. Many countries have criticized the attacks.
Israel is looking into the attack and says the Hamas targets were 17 kilometers (1 mile) away from a place where they are supposed to help people in need. They checked before attacking and thought no civilians would be hurt.
Displaced people were all over the place, and Israel had not told them to leave. Even though the tents that caught on fire were not in the designated safe area, the people living there believed they would be protected.
Israel was attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Israel hasn’t said where the burned tents were in relation to the compound it bombed on Sunday. They shared a satellite image showing some known civilian shelters about 180 meters (600 feet) away. It said that there were no tents nearby, but a fire started unexpectedly and sadly killed people in Gaza.
Israel has not said what bombs it used, but Rear Adm. (Ret) John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the U. S is providing Israel with bombs. Daniel Hagari, who speaks for the Israel Defense Forces, said that they used small bombs that weigh 37 pounds each and that an accidental explosion might have started the fire.
Defense experts said that even small bombs dropped from jets can be dangerous to civilians because they explode and can send pieces flying far away.
Pictures on social media from the tent camp on Monday, verified by The Associated Press, showed a special code on parts of the exploded weapons. This code is used to identify US government suppliers.
Two experts who know about military weapons said that they think the bombs used were probably small, 250-pound bombs made in the United States. They looked at pictures and photos from a satellite to decide.
Even though these bombs are smaller than other weapons the US has given to Israel, they can still cause a lot of damage. The whole 250-pound shell and parts are made to explode and send pieces flying up to 2,000 feet (600 meters) away.
“You have two bombs that can travel up to 600 meters in a crowded space. ” “Trevor Ball, who used to disarm bombs in the Army, said it doesn’t make sense if they’re trying to avoid injuries. ”
Ball said that the serial numbers on the tail kit and shell debris in the photos show that the bombs are 250-pound GBU-39. It’s not common to talk about a bomb’s explosive power, in this case 37 pounds, instead of its total weight, according to Ball and Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps Reserves colonel and senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The messy area in Gaza shows that the bombs might have been set to explode before they hit, so they would have killed the people they were meant to but also might have hurt others by accident, according to Ball and Cancian. The pictures showed a little opening where pieces of metal were discovered.
The GBU-39 bomb can be set to explode right away when it hits the ground, making a big hole, or it can be set to explode later to go deeper into a target first.
They can also be programmed to explode in the air just before hitting the target, so they can hit more than one thing. But that place also causes a lot of damage over a wide area, which could explain a second explosion even if weapons or other flammable things were far away, Ball said.
Antony Blinken, who is in charge of the US’s foreign affairs, said that the US is waiting for an investigation in Moldova to find out what weapons were used and how they were used.
Blinken said that even though Israel used a small weapon for targeted attacks on terrorists, it can still have bad unintended results.
The experts in defense said that Israel had other, better choices to use instead of the GBU-39 when there were civilians close by.
“Israelis have used small, accurate drones to launch weapons before. ” These accurate attacks have not caused much damage besides hitting the exact target.
Israel could have used a smaller weapon called the mini-Spike in the strike. This weapon would have made less mess and been more targeted at specific Hamas leaders.
The US did not give Israel a delivery of big bombs because they were worried that Israel would use them in a place with a lot of Palestinians after bombing other parts of Gaza. Now, the same amount of people have left Rafah and are living in temporary tent camps and other places.
The strike on Sunday proved that even the small 250-pound bombs that the US has been giving can be too big to use in refugee areas with a lot of people. Cancian said this.
John Kirby, a person who helps keep the US safe, said on Wednesday that the US is still trying to get information from Israel about the deadly Rafah attack. He refused to talk about the weapons Israel used. But he did say that Israel’s public comments show they want to be more careful and exact when targeting.
There are problems in the government that his opponents want to use to their advantage. This includes many people not having jobs, being poor for a long time, and only a few people in India being able to benefit from the country’s success.
“Rich people are doing very well with the economy, but poor people are having a hard time,” explained Milan Vaishnav, who works at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have stayed popular since he first became prime minister in 2014. He promised to prioritize Hindu interests and vowed to improve the economy by shifting from farming to industry, something past governments couldn’t do.
He said he would stop the corruption that has been around for a long time and use the large number of workers in the country to build a strong manufacturing industry. During his campaign this spring, Modi promised to make India’s economy the third-largest in the world, after the US and China. Votes will be counted on Tuesday.
Modi has done well. The economy is getting bigger by 7% and over 500 million people in India have opened bank accounts during his time in office. This is a big step toward making the economy more formal, because many jobs are still not officially recorded and no taxes are paid on them. His government has spent a lot of money on fixing the old infrastructure to attract investment. They also made the welfare program simpler and are using it to try to win support from poor and unhappy voters.
Despite these improvements, Modi’s economic strategies have not been successful in creating jobs that move people from low-paying, unstable work to stable, well-paid jobs. With more people unable to find good jobs, inequality has become a big issue in the election.
While there are more and more millionaires in India, almost 90% of the people who can work make less money than the country’s average yearly income of about $2,770, according to a study from the World Inequality Lab. The richest 1% have more than 40% of the country’s money, while the poorest 50% have only just over 6%, according to the study.
To stop people from being unhappy about the economy, Modi and the BJP want to win the support of poor and unhappy voters by giving them over $400 billion in support and money.
Their main plan for helping people is to give out free food to 800 million people. It was there before and it is a right in India’s National Food Security Act. During the pandemic, the program grew a lot to give free grain instead of just cheap. It will continue for another five years starting in January.
About 300 different programs have helped hundreds of millions of people get things they need for their homes, like cooking gas tanks and toilets, for free. Millions of houses have been made for people who don’t have a lot of money. Now, they can easily get water, Wi-Fi, and electricity. The government is giving more money to farmers and other important groups of voters.
When Rajesh Prajapati lost his job at a chemical factory in Prayagraj, a city in India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, his family of five lived on food from the government.
“He said that for almost a year, the free food was the only thing that made them feel better. That’s why they voted for Modi again. ”
Indian political parties have always promised to help the people in order to get votes during elections. However, experts say that the BJP has performed better.
Now, the government gives benefits like money, retirement funds and loans directly to people’s bank accounts. This helps stop fraud and cheating by getting rid of middlemen.
These big giveaways help for now, but some people think they are just a quick solution and a sign that the economy is getting worse. To make things more equal, we need to invest in health and education. These areas have not improved much in recent years, according to Ashoka Mody, a Princeton University economist.
Subsidies can be good, but they cannot help people and their children have a better future.
Tuntun Sada, a farmer from Samastipur, a city in Bihar, said the 18 kilograms (40 pounds) of free food that helps feed his family of six each month has only slightly made their lives better. He still makes less than $100 a month by working for rich landowners in their fields.
“People like us don’t get a lot,” Sada said. “Modi needs to do what he says he will do. ” “If we don’t make enough money, how will we take care of our children. ”
The free food doesn’t last the whole month. There is no running water in his area, and there are no schools nearby for his four children to go to. He said he needs a better job.
Modi’s opponents, led by the Congress party, are hoping that the lack of jobs will hurt the BJP’s chances of winning the election. Prior to the election, a study by the Center for Study of Developing Societies discovered that over 60% of voters were concerned about not having a job and thought that it was harder to find one. Only 12 out of every 100 people felt that there were more job and money-making options available.
The government’s official data says that the unemployment rate is going down, but some experts are not sure if it is accurate. The International Labor Organization recently reported that many young people in India don’t have jobs. It also found that over 40% of Indians are still working in the same way as before.
Israel sent its soldiers into the city on May 6. This made about 1 million Palestinians leave the city and made the UN’s help in that area very difficult. However, President Joe Biden said Israel has not fully invaded as he has advised them not to.
The Israeli military said on Friday that its forces have been active in many areas of the city. In the beginning, Israel attacked Rafah’s eastern neighborhoods and areas near the Egypt border. Israeli soldiers took control of the border crossing into Egypt on the first day of the attack and have also taken over a road that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border on the Gaza side.
This week, Israeli soldiers went into Rafah’s western area called Tel al-Sultan. There were big fights with Hamas fighters there. People saw it happen.
On Friday, the military said its soldiers in central Rafah found Hamas rocket launchers and tunnels. They also destroyed a place where the group stored weapons. It didn’t say exactly where in central Rafah the operations were happening, but earlier reports and people who saw it happen said it was in the Shaboura refugee camp and other places near the city center.
Palestinian people who left the city are now living in poor tent camps in southern and central Gaza. Approximately 300,000 people are still in the area. Some are in the middle of the city. A UN official said this but asked not to say their name because they are not allowed to talk to the press. Shaina Low, who speaks for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a group that helps people in need, said that many people have gone to live in the countryside in the west of the city near the coast. This area has been hit by Israeli attacks and bombings in the past week, causing deaths.
A man was found dead in a house in Azusa, near Los Angeles, on Wednesday night, said a police sergeant. Nick Covarrubias spoke.
“We didn’t see any signs of cheating or wrongdoing,” Covarrubias told the Southern California News Group.
The man passed away from a heart disease called arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, as determined by the medical examiner’s office. They considered his death to be from natural causes.
The man was let go on Tuesday without having to pay bail after saying he didn’t do a crime of breaking things. He said not guilty to five serious crimes of breaking things and two smaller crimes.
The police arrested a man on May 23 because they suspected him of breaking windows and car windshields with a slingshot and narrowly missing people with ball bearings. No one got hurt.
During their investigation, detectives found out that for nine to ten years, many people were being hurt by someone who was shooting a slingshot. This was announced by the Azusa Police Department last week.
On Saturday, Azusa police Lt Jake Bushey said that detectives found out that the suspect shot most of the ball bearings from his backyard.
“We don’t know why they did it, just to cause trouble,” Bushey told the news group.
The police thought he broke windows in his neighborhood for 10 years. The LA County District Attorney’s Office is accusing him of breaking windows from October 2021 to May 2024.
Ukrainian leaders are upset because they are not allowed to use Western weapons, and they are having a hard time defending themselves against the Russian attack in Kharkiv.
Germany and the US have given permission to defend Kharkiv, which is only 20 kilometres (12 miles) away from Russia. Russian missiles hit a building in the city last night and at least four people died.
Apart from helping Ukraine protect Kharkiv better, we don’t know how lifting the restrictions will affect the course of the conflict during this important time.
The government of Germany said that Ukraine can use the weapons it gives them to fight against Russia’s attacks on Kharkiv from positions near the border. The US President said that Ukraine can use American weapons to fight back against Russian military attacks in the region.
Western leaders have not wanted to lift the rules on their weapons because they are afraid it could make Russian President Vladimir Putin angry. Putin has warned many times that if the West gets involved, it could lead to a nuclear war.
However, Russia is now winning in some parts of the 1,000-kilometer front line. Because of this, some Western leaders want to change the policy to let Kyiv attack military bases in Russia with advanced weapons from Western countries.
The Kremlin’s large and well-equipped army is taking advantage of Ukraine’s lack of soldiers and weapons after a long wait for US military aid. Western Europe doesn’t make enough military equipment, so Ukraine is not getting the things it needs quickly.
The German government said that Russia has been attacking the Kharkiv region from areas close to the Russian border.
“We believe that Ukraine has the right to protect itself from these attacks under the law of the world,” the statement said. “We can also use the weapons we have given to Ukraine according to our international legal agreements,” Berlin said, without giving details about the secret agreements with Kyiv.
The officials said that the US still doesn’t want Ukraine to use American weapons to attack Russia.
Should Ukraine be allowed to use weapons from the West to attack Russia. This has been a sensitive issue since Russia started its big invasion in February. The date is January 24, 2022.
NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that he agrees with removing the restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to use weapons from Western countries. He said this is important because it is about following the rules of the world and Ukraine’s right to protect itself.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Sweden has not stopped Ukraine from using its weapons. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that Italy will not allow Ukraine to use Italian weapons outside of Ukraine.
In Moscow, Medvedev said again that the things happening could make NATO and Russia start a nuclear war. “He said it’s not trying to scare anyone or a bluff about nuclear weapons. ”
Russia’s new defense minister, Andrei Belousov, said on Friday that Russian troops are moving in all different directions, including in the Kharkiv region where they have pushed Ukrainian forces back by up to 9 kilometers (5 miles). Russian troops took control of 28 towns and villages in the last month.
Since the beginning of the year, Russian forces have taken over 880 square kilometers (340 square miles) of land.
Overnight on Friday, Russia fired five large missiles at Kharkiv, according to Ukraine’s air force. One missile hit a house at midnight and another hit the people who came to help afterwards, said Gov Oleh Syniehubov. At least 25 people got hurt, he said.
Ukrainian leaders have said that Russia attacked rescue workers by aiming missiles at homes, drawing the rescuers in and then hitting them with another missile to hurt or kill them. Russia used a strategy in Syria’s war.
Ukrainian officials say that besides Kharkiv, Moscow’s soldiers are also moving towards the Donetsk region in the south and getting ready for an attack in the Sumy region in the north.
The jury took only six hours to decide that Chad Daybell was guilty. This ended a case that started in 2019 and involved at least four different states. Daybell stood there in a long-sleeve dress shirt and looked calm as the verdicts were read.
Now the jury will decide if Daybell, who is 55 years old, should be punished with death for killing Tammy Daybell, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow. The trial’s punishment phase starts again on Friday after almost two months.
JJ’s grandfather, Larry Woodcock, told The Associated Press that he was happy because everything was taken care of and every problem was resolved. “I’m still sad about the deaths – four people died for no reason. But my wife and I are very happy with the decision. ”
Last year, Lori Vallow Daybell, the mother of the children, was given a life sentence in prison with no chance of getting out. She was found guilty of conspiracy and murder. She married Chad Daybell only two weeks after Tammy Daybell died. She is waiting to go to court in Arizona because she is accused of killing her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. Charles Vallow was JJ’s dad.
The case got a lot of attention from the media, so the judge decided to have the trial in Boise instead of the small town in Idaho where the crimes happened. This was done to make sure the jury could be fair and unbiased.
During the penalty phase, the prosecutors will try to prove that the crimes deserve a death sentence because they were very cruel or met other factors specified in the law. Daybell’s lawyers will try to show the jury reasons why a lighter punishment is suitable.
Five years ago, JJ’s grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, started looking into the situation because they were worried that Vallow Daybell was not letting them talk to JJ on the phone. JJ and his grandparents lived in different places, but they were always close. They talked to each other on video calls a lot since JJ was three years old. JJ was really smart but also had autism, Larry Woodcock said. When he didn’t know what to say, he would tell his grandparents, “Mawmaw, Pawpaw, I don’t know. ”
“During the last few years of his life, he was getting funnier and showing more of his personality. ” “I really miss his sense of humor,” Larry Woodcock said. “Every day, my wife and I always ask each other for advice and say `Mawmaw, I don’t know’ or `Pawpaw, I don’t know’. ”
Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell were dating when their previous partners died suddenly, according to investigators. Vallow Daybell’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed her husband, Charles, in Arizona in July 2019. Cox said it was self-defense. He did not get in trouble.
Vallow Daybell, her kids JJ and Tylee, and Cox then moved to eastern Idaho to be near Daybell, who is a writer of books about the end of the world that are based on Mormon beliefs.
In October 2019, Tammy Daybell passed away. Chad Daybell first said she died from being sick and sleeping, but a later examination found she actually died from not being able to breathe. Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell got married two weeks after Tammy Daybell died, which surprised their family.
Almost one year later, the bodies of the missing children were discovered buried on Chad Daybell’s land in eastern Idaho. Investigators found out that both kids passed away in September 2019. Prosecutors say Cox worked with Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell in all three deaths, but Cox died of natural causes before he could be charged.
Lawyers brought in many people to testify in order to support their argument that Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell planned to murder the children and Tammy Daybell. They did this because they wanted to remove anything that could get in the way of their relationship and also to get money from life insurance and survivor benefits. The lawyers say the couple believed that evil spirits could possess people and turn them into zombies. They thought the only way to save a possessed person’s soul was to kill their body.
Fremont County prosecutor Lindsay Blake said that Daybell pretended to be a leader of a group called “The Church of the Firstborn” and told Vallow Daybell and others that he could tell if someone had become a “zombie. ” Daybell also said he could tell how close a person was to death by reading their “death percentage,” Blake said in her closing arguments on Wednesday.
Daybell used the same pattern for each person he killed, according to Blake.
“Chad Daybell called them ‘dark’. ” Their chances of dying would decrease. “Then they would have to be killed,” she said.
Blake said that Daybell convinced Vallow Daybell and her brother, Cox, to help with the plan. Daybell also gave Cox spiritual blessings and warned Vallow Daybell that the angels were upset because she was ignoring him at times.
Daybell’s lawyer, John Prior, said that the prosecution’s descriptions of Daybell’s beliefs were not true. He said Daybell was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was very religious and always talked about his spiritual beliefs.
Prior said that the police only focused on finding evidence to use against Daybell, instead of looking at the true facts of the case. He also said that the children’s uncle, Cox, committed the crimes. He remembered that Cox had shot JJ Vallow’s father in Arizona, and the two children saw it happen. He also said Cox tried to make it look like Daybell did a bad thing by burying the children in Daybell’s yard.
During the sentencing phase, the jurors will decide if Daybell should be given the death penalty, which can be either by lethal injection or firing squad, or if he should be sentenced to life in prison. Woodcock said he will be happy with either choice.
“You deserve it for killing kids. ” You deserve it for killing your wife. “Chad decided to do something he knew was bad,” Woodcock said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said it was a very bad day in American history and the charges were only because of politics. Ohio Sen JD Vance said the verdict was a disgrace to the judicial system. And Louisiana Rep Steve Scalise, the No 2 House Republican, said that the decision was a loss for Americans who believe in the important idea that justice is fair to everyone.
Shortly after the verdict was announced, Republicans who were previously not all in agreement with their chosen GOP presidential candidate, joined together to criticize the judge, the jury, and President Joe Biden without giving many details. This happened even though the conviction was on state charges in a Manhattan court. As the highest-ranking federal official in the country, Biden cannot control what happens in the New York City courtroom.
The jury decided that Trump lied about some documents to try to win the election by giving money to a porn actress who claimed she had sex with him. The Republicans reacted the same way Trump did. Trump said the trial was rigged and disgraceful and he will appeal quickly.
The anger and loud complaints were very strong, and this time, politicians didn’t hold back from criticizing judges and juries like they usually do. A single Republican, former Maryland Governor. Larry Hogan said before the decision that people should “follow the decision and the legal process. ”
“At this very divided time in our history, all leaders – no matter their party – should not make things worse with more angry arguing,” said Hogan, who is running for Senate in Maryland, before the verdict was given. “We need to remind ourselves of what has made this country great: following the laws. ”
However, Republicans have focused on Trump’s criticisms of the judge and the legal process in the New York trial and three other cases in Atlanta and Washington. These cases accuse him of trying to overturn the 2020 election and illegally keeping top-secret records after his presidency. Several Republican lawmakers, including Johnson, have gone to the courthouse to show their support for him.
South Carolina Sen Lindsey Graham said that the verdict shows more about the system than the accusations. He has been a strong supporter of Trump.
Trump became the first ex-president to be found guilty of serious crimes by a court. Almost all Republican lawmakers in Congress are strongly supporting him in this year’s election.
“Great job, progressives,” announced Sen. Mike Lee from Utah. “You just made sure that Trump will win the election. ”
Republicans criticized Congress while they were on a break using social media, press releases, and appearing on television. Not only Trump’s friends but also some of his critics were upset.
Texas Senator John Cornyn, who had separated himself from the former president after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack by Donald Trump’s supporters, said “this decision is shameful, and this trial should not have taken place. ”
“Now is the time to support @realdonaldtrump, win the White House and Senate, and make our country better,” said Cornyn, who is running to take over as Senate Republican Leader from Mitch McConnell after the November election. “The actual decision will be made on Election Day. ”
South Dakota Senator John Thune, who is the number 2 Republican in the Senate and running for leader, and has been critical of Trump, said the case was started for political reasons, and today’s decision doesn’t change that.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a member of the Republican party, voted against Trump in his second trial after the Capitol attack. He said he disagreed with the decision, but wasn’t surprised because of the way the trial was conducted.
McConnell didn’t say anything about the verdict. He and Trump haven’t been getting along, but he recently supported Trump’s campaign for 2024.
“Trump supporters are planning to criticize the jury and the court because they want to weaken our democracy and they need people to think the justice system is unfair,” wrote Sen Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “It is not. ” Donald Trump did something against the law. He was caught. He was found guilty. “That’s how the law works. “
Trump looked serious as the decision was read. People outside were cheering and their voices could be heard in the hallway of the courthouse’s 15th floor. It took more than nine hours for the decision to be made.
“This trial was unfair and shameful,” said Trump angrily to the reporters after he left the courtroom. “The final decision will be made by the people on November 5th. ” They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here. = They are aware of what happened, and everyone knows what took place here.
Judge Juan Merchan will decide the punishment on July 11. This is just a few days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The GOP leaders still strongly support him and are likely to officially choose him as their nominee at the convention.
The decision is a big legal problem for Trump and could mean he might go to jail in the city where his actions with the tabloid press helped him become famous and eventually president. As he tries to become president again in this year’s election, voters have to decide if they are okay with the way Trump acts.
Trump is likely to challenge the decision and will have a difficult situation when he goes back to campaigning because he has been found guilty. There are no scheduled campaign events right now, but he is expected to appear at Trump Tower on Friday and traveled to a fundraiser in Manhattan on Thursday. This was planned before the verdict, according to three people who know his plans but cannot speak about it publicly. Trump’s campaign raised money after the verdict. They asked for donations and said Trump was a “political prisoner. ”
The charges for faking business records can result in up to four years in prison. It’s not clear if the prosecutors want to send the person to prison, and the judge may or may not decide to do that.
Trump can still try to become president, even if he goes to jail.
Trump is being accused of three serious crimes, but the case in New York might be the only one that is finished before the November election. This makes the outcome even more important. The verdict has clear legal and historical meanings, but its impact on politics is not as clear. It might strengthen people’s existing opinions about Trump instead of changing them.
For another person running for president at a different time, having a criminal record would likely ruin their chances. But despite two impeachments, claims of sexual abuse, investigations into his connections to Russia, and trying to change the election results, Donald Trump’s political career has not been destroyed. There have also been scandalous stories about him, like when he bragged about touching women inappropriately on a recording.
Voters have known about the general accusations in the case for many years. These accusations are considered less serious than the allegations in three other cases where he is charged with harming American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.
Before the decision was made, Trump’s campaign said that whatever the jury decides, it wouldn’t change how people would vote and that the election would be determined by things like inflation.
However, the decision is expected to allow President Joe Biden and other Democrats to strengthen their arguments that Trump is not capable of being in office. The White House only made a quiet statement saying they respected the legal process. On the other hand, the decision will give the likely Republican nominee more reason to say he is unfairly treated by the legal system and that it is biased against him for political reasons.
Trump said he didn’t do anything wrong during the trial. He didn’t think the case should have been brought to court. He complained about the trial inside the courthouse and had many Republican friends supporting him. He also got in trouble for making disrespectful comments about the witnesses outside of court.
After the decision, Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said on TV that he doesn’t think Trump got a fair trial. He also said they will appeal because the judge didn’t step down and there was too much news about the trial before it started.
Republicans are still supporting the party leader. House Speaker Mike Johnson said it was a bad day in American history and called the case a political move, not a legal one.
The trial of the former American president, Donald Trump, was a big test for the court system because he was well-known and he constantly criticized the case and the people involved in it. The decision from the 12 jurors showed that they didn’t support Trump’s attempts to make people lose trust in the trial or to try to impress them with Republican support.
Bragg said that even though this defendant is very unusual, the trial and the verdict were reached in the same way as any other case, by looking at the evidence and the law without being influenced by fear or preference.
The trial is about Trump lying about his business records to hide a secret payment to a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had an affair with him in 2006.
Michael Cohen, who used to work for Trump, paid $130,000 to keep Stormy Daniels from talking about Trump during the last part of the 2016 election. This is against the law and interferes with the election. When Cohen got his money back, the payments were written down as legal costs. The prosecutors said this was not allowed and was an attempt to hide the real reason for the transaction.
Trump’s lawyers say that the payments were for legal services and were lawful. He said it didn’t happen, and his lawyers said in court that because he’s famous, people try to get money from him by threatening to tell lies about him.
Defense lawyers also said that the hush money deals to hide bad stories about Trump were done for personal reasons like protecting his family, not for political reasons. They also tried to make people doubt Cohen, the main witness for the prosecution. He admitted to breaking the law in 2018 and they say he did it because he doesn’t like Trump and just wants attention and money.
The trial had lots of interesting testimony that went over a part of Trump’s past that we already knew about. This was when his 2016 campaign was in trouble because of a recording from “Access Hollywood. ” In the recording, Trump talked about grabbing women without asking and there were also worries about other bad stories about Trump and sex coming out that would hurt his chances of winning.
Trump did not talk in court, but the people listening heard a secret recording of him talking with Cohen about a $150,000 payment to keep a Playboy model, Karen McDougal quiet about her relationship with Trump. Trump says he did not have an affair.
Daniels said herself that she had a sexual encounter with him in a hotel room in Lake Tahoe. David Pecker, the old boss of the National Enquirer, said he tried to stop bad stories about Trump from getting out. He even had his company buy McDougal’s story to keep it secret.
Jurors also listened to Keith Davidson, the lawyer who arranged the secret money payments for Daniels and McDougal. He explained the difficult talks to make sure that both women got paid for staying quiet. But he also had to deal with tough questions from a lawyer representing Trump, who pointed out that Davidson had arranged similar secret payment deals for other well-known people.
The most important witness was Cohen. He talked for days about how he was involved in the hush money scheme and how he says Trump knew all about it.
“Make sure it’s handled,” he said, quoting Trump.
He showed the jury the clearest connection between Trump and the main accusations by describing a meeting where they planned to pay Cohen back for his legal expenses in small monthly payments.
Defense Minister Bill Blair said the words at a big meeting for defense companies in Ottawa. The Department of National Defence said that the training aircraft will be separated into different groups, including two-seat turboprop training and aerobatic low-wing planes, helicopters, and Dash-8s.
Blair said we want to give our military the best equipment and skills. He said this in a speech at the CANSEC breakfast.
The agreement has training in the classroom, in a simulator, and in an actual plane. It also has extra help for people who want to be RCAF Pilots or Air Combat Systems Officers.
The bill wants to stop bullfights within three years, so they would be illegal by 2028. The Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has always been against these events, now needs to sign the new law.
Bullfighting started in Spain and is still allowed in a few countries like France, Portugal, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico.
It used to be a big show that lots of TV channels showed live. Many people now think it’s wrong to make animals suffer for entertainment, so the tradition is being questioned.
“This ban is a big win for groups that have been working to change society and stop violence against animals,” said Terry Hurtado, who is an animal rights supporter and city council member in Cali. He has been leading protests against bullfights since the 1990s. “I’m happy that in Colombia, bulls and horses won’t be hurt in bullfights anymore and kids won’t see it happening. ”
In bullfights, a matador goes against bulls that are specially raised to be mean and aggressive. The matador waves a red cape at the bull and then stabs it with a sword after it has already been hurt with other weapons and is tired from running in circles.
Fans of bullfighting said that stopping it is an attack on the rights of a small group of people and will cause issues for cities that make money from these events.
The eruption started in the afternoon after some earthquakes near a town called Grindavik. The town has 3,800 people and they were all asked to leave.
The Met Office says that lava is shooting up to 50 meters (165 feet) into the sky from a crack in the ground that is about one kilometer (1,100 yards) long.
The Blue Lagoon spa was cleared out before the volcano started to erupt, according to RUV, the national broadcaster.
Iceland is a country in the North Atlantic that has a lot of volcanoes. They have eruptions often and they know how to handle them well. The biggest problem recently was when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in 2010. It sent a lot of ash into the sky and caused many airports in Europe to close.
The most recent eruptions show that the Svartsengi volcano is waking up after being quiet for almost 800 years. We don’t know when the activity will stop or what it means for the Reykjanes Peninsula, which is one of the most crowded parts of Iceland.
A group of seven men and five women on the jury went to a private room before 11:30 am to start thinking about their decision in the first trial of a former U. SLeader of a country. The jurors’ talks will be private, but they can send notes to the judge to ask for a repeat of what was said or to see the evidence again. That’s also how they will tell the court about their decision, or if they can’t decide.
“I don’t have to decide if the evidence is true or not. ” “It belongs to you,” said Judge Juan M. Merchan spoke to the jury.
Trump is accused of lying about his business records to cover up bad stories about him during the 2016 election. He is facing 34 charges for this.
The crime is a serious one and it’s about paying back money to Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. He paid him back after he gave $130,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about her saying she had sex with Trump in 2006. Trump is being accused of lying about paying Cohen for something secretly, by saying the money was for legal fees.
To prove Trump guilty, the jury must be really sure that he made or had someone make false records for his business on purpose, to trick others, and to hide or do another illegal thing.
According to the law, if the prosecutors do not prove some parts, then they have to say Trump is not guilty. Prosecutors say Trump lied about his business records to hide breaking campaign finance and state election laws. They accuse him of trying to manipulate the election.
Just before the jury started talking, Trump wrote all in capital letters about the trial, the judge, and Cohen on his social media. Then he went from Trump Tower to the courthouse on Wednesday morning.
He said it was a unfair trial and falsely said the judge wouldn’t let him defend himself by saying he did what his lawyer, Cohen, told him to do. In March, Trump’s lawyers told the court that they would not use that defense.
Trump said there was no crime, except for the person who got caught stealing from me. He was talking about Cohen. He wrote, “In God We Trust. ” in big letters again.
The people on the jury in the trial were from different places and had different jobs. They seemed very interested in what Cohen and Daniels were saying. Lots of people wrote down information and paid close attention as people who saw what happened answered questions from Manhattan prosecutors and lawyers representing Trump.
The jurors began discussing the case after hearing the final arguments from both sides and receiving instructions on the law from the judge. The judge also gave them some advice on how to decide if a witness is telling the truth, like considering if their story makes sense, if it matches with other witness accounts, how they acted when testifying, and if they might have a reason to lie.
The rules he explained are normal but maybe even more important now that Trump’s defense focused a lot on doubting the truthfulness of important prosecution witnesses, like Cohen.
Every person must agree on the decision. During the discussion, six extra jurors who watched the whole trial will wait at the courthouse in case they need to take the place of a juror who gets sick or can’t come. If that happens, discussions will begin again when the new juror is ready.
The explosion happened on Tuesday at around 2:45 pm. It caused the ground floor of Realty Tower to collapse into its basement and the building’s front wall to fall into the street. The area was blocked off by construction fencing. The building has 13 floors. You can find a Chase Bank on the first floor and apartments on the floors above.
The bank worker, who is 27 years old, was seen inside the building before the explosion, said the Youngstown Police Department on Wednesday. Youngstown’s Fire Chief Barry Finley said in a news conference on Tuesday that firefighters saved many people and made sure the building was empty to make sure no one else got hurt.
JPMorgan Chase felt sad about the death of a coworker and promised to cooperate with the local authorities. “We feel for the families of the people who were hurt, as well as our own employees and their families. Our thoughts are also with anyone else who was affected by this sad event,” the company said in a statement.
“We don’t know what made the explosion happen. ” Finley said on Tuesday that there was a big explosion and it caused a lot of damage to the bottom of the building. He said that you cannot live in any of the apartments in the building.
Seven hurt people were brought to Mercy Health Hospital in Youngstown. A person from the hospital said that someone is very sick.
The explosion rattled the center of Youngstown, a city with around 60,000 people. Debris like bricks and glass were scattered on the sidewalk.
The issue of whether Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons to attack Russia has been a tricky issue since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Many Western leaders are hesitant to take this action because they are afraid it might make Russian President Vladimir Putin angry. He has told them that getting involved could lead to a nuclear war.
However, Russia has been winning the war lately because their forces took advantage of Ukraine’s lack of soldiers and weapons due to a delay in US military aid and Western Europe’s slow delivery of military supplies.
Russian weapons, like missiles and bombs, have hit Ukrainian military bases and areas where people live, like towns and villages. They’ve even damaged the power grid. Kyiv is being put to the test in the war, and using long-range weapons could help them fight back and make the Kremlin upset.
“We can’t tell Ukraine that they can’t use the missiles we give them to defend themselves,” Macron said during his visit to Germany on Tuesday.
His comments came a day after the head of NATO asked members to let Ukraine use more Western weapons.
“At a NATO meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria on Monday, Stoltenberg said that the right to defend oneself includes attacking legitimate targets outside Ukraine. ”
In early May, Moscow saw UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s comment as a threat. He said that Ukraine could use British long-range weapons to defend against Russia.
This caused Russia to announce that it will do military exercises with nuclear weapons because of Macron’s comments about possibly sending troops to Ukraine. Russia told London that if they make this decision, Russia might attack British military bases and equipment in Ukraine or in other places.
The leaders are being careful with the words they use. Macron said that only the Russian bases that are used to launch missiles against Ukraine should be considered as acceptable targets, not any other Russian bases or civilian buildings.
The German leader, Olaf Scholz, talked with Macron but didn’t say much. He mentioned that Ukraine has the right to protect itself according to international law.
Scholz wants to make sure that NATO doesn’t end up fighting against Russia. Other leaders in the West are also worried about the situation getting worse little by little. They are concerned about the risks getting higher.
He is worried and many people in Washington feel the same way. Over the last two years, the US has slowly started giving Ukraine the support it asked for. This includes sending tanks and long-range missile systems, but only if they are not aimed at Russia.
“We are not changing our policy right now,” said John Kirby, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, on Tuesday. “We do not support or allow the use of weapons from the US to attack Russia. ”
Leaders from the Western countries want to make Putin feel pressured because his soldiers have been attacking Ukraine’s defenses in the east and northeast.
This week, Belgium and Spain promised to give Ukraine about one billion euros (US$1. 1 billion) each in new military help. Sweden said on Wednesday that they will give 13 billion kronor (US$1. 23 billion) in aid. This is the biggest donation Sweden has given so far. It will have weapons to defend against air attacks, ammunition for big guns, and vehicles that are heavily protected.
Almost 3 out of 10 kids in Afghanistan will not have enough food this year. This is because of floods, drought, and people coming back from Pakistan and Iran. Save The Children released a report about this on Tuesday.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification says that before October, about 12.4 million people in Afghanistan, which is 28% of the population, will not have enough food to eat. Save the Children says that almost 2.4 million people are expected to have very little food, which is really bad.
The new numbers are a little better than the ones from October 2023. But it’s clear that many people still need help because half of the population is living in poverty.
In May, heavy rain and floods in northern Afghanistan caused the deaths of over 400 people. Many homes were wrecked or broken and the fields were covered in mud.
Save the Children is running a mobile clinic in Baghlan province to help the people affected by floods. This is part of their quick response to the emergency. The organization said that about 2.9 million young kids may not have enough food to eat in 2024.
Malik said that the numbers show that families need a lot of support because they keep experiencing difficult situations. Kids are being hurt by three years of not enough rain, lots of people not having jobs, and 1.4 million people coming back to Afghanistan from Pakistan and Iran.
Malik said we need to find ways to help families in the community rebuild their lives for the long term.
Over 557,000 Afghans have come back from Pakistan since September 2023. Pakistan started to send away foreigners it thinks are in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans. It says the campaign is not aimed at Afghans, but most of the people from other countries in South Asia are from Afghanistan.
Last April, Save the Children reported that 250,000 Afghan children need help with school, food, and housing after being sent back to Afghanistan from Pakistan.
Malik said that only 16 out of every 100 dollars needed for the 2024 humanitarian response plan has been given, but almost half of the people need help.
“He said now is not the time for the world to ignore the situation. ”
At the same time, the European Union is giving an extra 10 million euros (almost US$10. 9 million) to the UN food agency. This money will be used to provide meals to children in schools in Afghanistan. The EU gave more money to the World Food Program’s school meal program in Afghanistan. They already gave 20. 9 million euros, and now they gave even more.
The money comes just in time and stops WFP from having to decrease its school meal program this year because there isn’t enough money, the WFP said.
“Not having enough food can stop people from learning. ” “The EU is giving more money to WFP to make sure that more kids in Afghanistan get healthy food,” said Raffaella Iodice, who represents the EU in Afghanistan.
The WFP said they will use the money to give healthy snacks to students in over 10,000 schools in eight provinces.
In the previous year, WFP helped 1.5 million kids go to school through this program.
On Wednesday, there was a very important request because one person died in a Nissan car when the front airbag exploded, and 58 people have been hurt in the same way since 2015.
Nissan said that because the cars are old and have faulty Takata air bag parts, there is a higher chance the air bag could break and shoot sharp metal pieces, leading to serious harm or even death.
Nissan said certain 2002-2006 Sentra small cars, 2002-2004 Pathfinder SUVs, and 2002-2003 Infiniti QX4 SUVs should not be driven. Car owners can check if their cars are part of the recall by going to nissanusa. com/takata-airbag-recall or infinitiusacom/takata-airbag-recall and entering their 17-digit vehicle identification number.
The company is saying that if you own a car with faulty inflators, you should call your dealer to arrange a free replacement. Nissan is giving free towing to dealers and in some places they can also come to fix your car and give you a loaner car.
Nissan tried many times to contact owners who haven’t fixed their Takata airbags.
In 2018, the company told the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the death. Nissan said the person who died was in a 2006 Sentra car.
Faulty inflators have caused 27 deaths in the US. They use a dangerous chemical to inflate air bags during a car crash. The chemical can break down when it’s hot and humid for a long time. It can burst with a lot of power, breaking open a metal container and spreading sharp pieces everywhere. Over 400 people in the US have been injured.
At least 35 people have died from Takata airbag problems in different countries like Malaysia, Australia, and the US.
Possible problem made many cars to be called back for fixing the issue. The Takata company has had a long history, with at least 67 million inflators being involved. The US government says that lots of things haven’t been fixed. About 100 million inflators have been taken back from all over the world. The air bags that exploded caused Takata to go bankrupt.
Honda, Ford, BMW, Toyota, Stellantis, and Mazda say some of their vehicles with Takata inflators should not be driven.
Israel moved its tanks into Rafah on Tuesday, even though they were told to stop attacking the city by the International Court of Justice. Many Palestinians were hiding in the city to escape the bombing.
The United States, which is very close to Israel, said again that they don’t support a big Israeli attack in Rafah. But they also said they don’t think that kind of attack is happening right now.
Rafah people said that Israeli tanks went into Tel Al-Sultan, Yibna, and near Shaboura but then went back to a safe area near the border with Egypt. This is different from attacks happening in other places.
Israel’s army controlled most of the buffer zone and wants to control it all to stop Hamas from bringing in weapons, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi.
He thought there would be more fighting in Gaza in 2024. Israel does not want to stop fighting or release prisoners.
The Israeli army said three soldiers died and three others were seriously hurt in a battle in southern Gaza. They did not give any more details. Israel’s Kan radio said they were harmed by a bomb that exploded in a building in Rafah.
Health officials in the Palestinian territories said that some people were hurt by Israeli shooting in the eastern part of Rafah and supplies of aid were burned. People who live here said that Israel bombed the area a lot last night and many homes were destroyed. Most people have left because Israel told them to go.
Some people saw robotic tanks shooting guns in the city.
The internet and cell phone service went out in some parts of the east and west due to heavy bombing from Israel. This information was reported by the pro-Hamas Shehab news agency, residents, and other journalists. The Israeli military said they were not sure if the reports were true.
In the northern part of Gaza, tanks fired at some neighborhoods in Gaza City. The military also went further into Jabalia, which is the largest and oldest refugee camp in Gaza. People living there said that many homes were destroyed.
Health care is needed right away: government department.
Gaza’s health ministry said that some hospitals in areas where the army is working have stopped working. Ashraf Al-Qidra, who speaks for the group, asked for safe ways for fuel, medical supplies, and medical teams to get to Rafah and northern Gaza right away.
Qidra said that the Israeli occupation purposely destroyed the healthcare facilities in Rafah and the north and did not provide help for injured people.
About one million Palestinians who were staying in Rafah at the bottom of the Gaza Strip to hide from Israel’s attacks have now left because Israel told them to. This was reported by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA on Tuesday.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has moved its medical teams from the hospital in Al-Mawasi because there are a lot of bombs and artillery in that area.
The World Court said on Friday that Israel did not say how it would keep the people from Rafah safe or give them food, water, and medicine. Israel’s leader said the order allowed the military to take action against Hamas fighters in that area.
In the city of Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed three people last night. One of them was Salama Baraka, who used to be a high-ranking police officer in Hamas. Doctors and Hamas media reported this.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that one of its workers, Issam Aqel, was killed when an Israeli air strike hit his house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. This brings the total number of staff killed since October 7 to 30, with at least 17 of them being killed while working.
Israel gave their new plan for stopping fighting and releasing hostages to Qatar, and Qatar was supposed to give it to Hamas on Tuesday, according to someone who knows about the situation. Hamas has not said anything yet on Wednesday. They said that there is no point in talking unless Israel stops its attack on Rafah.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have died in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the area.
Israel started a war after militants from Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel on Oct 7. About 1,200 people were killed and over 250 hostages were taken, according to Israeli reports.
Many people in Gaza don’t have enough food because not enough aid is getting through. Aid agencies say Israel is stopping them from delivering food, but Israel says the agencies are to blame.
The aid pier built by the US military off Gaza’s coast broke because of bad weather, so it can’t be used for a while. This is another setback for aid efforts in the area. Two US officials reported this on Tuesday.
Conille said thanks to the community groups, political parties, and Haitian people living in other countries who chose him to be a candidate.
“We will work together to make a better future for all the children in our country,” he wrote on X, a social media site, in Haitian Creole.
Conille quit his job at UNICEF for Latin America and the Caribbean on Tuesday. He has been in that position since January 2023. He was the leader of Haiti from October 2011 to May 2012 when Michel Martelly was president.
Now, he has a very big job ahead of him. Gangs control most of the capital city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The country is waiting for a police force from Kenya and other countries to help.
The transitional council did not officially announce their decision about Conille, but six out of seven members with the power to vote chose him. Laurent St Cyr, the seventh person, is not in Haiti right now and couldn’t vote.
Conille will take over as the new Prime Minister from Michel Patrick Boisvert, who has been helping run the country since former Prime Minister Ariel Henry stepped down in April due to increased gang violence.
It wasn’t clear right away if there would be a formal ceremony for Conille to officially take on his new role.
UNICEF leader Catherine Russell hopes that Conille is successful in bringing peace, stability, and hope to the children of Haiti.
Some council members did not want Conille as their first choice.
So, the council said it would take suggestions for prime minister, and many people were suggested. None of the decisions were shared with the public, and people are upset because the council didn’t explain how they chose a leader.
The council has to pick a new group of leaders and set up a temporary group to organize elections before they can happen. The council’s term will end on February 7, 2026, when a new president will take over.
Jay Ostrem, who is 64 years old, is in jail with a bond of $1 million cash. He is accused of three counts of first-degree murder, according to South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley. It wasn’t right away known if Ostrem had a lawyer. No one answered when people called the phone number for Ostrem.
A legal document said that the victims were two brothers, aged 26 and 21, and a 35-year-old man.
Ostrem worked as a police officer for over 20 years in Wyoming and South Dakota, according to news reports. He was the mayor of Centreville fifteen years ago, but we don’t know the exact dates yet.
The document said that a man in Centreville called the police at 9:44 pm on Monday, he said his brother got shot by someone from the neighboring house and the shooter went back home. The person who called was still talking to a dispatcher when he said he had also been shot. The document said that he stopped talking.
Ostrem was taken into custody shortly after. He had a rifle and a handgun with him, according to the document.
Police then went to the house where the call came from and found all three people who were hurt.
Ostrem’s wife said to the police that a neighbor named Paul hurt her in a sexual way on Thursday. She told Ostrem about it on Monday night, the paper said. She said Ostrem “got up and left the house angrily,” according to the document.
Centreville is 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Sioux Falls.
Israel is doing some small actions in eastern Rafah near the border between Gaza and Egypt. People in Rafah, a border town, said there was a lot of fighting on Wednesday. Israeli forces are attacking the town, which used to be a safe place for Palestinians. The US and other countries have told Israel not to launch a big attack on the city.
Israeli leaders say their soldiers need to go into Rafah to stop Hamas and free the hostages from the Oct 7 attack that started the war.
The fighting in Rafah has made over 1 million Palestinians leave their homes. Many of them were already forced to leave because of the war between Israel and Hamas. The UN says that many people who have fled the war now live in dirty tent camps and other areas that are destroyed by the war. They don’t have basic things like shelter, food, water, and other things they need to survive.
Israel’s attacks and fighting on the ground in Gaza have caused the deaths of over 36,000 Palestinians. The Health Ministry does not separate between soldiers and regular people.
Three soldiers died in Rafah from the fighting in Gaza, the Israeli military said on Wednesday.
Israeli news said that some soldiers died and got hurt on Tuesday when a trap exploded.
Palestinians said there was a lot of fighting in different parts of Rafah on Wednesday. Israel is making a bigger attack, causing over 1 million people to leave the city. Most people were forced to leave their homes before the war started.
Israel went into Rafah on May 6 to stop Hamas from bringing weapons into Gaza from Egypt. They said they only went a little way into the area. It means that Rafah is the final big area where Hamas is really strong, but the fighters have also gathered in other parts of Gaza.
The military says that around 290 soldiers have died since the ground operation in Gaza started in October.
Urgent help needed in Gaza.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent are asking for a stop to fighting and for help to reach the people in Gaza who are suffering. This is needed to help civilians who are stuck in the conflict.
“It’s really important,” said IFRC President Kate Forbes in an interview with The Associated Press in the Philippine capital, Manila, where she was going to have some meetings. “First, the government needs to find a way to stop the fighting so we can help both sides with aid. ”
“Some places need help with mental and emotional support, and in others, they need urgent assistance,” said Forbes, who became the leader of the world’s biggest network for helping people in December.
“I’ve said that this is like a fast race and a long race. ” “We need to quickly get help in Gaza for people who are malnourished and don’t have proper sanitation,” she said. “It’s going to take a long time and a lot of help to fix Gaza and help the people there. “
Belgium promised to give money to Ukraine and also said they will provide 30 fighter jets in the next four years.
“We need to use the first F-16 on the battlefield this year to strengthen our positions,” Zelenskyy said.
After that, he went to Portugal and said it was important for Ukraine’s supporters not to be tricked by Russia and to keep fighting the war.
The Russian army is attacking Ukraine in the east and northeast. This is the biggest test for Ukraine’s military since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Ukraine’s Western friends are taking a long time to help them. The US military aid is also delayed. This has made Ukraine vulnerable to Russia’s larger army and air force.
European countries have been talking about sending soldiers to help Ukraine. They have also been discussing giving Ukrainian money that Russia has taken, which has made Russia very angry.
Putin has said many times that the West should not join the fight more, and he has talked about the possibility of a nuclear war.
Putin said that using these weapons would depend on information from Western intelligence and involve NATO military personnel. He also warned NATO about the potential consequences.
He said that leaders of countries in NATO, especially those in Europe, should be careful about their actions. He also mentioned that smaller countries with crowded populations should be extra cautious.
The Netherlands said they will work fast with important EU countries to put together a Patriot air defense system. Zelenskyy thinks this is very important to stop Russia from attacking Ukraine’s power grid, cities, and also military targets with powerful glide bombs.
NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg said he was glad about the decision, but he also said that there was still a lot of work to do.
“We have seen some improvements, but Ukraine urgently needs more progress and more air defense systems,” said Stoltenberg as he went into a meeting with EU defense ministers.
Before going back to Ukraine, Zelenskyy went to Portugal and signed a new agreement between the two countries. Portugal is not very rich and has a smaller military than other countries in the European Union. The leader of Portugal, Luis Montenegro, said that they are giving more money and military help to Kyiv, which is the capital of Ukraine. This is part of a big plan to work together.
On Monday, Zelenskyy made a deal with Spain to give Ukraine 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) for weapons and soldiers in 2024, and 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) by 2027.
Providing aid to both sides is important because the 27 countries in the group are having trouble getting Hungary to agree to the EU giving a lot of money in military aid to Kyiv.
The Hungarian government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stopped about 6. 5 billion euros ($7 billion) from being used. Orban is known for being a strong supporter of Russia in the European Union. Each individual country has the power to stop decisions, and Hungary has been blocking money meant to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses for a long time.
“We have the money and the ability, but we still need to make decisions about giving aid to Ukraine,” explained Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy leader.
Zelenskyy talked with the Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander De Croo, and got money and a security agreement. The agreement means Ukraine will get military help until it joins NATO.
Zelenskyy says Ukraine needs seven more US air defence systems because Russia attacked in Kharkiv.
Putin says that the Russian government’s soldiers are trying to create a “buffer zone” in Kharkiv to stop Ukraine from attacking across the border there.
The Defense Minister of the Netherlands, Kajsa Ollongren, met with other EU leaders and said that a Patriot system will be built quickly. The Netherlands has some important parts for the system, and other EU countries will add more parts and weapons.
“Ukraine is also joining Europe in the fight,” she said.
Zelenskyy was going to travel to Belgium and Spain but he had to cancel his trips because Russia attacked Ukraine and the Ukrainian military is facing a difficult situation.
In other news, the head of the UN’s atomic agency was in Kaliningrad, Russia to discuss safety concerns related to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
The Russian army took control of the plant at the beginning of the war. None of the reactors have been running since then. Regular bombing near Europe’s biggest nuclear plant has made people around the world worried about keeping the plant safe from danger.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, met with Alexei Likhachyov, who leads Russia’s nuclear energy company, Rosatom. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Grossi said they agree on what needs to be done to make the nuclear plant safer, but right now it doesn’t seem possible to start it again.
Likhachyov repeated that he wants to reopen the plant, and also promised that it is ” completely safe” as it is now.
The fire in the tent camp has made many people around the world very angry. Even Israel’s friends are upset about the military’s attacks in Rafah. Israel is becoming more and more isolated in the world. On Tuesday, Spain, Norway, and Ireland officially acknowledged that there is a Palestinian state.
The Israeli military said that the fire on Sunday at the tent camp might have been caused by more explosions, maybe from weapons belonging to Palestinian militants. Israel released its findings about the fire on Tuesday. Daniel Hagari said the fire is still being looked into, but the weapons used by Israel were too small to cause the fire.
The strike or the fire could have also started the fuel, cooking gas canisters, or other things in the camp. The fire killed 45 people from Gaza, as reported by their health officials. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said the fire was a very sad accident.
Israel attacked Rafah on May 6, causing over one million people to leave the city, according to the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees. Many people had to move many times during the almost eight-month war between Israel and Hamas. The families are living in temporary tent camps and other areas that have been destroyed by war.
On Monday night and Tuesday morning, bombs hit the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, and at least 16 people were killed, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Seven people died in tents next to a UN building about 200 meters from where the fire happened on Sunday.
“Muslim Abdel-Rahman Abu Ismail, a person from Gaza City, said it was a very scary night. He has been living in Tel al-Sultan since December. ” He said he heard lots of explosions all night and on Tuesday, and saw fighter jets and drones flying above.
He said it made him think of when Israel attacked his neighborhood of Shijaiyah in Gaza City. They bombed it a lot and then sent in soldiers in late 2023. “We have seen this before,” he said.
The US and other friends of Israel have said not to launch a big attack in the city. The Biden administration has said this would be very bad and they won’t give weapons for that kind of action. On Tuesday, a spokesperson from the US State Department, Matthew Miller, said that the administration does not think Israel has gone too far in attacking Rafah. He said the attack is not as bad as the ones on other parts of Gaza.
The International Court of Justice told Israel to stop its military operation in Rafah. This is because South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
On Tuesday afternoon, a drone from Israel attacked tents near a hospital by the coast, west of Rafah. At least 21 people were killed, including 13 women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Ahmed Nassar, a person who saw what happened, said that his four relatives and some of their family members were killed in the attack. Some tents were also damaged or destroyed. Many of the people who lived there had run away from the same area in Gaza City during the war.
“He said they don’t have anything to do with anything. ”
The Israeli military looked into the strike and fire that happened on Sunday and shared pictures taken from space that show where they believe Hamas shot rockets from. They said it was only about 40 meters away from some sheds that were hit. In the picture, it didn’t look like the launcher was hit.
He said Israeli planes used really small bombs – two bombs with 17-kilogram warheads. “We don’t have enough weapons to start a fire this big,” he said.
Hagari said that the fire was a very bad thing that we didn’t think would happen, and it started because of unexpected things.
However, the bombings have caused many people to leave areas to the west of Rafah. Sayed al-Masri, who lives in Rafah, said lots of families were going to the busy Muwasi area or to Khan Younis, a city in the south that was badly damaged during months of fighting.
“Things are getting worse,” al-Masri said about the situation in Rafah.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said two hospitals in Tel al-Sultan cannot operate because of heavy bombing nearby. Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity that helps people in the area, said that the Tel al-Sultan medical center and the Indonesian Field Hospital are unable to operate. Medics, patients, and displaced people are stuck inside.
Many of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer working. Rafah’s Kuwait Hospital closed on Monday because two health workers were killed in a strike near the hospital entrance.
A person from the World Health Organization said that there were too many people hurt in the strike and fire on Sunday. The hospitals there didn’t have enough supplies to help the people with bad burns.
Dr Margaret Harris said that it needs a lot of attention, electricity, and advanced medical care.
The opposition Nationalist Party and its friends want to make changes that would give the government more control over how money is spent, including defense spending. This is seen as a way to please China.
It’s not certain if the group of bills will become a law. The Executive Yuan is the part of the government that carries out laws. The leader of this part is the premier. They can decide to reject a law or give it to the president to make it an official law. The president has to do this within 10 days. If the government or president don’t follow the rules, the bills won’t become laws.
Many people came together outside the government building to show they are against the changes. The room where lawmakers meet was decorated with signs supporting the two different sides of the argument. People on the floor started yelling and pushing each other during their arguments.
The Nationalists, also called the KMT, support rejoining with China, which Taiwan separated from in 1949 during a civil war. They won the most seats in the legislature in January, and their candidate Lai Ching-te became president. The party wants Taiwan to be independent from China, and China does not like them.
DPP lawmakers said that KMT and Taiwan People’s Party members are hurting Taiwan’s democracy by giving the legislature more power over the government. They criticized the law for creating a secret system that the KMT has presented as changes.
“Ray Wan, a protester from Kaohsiung, said that there was no talk about the laws this time and the bills are not well-written. ” “Not talking about these unfinished laws will really hurt Taiwan. ”
The KMT is in charge of the legislature and its speaker and allies in the TPP were elected from party lists, so they don’t have to listen to any specific group of people.
For 40 years, Taiwan was ruled by strict military law under the Nationalists, who have lost three presidential elections in a row but still have control over local areas through strong connections with business and social groups. Pro-China business groups have gained a large part of Taiwan’s media market, while younger people use social media for news.
Every day, China sends planes and ships close to Taiwan in an effort to make them more likely to accept being united with China. They also want to make Taiwan’s defenses weaker, even though the US supports Taiwan’s defenses a lot, even though they don’t have official diplomatic relations.
Fergus has been in his role as MPs’ adjudicator for seven months and has faced criticism for not being fair and for being too political. He is now being asked to quit because he used mean language against Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to promote an event in his area.
The event called “a summer evening with the honourable Greg Fergus” was cancelled by the party. They changed it to a “fun summer BBQ” which was what they originally planned. The Liberal Party said there was a mistake in communication and they apologized for it.
The Speaker’s office said the event was approved by the Clerk of the House of Commons, but some MPs are still worried that Fergus is not being fair in the chamber.
The motion wants the House to decide that the Speaker’s behavior outside of meetings is not fair and goes against the rules of his job. This is a serious problem and the House thinks it is not acceptable.
As a result, the Speaker’s office will be emptied right away, and a new Speaker will be elected on the first Monday after the motion is approved.
The NDP and Liberals agreed to limit the time for the debate. MPs will have until 8 p. m to discuss it. ET to discuss their opinions on the issue before voting on it at 8:30 pm ET.
The House is arguing about Fergus’ behavior again. The Government Leader says the opposition is lying about the Speaker.
Today’s claims are made up by the Conservative party in secret meetings. Why Because they want to slow down and cause disruptions in the activities of this House. “It’s easy,” MacKinnon said.
Health Minister Mark Holland said it’s very hypocritical for the Conservatives to accuse others, because they didn’t give the same level of scrutiny to Andrew Scheer when he was the House Speaker.
Speaker Fergus has made mistakes as a person. He said sorry for them. I trust him because I believe he deeply respects the Chamber and being fair, Holland said.
More signs show that the NDP won’t help the motion pass. NDP House Leader Peter Julian said Canadians should worry about the mean things Conservative MPs are saying about the House Speaker.
Julian said the Official Opposition was not being respectful to Parliament by trying to undermine the Speaker. He said the Speaker did the right thing by getting permission from the clerk for this event.
The Conservatives don’t believe the explanations or defenses given. They think that Fergus should not be allowed to stay in charge for too long because he hasn’t seemed to learn from his mistakes and will only cause more damage.
Conservative MP James Bezan said that in baseball, if you get three strikes, you’re out. “We have talked to the Speaker three times now. ” Actually, this is the fourth time he has done things to support one political party and given speeches to support that party.
If the vote passes, Fergus will have to leave the office before a new Speaker is chosen on Monday, June 3. This will be the third Speaker chosen since the last election.
The lawyers have a full day to make their last arguments to the Manhattan jury before they decide what will happen to Trump. They want to make a big impression and persuade the jury members.
“President Trump did not do anything wrong. ” “He didn’t do anything wrong, and the district attorney hasn’t proven their case,” said Todd Blanche, the defense lawyer. He thinks the evidence isn’t convincing.
Blanche said that it’s simple if there’s no evidence you heard anything in the last five weeks, there will be consequences. The person was found not guilty. That’s
Because prosecutors have to prove their case, they will speak last.
The lawyers trying to prove that Trump is guilty say they have enough evidence, while the lawyers trying to prove him innocent are saying that they don’t believe the evidence and are trying to show that Michael Cohen isn’t a reliable witness. Trump’s ex-lawyer admitted to breaking the law and helping make secret payments. He also testified against Trump in court.
Blanche said that you can’t prove President Trump did anything wrong based on what Michael Cohen said. She also said that Cohen lied about many things.
After the lawyers finish talking, the judge will tell the jury about the rules they must follow and what they can think about when they talk and decide the final outcome.
Trump is accused of committing 34 crimes of faking business documents. He could go to prison for up to four years if found guilty. He said he did not do it and is not guilty. It’s not clear if the prosecutors will ask for jail time if the person is found guilty, or if the judge will decide to give jail time if asked.
The case is about a $130,000 payment that Cohen gave to a porn actor named Stormy Daniels. He did this just before the 2016 election to stop her from telling everyone about her story of having sex with Trump 10 years earlier in a Lake Tahoe hotel room. Trump says Daniels is lying, and his lawyer accused her of making it all up during the trial.
When Trump paid back Cohen, he said it was for legal services, but prosecutors think it was to hide the real reason for the payment to Daniels and to illegally affect the election that Trump won against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s lawyers say the payments were for real legal work and his fame made him a target for extortion during the campaign.
Blanche showed the jurors emails and testimony proving that Cohen worked on legal issues for Trump that year during a PowerPoint presentation. Cohen said the work was not much, but Blanche disagreed.
“Cohen did not tell you the truth. ” Blanche said Cohen lied to you and he sounded more serious.
Blanche said that Trump was too busy with being president in 2017 to know about the checks that were signed to pay Cohen back.
He mentioned what a person who used to work for Trump’s company said in court. The person said they never discussed with Trump how to describe the money sent to a staff member. Blanche also said that another person who works for Trump mentioned that Trump would sign checks while talking to people or on the phone, without knowing what they were for.
Almost 20 people gave information, including Daniels, who talked in detail about her encounter with Trump. David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher, said he used his company to protect Trump by stopping stories that could hurt his campaign, and paying $150,000 to a former Playboy model to keep her quiet about her affair with Trump. Cohen also said Trump was involved in the discussions about paying hush money. He quoted Trump as saying, “Just pay it. ”
The lawyers will remind the jury about the papers, emails, and other evidence they saw. They will also talk about a recording of Cohen and Trump talking about a deal with a model. Trump said he did not have a relationship with McDougal.
The lawyers who are trying to help Trump in court brought in two people to testify, but neither of them were Trump. They spent a lot of time trying to make Cohen look bad by asking him about his criminal past, past lies, and how well he remembered important things.
During questioning, Cohen confessed to taking a lot of money from Trump’s company by asking to be paid back for expenses he didn’t actually have. Cohen admitted that he told a prosecutor he thought Daniels and her lawyer were forcing Trump to give them money.
Donald Trump has four criminal cases against him in New York as he tries to become president again.
The three other court cases are about the person keeping secret documents at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, and trying to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. But it’s not clear if any of them will go to trial before the November election.
Using robot dogs and small aerial drones in the military is not new. A video from last year showed China’s rifle-armed electronic dogs in a joint training with the militaries of China, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. It happened in China in November.
It seems like something from the TV show “Black Mirror,” but it’s actually just the newest way of using robots in war.
In recent military exercises with Cambodia, China’s military demonstrated a robot dog with a gun on its back, making it a dangerous weapon.
“A soldier named Chen Wei says in a video from state broadcaster CCTV that it can be used instead of people in urban combat to find the enemy and attack them. ”
The short video shows a robot dog doing different movements like walking, hopping, lying down, and moving backwards. It was made during the China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon 2024” exercise and controlled by a remote operator.
In one practice, a robot with a rifle leads a group of soldiers into a pretend building.
The second half of the video also shows a gun attached to a drone with six rotor blades. This demonstrates the different types of smart machines that China has.
In 2020, the US Air Force showed how they used robot dogs as part of their Advanced Battle Management System. This system uses computer intelligence and fast data analysis to find and stop threats to US military things.
Drones used in Ukraine have shown that they can help smaller armies with less money to fight against much stronger enemies.
China is one of the top countries that sell drones to other places. But last year, the government put some rules on selling drone technology. They said it was to keep the country safe and protect its interests.
However, the robot dogs are receiving a lot of attention for the People’s Liberation Army.
And the dogs have been appearing on China’s closely controlled social media for at least a year.
The state-run Global Times says that using robotic dogs during military exercises with foreign countries shows that the technology is very advanced.
The robot dogs must be really advanced because new equipment isn’t usually used in joint exercises with other countries. An expert said this to Global Times but didn’t give their name.
Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said that they know there has been a lot of talk in the media about what Pope Francis said to Italian bishops on May 20.
Italian bishops were quoted by the media as saying that Pope Francis used the word “faggotness” as a joke during a conversation in Italian. He used the word to say the Vatican still doesn’t allow gay men to become priests.
Bruni said that Francis knew about the reports and remembered that the pope from Argentina has always said that there is space for everyone in the Catholic Church, especially LGBTQ2S+ Catholics.
“The pope didn’t mean to hurt anyone or say anything against gay people, and he’s sorry if anyone was upset by what he said,” Bruni explained.
The Vatican said in 2005 and again in 2016 that the church cannot allow or ordain men who are openly gay or strongly support gay culture.
Francis reiterated his stance in a meeting with Italian bishops on May 20. He joked that there was already a presence of gay men in seminaries. The Italian media reported this, following initial reports from gossip site Dagospia.
Francis does not speak Italian very well, and he has made mistakes in the past when speaking it. The 87-year-old pope from Argentina talks in a relaxed way, jokes using casual language and sometimes uses bad words in private.
He is well-known for reaching out to LGBTQ2S+ Catholics. In 2013, he made a famous comment saying “Who am I to judge” about a priest who was said to have had a gay lover in the past.
Three people who know about the conversations in Putin’s circle said that the experienced Russian leader had talked to a few advisers about being annoyed with what he sees as Western attempts to stop negotiations and the Ukrainian President’s decision to not have talks.
Another person who knows Putin well said that Putin is willing to keep fighting for as long as necessary, but he is also open to stopping the war and having a ceasefire.
He, like the others mentioned in this story, spoke anonymously because the topic is sensitive.
Reuters talked to five people who have worked closely with Putin in politics and business for this story. The fifth source did not say anything about stopping the war where it is now.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia is open to talking to achieve its goals. He also said that Russia doesn’t want to be in a never-ending war.
Some people think that when economist Andrei Belousov was appointed as Russia’s defense minister last week, it meant that Russia is getting ready for a long war by focusing on the economy.
It happened after Russia kept fighting and gaining more land in the past few weeks.
However, the people said that Putin, who was elected again in March for another six years, would prefer to use Russia’s current progress to end the war. They did not talk about the new defence minister directly.
Two people who know about conversations in the top levels of the Russian government said that Putin thinks that the progress in the war is good enough to convince the Russian people that they have won.
The biggest fight in Europe since World War Two has caused many deaths on both sides, and has resulted in Western countries punishing Russia’s economy.
Three people said that Putin knew that making big new advances would need another nationwide mobilization, but he didn’t want that. One person, who knows Putin, said that his popularity went down after the first mobilization in September 2022.
The government asked some people to join the military in Russia, and it scared many people. As a result, hundreds of thousands of young men left the country. Surveys showed that fewer people liked Putin than before.
Peskov said that Russia doesn’t need to call up its regular army and instead is getting people to volunteer to join the armed forces as contractors.
The chances of stopping the fighting or having a discussion about peace right now are unlikely.
Zelenskyy has said many times that he will not agree to peace on Putin’s terms. He promised to recapture land that was taken, including Crimea, which Russia took over in 2014. In 2022, he made a rule that said having discussions with Putin is not allowed.
Ukraine is getting ready for a meeting in Switzerland next month. The meeting is about getting countries to agree on how to stop the war. The meeting was organized by Zelenskyy, who said that Putin should not come. Switzerland did not ask Russia to come.
Moscow said the discussions are not believable if they are not involved. Ukraine and Switzerland want Russia’s friends, including China, to come to the meeting.
On May 17th, while talking in China, Putin mentioned that Ukraine might use the talks in Switzerland to get more countries to support Zelenskyy’s request for Russia to completely withdraw. Putin thinks this demand is more of a forced condition than a real effort to make peace.
The Swiss foreign ministry did not reply right away when asked for a comment.
We are prepared to talk. “We never said no,” Putin said in China.
The Kremlin is not talking about how its military operation in Ukraine is going. But, they have said that they are willing to have talks based on the current situation in Ukraine.
When asked about this story, a spokesperson from the US State Department said that any plan for peace in Ukraine should follow the country’s borders that are recognized around the world. They also said that Russia is the only thing stopping peace in Ukraine.
“The Kremlin has not shown any real interest in stopping the war, on the contrary,” the spokesperson said.
In the past, Kyiv didn’t believe Russia was really ready to talk because it seemed like Russia was trying to blame them for the war.
Kyiv says Putin cannot be trusted to keep any deal because his team denied planning a war before invading Ukraine in 2022.
Russia and Ukraine are worried that the other side will use a ceasefire to get more weapons.
Kyiv and the countries that support it are hoping that a $61 billion aid package from the US and more military aid from Europe will help turn around what Zelenskiy called “one of the toughest times” in the war.
Ukraine is having trouble getting enough ammunition because the US is taking a long time to approve it. They are also having a hard time finding enough soldiers, so they have decided to lower the age for drafting men to 25 instead of 27.
Land or area
Putin is not willing to change his mind about securing any progress on the battlefield in a deal, according to all the sources.
Putin is okay with keeping the land he has now and stopping the fighting at the current front lines. Four people said this.
One person said Putin will claim we won and that NATO attacked us but we kept our independence. They also said Putin will say we have a road to Crimea, which is true.
Stopping the fighting where it is now would mean that Russia keeps control of big parts of four Ukrainian regions that he took in September 2022, but doesn’t have complete control over any of them.
This plan would not meet Moscow’s goals when it said it controlled all of four regions in Ukraine – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
Peskov said that Russia won’t give back the four regions because they are now part of Russia according to its constitution.
Another reason why the leader of Russia wants the war to end is because the longer it goes on, the more experienced soldiers will come back to Russia. These soldiers may not be happy with the jobs and money they can get after the war, and this could cause problems in society. This information comes from someone who has worked with Putin.
‘Russia will keep moving forward’
In February, three people from Russia told Reuters that the United States said no to Putin’s idea of stopping the war with a ceasefire.
If there’s no agreement to stop fighting, Putin wants to take over as much land as he can to make Ukraine feel more pressure. He also wants to take advantage of any sudden chances to get even more land, according to three people.
Russian forces are in charge of about 18% of Ukraine and recently moved into the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Putin thinks that Russia has a lot more people than Ukraine, so they will have more soldiers without needing to call everyone to join the military. The soldiers will also get paid a lot of money to persuade them to join.
“Russia will continue to advance,” said the person who has experience working with Putin.
Putin will take more land little by little until Zelenskyy makes a deal to stop. The Russian leader thinks the West won’t give Ukraine enough weapons, which will make Ukraine feel less confident.
Leaders from the US and Europe have promised to support Ukraine until it is safe and its independence is protected. NATO countries and their friends are working to speed up the delivery of weapons.
The State Department said that Russia can stop the war by pulling its army out of Ukraine, instead of attacking Ukraine’s cities, ports, and people every day.
All five sources said that Putin told his advisers that he doesn’t plan to take over any NATO territory, which is the same thing he has said publicly. Two sources said that Russia is worried about the situation in Ukraine getting worse and possibly leading to a conflict with the West, including a nuclear conflict.
The State Department said that the United States has not changed its plan for nuclear weapons, and has not seen any indication that Russia is getting ready to use a nuclear weapon.
“We are still watching the situation carefully and are prepared,” said the spokesperson.
Rigaud Mayor Marie-Claude Frigault’s spokesperson Genevieve Hamel said a tall storage tower was knocked down on Petit Brule Street near the Ontario border.
The Quebec police confirmed that they got a lot of calls from the area about funnel clouds touching the ground.
St Lazare resident Baradaran Glady was driving to pick up her dog Buster from a doggy daycare when a funnel formed in front of her car.
“She said we couldn’t continue on the road because there was a broken tree and we could see a tornado. ” “Then, another storm began as we were driving in that direction. ” It was frightening.
“Looks like there might be a tornado, but we’ll be sure in the next few days,” Begin said. “The pictures seem like they are actually happening. ”
Begin thinks that teams should investigate more to make sure the funnel cloud really came down, just like in a criminal investigation. He said it will probably be confirmed soon with the help of teams from Western University in Ontario.
Hamel said four houses near Ski Mont-Rigaud hill were also damaged.
No one got hurt and the fire department is looking into what happened.
Obnes Regis is accused of causing the death of his wife, Naomi Onotera, in August 2021. He is also charged with mistreating her body. He sat in a special seat for a person accused of a crime while someone translated the court proceedings for him. Madam Justice Martha Devlin will make a decision on the case by herself, without a jury.
Crown prosecutor Crichton Pike said the first thing that Regis was hired by the BC Courts as an interpreter, but it’s not clear if he actually worked on a trial.
Pike made a list of what happened when Onotera went missing, and Regis acted strangely as her family and friends got worried and called the police. The police found 40 pieces of evidence, like bone pieces and hair, on a saw in the front yard of the couple’s house. They also saw video of Regis with their young daughter and a black backpack, taking buses and a taxi from Surrey to Maple Ridge to Fort Langley.
Pike asked the first witness for the prosecution to come forward. The witness was a teacher from BCIT named Steen Hartsen. Devlin said he is an expert in DNA and forensic investigations.
The trial will start again on Tuesday and is likely to continue for the whole month. According to the law, Regis is considered innocent unless a court decides he is guilty.
Part of a 10-unit apartment building in Tongling city collapsed on Monday afternoon. Rescue workers searched for survivors for many hours. A 12-year-old girl was found alive and is getting emergency help, the news said.
Cranes and backhoes were used to make sure the remaining parts of the building were strong and secure.
It’s not clear yet why the collapse happened. The city has had a lot of rain lately, which has flooded underground buildings.
Iran wants the economic sanctions against it to be removed in return for reducing its controversial nuclear program. The program, like everything else in Iran, is controlled by Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that’s probably not going to change after the helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president and foreign minister last week.
The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency is happening at the same time as the Israel-Hamas war, which is causing a lot of tension in the Middle East. Israel and Iran attacked each other’s land for the first time last month.
According to a report seen by The Associated Press, as of May 11th, Iran has 142.1 kilograms (313. 2 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent. This is an increase of 20. 6 kilograms (454 pounds) since the last report by the UN watchdog in February. Uranium that is 60% pure is very close to reaching the level needed to make weapons, which is 90% pure.
According to IAEA, about 42 kilograms (92. 5 pounds) of uranium that is enriched to 60 percent is enough to make one atomic weapon, if it is further enriched to 90 percent.
As of May 11, the report says Iran has 6,201.3 kilograms of enriched uranium, which is 675.8 kilograms more than before.
Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful reasons, but the head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, has said before that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make “several” nuclear bombs if it decides to. He admitted that the UN agency cannot be sure that Iran’s centrifuges have not been used for secretly enriching nuclear material.
Iran and the IAEA have been having more problems since 2018. This is because Donald Trump decided on his own to take the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran. Since then, Iran has stopped following the rules of the deal about its nuclear program and started doing more enrichment.
In the old nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to make uranium up to 3.67% pure, keep 300 kilograms of it, and use basic machines to do it.
In 2015, Iran agreed to only enrich uranium to levels needed for making electricity and in return, the economic sanctions against Iran were lifted. At that time, UN inspectors were responsible for watching over the program.
Monday’s report said that Tehran still has not changed its mind about preventing IAEA inspectors from checking its nuclear program. They expect Iran to reconsider this decision during the discussions with the IAEA.
The report also said that Tehran still hasn’t changed its mind about not letting IAEA inspectors keep an eye on its nuclear program. It also said that they want Iran to change its decision during talks with the IAEA.
The report says that Grossi is very sorry that Iran won’t let inspectors in. He thinks it’s really important for them to be allowed in so they can do their job properly.
The report recognized that the deaths of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have caused a break in the talks between Tehran and the IAEA about working together better.
Before the helicopter crash on May 19, Iran agreed to have talks with the IAEA on May 20. This was after Grossi visited earlier in the month. But those meetings didn’t happen because of the crash. Iran sent a letter on May 21. They said their nuclear team wants to keep talking in Tehran at a time that works for both sides.
The report also said that Iran still hasn’t given the IAEA information about where the manmade uranium particles found at two places, Varamin and Turquzabad, came from and where they are now.
The IAEA asked for something to be fixed. If it’s not fixed, they won’t be able to make sure Iran’s declarations are correct and complete. This is part of an agreement between Iran and the nuclear watchdog.
The report said that no new monitoring equipment, like cameras, has been put back in place yet since they were taken out in June 2022. Since then, the only information available is from cameras installed by the IAEA at a workshop where centrifuges are made in Isfahan in May 2023. But Iran has not let the IAEA see this information.
The IAEA checked some cameras in Isfahan on May 21, after a delay in April. They collected data since December 2023 and put it under separate seals from both the Agency and Iran at the locations.
The people saw the tanks near the Al-Awda mosque in Rafah, and they told Reuters. The Israeli military said its soldiers are still working in the Rafah area, but they didn’t say anything about whether they have moved into the city center.
During the night, the military attacked the city with airstrikes and tank fire, even though many people were upset about a previous attack on Sunday that caused a fire in a tent camp, killing at least 45 Palestinians, mostly children, women, and elderly people.
Since the strike, at least 26 more people have been killed by Israeli gunfire in Rafah, according to officials in the area controlled by Hamas militants.
People in Rafah saw the Israeli military bringing in armored vehicles that can be operated from far away. There were no soldiers nearby them. An Israeli army representative did not have an answer right away.
Israel started moving into the border area with Egypt three weeks ago. Tanks went near Rafah and some even went into parts of the eastern districts, but they haven’t gone into the city with full power yet.
Global leaders are saying that there was an attack on Sunday night in a camp where families who had been moved from other places in Gaza had gone for safety. They are asking for the World Court’s order to be followed to stop Israel’s attack.
People who live in Tel Al-Sultan area said that the area where the deadly strike happened on Sunday is still being heavily bombed.
“Bombs are dropping all over Tel Al-Sultan. ” A person who lives in western Rafah said that many families had to leave their homes because there was a lot of shooting happening all night. They spoke about it on a chat app to Reuters.
About one million people have left Rafah because of the Israeli attack since the beginning of May, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Israel is still attacking despite a decision by the highest UN court to tell them to stop. They say the court’s decision allows them to use military force there.
Spain, Ireland, and Norway will say they accept Palestine as its own country on Tuesday. Israel is not happy about it and feels like it is alone after the long fight in Gaza.
The three countries say they made their decision to help stop the fighting between Israel and Hamas and make a ceasefire happen faster.
Israel attacked Palestine and more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel started the operation because the Hamas-led militants attacked some towns in southern Israel on Oct 7. They killed about 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages, according to Israel.
Israel wants to find and remove Hamas fighters hiding in Rafah and save people who are being held as hostages there.
