Author: Salako Temitope

World powers are striving to prevent a wider outbreak of conflict in the Middle East after Iran’s attacks on Saturday night, which involved hundreds of missiles and drones, the first time Iran has directly attacked Israel after decades of confrontation by proxies. Israel has clearly decided to retaliate against Iran for missile and drone attacks, Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron said during a visit to Israel on Wednesday, the starkest warning yet of another volley coming in regional escalation. Iran launched the attacks in response to a presumed Israeli airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1, which…

China’s military said Wednesday it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft that flew over the sensitive Taiwan Strait, a mission that took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and U.S. defence chiefs. China claims sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the Taiwan Strait is an international waterway. The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane, which is also used for anti-submarine missions, flew over the strait in international airspace. “By…

Pakistan’s interior ministry, on Wednesday, said it had blocked access to social media platform X around the time of February’s election on national security concerns, confirming a long-suspected shutdown. Users in Pakistan have reported problems using X, formerly known as Twitter, since mid-February, but the government had made no official announcement on the matter until now. The interior ministry mentioned the shutdown in a written submission to Islamabad High Court on Wednesday. Another court has told the government to reconsider the ban within a week, said Abdul Moiz Jafri, a petitioner and advocate. “It is very pertinent to mention here that the…

MTN has announced a new collaboration with operators such as Orange, Tigo, M-Pesa, and Airtel to improve interoperability for wallet-to-wallet transactions. According to MTN, this development will benefit South African migrants who send money home to Mozambique, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Meanwhile, payments are initiated in South Africa and flow outward with little or no inbound. “South Africa is a net sender, with about 90% outbound and 10% inbound,” Kagiso Mothibi, MTN SA’s General Manager for Fintech Products and Services, stated. However, Mothibi stated that plans are underway to launch inbound functionalities by the end of…

Lawyers representing Elon Musk’s X told Brazil’s Supreme Court that the social media platform will comply with every ruling issued by the court or Brazil’s top electoral court, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Monday. The document addressed to Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes comes after Musk last week said he would challenge a decision by Moraes ordering X, formerly known as Twitter, to block certain accounts in the South American country. The move marks a change of stance by X’s Brazilian unit, which last week said in a separate document sent to Moraes that it was…

At least 50 people have died in Pakistan in storms that have been lashing the country, officials said on Tuesday, as they urged emergency services to remain on high alert. Authorities in Afghanistan also reported a death toll of 50 the same day. The lightning and heavy rains have killed hundreds of people across Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most of the deaths in Pakistan were reported in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where torrential rains and flash floods triggered landslides, damaged homes and uprooted trees. Rains caused dozens of houses to collapse in the northwest and in eastern Punjab province.…

One of the Danish capital’s best-known buildings, Copenhagen’s Old Stock Exchange was up in flames on Tuesday, engulfing its spire which collapsed onto the roof in a scene reminiscent of the 2019 blaze at Paris’ Notre-Dame cathedral. There were no immediate reports of injuries, police said. Video from the scene showed people carrying large paintings away from the building to save the historic artefacts from the flames. “Horrible pictures from the Bourse. So sad. An iconic building that means a lot to all of us … Our own Notre-Dame moment,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen wrote on X. The historic…

While the Iranian attack caused no deaths and little damage, thanks to the air defences and countermeasures of Israel and its allies, it has increased concerns that violence rooted in the Gaza war is spreading, and fears of open war between the long-time foes. Israelis await word on how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would respond to Iran’s first-ever direct attack as international pressure for restraint grew amid fears of an escalation of conflict in the Middle East. On Monday, Netanyahu called together his war cabinet for the second time in less than 24 hours to consider how to respond to Iran’s significant…

At least four people including a bishop were wounded in a knife attack during a service at a church in a suburb of Sydney on Monday, police and witnesses said, triggering clashes between angry residents and police. It was the second reported mass stabbing in just three days in Sydney after six people were killed in a knife attack at a mall in the Bondi area. A large crowd quickly gathered outside the church after the attack, throwing rocks at police and demanding they bring out the perpetrator, according to two witnesses. Police fired pepper spray as they pushed back people…

Tesla is reported to harbor plans of laying off more than 10% of its global workforce, according to an internal memo seen on Monday as it grapples with falling sales amid an intensifying price war for electric vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in the memo that, “As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity,” “As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by…