Foreign

*78 Killed, Hundreds Injured --Iranian State Media *UN Security Council Meets Today Over Crisis *Hamas, Iran's Ally, Mocks Israel U.S president Donald Trump has urged Iran to make a deal over its nuclear programme, saying in a post today on his Truth Social platform that there was still time for the country to prevent further conflict with Israel. The post stated: "I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to “just do it,” but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get…

*Launches 100 Drones, Some Intercepted by Jordan *'Israeli Strikes Now Justify Need For Iran's Nuclear Bomb, We'll Go Ahead' *Israel, A Terrorist Nation -Iran Iran vowed to avenge the attack on its nuclear sites and the assassination in Tehran of its senior military leadership, saying it would respond forcefully and that the “end of this story will be written by Iran’s hand," reports today's edition of The Guardian UK. In the first signs of a counterstrike, Israel said Iran had launched 100 drones towards Israel and that its air defences were intercepting them outside Israeli territory. Iraq said more than…

United States (U.S) President Donald Trump has accused Elon Musk of “losing his mind” as the dramatic breakdown between America’s most powerful person and the world’s richest person escalated into a full-blown feud that could have seismic political and economic consequences. In a series of phone calls to U.S media on Friday morning, June 6, Trump snapped back at Musk, after the tech mogul and Republican financier launched an extraordinary social media attack on the president the day before, which ended with him accusing Trump of being named in the so-called “Epstein files” – documents related to the convicted child…

U.S President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping order banning travel from 12 countries and restricting travel from seven others, reviving and expanding the travel bans from his first term. Seven African countries are affected by the full ban. The nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be “fully” restricted from entering the U.S, according to the proclamation. Meanwhile, the entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted. The U.S president said that he “considered foreign policy, national…

The Trump administration has ordered U.S embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants --in a development that could also affect Nigerians bidding to study in the U.S. A Tuesday, May 27, State Department cable instructs consular sections to pause adding “any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued” within days. The directive, first reported by Politico and now confirmed by The Guardian UK , could severely delay visa processing and hurt universities –…

A major integrity scandal of seismic proportions is presently rocking the Ghanaian government following the unearthing of a scam involving staff members of the country's Mission in Washington DC. With immediate effect, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recalled all staff of the Mission over the alleged fraudulent activities uncovered in the embassy. A report in a government daily said some staff members of the embassy were found to have allegedly created a parallel bank account to the official accounts into which they collect visa and other service fees due the embassy. Several millions of US Dollars may be involved…

More trouble may be coming for Nigerian televangelist Timothy Omotoso as South African authorities said they will continue with legal proceedings against him after he was acquitted of rape last month. Pastor Omotoso has left the country voluntarily,though the authorities said they will apply for his extradition to South Africa to face proceedings if the appeal is allowed. Omotoso, who denied the 32 charges against him, was accused of sexually assaulting young women from his church in Port Elizabeth. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said it will still appeal against the judgment which found Omotoso not guilty, saying his presence…

Justices at the U.S Supreme Court have questioned lawyers representing the administration of U.S President Donald Trump and those challenging his effort to end birthright citizenship in the country. The hearing on Thursday,May 15, represented the first time the top court in the United States has heard a case related to Trump’s January 20 order seeking to do away with the more-than-century-old policy, which grants citizenship to nearly all infants born on U.S soil, regardless of their parents’ legal status. It was not immediately clear when the court would issue a ruling in the case, although an outcome could take…

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called a group of 59 white South Africans who have moved to the US to resettle "cowards", saying "they'll be back soon". The group of Afrikaners arrived in the US on Monday after President Donald Trump granted them refugee status, saying they faced racial discrimination. But Ramaphosa said those who wanted to leave were not happy with efforts to address the inequities of the apartheid past, terming their relocation a "sad moment for them". "As South Africans, we are resilient. We don't run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems. When…

After a lengthy wait, black smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel's chimney in the Vatican this evening, meaning that the cardinals have not been able to choose a new pontiff. White smoke billowing out indicates that a new Pope has been elected. Crowds were gathered in their tens of thousands in St Peter's Square for the first vote of conclave - the results of which took more than three hours to announce. Because of the secrecy of the process, experts have pointed out that it might never be known what caused the delay, until after the conclave concludes. But the…