Foreign

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…

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered senior Pentagon leadership to cut the number of four-star generals and admirals by at least 20% across the military, according to a memo signed by Hegseth dated Monday. As of 2023, there were 37 four-star generals and admirals across the entire military. The memo which was obtained by CNN, directs the Pentagon to cut the number of general officers in the National Guard by 20%, and to cut the total number of general and flag officers across the military by 10%. There are currently about 900 general and flag officers — those with the…

Fortune comes in different shades, but it is sweeter in adversity. It just smiled on Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, targeted by pro-Israel groups in the United States (U.S) for deportation, as he won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary yesterday. Abu Toha received the prestigious award on Monday, May 5, for essays published in The New Yorker “on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience” of the war. “I have just won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary,” Abu Toha wrote on social media. “Let it bring…