Headline

Former Pakistan President Is Dead

Published

3 years ago

February 5, 2023

Pakistan’s former president General Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and launched a fight against Islamist extremism, has died at the age of 79, Daily Mail reports.

General Musharraf was a controversial military ruler who led a reluctant Pakistan into aiding the US war in Afghanistan against the same Taliban fighters his nation had previously backed, even as Islamic militants twice targeted him for assassination.

The former special forces commando became president through the last of a string of military coups that hit Pakistan after its founding amid the bloody 1947 partition of India.

He ruled the nuclear-armed state after his 1999 coup through turbulent times, including tensions with India, an atomic proliferation scandal and an Islamic extremist insurgency.

He stepped down in 2008 while facing possible impeachment.

During his time in office, he became an unlikely ally of the US and Nato, supporting them in the war against terror, and visited the UK during Tony Blair’s premiership.

After stepping down, Musharraf lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai to avoid criminal charges, despite attempting a political comeback in 2012.

His family announced last June that he had been in hospital for weeks while suffering from amyloidosis, an incurable condition that sees proteins build up in the body’s organs.

Shazia Siraj, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani consulate in Dubai, confirmed his death and said diplomats were providing support to his family.

“I have confronted death and defied it several times in the past because destiny and fate have always smiled on me,’ Gen Musharraf once wrote.

“I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat.”

Pakistan, a nation which is now home to 220 million people, drew US attention a little under two years after it seized power due to its border with Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden launched September 11, 2001, attacks 2001 from Afghanistan, sheltered by the country’s Taliban rulers, and General Musharraf knew what would come next.

“America was sure to react violently, like a wounded bear,” he wrote in his autobiography.

“If the perpetrator turned out to be al-Qaeda, then that wounded bear would come charging straight toward us.”

By September 12, then-US secretary of state Colin Powell told Musharraf that Pakistan would either be “with us or against us”.

He said another American official threatened to bomb Pakistan “back into the Stone Age” if it chose the latter.

Gen Musharraf chose the former. A month later, he stood by then-president George W Bush at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to declare Pakistan’s unwavering support to fight with the US against ‘terrorism in all its forms wherever it exists’.

Pakistan became a crucial transit point for Nato supplies heading to landlocked Afghanistan – even though Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency had backed the Taliban after they swept into power in Afghanistan in 1994.

Before that, the CIA and others funnelled money and arms through the ISI to Islamic fighters battling the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan saw Taliban fighters flee over the border into Pakistan, including bin Laden, whom the US killed in 2011 at a compound in Abbottabad.

They regrouped and the offshoot Pakistani Taliban emerged, beginning a years-long insurgency in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The CIA began flying armed drones from Pakistan with Musharraf’s blessing, using an airstrip built by the founding president of the United Arab Emirates for falconing in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

The programme helped beat back the militants but saw more than 400 strikes in Pakistan alone kill at least 2,366 people, including 245 civilians, according to the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank.

Headline

Again, Russia Claims Another Village In Ukraine’s Region

Published

8 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

The Russian army Monday claimed to have captured another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, moving deeper into Ukrainian territory as peace efforts stall.

Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and central Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized the settlement of Zaporizke in the region, which Russian troops recently advanced into for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year offensive.

Kyiv denies that Russian troops have gained a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial hub.

After another push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia last week ruled out any immediate meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

The central region of Dnipropetrovsk has previously been largely spared from fighting that has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, until Russia said its forces broke through in July.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Ukraine said Russia had launched over 100 drones Monday, killing a 37-year old civilian driver and wounding two people in the northeastern Sumy region.

Moscow said Kyiv had launched about two dozen drones targeting western Russia

Headline

US Comedian Reggie Carroll Shot Dead In Mississippi

Published

8 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

A United States comedian, Reginald “Reggie” Carroll, has been shot dead in Southaven, Mississippi.

The 52-year-old Carroll, widely known as the Knockout King of Comedy, was reportedly killed on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

The Southaven Police Department confirmed the incident in a Facebook statement on Saturday.

“Southaven officers located one male victim suffering from gunshot wounds.

“The officers and medical personnel provided life saving techniques but the individual succumbed to his injuries,” the statement partly read.

The victim was later identified as Carroll, a Baltimore native.

Police said one suspect was arrested and charged with his murder.

“One male is in custody and has been charged with the murder of Reginald Carroll.

“Our thoughts are with the family of Mr. Carroll.

“Thank you to the community for their patience and understanding,” the department added.

The police further assured that there was no ongoing threat to residents, describing the case as “an isolated shooting.”

Carroll, who built his career in stand-up comedy, gained national recognition touring with Katt Williams and headlining his own showcase, Knockout Kings of Comedy.

He also featured in the 2000 edition of Showtime at the Apollo, appeared on the UPN sitcom The Parkers alongside Mo’Nique and Countess Vaughn, and starred in the 2022 television film Rent & Go.

In 2023, he produced the stand-up special Knockout Kings of Comedy.

The Southaven Police Department disclosed that an investigation into his death is ongoing.

Headline

US Defends New Social Media Vetting For Nigerian Visa Applicants

Published

9 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

The U.S. Mission in Nigeria on Monday reaffirmed that the safety and security of the United States remain the cornerstone of its visa application and decision-making process.

The US said this following its directive last week that mandates Nigerians to disclose all social media usernames and handles used over the past five years as part of the visa application process.

US Mission said Nigerian visa applicants must provide a comprehensive list of their social media profiles on the DS-160 visa application form, and warned that omitting the information could lead to visa denials.

Reacting to the development, the Federal Government said US citizens intending to visit Nigeria will be subjected to the same measures.

“The best we can do is to carry out reciprocal action. Some people from the US might want to apply for a visa, and we will adopt the same measures,” spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, said last Monday.

However, in a statement released Monday on X, the US Mission said prospective visa applicants undergo careful vetting to maintain a safe and welcoming environment in the US.

It said, “The safety and security of the United States is at the heart of every #USVisa application and decision process.

“That’s why prospective applicants undergo careful screening to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for all.”

The Mission added, “These measures help protect American citizens and communities while supporting secure and responsible travel.”