Town Hall News

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said on Monday that its army chief, Lawrence Mbatha, was in Moscow for a bilateral meeting, where he will visit Russian military academies and hold talks with officials. “It must be noted that South Africa has military-to-military bilateral relations with various countries in the continent and beyond,” the SANDF said in a statement, adding that the meeting in Russia was planned […]

By Andrew Chung (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a challenge by an Alabama death row inmate who sued months before surviving a botched execution claiming that the state’s troubled lethal injection process would violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. In an unusual case that has returned to the justices because the execution of convicted murderer Kenneth Smith failed, they turned away an appeal by Alabama […]

BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombian leftwing guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (ELN) on Monday said peace talks with the government were in crisis due to comments made by President Gustavo Petro. The declaration from the ELN represents the most recent setback to the negotiations, which Petro restarted last year as part of efforts to end the rebel group’s role in Colombia’s almost six decades of conflict. Petro had questioned the unity […]

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank said on Monday it had fined Goldman Sachs’ European unit 6.63 million euros ($7.3 million) for underreporting the risk associated with some corporate credit, thereby flattering its balance sheet. Goldman Sachs said in a statement it had “closely cooperated with the ECB” and “taken all necessary steps” to resolve the issue. The ECB, the euro zone’s top banking supervisor, said Goldman Sachs Bank Europe […]

By Max Hunder DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukrainian soldiers training for a counteroffensive against Russian forces said on Monday they felt ready to launch the assault which they hope will end the war. Members of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade practiced setting up and packing away their mortars as the sun beat down on them in fields in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk. Learning to do it quickly is […]

By Dan Peleschuk and Kylie MacLellan KYIV/LONDON (Reuters) – Ukraine on Monday hailed its first substantial battlefield advances for six months as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won pledges of new long-range drones in Britain to add to a haul of Western arms for a counteroffensive against Russian invaders. Since last week, the Ukrainian military has started to push Russian forces back in and around the embattled city of Bakhmut, its first […]

By Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir DUBAI (Reuters) -The Sudanese army carried out air strikes in the north of the capital Khartoum on Monday, attacking its paramilitary rivals around a hospital that witnesses said was damaged in the bombardment. Intense battles in Khartoum and its sister cities of Bahri and Omdurman have raged despite Saudi and U.S.-brokered talks between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Jeddah […]

By John Kruzel WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a bid by South Carolina officials to revive a Republican-crafted voting map that a lower court said had unconstitutionally “exiled” 30,000 Black voters from a closely contested congressional district. The justices took up an appeal by South Carolina officials of a federal judicial panel’s ruling that found the Republican-drawn map had deliberately split up Black neighborhoods […]

By Diadie Ba DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has appealed a libel conviction that could prevent him running in presidential elections next year, one of his lawyers said, as another round of protests broke out on Monday. Last week, Sonko received a suspended six-month sentence for libel stemming from his accusations that the minister of tourism had embezzled funds. The conviction casts doubt over Sonko’s eligibility to […]