UNITED STATES
Musk threatens more firings
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the past week, sparking confusion across key agencies. Billionaire Elon Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Shortly afterward, federal employees received a three-line e-mail instructing them to reply by today at 11:59pm with five things they accomplished last week. “It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” American Federation of Government Employees president Everett Kelley said.
Photo: REUTERS
FRANCE
One dead in ‘Islamist’ attack
A man who went on a stabbing rampage, killing one and wounding several others in what President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist act,” was on a terrorism watch list and subject to deportation orders, authorities said. The knife-wielding suspect, later identified by prosecutors as a 37-year-old Algerian-born man, was arrested at the site of Saturday’s attack in the eastern city of Mulhouse. The attack occurred at about 4pm near a busy market, where demonstrators were rallying in support of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A 69-year-old Portuguese man was fatally wounded, while parking attendants and police were also hurt.
Photo: AFP
AFGHANISTAN
Women’s radio to reopen
A women’s radio station is to resume broadcasts after the Taliban suspended its operations, citing “unauthorized provision” of content to an overseas TV channel and improperly using its license. Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021, five months before the Taliban seized power amid the withdrawal of US and NATO troops. The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women. Its sister satellite channel, Begum TV, operates from France and broadcasts programs that cover the Afghan school curriculum. The Taliban have banned education for women and girls in the country beyond grade six. The Ministry of Information and Culture said the suspension was lifted after the station made commitments conduct broadcasts “in accordance with the principles of journalism and the regulations of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to avoid any violations in the future.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
SUDAN
Cholera outbreak kills 58
A cholera outbreak in the southern city of Kosti killed 58 people and sickened about 1,300 over the past three days, health authorities said on Saturday. The outbreak was blamed mainly on contaminated drinking water after the city’s water supply facility was knocked out during an attack by a notorious paramilitary group, the Ministry of Health said. “The situation is really alarming and is about to get out of control,” Doctors Without Borders medical coordinator in Kosti Francis Layoo Ocan said. “We’ve run out of space, and we are now admitting patients in an open area and treating them on the floor because there are not enough beds.”
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
Ugandan wildlife authorities have reintroduced rhinos into a remote protected area where they were once poached into extinction, an event seen by conservationists as a milestone in efforts to support the recovery of a species threatened by poaching. On Tuesday, two southern white rhinos from a private ranch in the East African country were reintroduced into Kidepo Valley National Park in the country’s northeast. Two more rhinos in metallic crates arrived on Thursday. There have been no rhinos in the park since 1983, the result of poaching. However, a private ranch in central Uganda — the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary — has been
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
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