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.”
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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