Hussien ElkabanyTuesday May 12, 2026 Egypt said Monday that an oil tanker carrying eight Egyptian sailors was seized off Yemen’s coast and transported to Somalia, deepening concerns over a renewed spike in maritime insecurity in the region. “Egypt is closely monitoring the hijacking of the tanker M/T Eureka from Yemeni territorial waters, which was taken to Somali territorial waters,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministry said Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had directed Egypt’s embassy in…

Tarek ChouirefFriday May 8, 2026 Iran said early Friday that it had carried out a major missile and drone assault on US destroyers operating near the Strait of Hormuz, escalating tensions around one of the world’s most sensitive shipping lanes. In a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said the operation was launched after what it called a US ceasefire violation, citing a strike on an Iranian oil tanker near Jask port and the advance of US destroyers toward the strategic waterway. The statement said Iranian…

In a concerning development, Health Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi addressed Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Health following the alarming confirmation of Hantavirus in a severely ill British national in South Africa. Additionally, the health minister reported on a woman who collapsed at OR Tambo International Airport and unfortunately succumbed to her condition in South Africa. Her husband, who also fell ill, later died in St Helena. Both individuals were among the passengers aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, which was…

TikTok has won a crucial reprieve in its battle over European user data, after the Supreme Court here confirmed the company may continue transferring data from the European Union to China while it pursues an appeal against a regulator’s order to stop the practice over privacy concerns. The platform’s lead EU privacy watchdog, the Irish Data Protection Commission, imposed a €530m fine on the short-video app last May and directed it to suspend data transfers to China unless its processing was brought into ⁠compliance within…

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is preparing to shed 10% of its global workforce — a move that would amount to about 8,000 jobs. It remains unclear how the planned cuts will affect the company’s Irish business, where roughly 1,800 people are employed. A spokesperson for Meta Ireland declined to discuss the specifics of the redundancies, but confirmed the details of a Bloomberg report that first revealed the worldwide layoffs. The reductions were set out in a memo to employees, which also said Meta will leave thousands…

DJIBOUTI CITY, April 22 — Djibouti’s Constitutional Council on Tuesday confirmed that President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh has secured a sixth straight term, formally putting his share of the vote at 97.01% in the presidential election. Guelleh, 78, has been in power since 1999, making him one of the Horn of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. Early figures published soon after the April 10 ballot had already pointed to another overwhelming victory for the incumbent, with preliminary results showing him ahead on 97.81% of the vote…

Julian Borger and Aram Roston in WashingtonSaturday March 28, 2026 Mohammed bin Salman has urged Trump not to cut short war, according to New York Times report confirmed by a Saudi intelligence source. Photograph: AP Saudi Arabia has called on the United States to intensify its strikes on Iran, a Saudi intelligence source has confirmed, as Riyadh weighs whether to enter the conflict itself. The source backed a New York Times account saying Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, had pressed Donald…

Iran declares 40 days of mourning as state media confirm Khamenei killed in Israeli-US strikes Iranian state media on Sunday confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed at his office during Israeli-US attacks on Iran, an escalation that has jolted the region and set Tehran on a 40-day period of mourning for its paramount leader. The announcement followed hours of uncertainty after the Tasnim and Mehr news agencies initially reported that Khamenei was “steadfast and firm in commanding the field.” The…

Russia blocks WhatsApp, urges users onto domestic ‘Max’ app as Kremlin cites legal noncompliance Russia has blocked WhatsApp nationwide over what the Kremlin called the platform’s failure to comply with local legislation, intensifying a state push to shift tens of millions of people to a homegrown alternative that lacks end-to-end encryption. “As for the blocking of WhatsApp ... such a decision was indeed made and implemented,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that the move stemmed from the service’s…

DUBLIN — Ireland’s government has raised the case of Kilkenny native Seamus Culleton with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after the Boston-based construction worker was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and transferred nearly 4,000 kilometers to a facility in El Paso, Texas. Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said officials have been engaging U.S. counterparts and offering consular support to Culleton, who was arrested by ICE on Sept. 9, 2025. Culleton, originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, told RTÉ’s…