Bangkok, Thailand | AFP | He’s a mercurial army general known for penning saccharine ballads and angry tirades against his critics. Now Thailand’s junta chief has launched a new eye-catching project: trimming the waistlines of the kingdom’s civil servants. Former army chief turned Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha ditched his fatigues …
Read More »Putin jokes that Russian borders ‘don’t end’
Moscow, Russia | AFP | President Vladimir Putin on Thursday joked with a schoolboy that Russia’s borders “don’t end anywhere”. Putin was speaking at a televised awards ceremony held by the Russian Geographical Society. On stage Putin questioned Miroslav Oskirko, a nine-year-old prodigy who said he knew the borders of …
Read More »VIDEO: New VAT, online challenges for URA and Africa
VIDEO: African Tax administrators have called for the need to strengthen Value Added Tax Administration on the continent to increase tax revenues. Uganda Revenue Authority Commissioner General Doris Akol says improving domestic Revenue Collection, is the only way African tax bodies can combat tax evasion. Akol was speaking during the 17th …
Read More »VIDEO: Pastor Kiwedde re-arrested in Zimbawe, back in Uganda
VIDEO: Police in Masaka have re- arrested the embattled pastor William Muwanguzi commonly known as pastor Kiwede who escaped out of prison at Mutukula-Rakai district in October last year and found his way to Zimbabwe. He was first detained in Zimbabwe and extradited back to Uganda. Maxwell Ogwal, the Masaka …
Read More »Long bank queues in India? There’s an app for that!
New Delhi, India | AFP | Huge bank queues have become an ubiquitous sight across India after the government suddenly withdrew the two highest denomination notes from circulation two weeks ago — but now you can hire-a-queuer online. New Delhi-based startup BookMyChotu — a play on the Hindi word “chotu” …
Read More »New Yorkers still coping with post-Trump shock
New York, United States | AFP | Donald Trump’s election jolted liberal America, but perhaps nowhere more than in his native New York, where city-dwellers are processing their woe with everything from yoga to body art to demonstrations. Many residents of the cosmopolitan cultural mosaic — where 79 percent of …
Read More »Trump declining intelligence briefings
Washington, United States | AFP | Donald Trump has received just two classified intelligence briefings since winning the presidency earlier this month, far less than his immediate predecessors, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The Republican’s limited engagement with his team of intelligence analysts has some officials questioning the real estate …
Read More »Record-breaker Rooney shuts down booze talk
Manchester, United Kingdom | AFP | Wayne Rooney gave short shrift to talk about his recent off-field indiscretions while on England duty after breaking Manchester United’s European goal-scoring record against Feyenoord on Thursday. Rooney, 31, scored his 39th European goal in a 4-0 victory to eclipse Ruud van Nistelrooy as …
Read More »Trumps picks women, including a critic, for cabinet
Palm Beach, United States | AFP | Donald Trump began to broaden the base of his future cabinet Wednesday, nominating two conservative women including a critic, after his earlier picks rewarded campaign loyalists. Trump’s nomination of South Carolina’s 44-year-old governor, Nikki Haley, as US ambassador to the United Nations will …
Read More »Kidnapped Australian doctor becomes Burkina Faso citizen
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso | AFP | An Australian surgeon kidnapped by jihadists nearly two years ago whose whereabouts remain unknown has been declared a citizen of the west African nation, an official decree announced Wednesday. “Arthur Kenneth Elliott, born 11 November 1934 in Perth, in Australia…. a surgeon” has been …
Read More »