Current Final

Author: AFP

  • Man arrested for supplying drugs to Liam Payne: Argentine police

    Man arrested for supplying drugs to Liam Payne: Argentine police

    Argentine police on Friday arrested one of the two men accused of supplying drugs to British singer Liam Payne before he fell to his death from his third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires.

    Braian Paiz, who is accused of having supplied cocaine to Payne, is one of five defendants indicted in connection with the death of the 31-year-old former One Direction pop star in October.

    Three of the five were charged with manslaughter and the other two with supplying illegal drugs, prosecutors said earlier this week.

    Prosecutors said Payne had consumed cocaine, alcohol and a prescription antidepressant before falling to his death from the balcony of his room at the Casa Sur Hotel.

    Paiz, 24, is accused of supplying Payne with drugs two days before his death. His home has been searched, police sources said.

    In November, Paiz denied in a television interview having given drugs to Payne, although he said that he met the pop star and spent time with him at his hotel.

    Paiz denied taking money for the drugs, but the judge in the case said evidence suggested he had been paid.

    Payne had spoken publicly about struggling with substance abuse and coping with fame from an early age.

    His death prompted a global outpouring of grief from family, former bandmates and fans, with thousands gathering in cities around the world to offer their condolences.

    One of the highest-grossing live acts in the world in the 2010s, One Direction went on indefinite hiatus in 2016.

    Payne enjoyed some solo success before his career stalled.

  • Palestinian Authority suspends Al Jazeera broadcasts

    Palestinian Authority suspends Al Jazeera broadcasts

    The Palestinian Authority has ordered the suspension of broadcasts by Qatar-based Al Jazeera and on Thursday accused it of incitement, which the news channel compared to Israeli practices.

    Al Jazeera is already banned from broadcasting from Israel amid a long-running feud with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

    In September, armed and masked Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah also raided the Al Jazeera office, saying it was “used to incite terror.”

    The military issued an initial 45-day closure order, prompting the Palestinian foreign ministry at the time to condemn “a flagrant violation” of press freedom.

    On Thursday, the PA insisted its own suspension measure was “temporary,” adding its decision followed a complaint from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate concerning the network’s coverage.

    “These measures shall be applied until Al Jazeera chooses to act in accordance with basic media ethics, including its duty to prevent deliberate disinformation, ban the glorification of violence, and end the incitement to armed mutiny,” the PA said.

    The syndicate, which represents about 3,000 Palestinian journalists, said several had filed complaints against Al Jazeera for “biased media coverage on its platforms, including incitement, misleading reports, and content that stirs internal discord”.

    The PA’s decision includes “temporarily freezing the work of all journalists, employees, crews and affiliated channels until their legal status is rectified due to Al Jazeera’s violations of the laws and regulations in force in Palestine”, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported late Wednesday.

    The channel aired images of what appeared to be Palestinian security officers entering the network’s office in Ramallah and handing over the suspension orders.

    Al Jazeera condemned the decision, saying it “aligns with Israeli occupation practices targeting its media teams”.

    It accused the PA, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank, of “attempting to deter Al Jazeera from covering escalating events in the occupied Palestinian territories” including in Jenin and its refugee camp.

    The PA’s security forces have been engaged in weeks of deadly clashes with armed militants in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

    Tensions over coverage

    Militant group Hamas, rivals of Fatah which dominates the PA, condemned the decision to ban the network.

    “This decision aligns with a series of recent arbitrary actions taken by the Authority to curtail public rights and freedoms and to reinforce its security grip on the Palestinian people,” Hamas said in a statement.

    “We call on the Palestinian Authority to immediately reverse this decision … It is crucial to ensure the continuation of media coverage that exposes the occupation and supports the steadfastness of our people.”

    Islamic Jihad, allied with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, also criticised the decision.

    “We condemn the authority’s decision to close Al Jazeera’s office in Palestine when our people and our cause are in dire need to convey their suffering to the world,” the group said in a statement.

    Tensions between the network and the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas have risen in recent weeks following the channel’s coverage of the clashes in Jenin.

    In late December, the channel condemned what it said was an “incitement campaign” by Fatah against the network in some areas of the occupied West Bank.

    “This campaign follows the network’s coverage of clashes between Palestinian security forces and resistance fighters in Jenin,” it said in a statement at the time.

    The security forces of the PA have been engaged in deadly clashes with gunmen since early December, triggered by the arrests of several militants.

    They are fighting members of the Jenin Battalion, most of whom are affiliated with either Islamic Jihad or Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

    Fatah’s rivals have accused PA forces of aiding Israel.

    Al Jazeera continues to work in Gaza, where Hamas seized control in 2007.

    The violence in the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of armed groups and a frequent target of Israeli military raids has killed 11 people, including PA security personnel, militants and civilians.

  • Gaza babies die from winter cold say medics and families

    Gaza babies die from winter cold say medics and families

    Yahya al-Batran clutched the tiny clothes of his dead newborn son Jumaa, just days after the baby died from the cold in their tent in war-torn Gaza.

    “We are watching our children die before our eyes,” said the 44-year-old.

    Their baby was one of the seven children who died from the cold within the span of a week, Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday.

    “We fled the bombing from Beit Lahia, only for them to die from the cold here?” said the child’s mother Noura al-Batran, referring to their hometown in northern Gaza.

    The 38-year-old is still recovering from giving birth prematurely to Jumaa and his surviving twin brother, Ali, who is being treated in an intensive care unit at a hospital in southern Gaza.

    Completely destitute and repeatedly displaced by Israel’s aggression in Gaza, the Batran family lives in a makeshift tent in Deir el-Balah made of worn-out blankets and fabric.

    His father, while talking to a reporter, said, “We didn’t die because of the Jews…
    My children died from the cold and hunger.”

    Like hundreds of others now living in a date palm orchard, they have struggled to keep warm and dry amid heavy rains and temperatures that have dropped as low as eight degrees Celsius.

    “We don’t have enough blankets or suitable clothing. I saw my baby start to freeze, his skin turned blue and then he died,” she cried.

    The twins were born prematurely, and she said the doctor decided to take the babies out of the incubator despite the family not having access to heating.

    On a rain-soaked mat, the father hugged his older children tight with blankets and worn-out cloth in a corner of their tent.

    He then placed a small pot of water on the stove to make tea, which he then mixed with dry bread to make a meagre lunch for his family with a little cheese and the thyme-based spice blend called za’atar.

    Like thousands of other families enduring dire conditions, they face shortages of food, fuel, and medicine, with the United Nations warning of an imminent collapse of the healthcare system.

    In southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, Mahmoud al-Fasih said he found his infant daughter, Seela, “frozen from the cold” in their small tent near al-Mawasi beach, where they were displaced from Gaza City.

    He rushed her to the hospital in the area that Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone”, but she was already dead.

    Ahmad Al-Farra, a doctor and director of the emergency and children’s department at Nasser Hospital, told AFP that the three-week-old baby arrived at the hospital with “severe hypothermia, without vital signs, in cardiac arrest that led to her death”.

    Another 20-day-old baby, Aisha al-Qassas, also died of cold in the area, according to her family.

    “In Gaza, everything leads to death,” said the baby’s uncle, Mohamed al-Qassas. “Those who do not die under Israeli bombardments succumb to hunger or cold.”

    The Hamas government press office in Gaza warned on Monday of the impact of more harsh weather expected in the coming days, saying it posed a “real threat to two million displaced people,” the majority of whom live in tents.

    Farra warned that this would likely be accompanied by “the death of greater numbers of children, infants, and the elderly.”

    “Life in tents is dangerous due to the cold and the scarcity of energy and heating sources,” he said.

  • Tintin, Popeye among US copyrights expiring in 2025

    Tintin, Popeye among US copyrights expiring in 2025

    From “A Farewell to Arms” to the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor, thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday.

    US copyright law expires after 95 years for books, films and other works of art, while sound recordings from 1924 will also be copyright-free.

    By entering the public domain, the pieces can be copied, shared, reproduced or adapted by anyone without paying the rights owner.

    This year’s crop includes internationally recognized figures such as the comic character Tintin, who made his debut in a Belgian newspaper in 1929, and Popeye the Sailor, created by cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar.

    Every December, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain publishes a list of the cultural works that lose their copyright in the new year.

    The center, part of the Duke University School of Law in the southeastern US state of North Carolina, makes the list available on its website for anyone to peruse.

    “In past years we have celebrated an exciting cast of public domain characters: the original Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh, and the final iterations of Sherlock Holmes from Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories,” center director Jennifer Jenkins wrote on its website.

    “In 2025 copyright expires over more aspects of Mickey from his 1929 incarnations, along with the initial versions of Popeye and Tintin.”

    Among the literary works entering the US public domain on January 1 are the novels “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf and the first English translation of “All Quiet on the Western Front” by the German author Erich Maria Remarque.

    Films that will be in the public domain include “Blackmail,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and “The Black Watch,” the first sound film by Oscar-winning director John Ford.

    Musical compositions published in 1929, such as “Bolero” by French composer Maurice Ravel and “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin, will lose their copyrights, though only recordings from 1924 or earlier will be in the public domain.

  • Notable deaths of 2024

    Notable deaths of 2024

    From Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to British actress Maggie Smith and US music titan Quincy Jones, here are some of 2024’s most notable deaths.

    February 

    – 4: HAGE GEINGOB, Namibia’s President and its first post-independence prime minister, aged 82

    – 9: ROBERT BADINTER, France’s former justice minister who ended capital punishment in 1981, 95

    – 16: ALEXEI NAVALNY, the top opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in prison aged 47, after over three years behind bars

    – 29: ALI HASSAN MWINYI, former Tanzanian president, who introduced multi-party democracy, 98

    March

    – 1: IRIS APFEL, New York fashion celebrity known as the “geriatric starlet”, 102

    – 1: AKIRA TORIYAMA, creator of Japan’s “Dragon Ball” manga and anime cartoons, 68

    April

    – 2: MARYSE CONDE, French writer, chronicler of the lives of the descendants of Africans taken as slaves to the Caribbean, 90

    – 8: PETER HIGGS, British physicist whose theory of a mass-giving particle — the so-called Higgs boson — jointly earned him the Nobel Physics Prize, 94

    – 10: O.J. SIMPSON, ex-American football star acquitted in 1995 following the televised “Trial of the Century” of the murder of his ex-wife and her male friend. A 1997 civil trial found Simpson liable and he then served nearly nine years in prison for a bungled 2007 armed robbery, 76

    – 30: PAUL AUSTER, American novelist who wrote “The New York Trilogy”, 77

    May

    – 9: ROGER CORMAN, American B-movie filmmaker, 98

    – 13: ALICE MUNRO, Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author known for her mastery of the short story, 92

    June

    – 5: AKIRA ENDO, Japanese biochemist who discovered cholesterol-lowering statins, 90

    – 11: FRANCOISE HARDY, French singer who shot to international stardom in the 1960s, 80

    – 18: ANOUK AIMEE, French film star of Claude Lelouch’s box-office smash “A Man and A Woman”, 92

    – 20: DONALD SUTHERLAND, Canadian actor of “The Dirty Dozen” and “The Hunger Games”, 88

    July

    – 1: ISMAIL KADARE, Albanian novelist whose novels defied the communist dictator Enver Hoxha, 88

    – 13: SHANNEN DOHERTY, US actress of the high school drama series “Beverly Hills 90210”, 53

    – 19: NGUYEN PHU TRONG, general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, considered the country’s top leader, 80

    – 27: EDNA O’BRIEN, radical Irish writer whose first novel “The Country Girls” was burned and banned in her native country, 93

    – 31: ISMAIL HANIYEH, Hamas political chief, killed in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, 62

    August

    – 14: GENA ROWLANDS, award-winning US actress and muse of her first husband, director John Cassavetes, 94

    – 18: ALAIN DELON, French film legend known for his roles in classics “Plein Soleil” (Purple Noon) (1960) and “Le Samurai” (1967), 88

    September

    – 11: ALBERTO FUJIMORI, Peru’s former president, who spent 16 years in prison for crimes against humanity, 86

    – 27: MAGGIE SMITH, British actor, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, “Gosford Park”, Harry Potter series: double Oscar-winner, 89

    – 27: HASSAN NASRALLAH, Hezbollah chief, killed in an Israeli strike, 64

    – 28: KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, US country music legend, actor, 88

    October

    – 9: RATAN TATA, Indian industrialist, head of the Tata Group, 86

    – 10: ETHEL KENNEDY, human rights activist and widow of assassinated US politician Robert F. Kennedy, 96

    – 16: LIAM PAYNE, former member of the best-selling boys band One Direction, having fallen from the third floor of a Buenos Aires hotel, 31

    – 16: YAHYA SINWAR, Hamas political chief, killed by Israeli troops, 61

    – 20: FETHULLAH GULEN, Muslim cleric and bitter enemy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in exile in the United States, 83

    November

    – 3: QUINCY JONES, Trailblazing US musician, arranger, band leader, composer and producer, 91

    – 24: BREYTEN BREYTENBACH, South African award-winning writer and anti-apartheid activist, 85

    – 28: PRINCE JOHNSON, former Liberian warlord, responsible for the gruesome 1990 killing of President Samuel Doe, which plunged Liberia into two bloody civil wars, 72

    December

     

    – 17: MARISA PAREDES, Spanish actress who starred in six films by Pedro Almodovar, becoming known as “Almodovar’s girl”, 78

    -18: JIMMY CARTER, Ex American President, died at the age of 100 years. 

  • Djokovic, Sabalenka win season-openers but Kyrgios loses on return

    Djokovic, Sabalenka win season-openers but Kyrgios loses on return

    Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka launched their Australian Open preparations with straight-sets wins on Tuesday at the Brisbane International, but Nick Kyrgios lost on his return from injury.

    Former world number one Djokovic, who is chasing a record 25th Grand Slam crown in January in Melbourne, eased to a 6-3, 6-3 victory over wildcard Rinky Hijikata.

    The 37-year-old Serb broke Hijikata once in the first set and twice in the second for a comfortable 74-minute win.

    Djokovic, now ranked seven in the world, was all business against the young Australian and always looked in control as he set up a second-round clash against fellow veteran Gael Monfils.

    “To start the new season with a win is obviously very important,” said Djokovic, who is pursuing an unprecedented 11th Australian Open title.


    “But Hijikata was really good tonight, and he made me work for it.”

    Australian firebrand Kyrgios lost in three tight sets in his first singles match since June 2023.

    Kyrgios went down 7-6 (7/2), 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/3) to Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in almost two and a half hours as serve dominated.

    The 2022 Wimbledon finalist Kyrgios, 29, is making his comeback following wrist reconstruction and other injuries over the past couple of years.

    Ahead of the Australian Open starting on January 12, big-serving Mpetshi Perricard said Kyrgios had shown enough to suggest that his comeback would be a success.

    Kyrgios played and won in the doubles with Djokovic on Monday.


    “Playing Nick here wasn’t a good match-up for me,” the 21-year-old Mpetshi Perricard said, asked about playing Kyrgios in front of his home crowd.

    “He did some good things, he played with confidence.”

    The Frenchman, who has risen from 205 in the world at the start of 2024 to his current ranking of 31, fired down 36 aces.

    Women’s world number one Sabalenka kickstarted her bid to win the Australian Open for a third consecutive time with a straight-forward win after a sluggish start.

    The Belarusian appeared bothered by the high humidity on Pat Rafter Arena in Brisbane, particularly during an error-strewn first set against Renata Zarazua.

    But after breaking Mexico’s Zarazua at 5-4, the 26-year-old surged through the second set to wrap up the match 6-4, 6-0 in 65 minutes.


    “The first match is always a tricky one,” Sabalenka said.

    “It was a tricky start for me, but I’m glad that I closed it out in the first set, and in the second set, whatever I tried to do would work for me.

    “So I’m really happy for the first win of the season.”

    Sabalenka is bidding to be the first woman since Martina Hingis in 1997-99 to win three Australian Opens in succession.

    She will play Yulia Putintseva next after the Kazakh’s 6-2, 7-5 win over American Mccartney Kessler.

  • Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt reach divorce settlement: report

    Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt reach divorce settlement: report

    Famed actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie signed off on a divorce settlement Monday, according to US media, marking a turning point in the eight-year legal saga.

    Jolie’s attorney James Simon confirmed the settlement to People Magazine, saying in a statement that Jolie was “focused on finding peace and healing for their family.”

    “This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago,” Simon said. “Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”

    No details of the settlement between the former power couple were immediately available.

    Jolie filed to dissolve their marriage in September 2016 and the pair has remained locked in a court battle since.

    Jolie filed for divorce a few days after a flight during which she alleged in court papers that Pitt “choked” one of their children and hit another during a plane fight.

    In the papers lodged in a Los Angeles court and widely quoted in US media, Jolie describes a lengthy eruption by Pitt as the couple flew with the children from California to France in September 2016.

    In the ensuing years, the A-listers have clashed over custody of the children — three biological and three adopted — and more recently over the ownership of a luxury French property they bought together.

    In 2018, the couple reached a custody arrangement for their six children, three of whom are adopted, though it appears to have since unraveled.

    Pitt, 61, and Jolie, 49, have also been embroiled in a separate legal battle stemming from the sale of Jolie’s share of Chateau Miraval, the southern French vineyard where the couple had their wedding.

    In February 2022, Pitt accused his one-time co-star of breaching his rights when she offloaded her share in the winery to a subsidiary of Stoli Group, which is owned by a Russian-born billionaire.

    In court papers he filed, Pitt said “Jolie sought to inflict harm” on him with the sale, invoking alleged connections between the firm’s owner Yuri Shefler and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    But Shefler has long been an outspoken critic of Putin, and his Stoli Group drinks conglomerate is based in Latvia.

    Pitt and Jolie first got together after co-starring as married assassins in the 2005 film “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time.

  • S. Korea court issues arrest warrant for impeached president Yoon

    S. Korea court issues arrest warrant for impeached president Yoon

    A South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, investigators said Tuesday, prompting hundreds of supporters to gather at the gates of his private residence.

    Investigators probing Yoon over his December 3 declaration of martial law requested the warrant after he failed to report for questioning a third time.

    By mid-afternoon Tuesday, crowds were outside his home wielding placards and South Korean flags, chanting: “Martial law legal! Impeachment invalid!”

    “The arrest warrant and search warrant… were issued this morning,” the Joint Investigation Headquarters managing the probe into Yoon said in a statement.

    It is unclear whether investigators and police will be able to execute the arrest because the Presidential Security Service (PSS) guarding Yoon have previously refused to comply with search warrants.

    Yoon’s legal team described the arrest order as “illegal and invalid” and have pledged to apply for an injunction to nullify it.

    “I came out here because I was shocked and horrified that they’re trying to arrest the president,” said Song Mi-ja, a pro-Yoon protestor.

    “The martial law was not an insurrection, what they’re trying to do now is one,” she told AFP.

    Police were sent to the area in large numbers and could be seen shouting at protesters to keep in line, but a route in and out of Yoon’s residence remained clear.

    ‘Sufficient probable cause’ 

    Yoon has been stripped of his presidential duties by parliament and faces criminal charges of insurrection, which could result in life imprisonment or even the death penalty.

    “The arrest warrant and search and seizure warrant issued at the request of an agency without investigative authority are illegal and invalid,” his lawyer Yoon Kab-keun said in a statement sent to AFP.

    He said his client was not guilty of insurrection, adding that there was no intention of disrupting “the constitutional order” or to stage “an uprising”.

    But a Corruption Investigation Office official said there was “sufficient probable cause” to suspect Yoon commissioned a crime.

    The warrant will be valid until Monday, the official told reporters, and Yoon will likely be held at the Seoul detention centre.

    “There is a concern that the individual may refuse to comply with summons without justifiable reasons,” they said.

    Investigators also raided the army’s Counterintelligence Command offices on Tuesday and indicted two top commanders on charges they said were linked to insurrection and abuse of authority.

    Lawyer Yun Bok-nam, president of Lawyers for a Democratic Society and who is not involved in the investigation, told AFP he predicted Yoon’s arrest “will proceed smoothly” because the PSS has no legal standing to reject an arrest warrant.

    But local media reported that an imminent arrest or search of the presidential residence was unlikely because investigators would seek to coordinate with the PSS.

    Technically, anyone obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant could be arrested.

    Joint probe

    Yoon is being investigated by prosecutors as well as a joint team comprising police, defence ministry and anti-corruption officials.

    A 10-page prosecutors’ report seen by AFP said he authorised the military to fire weapons if needed to enter parliament during his failed martial law bid.

    The report also said there was evidence that he had been discussing declaring martial law with senior military officials as early as March.

    Yoon’s lawyer had previously dismissed the prosecutors’ report, telling AFP it was “a one-sided account that neither corresponds to objective circumstances nor common sense”.

    The suspended president declared martial law in an unannounced televised address, saying it was aimed at eliminating “anti-state elements” but lawmakers rushed to parliament to vote it down.

    At the same time, heavily armed troops stormed the building, scaling fences, smashing windows and landing by helicopter.

    A constitutional court will rule whether to uphold Yoon’s impeachment.

    The turmoil deepened late last week when Yoon’s replacement, Han Duck-soo, was also impeached by parliament for failing to sign bills for investigations into his predecessor.

    Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok has taken over as the new acting president and found himself thrust immediately into a disaster with the Jeju Air plane crash on Sunday that claimed 179 lives.

    On Tuesday, Choi appointed two new judges to the constitutional court hearing Yoon’s impeachment — meeting a key demand of the opposition.

  • Argentina charges five over death of singer Liam Payne

    Argentina charges five over death of singer Liam Payne

    Five people have been indicted in Argentina over the death of British singer Liam Payne, who fell from a Buenos Aires hotel balcony in October after consuming alcohol and drugs, prosecutors said Monday.

    Three of the five were charged with manslaughter and the other two with supplying the former One Direction pop star with illegal drugs, prosecutors said, identifying the suspects only by their initials.

    The latter two have been ordered to be taken into custody but the others have been allowed to remain free, the prosecutors said.

    Payne died on October 16 after falling from the balcony of his third-floor room at the Casa Sur Hotel in the Argentine capital.

    His death at age 31 prompted a global outpouring of grief from family, former bandmates, fans and others, with thousands gathering in cities around the world to offer their condolences.

    The unnamed people charged with manslaughter are a representative of the singer who was traveling with him, a woman managing the hotel where Payne died, and the head of its reception desk, the prosecutors said.

    Those charged with supplying Payne with drugs are a hotel employee and a waiter that Payne met elsewhere in the city, they added.

    Prosecutors said last month that Payne had consumed cocaine, alcohol and a prescription antidepressant before falling to his death.

    The pop star had spoken publicly about struggling with substance abuse and coping with fame from an early age.

    In November, Argentine officials had unveiled initial charges against three people in the death of Payne. Monday’s decision means that five will now go on trial.

    One of the highest-grossing live acts in the world in the 2010s, One Direction went on indefinite hiatus in 2016.

    Payne went on to enjoy a degree of solo success but his career had languished recently.

    Payne’s death prompted a debate about whether the music industry has a duty of care for the mental health of stars who find fame at a young age.

    The singer from Wolverhampton in central England first auditioned for the hugely popular television talent show “The X Factor” at the age of 14 but was unsuccessful.

    Two years later he hit gold on the program, which teamed him up with Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik to form One Direction.

    Over the next six years, the group enjoyed global fame and legions of screaming fans, selling more than 70 million copies of their five albums. They went on four world tours and won nearly 200 awards.

    Payne is survived by a seven-year-old boy, Bear, with Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy.

  • Last major health facility in North Gaza ‘Out Of Service’: WHO

    Last major health facility in North Gaza ‘Out Of Service’: WHO

    An Israeli military operation on Friday targeting innocent Gazans near the Kamal Adwan Hospital has put the last major health facility in northern Gaza out of service, the World Health Organization said.

    “This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said in a statement on X.

    Israel’s military claimed in a statement that the hospital had become “a key stronghold for terrorist organisations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives” since Israeli forces began broader operations in northern Gaza in October.

    The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including those on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital.

    The patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital, the UN health agency said, adding that it was “deeply concerned for their safety”.

    “This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October,” the WHO said.

    “Such hostilities and the raids are undoing all our efforts and support to keep the facility minimal functional. The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.

    “This horror must end and health care must be protected.”

    The WHO reiterated its call for a ceasefire.

    Kamal Adwan Hospital is located in Beit Lahia, a city at the centre of an intense Israeli military operation aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza, yet videos have emerged where patients and medics alike were made to walk out of the facility with their hands raised above head.