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  Ashaninka men, identified by locals as illegal loggers, tie tree trunks together to move them along the Putaya River. Authorities in Peru said they have charged five men in the timber industry with homicide in the deaths of indigenous activists. Photograph: Martín Mejía/AP Prosecutors in  Peru  have charged five men in the timber industry with the 2014 murders of  four indigenous activists who had battled illegal logging  in the Amazon jungle. Two timber executives and three loggers have been charged with the shooting deaths of the activists, the prosecutor Otoniel Jara, who works in Peru’s remote Ucayali region, told the Associated Press on Wednesday. Environmentalists say the case is unprecedented in  Peru , where years of illegal logging and, on occasion, suspected attacks by those carrying it out have often been met with an ineffectual response from authorities. “We hope that the legacy of the victims of this massacre can lead to justice,” sa...

The Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday said it would create additional polling units in the first quarter of 2020. INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr Festus Okoye, announced this at a dialogue session organised by the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room), in Abuja. The session was held with INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners ahead of Bayelsa and Kogi States governorship elections. Okoye said that the commission would consult critical stakeholders and take bold steps and decisions on “the creation of additional polling units and alterations and or adjustment of constituencies.” He said that the commission could no longer continue with the ad hoc procedure of creating Voting Points and Voting Point Settlements. The current arrangements of voting points according to him is a stop-gap measure to ease the voting process and create opportunities for people in new settlements not covered b...

"How do we explain to people outside that even in our own country, we are not free because law enforcement agencies now attack us. This is crazy." Many Nigerians have reacted to a recent report exposing sexual harassment of some women in Abuja by some personnel of the police, paramilitary and military alleged to be working on the orders of the Acting-Secretary to the Federal Capital Territory Social Development Secretariat, Mrs Safiya Umar. A Twitter user, Isaac, while reacting, said, "I read the stories on the #AbujaRaid and I am beyond pissed. "How do we explain to people outside that even in our own country, we are not free because law enforcement agencies now attack us. This is crazy."  Another user, @DoctorEmto, said, "Please, we need pictures of this Hafiya Safiya Umar. "We need to know all the officers involved. "Nigeria is a mess. No rule of law, anyone can wake up and make lives for others miserable. I won't say anything bu...

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Riyadh accepted an invitation from the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for the establishment of Nigeria- Saudi Council aimed at promoting investments and enhancing relations between both countries. The decision was the highpoint of a bilateral meeting between the Nigerian leader and the Crown Prince which took place on the margins of the Future Investment Initiative conference. A statement by Malam Garba Shehu, the President’s spokesman in Abuja, said the meeting was initially scheduled to hold in the office of the Crown Prince but out of courtesy and respect for the Nigerian leader, Prince Salman insisted that he would meet with President Buhari in his hotel room at The Ritz Carlton, Riyadh. The presidential aide said the Council would be made up of government officials and business leaders from both countries and the areas of focus are economic growth and development, investments in oil and non-oil sectors, and security coo...

Gabriel Luna (R) and Robert Rodriguez attend the “Terminator: Dark Fate” Screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Slaughter Lane on October 29, 2019 in Austin, Texas.  AFP The Terminator has come a long way since Arnold Schwarzenegger first portrayed the cyborg assassin in James Cameron’s 1984 sci-fi classic. “In each movie, the Terminator is a little bit different — there’s a certain evolution,” Schwarzenegger told AFP. But the character’s latest incarnation in “Terminator: Dark Fate,” out on Friday, still comes as a surprise — he is now a drapery salesman. “The first Terminator was just crushing everything and destroying everything. The second one was the protector,” said the actor, 72. “Now I have grown a conscience in this one.” But fans can rest assured that, even if he has become more human, the Terminator is a long way from laying down his weapons. The ingredients that made the original movie and its acclaimed sequel “Ter...

Astronomers studying black holes in our galaxy, the Milky Way, have discovered what they believe to be a new type of black hole. This previously unknown class of black holes could be smaller than others that were previously dubbed the smallest black holes. The researchers were creating a black hole census when they made the discovery. Their finding, in addition to sharing a novel way to search for black holes, published Thursday in the journal  Science . "We're showing this hint that there is another population out there that we have yet to really probe in the search for black holes," said Todd Thompson, lead study author and professor of astronomy at The Ohio State University. Black holes can form after stars die, collapse and explode, creating gravitational whirls so strong that not even light can escape them. They can be found at the center of galaxies, acting like a supermassive engine. The extreme and warped reality of black holes But that...

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press prior to departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. SAUL LOEB / AFP President Donald Trump on Thursday criticised British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit divorce deal, saying it made it impossible to strike a future commercial agreement with the United States. “This deal… you can’t do it, you can’t trade. We can’t make a trade deal with the UK,” he said in an interview with Brexit campaign figurehead Nigel Farage on the UK’s LBC radio. Trump’s comments stand at odds with his previous pledge in September that he was working closely with Johnson to strike a “magnificent trade deal” once Britain left the European Union. Johnson struck the terms for the UK’s departure with Brussels earlier this month but has been unable to push it through parliament. He hopes a general election, scheduled for December 12, will break the deadlock, giving him a majority that will help him ge...

Democratic Rep.  Katie Hill  of California, who announced her  plans to resign from  her congressional seat earlier this week, gave her final speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday, where she apologized to her supporters but said the forces that led her to leave Congress are larger than she is. "I will never shirk my responsibility for this sudden ending to my time here," Hill said, "but I have to say more because this is bigger than me." She went on to say, "I am leaving now because of a double standard. I am leaving because I no longer want to be used as a bargaining chip. I am leaving because I didn't want to be peddled by papers and blogs and websites, used by shameless operatives for the dirtiest gutter politics that I've ever seen." Earlier this month, a conservative blog released intimate photos of Hill alleging she and her husband had a separate relationship with an unnamed female campaign staffer. Th...

Crystal Palace have revealed plans to develop a new academy site in Beckenham. Photograph: CPFC/KSS Crystal Palace  have revealed plans for a £20m academy centre they hope will make them the destination of choice for talent in the most fertile of breeding grounds for Premier League footballers, south London. Sometimes called the Football Factory (or a  “concrete Catalonia” ), south London produced more than 14% of the English footballers in the Premier League last season. Others from the area – such as Jadon Sancho and Ademola Lookman – are forging impressive careers abroad. Palace consider themselves the “Pride of south London” but have yet to make the most of the diverse and hungry talent on their doorstep. This new facility is an attempt to change that. The club are awaiting planning permission but revealed plans to local residents on Thursday. They involve developing playing fields in the suburb of Beckenham that have long belonged to London’s biggest banks. Where H...