Senegal’s top opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, was released from jail late Thursday ahead of the country’s presidential election scheduled for March 24, his lawyer said.Sonko and his key ally, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, were both set free, his lawyer Bamba Cisse told The Associated Press.Supporters gathered at Sonko’s house and at…

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar warned Thursday that Kosovo’s ban on usage of the Serbian dinar could trigger “an emerging humanitarian issue” for the country’s ethnic Serb minority.Escobar stressed that the issue must be addressed “immediately,” and that it “has caused some real hardship for some of the…

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — The Somali extremist group al-Shabab said its fighters have attacked a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, where a loud explosion and gunfire were heard Thursday night.UNITED STATES INCREASING ASSISTANCE TO SOMALIA IN MILITARY OFFENSIVE AGAINST AL-SHABABAl-Shabab said on its Telegram channel that its fighters managed to…

Lawmakers in the European Parliament on Thursday adopted a non-binding resolution saying Russia should return gold and other valuable heritage items to Romania that were sent to Moscow during World War I for safekeeping, a Romanian lawmaker said.During World War I, the kingdom of Romania sent by railroad 91.5 metric…

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed his longtime economic adviser to be the next prime minister in the face of U.S. pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority as part of Washington’s postwar vision for Gaza.Mohammad Mustafa, a U.S.-educated economist and political independent, will head a technocratic government in the Israeli-occupied…

A dozen countries across Africa suffered a major internet outage on Thursday as multiple undersea telecommunication cables reported failures, network operators and internet watch groups said.The MTN Group, one of Africa’s largest network providers, said the ongoing disruptions were a result of failures in multiple major undersea cables. “Our operations…

Croatia’s parliament was dissolved on Thursday to pave the way for a parliamentary election later this year.All 143 of a total of 151 lawmakers who were present at the session voted in favor of the move.ALBANIAN HIGH COURT ORDERS PROSECUTORS TO REOPEN PROBE INTO PROTESTERS’ DECADE-OLD KILLINGSThe date of the…

Survivors rescued from a deflating rubber dinghy in the central Mediterranean Sea have reported that some 60 people who departed Libya with them more than a week ago perished during the journey, the humanitarian rescue group SOS Mediterranee said Thursday.The European charity’s ship Ocean Viking spotted the dinghy with 25…

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on three Israeli settlers in the West Bank accused of harassing and attacking Palestinians.The sanctions also targeted two farms run by the settlers, escalating tensions between the U.S. and Israel.Biden previously issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank.The…

Spain’s Parliament has approved an amnesty bill, forgiving crimes by Catalan separatists during a failed independence referendum in 2017.The 2017 crisis saw Catalonia’s regional administration staging a referendum against orders from Madrid.The bill’s passage remains uncertain, facing rejection in the conservative-majority Senate.Spain’s Parliament approved on Thursday a controversial amnesty bill…