Category: International News

A woman who was falsely declared dead has appeared in court via videolink from Nigeria to stop a convicted fraudster from seizing her £350,000 London home.

June Ashimola, 55, was reportedly deceased since February 2019, sparking a bizarre legal battle over her estate. However, she appeared before High Court judge John Linwood to declare she was alive and a victim of fraud.

The court heard that Ms. Ashimola left Britain for Nigeria in 2018 and never returned. In her absence, Power of Attorney over her estate—including a house in Woolwich, southeast London—was granted to associates of convicted fraudster Tony Ashikodi.

In October 2022, Power of Attorney was assigned to Ms. Ruth Samuel on behalf of Mr. Bakare Lasisi, who claimed to have married Ms. Ashimola in 1993. However, the judge ruled that Ms. Ashimola had been the victim of fraud and that Mr. Lasisi did not even exist.

It was claimed Ms. Ashimola had died in Nigeria in 2019 without leaving a will, with a death certificate produced in court. Some even alleged that reported sightings of her were of an imposter.

But Ms. Ashimola told the court she was “allegedly deceased,” calling the death certificate “false and fraudulent” and stating that the estate grant was “improperly obtained.”

“This is an unusual probate claim in that the deceased says she is very much alive,” Deputy Master Linwood noted.

“The root of this claim is a long-running battle waged by Mr. Tony Ashikodi for control and ownership of the property. This claim involves wide-ranging allegations of fraud, forgery, impersonation, and intimidation.”

To determine her request to revoke the grant, the judge had to consider key questions: “Is June Ashimola alive? Is the person claiming to be her really her? Did Mr. Lasisi marry June Ashimola?”

To the judge’s frustration, Ms. Ashimola could not appear in person due to visa issues, which made parts of her evidence “unsatisfactory.” However, he accepted her identity, verified through passport photos, and found her account credible.

After reviewing testimony from Mr. Ashikodi—who was jailed for three years in 1996 for obtaining property by deception—the judge ruled that he had “orchestrated” the fraud and attempted to “mislead the court.”

Among the more shocking revelations, the judge found that Ms. Ashimola’s alleged husband, Mr. Lasisi, was completely fictitious despite numerous emails supposedly from him.

“I find Ms. Ashimola is alive and that the death certificate was forged or fraudulently produced,” he ruled.

“Her alleged death was part of Mr. Tony Ashikodi’s attempts to wrest control of the property from her.”

He concluded that Mr. Lasisi and the supposed marriage certificate were fabricated, stating, “I do not accept Mr. Lasisi exists, or if he does, that he was aware his identity was being used.”

“The probate power of attorney submitted by Mr. Lasisi and Ms. Samuel was fraudulently produced.”

Based on his findings, Deputy Master Linwood revoked the grant related to the Power of Attorney.

The court heard that both parties had already accumulated legal costs exceeding £150,000—an amount that could surpass the property’s equity.

Al-Shabab gunmen have stormed and laid siege to a hotel in central Somalia as government officials and tribal elders met to discuss action against the outfit.

The armed group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on the Cairo Hotel in the town of Beledweyne in a statement. Several people are reported to have been killed.

The gunmen detonated a car bomb before storming into the building firing. An intense battle with Somali security forces was triggered, and a siege was ongoing in the early afternoon.

Varying claims

Ali Suleiman, a shopkeeper who witnessed the attack, told the Reuters news agency that he heard “a huge blast followed by gunfire. Then another blast was heard.” The witness said part of the hotel was reduced to rubble.

Al-Shabab said in a statement that it had killed more than 10 people in the attack. However, reports on the death toll varied.

Quoting Dahir Amin Jesow, a federal lawmaker from Beledweyne, Reuters reported that at least four people had been killed. The Associated Press news agency, quoting a resident in the area, reported that six people have been killed, including “two well-known traditional elders.”

Born of anarchy

Born out of Somalia’s many years of anarchy after a 1991 civil war, al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaeda, has been waging war against the Somali government for more than 16 years.

The armed group frequently carries out attacks targeting government officials and military personnel in the country as it tries to topple the government to establish its own strict interpretation of Islamic law although civilians are also at risk.

Controlling parts of rural Somalia, the group has continued to pose a threat to the country despite sustained military operations by the government and an African Union peacekeeping force, which pushed it out of the capital, Mogadishu.

Tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on imports of steel and aluminium have taken effect in a move that will likely escalate tensions with some of America’s largest trading partners.

The measure raises a flat duty on steel and aluminium entering the US to 25% and ends all country exemptions to the levies.

Several countries, including the UK and Australia, have tried to secure carve-outs without success. Others, including Canada and the European Union, have said they will retaliate.

Trump hopes the tariffs will boost US steel and aluminium production but critics say it will raise prices for US consumers and dent economic growth.

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), a group representing US steelmakers, welcomed the tariffs saying they will create jobs and boost domestic steel manufacturing.

The group’s president Kevin Dempsey said the moved closed a system of exemptions, exclusions and quotas that allowed foreign producers to avoid tariffs.

“AISI applauds the president’s actions to restore the integrity of the tariffs on steel and implement a robust and reinvigorated program to address unfair trade practices,” Mr Dempsey added.

The US is a major importer of aluminium and steel, and Canada, Mexico and Brazil are among its largest suppliers of the metals.

The tariffs mean that US businesses wanting to bring the metals into the country will have to pay a 25% tax on them.

This is likely to lead to higher costs for a large number of US industries, including aerospace, car manufacturing and construction.

Michael DiMarino runs Linda Tool, 17-person Brooklyn company that makes parts for the aerospace industry. Everything he makes involves some kind of steel, much of which comes from American mills.

“If I have higher prices, I pass them onto my customers. They have higher prices, they pass it onto the consumer,” Mr DiMarino said, adding that he supports the call for increased manufacturing in the US but warning the president’s moves risk backfiring.

The American Automotive Policy Council, a group that represents car giants such Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, also echoed such concerns.

“We are still reviewing and awaiting all of the details of the proposed tariffs, but are concerned that specifically revoking exemptions for Canada and Mexico will add significant costs for our suppliers,” said Matt Blunt, organisation’s president said.

Some economists are warning that the tariffs could help the US steel and aluminium industries but hurt the wider economy.

“It protects [the steel and aluminium] industries but hurts downstream users of their products by making them more expensive,” said Bill Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

‘No exceptions’

In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump imposed import tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium, but he eventually negotiated carve-outs for many countries.

Several countries, including the UK and Australia, which had previously been exempted from paying such tariffs were looking to avoid them once again.

But President Trump has said he will not be granting the same sort of exclusions and exemptions that he did in his first term.

Responding to the tariffs that are coming into effect, Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, said in a press conference that the Trump administration’s decision to go ahead with the new tariffs is “entirely unjustified.”

“It’s against the spirit of our two nations’ enduring friendship and fundamentally at odds with the benefits that our economic partnership has delivered over more than 70 years,” he added.

Albanese also said Australia will not be imposing reciprocal tariffs on the US because such a move would only push up prices for Australian consumers.

Meanwhile, Canada’s Energy Minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, told CNN his country would relaliate but added that Canada is not looking to escalate tensions.

Canada is one of America’s closest trade partners, and the largest exporter of steel and aluminium to the US.

The European Union has also previously said it would hit back against Trump’s mov

Last month, the UK government signalled that it was seeking an exemption to the tariffs and added that it would not retaliate immediately.

Recession fears

Fear of the economic cost of Trump’s trade tariffs has sparked a selloff in US and global stock markets, which accelerated this week after the US president refused to rule out the prospect of an economic recession.

The S&P 500 index of the largest firms listed in the US fell a further 0.7% on Tuesday after dropping 2.7% on Monday, which was its biggest one-day drop since December.

The UK’s FTSE 100 share index, which had edged lower earlier on Tuesday, fell further and closed down more than 1%. The French Cac 40 index and German Dax followed a similar pattern.

Meanwhile, economic research firm, Oxford Economics, said in a report it had lowered its US economic growth forecast for the year from 2.4% to 2% made even steeper adjustments to Canada and Mexico.

“Despite the downgrade, we still expect the US economy to outperform the other major advanced economies over the next couple of years,” its report added.

“Uncertainty around the path for US tariffs is higher than ever”.

Ontario showdown

Earlier on Tuesday, the US and Canada stepped back from the brink of a major escalation in the trade war.

That was after Trump said he had halted a plan to double US tariffs on Canadian steel and metal imports to 50%, just hours after first threatening them.

The move by the president came after the Canadian province of Ontario suspended new charges of 25% on electricity that it sends to some northern states in the US.

Despite the climbdown, Canada will still be facing Trump’s 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports that have just come into effect.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it recovered nearly $500 million in proceeds of crime last year and secured more than 4,000 criminal convictions, the highest since its establishment over two decades ago.

As Africa’s biggest energy producer, Nigeria has struggled for decades with endemic corruption, which many citizens blame for widespread poverty.

In a report released on Monday, the EFCC stated that part of the recovered funds had been reinvested in government projects.

Nigeria is currently ranked 140 out of 180 on Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perception Index.

Beyond cash recoveries, the EFCC also seized 931,052 metric tons of petroleum products, 975 real estate properties, and company shares.

A 10-year-old Indiana boy was crushed to death after his foster mother, who weighed 340 pounds, allegedly sat on him for several minutes because he was “acting bad.”

Jennifer Lee Wilson, 48, was sentenced in January to six years in prison, with one year suspended to be served on probation, according to WMAQ. She was charged with reckless homicide in the death of Dakota Levi Stevens.

On April 25, police responded to a home in Valparaiso, Indiana, after receiving a report that the boy was not breathing. Officers found him unresponsive with no pulse and observed bruising on his lower neck and chest. Despite efforts to resuscitate him, he was transported to a hospital, where he later died.

Wilson told police that Dakota had recently run away but was found at a neighbor’s house and brought back home. She claimed he continued misbehaving, threw himself on the ground, and threatened to leave again.

According to a court filing, Wilson stated that while trying to stop him, she was unsure if she tackled him or if they both fell. Her intention, she claimed, was to restrain him.

She admitted to sitting on his midsection for about five minutes. When he stopped moving, she believed he was pretending. “Are you faking?” she asked before rolling him over and noticing his pale eyelids. She then attempted CPR and called 911.

On April 27, South Bend Memorial Hospital confirmed Dakota had died. An autopsy determined his cause of death as mechanical asphyxia, with organ and soft tissue damage, liver and lung hemorrhaging, and other injuries. His death was ruled a homicide.

A neighbor later told officers that before the medical emergency, Dakota had run to her house and asked her to adopt him, claiming his parents hit him in the face. However, the neighbor did not observe any visible injuries. Wilson then arrived to take him back home.

At the time of his death, Dakota was 4’10” and weighed 91 pounds, while Wilson was listed as 4’11” and 340 pounds.

Big Brother Naija Lockdown second runner-up, Rebecca Nengi Hampson, has welcomed a baby girl.

Sharing the news on Instagram, Nengi announced that she gave birth on February 21, 2025.

Describing her daughter as “the purest form of love” and “the most precious gift,” she expressed gratitude for the new chapter in her life.

Alongside her announcement, she shared heartwarming visuals of her pregnancy journey and delivery.

“My greatest blessing, my heart in human form, my purpose. God knew I needed you, my baby… I love you more than words could ever explain. It’s us forever,” she wrote. Her announcement has drawn congratulatory messages from fans, followers, and colleagues in the Nigerian creative arts industry.

The vast majority of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programmes have been terminated following a six-week review, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced.

In a statement on X, Rubio said these initiatives “spent tens of billions in ways that did not serve” or even harmed US interests. As a result, only 18% of USAID’s programs will continue, now under the administration of the State Department.

The move has sparked global concern, with humanitarian organizations warning of severe consequences, including potential threats to lives due to the sudden withdrawal of US aid.

The Trump administration has long emphasized aligning overseas spending with its “America First” policy. Shortly after Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, thousands of USAID employees were placed on leave, and many working overseas were recalled.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order freezing foreign aid funding and ordering a comprehensive review of USAID’s global operations. The review, led by billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), resulted in the cancellation of thousands of development contracts and widespread job losses within the agency.

Rubio confirmed that the US was “officially ending” approximately 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs.

“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he stated. He also praised Doge and State Department staff for their “long hours in achieving this overdue and historic reform.”

However, the decision has sparked legal challenges. Democratic lawmakers and humanitarian groups argue that shutting down USAID-funded programs—previously approved by Congress—is illegal.

USAID played a crucial role in global humanitarian efforts, from famine detection to polio vaccinations and emergency food relief in conflict zones. The impact of the funding cuts is already evident.

In Sudan, the freeze on humanitarian assistance has led to the closure of more than 1,100 communal kitchens, leaving nearly two million people without food support amid ongoing civil war.

In Oman, dozens of Afghan women who fled the Taliban for higher education now face deportation after their USAID-funded scholarships were abruptly terminated.

Meanwhile, in India, the country’s first medical clinics for transgender individuals were forced to shut down in three cities after Trump halted foreign aid to the initiative.

The decision to dismantle USAID’s operations marks one of the most significant shifts in US foreign aid policy in recent history.

Philippine police have arrested former president Rodrigo Duterte after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity over his deadly “war on drugs”.

Duterte was arrested by police in Manila airport shortly after his arrival from Hong Kong.

Duterte’s brutal anti-drugs crackdown, which occurred when he was president of the South East Asian nation from 2016 to 2022, saw thousands of people killed.

The 79-year-old had earlier said he was ready to go to prison, when responding to reports of his possible arrest.

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines called the arrest a “historic moment”.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but today, it has bent towards justice. Duterte’s arrest is the beginning of accountability for the mass killings that defined his brutal rule,” said ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy.

But Duterte’s former presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo has slammed the arrest, saying it was “unlawful” as the Philippines had withdrawn from the ICC.

The ICC earlier said that it has jurisdiction in the Philippines over alleged crimes committed before the country withdrew as a member.

Duterte was in Hong Kong to campaign for his senatorial slate in the upcoming May 12 mid-term elections.

Footage aired on local television showed him walking out of the airport using a cane. Authorities say he is in “good health” and is being cared for by government doctors.

The ‘war on drugs’

Duterte, a former mayor of one of the country’s largest cities, swept to power on the promise of a widespread crackdown against crime.

With fiery rhetoric, he rallied security forces to shoot drug suspects dead. More than 6,000 suspects were gunned down by police or unknown assailants during the campaign, but rights groups say the number could be bigger.

“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he said a few months into office.

But critics said his “war on drugs” led to police abuse and that many of the drug suspects summarily executed.

Investigations in parliament pointed to shadowy “death squad” of bounty hunters targeting drug suspects.

Duterte has denied the allegations.

The ICC first took note of the alleged abuses in 2016 and started its investigation in 2021. It covered cases from November 2011, when Duterte was mayor of Davao, to March 2019, before the Philippines withdrew from the ICC.

Duterte cultivated an image of a tough-talking and anti-establishment man of the masses, endearing him to Filipinos who elected him as the country’s first president from the southern island of Mindanao.

His daughter, Sara Duterte, is the Philippines current vice-president and is tipped as a potential presidential candidate in 2028.

In recent months, the Duterte family’s alliance with incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos unraveled spectacularly before the public view, soon after Marcos and Sara Duterte won the 2022 elections by a landslide.

Marcos initially refused to co-operate with the ICC investigation, but as his relationship with the Duterte family deteriorated, he changed his stance, and later indicated that the Philippines would co-operate.

It is not clear yet whether Marcos would go as far as extraditing the former president to stand trial in The Hague.

Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully converted at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist to unrecoverable funds.

The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.

Since then, it’s been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.

Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day – potentially funnelling the money into the regime’s military development.

“Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing,” says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.

Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.

“I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash.”

Elliptic’s analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now “gone dark”, meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered.

The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime’s military and nuclear development.

On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit’s suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to.

ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers.

Ben Zhou, the CEO of ByBit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.

The firm has since replenished the stolen coins with loans from investors, but is, in Zhou’s words, “waging war on Lazarus”.

ByBit’s Lazarus Bounty programme is encouraging members of the public to trace the stolen funds and get them frozen where possible.

All crypto transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it’s possible to track the money as it’s moved around by the Lazarus Group.

If the hackers try to use a mainstream crypto service to attempt to turn the coins into normal money like dollars, the crypto coins can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.

So far 20 people have shared more than $4m in rewards for successfully identifying $40m of the stolen money and alerting crypto firms to block transfers.

But experts are downbeat about the chances of the rest of the funds being recoverable, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and laundering the money.

“North Korea is a very closed system and closed economy so they created a successful industry for hacking and laundering and they don’t care about the negative impression of cyber crime,” Dr Dorit Dor from cyber security company Check Point said.

Another problem is that not all crypto companies are as willing to help as others.

Crypto exchange eXch is being accused by ByBit and others of not stopping the criminals cashing out.

More than $90m has been successfully funnelled through this exchange.

But over email the elusive owner of eXch – Johann Roberts – disputed that.

He admits they didn’t initially stop the funds, as his company is in a long-running dispute with ByBit, and he says his team wasn’t sure the coins were definitely from the hack.

He says he is now co-operating, but argues that mainstream companies that identify crypto customers are betraying the private and anonymous benefits of crypto currency.

North Korea has never admitted being behind the Lazarus Group, but is thought to be the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial gain.

Previously the Lazarus Group hackers targeted banks, but have in the last five years specialised in attacking cryptocurrency companies.

The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to stop them laundering the funds.

Recent hacks linked to North Korea include:

• The 2019 hack on UpBit for $41m
• The $275m theft of crypto from exchange KuCoin (most of the funds were recovered)
• The 2022 Ronin Bridge attack which saw hackers make off with $600m in crypto
• Approximately $100m in crypto was stolen in an attack on Atomic Wallet in 2023

In 2020, the US added North Koreans accused of being part of the Lazarus Group to its Cyber Most Wanted list. But the chances of the individuals ever being arrested are extremely slim unless they leave their country.

The United States’ stock market has shed more than $1.7 trillion in value after US President Donald Trump declined to rule out the possibility the economy could enter a recession this year.

The benchmark S&P 500 on Monday tumbled 2.7 percent, dragging the index nearly 9 percent below its all-time high reached on February 19.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 plunged 3.81 percent, its steepest single-day loss since September 2022.

The losses, which follow two weeks of steep declines, mean that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are now at their lowest levels since September.

Tesla, the electric car company run by Trump’s cost-cutting tsar, Elon Musk, racked up some of the steepest losses among individual firms, plunging 15.43 percent.

Asian stock markets piled on the losses on Tuesday morning, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Taiwan’s TAIEX dropping more than 2.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sliding about 1.5 percent.

The market rout comes as Trump’s back-and-forth tariff announcements have unnerved investors and stoked fears that the economy could be headed for a major slowdown or, at worst, a recession.

In an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday, Trump left open the possibility of a downturn when asked if he expected a recession this year.

“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,” Trump said. “We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing…It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”

“There’s total uncertainty in the market,” Steve Okun, founder and CEO of APAC Advisors in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.

“[Trump] has no credibility right now when it comes to tariffs, because of what he has done, in particular with Mexico and Canada. That’s why the markets are reacting the way they are – they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Trump last week slapped a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada and doubled the rate of duties on Chinese goods to 20 percent, only to announce two days later that he would postpone some duties on Mexican and Canadian goods until April 2.

A separate 25 percent tariff on imports of steel and aluminium is set to take effect on Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs economists last week raised its odds of a recession within the next 12 months from 15 percent to 20 percent, while JPMorgan Chase has lifted the probability from 30 percent to 40 percent “owing to extreme US policies.”

‘Indecisiveness, confusion and mixed messaging’
New York Stock Exchange trader Peter Tuchman described Monday’s trading session as a “bloodbath”.

“These stocks are being eaten away and this is obviously all over fear of a recession, right?” Tuchman said in a video posted on X.

“We had a roller coaster last week, we had some up days, we had some down days – and all a function of what is coming out of the Oval Office, which is just complete indecisiveness, confusion and mixed messaging and the investing community losing confidence in the whole situation.”

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who represents the state of Massachusetts, accused Trump of jeopardising the economy with his policies.

“We’re in real economic trouble thanks to the President, and right now, the stock market is a flashing warning light,” Warren said on X.

In a rare note of dissension with Trump among Republicans, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul also raised alarm about the stock rout.

“The stock market is comprised of millions of people who are simultaneously trading,” Paul said on X.

“The market indexes are a distillation of sentiment. When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen.”

In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Kevin Hassett, the head of Trump’s National Economic Council, played down concerns about the health of the economy as “blips in the data”.

“What I think that what’s going to happen is the first quarter is going to squeak into the positive category, and then the second quarter is going to take off as everybody sees the reality of the tax cuts,” Hasset said.