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Cape Town – A 34-year-old Japanese man on Sunday arrived in Cape Town to end a more than 6,000-kilometer journey from Kenya to South Africa on foot while pulling a rickshaw. Yuji “Gump” Suzuki was emotional as he thanked his supporters for their backing during his latest quest, which started in the Kenyan capital in July and took him through Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia. “I couldn’t make it without you guys,” Suzuki said. “I am running for fun. I have been traveling for nine years already, and I get the power from you guys, so I give you guys power, too. That’s my life.” Among his other journeys, Suzuki has already pulled his two-wheeled cart from China to India (2016-2017), for 2,500 kilometers in Europe (2017) and 5,100 kilometers across the United States (2022-2023), according to his website. His rickshaw weighs more than 100 kilograms. Suzuki wears a version of Japan’s traditional tabi socks while on his journeys, which he posts about on social media. Source link

Rennes, France – Ligue 1 side Rennes signed Japanese international Kyogo Furuhashi from Celtic on Monday, with Portuguese forward Jota rejoining the Scottish champions. “After some great years with Celtic, I was looking for a new challenge in a recognized league. Physically and technically, the league is very competitive,” Furuhashi said in statement on Rennes’ website. The 30-year-old Japanese striker joined Celtic in 2021, netting 85 goals in 165 matches across all competitions. “The arrival of Kyogo is what the whole club wanted. He has a technical profile that will strengthen the dressing room. He joins us after a fine career with Celtic and a number of trophies won in Scotland,” said Rennes Executive President Arnaud Pouille. Going in the opposite direction is 25-year-old Jota, who has rejoined the club where he scored 28 goals in 83 outings between 2021 and 2023, winning two Scottish league titles. The Portugal under-21 international left the Glasgow outfit to join Saudi side Al Ittihad before moving to Rennes in August last year. “It’s very nostalgic for me because it was such an amazing feeling and all the moments that I felt through my two seasons here, and I’m just delighted to be back. I’m really excited and I just can’t wait to start,” Jota told Celtic TV. “The last year and a half has had its ups and downs, but that’s life and that’s how football is. Now I just can’t wait to work hard, to get along with the lads again and just to flow.” Source link

Washington – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday fired more than a dozen Justice Department lawyers who brought two criminal cases against him, an official said, as the Republican moves swiftly to exert greater control over the department. The officials were fired after Acting Attorney General James McHenry, a Trump appointee, concluded they “could not be trusted to faithfully implement the President’s agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the President,” a Justice Department official said. McHenry cited Trump’s power as chief executive under the U.S. Constitution to justify the firings, according to a copy of the termination letter. Source link

Washington – U.S. President Donald Trump stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship in a phone call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, the White House said. In what the White House called a “productive call,” the leaders discussed expanding and deepening cooperation and issues including security in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Europe. They also discussed plans for Modi to visit the White House, “underscoring the strength of the friendship and strategic ties between our nations,” it said. Source link

Late last year, 53-year old Towana Looney, of Gadsden, Alabama, became the third patient to receive a kidney from a genetically engineered pig and she is still thriving. This advance in the field of xenotransplantation, or animal-to-human transplants, is a big one — and hopefully will not just be life-changing for Looney but can teach the field so much about how to bring these organs to more people. Looney had few options open to her. She had donated a kidney to her mother in 1999, but years later suffered from a dangerous form of high blood pressure during pregnancy that ultimately led to kidney failure. Yet that experience and related blood transfusions also left her with a slew of antibodies that made it nearly impossible to find a suitable kidney donor. She’s been stuck with dialysis for eight long years. Source link

When Turkey’s navy welcomed two new ships to its fleet this month, officials left no doubt about the scale of their mission — or its geopolitical ambition. The 3,000-ton frigates “will represent our nation’s power and determination in the world’s seas,” Haluk Gorgun, head of the presidency’s Secretariat of Defense Industries, said at a ceremony to mark the launch. “Turkey is taking firm steps to become a country that’s strong at sea, with deterrence in the field and a voice at the table.” The newbuilds are the latest product of a naval expansion drive that will give Ankara added clout into and beyond the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas. The aim is also to diversify a booming domestic defense industry that’s better known for its flying drones. Source link

Cairo – Late at night in a Cairo public hospital, a young doctor treating a patient in severe pain found the CT scanner was broken, so relying on his clinical judgment alone, he performed an emergency appendectomy. “It was a calculated risk,” he said. “But under the new malpractice law … I wouldn’t have taken that chance. I would have discharged the patient and waited for him to seek a CT scan elsewhere — even if it meant the patient’s appendix ruptured.” This scenario, recounted anonymously, underscores the fears many Egyptian doctors have voiced over a draft medical malpractice law that intends to address patients’ complaints about poor treatment by imposing punitive measures, including fines and the detention of doctors who give substandard care. Source link

Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election that Western governments rejected as a sham. “You can congratulate the Republic of Belarus, we have elected a president,” Igor Karpenko, the head of the country’s Central Election Commission, told a news conference in the early hours of Monday. Lukashenko, who faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results published on the Central Election Commission’s official Telegram account. Source link

The New York Times – On the day of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, an air raid was in effect in Odessa for much of the afternoon. People went about their business. Street vendors continued selling coffee. Trams kept running. At Pryvoz, the mammoth farmers’ (and everything else) market, electricity went out for a while, but that seemed to have no effect on the pace of commerce; if it was slow, that was because it was a Monday. In the two years and 11 months since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Odessa has gone through stages: months of shock and fear, followed by something akin to denial and, finally, adaptation. Odessa is one of those cities — like, say, New Orleans — possessed of a distinct personality, a mythology of itself that fuels a fierce and joyful kind of patriotism. Odessa is rightfully proud of its sea views, its architecture, its food, its multiculturalism, its entrepreneurship and its libertine spirit, but its singular distinction is the well-turned phrase, the unsparingly hilarious joke. Source link

Seoul – Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was indicted for his martial law declaration that plunged the country into political turmoil, with prosecutors accusing him of being a “ringleader of insurrection.” His indictment on Sunday makes him the country’s first sitting head of state to face a criminal trial for his short-lived martial law declaration on Dec. 3. Yoon has been ordered to remain in a 12-square-meter (129-square-foot) cell at a detention center in Seoul for the duration of his trial. Source link