Foreign News
Jackson 5 singer Tito Jackson dead at 70
Tito Jackson, an original member of the Jackson 5 pop group and brother of the late Michael Jackson, has died aged 70, US media report.
An official cause of death is yet to be determined.
Tito performed in the famous ensemble with brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, who died in 2009.
He was recently in Munich ahead of a performance that the group were due to give.
Steve Manning, a long-time Jackson family friend and former Jackson family manager, told Entertainment Tonight that Jackson died on Monday. The news was confirmed in an Instagram post by Jackson’s three sons, Taj, Taryll and TJ Jackson, who were themselves an R’n’B/pop trio, 3T, in the 1990s.
“We are shocked, saddened and heartbroken,” they wrote. “Our father was an incredible man who cared about everyone and their well-being.” They continued: “He will be missed tremendously. It will forever be ‘Tito Time’ for us. “Please remember to do what our father always preached and that is ‘Love One Another’. We love you Pops.”
The Jackson 5’s hits included ABC, The Love You Save and I Want You Back.
The group was formed in 1964. Tito played the guitar and provided backing vocals.
Jackson 5 has sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
In 1980, the siblings were presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
Days before his death, Tito posted a message on social media from Munich, Germany, where he visited a memorial to Michael with his brothers.
He wrote: “Before our show in Munich, my brothers Jackie, Marlon, and I, visited the beautiful memorial dedicated to our beloved brother, Michael Jackson.
“We’re deeply grateful for this special place that honours not only his memory but also our shared legacy. Thank you for keeping his spirit alive.”
The Jacksons performed in Germany on 10 September, days after their performance at Boogietown, a UK music festival celebrating funk, soul and disco in Surrey.
The siblings also performed at the Fool in Love Festival at Hollywood Park Grounds in Los Angeles on 31 August.
Former Jackson 5 drummer Jonathan Moffett led tributes on social media, writing on X. “There is great sadness in my heart tonight – I just found out that my brother in heart and spirit, Tito Jackson has passed.
“I’m stunned, devastated and speechless. I love you, Tito. My most sincere love & prayers for the entire Jackson family. I love you all VERY much”.
Tito was the third oldest Jackson and one of nine children. His other siblings include global stars Janet and La Toya Jackson. All his siblings, other than Michael who died aged 50 in June 2009, are still alive. The family’s patriarch, Joe Jackson, died at the age of 89 in 2018.
The group of performers and singers have produced a total of 27 US number one hits. Alongside work in the band, Tito also had a solo career as a blues musician which started in 2003. He was the final sibling to place a solo single on the Billboard charts with his 2016 hit, Get It Baby.
In 2019, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon embarked on a World Tour as The Jacksons. Two years prior they performed a slew of shows in the UK as part of A Celebration of 50 Years, also stopping to perform at Glastonbury Festival.
[BBC]
Supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan rallied in Islamabad on Saturday [05] to push for Khan’s release as the police blocked roads, cut off mobile internet and fired tear gas to deter the protesters.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf [PTI] party claimed that the party leader from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Province, Ali Amin Gandapur, has been abducted and unlawfully detained. But Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim.
Gandapur, the chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, led thousands of protesters who camped on Islamabad-Peshwar highway on Friday overnight. Police used teas gas as they attempted to enter the city.
This is the latest in a series of protests held by supporters of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf [PTI] party, which has faced a crackdown from authorities. The PTI, which says the Islamabad protest is just for one day, also held a gathering in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday, where a lockdown of roads was in place.
“I am so proud of all our people,” said a message from Khan posted on the social media site X on Saturday afternoon.
[Aljazeera]
Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu is expected to seek a bailout during his visit to India this week as the archipelago nation stares at an economic crisis with fears of debt default.
It’s Muizzu’s first official bilateral visit after he was voted to power late last year following a campaign centred on an ‘India out’ policy, with a promise to reduce Delhi’s influence.
Since then, ties have been strained between the countries but experts say the visit indicates that the Maldives can’t afford to ignore its giant neighbour.
The foreign exchange reserves of the Maldives stood at about $440m (£334m) in September, just enough for one-and-a-half months of imports.
Last month, global agency Moody’s downgraded the Maldives’ credit rating, saying that “default risks have risen materially”.
An Indian bailout will bolster the country’s foreign currency reserves.
Before visiting India, Muizzu chose to travel to Turkey and China – his visit to the latter in January was seen as a high-profile diplomatic snub to Delhi as previous Maldivian leaders first visited Delhi after being elected. Around the same time, a controversy erupted in India after three Maldivian officials made derogatory comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“President Muizzu’s visit is a turnaround in several ways,” says Azim Zahir, a Maldives analyst and lecturer at the University of Western Australia.
“Most notably, the visit is a realisation of how dependent the Maldives is on India, a dependency that no other country will find easy to fill,” he says.
The Maldives consists of about 1,200 coral islands and atolls located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The archipelago has a population of about 520,000 compared to India’s 1.4 billion.
As a small island nation, the Maldives depends on its giant neighbour India for most of its food, infrastructure building and healthcare.
Delhi and Male have not officially confirmed that a financial package for the Maldives is on the agenda during the visit. But experts believe it will be part of the discussion.
“The key priority of Muizzu’s visit is to secure a financial helpline in the form of grant-in-aid and restructuring debt repayments,” a senior Maldivian editor, who did not want to be identified, told the BBC.
Muizzu also wants a “$400m currency swap deal sought by the Maldives central bank to shore up depleted foreign exchange reserves”, he added.
The ratings agency Moody’s further expressed serious concerns over Male’s financial situation, saying that “(foreign) reserves remain significantly below the government’s external debt service of around $600m in 2025 and over $1bn in 2026”.
The public debt of the Maldives is about $8bn, including about $1.4bn it owes each to China and India.
“Despite Muizzu stating on several occasions that China has given a green signal for deferring debt payments for five years, financial assistance from Beijing has not been forthcoming,” the Maldivian editor said.
With no other country coming to the rescue, it appears that Muizzu is now reaching out to India to mend strained ties.
“It’s about resetting the tone and negative rhetoric from senior officials of Muizzu’s government that has considerably impacted Indian tourist arrivals,” says Zahir.
India has long wielded influence over the Maldives, whose strategic position in its backyard allowed it to monitor a crucial part of the Indian Ocean. But Muizzu wanted to change that by moving closer to China.
In January, Muizzu’s administration gave an ultimatum to India to withdraw about 80 troops based in the country. Delhi said they were stationed there to man and operate two rescue and reconnaissance helicopters and a Dornier aircraft it had donated years ago.
In the end, both countries agreed to replace troops with Indian civilian technical staff to operate the aircraft.
A month after assuming charge, Muizzu’s administration also announced that it would not renew a hydrographic survey agreement with India that was signed by the previous government to map the seabed in the Maldivian territorial waters.
Then a row broke out after three of his deputy ministers made controversial comments about Modi, calling him a “clown”, “terrorist” and a “puppet of Israel”.
The remarks set off an uproar and calls to boycott the Maldives on Indian social media. Male said the comments were personal and did not represent the views of the government. The three ministers were suspended from the cabinet.
In what was seen as a thinly-veiled criticism of the reaction on Indian social media, Muizzu said at the time: “We may be small, but that doesn’t give you the licence to bully us.”
Muizzu’s administration also allowed the port call of a Chinese research ship, Xiang Yang Hong 3, much to Delhi’s displeasure. Some saw it as a mission to collect data which could – at a later date – be used by the Chinese military in submarine operations.
Nevertheless, there was a thaw in bilateral ties after Muizzu attended the swearing-in ceremony of Modi after he was elected for a third consecutive term in June this year.
In August, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s visit also gave a reboot to bilateral ties. “The Maldives is one of the cornerstones of our ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy,” Jaishankar said in Male. “To put it succinctly in the words of my Prime Minister Narendra Modi – for India, neighbourhood is a priority and, in the neighbourhood, Maldives is a priority,” he added.
For Delhi, it’s a welcome change as it recently witnessed the ouster of the India-friendly government of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh and the return of KP Sharma Oli, who used to criticise India’s policies, as the prime minister of Nepal.
Muizzu has realised that antagonising India is not an option and his pragmatism is not without reason. The number of Indian tourists visiting the Maldives dropped by 50,000 in the past year, resulting in an estimated loss of about $150m.
He is aware if he doesn’t get financial support from India, the Maldives could become a paradise lost. That’s why his India visit is crucial.
[BBC]
The US military says it has launched strikes on the Iranian-backed Houthi group in Yemen, hitting 15 targets.
The Pentagon said it used aircrafts and warships to launch the attacks in order “to protect freedom of navigation”.
Several explosions were reported in some of Yemen’s main cities, including the capital Sanaa.
Since November, the Houthis have launched attacks on around 100 ships in the Red Sea, sinking two vessels. The rebel group says the attacks are retaliation for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said the attacks targeted weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Houthis.
Houthi-aligned media say the Yemeni capital of Sanaa was among cities hit.
On Monday, the Houthis said they had shot down a US-made MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen. The US military acknowledged losing an unmanned aircraft.
Last week the Pentagon said the Houthis had launched “a complex attack” on US Navy ships in the region, though all of the weapons launched were shot down.
Sanaa has had a respite from bombing in the past two years since fighting between the warring parties in Yemen largely subsided.
As well as the attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the Houthis have fired several missiles and drones at Israel directly.
In July a drone launched from Yemen struck Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring 10. Last month, the group fired several missiles at Israel, including one that targeted Israel’s main airport.
Both times Israel responded by attacking sites in Yemen.
Earlier this year, the US, UK and 12 other nations launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping lanes against the Houthis.
The Houthis are part of a network of armed groups in the Middle East backed by Iran that includes Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
[BBC]
Reddy, Patil and Harmanpreet help India overcome Pakistan
President assures Justice for Easter Sunday victims
Pakistan opt to bat with Baig unfit; Vastrakar out with niggle for India
-
News7 days agoAKD’s party has already snatched 2/3rd of 160 electorates -Zuhair
-
News6 days ago
PMD reveals sheer number of vehicles used by RW’s aides
-
News6 days ago
EC shoots down AKD’s enhanced subsidies in view of 14 Nov. polls
-
Opinion6 days ago
Golden Memories in a Golden Jubilee celebration
-
Features6 days ago
‘Ballard of the Warriors’
-
News4 days ago
Australian High Commissioner meets President Dissanayake
-
Features6 days ago
Old Wines in New Democracies:Education in the making
-
Latest News3 days ago
“Ensure the continuity of the public service without disruption” – President
