*Evening News Round-up: Saturday 18 January 2025* *Headlines* *Zimbabwe Embassy In South Africa Begins Verification Of Stilfontein Mine Disaster Victims* *Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe To Lay Off 1,000 Workers Amid Currency Crisis* *Power Outages Hit Army-controlled Sudan After Drone Attacks* *Fuel Tanker Truck Blast Kills At Least 60 In Nigeria* *Israel-Hamas Ceasefire In Gaza To Take Effect On Sunday Morning* *Three Killed In Russian Airstrike On Kyiv, Officials Say* *White House Says TikTok Threat To Go Dark Is A 'Stunt'* *South Korea's President Yoon Attends Court Hearing On Extending Detention* *Brentford 0-2 Liverpool: Darwin Nunez Scores Late Double In Premier League* Join our *Ad-free* News Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VacXkvFJJhzd2UoZYF1F *Stories in Detail:* *Zimbabwe Embassy In South Africa Begins Verification Of Stilfontein Mine Disaster Victims* THE Zimbabwean Embassy in South Africa has reportedly dispatched a team of forensic experts and other professionals to collaborate with the host government to verify the nationality of victims of the Stilfontein mine disaster. This follows the death of 87 artisanal miners at Buffelsfontein Mine in Stilfontein, North West Province, while some others were rescued alive. The identities of the deceased are yet to be confirmed but there is a strong belief some could be Zimbabwean nationals after some survivors turned out to be Zimbabaweans. Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to South Africa, David Hamadziripi, told State media that a contingent of verifiers has already started work. “The Embassy wishes to inform members of the public that it is working closely with the South African government to identify and verify the nationalities of the alleged Zimbabwe nationals retrieved from the Buffelsfontein Mine in Stilfontein, North West Province under the on-going rescue operations,” said the Ambassador in a statement. “Further to screening the 465 alleged undocumented Zimbabwe nationals currently in South African Police Service (SAPS) custody, the Embassy is seeking to establish whether there are any Zimbabwe nationals among 87 deceased individuals retrieved at the shaft, whose identities and nationalities are yet to be established.” The embassy seeks to identify the deceased individuals through Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) testing of relatives. Hamadziripi called on Zimbabweans who have reason to believe that their relatives might be part of the rescued group of individuals in Stilfontein to urgently contact the Consulate in Johannesburg. “The Government of Zimbabwe is working on arrangements on how to assist with the repatriation of remains positively identified as Zimbabwe nationals,” Hamadziripi was quoted saying. The country’s consul-general in Johannesburg, Eria Phiri, said so far, 10 Zimbabweans who were rescued had appeared in court and were fined R15 000 (or six months in jail) wholly suspended sentence for illegal mining. The group has since been deported to Zimbabwe. He revealed that those rescued will undergo interviews to find out if there are any other Zimbabweans among those who may have died in the mineshaft. The illegal miners were recently trapped underground and most of them chose to stay underground fearing arrest when they came out of the mineshaft. *NewZW* *Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe To Lay Off 1,000 Workers Amid Currency Crisis* Sugar producer Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe plans to lay off 1,000 employees by August this year, a company official said, as it seeks to cut costs and survive the country’s currency turmoil and inflationary pressures. The company, one of Zimbabwe’s biggest employers with a workforce of 16,000, has complained of soaring labour and fertilizer costs and currency losses due to the country’s unstable currency. Tongaat Hulett operates Zimbabwe’s two sugar mills with a combined capacity to crush 3.5 million tons of sugar cane annually. Businesses in Zimbabwe have endured an extended crisis which has decimated its currency and fuelled episodes of hyperinflation since the turn of the century. Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe spokesperson Dahlia Garwe told Reuters that 500 employees from each of the company’s mills in Hippo Valley and Triangle will be laid off in three phases between February and August. “It is very difficult to manage such a large workforce, so we need to look at ways and means of becoming a lot more efficient in how we do our business,” Garwe said. The company says profit margins have plunged 55 percent since 2022, while labour costs have soared 113 percent, leaving the sugar entity with huge debts. “It is part of a strategy to bring our costs under control and put the company on an even path,” Garwe said. Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe has said its “unprecedented operational challenges” were not related to the business rescue process currently underway at its South African parent company. Tongaat Hulett’s South African operations entered business rescue proceedings in October 2022 following an accounting fraud scandal. Tongaat Hulett is in the process of selling the Zimbabwe assets, made up of the wholly owned Triangle Sugar Estates and a 50.3 percent stake in Hippo Valley Estates to a Mauritius-registered investment company as part of the business rescue plan. *Reuters* *Power Outages Hit Army-controlled Sudan After Drone Attacks* Most army-controlled areas in Sudan have been plunged into blackouts following drone attacks on power generation facilities by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, government officials and residents told Reuters. The blackouts began on Monday after drone attacks on Merowe Dam, the country's largest, affected Sudan's northern state, while a technical issue affected River Nile and Red Sea states. The blackouts spread on Saturday after an overnight attack on the al-Shouk power station in the east of the country, putting Gedaref, Kassala and Sennar states offline, the officials and residents said. The affected areas cover the majority of areas still controlled by the army, which has been locked in an almost two-year long war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which controls most of the western half of the country. Electricity generation in most RSF-controlled areas has been disrupted in the fighting. Areas impacted by the blackouts are housing millions of internally displaced people, straining living space and infrastructure. "The attack on the power station led to the disruption of electricity to hospitals, schools, and water facilities, which threatens civilian lives particularly in these difficult humanitarian circumstances," said human rights group Emergency Lawyers. "These attacks do not only deprive civilians of their basic rights, they increase the risk of escalated violence," they added. The war in Sudan has displaced more than 12 million people in total and the global hunger monitor estimated this month that about 24.6 million people, or around half of all Sudanese, urgently need food aid through May. Residents in the city of Omdurman, which is in the greater Khartoum area and is partly controlled by the army, reported that bakeries were shut down and that people had resorted to drawing water from the Nile River. Engineers are working to restore operations at the Merowe power station but have not yet been successful, sources there said. *Reuters* *Fuel Tanker Truck Blast Kills At Least 60 In Nigeria* At least 60 people were killed and more injured in northern Nigeria on Saturday when a petrol tanker truck overturned, spilling fuel that exploded, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) said. The accident in Niger state follows a similar blast in Jigawa state last October that killed 147 people, one of the worst such tragedies in Africa's most populous nation. Kumar Tsukwam, FRSC sector commander for Niger state, said most of the victims were impoverished local residents who had rushed to scoop up the spilled petrol after the truck overturned. "Large crowd of people gathered to scoop fuel despite concerted efforts to stop them," Tsukwam said in a statement. "Suddenly, the tanker burst into flames, engulfing another tanker. So far 60 corpses (have been) recovered from the scene." Tsukwam said firefighters had managed to put out the fire. Such accidents have become common in Africa's largest oil producer, killing dozens of people in the country grappling with its worst cost of living crisis in a generation. The price of petrol in Nigeria has soared more than 400% since President Bola Tinubu scrapped a decades-old subsidy when he came into office in May 2023. Bologi Ibrahim, spokesperson to Niger state governor residents should give priority to their safety when petrol tanker trucks are involved in accidents. *BBC* *Israel-Hamas Ceasefire In Gaza To Take Effect On Sunday Morning* The ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas will take effect at 08:30am (06:30 GMT) on Sunday, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced in a post on X. “Based on the agreement between the parties… the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30am on Sunday. We advise our brothers to take precautions, exercise the utmost caution, and await instructions from official sources,” spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said in a tweet on Saturday. Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli government ratified the agreement after meeting for more than six hours, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement. However, Netanyahu said later that his country will not proceed with the Gaza ceasefire until it receives a list of the 33 hostages who will be released by Hamas in the first phase of the deal. “Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. The sole responsibility lies with Hamas,” Netanyahu added in a statement. The deal was approved after more than 460 days of war in which Israeli forces have killed more than 46,788 Palestinians and wounded 110,453. It would see the release of 33 captives held in Gaza over the next six weeks, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The remainder, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal. “All eyes are now on Gaza to see what the Israeli military is going to do in these final hours, because historically, before any sort of ceasefire deal, the Israeli military pounds the Gaza Strip with all of its might,” said Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Jordan. “There’s going to be a lot of fear and anxiety.” Leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, congratulated the Palestinians for reaching the deal, saying it proved the “persistence of resistance” against Israel. “This deal, which was unchanged from what was proposed in May 2024, proves the persistence of resistance groups, which took what they wanted while Israel was not able to take what it sought,” he said. In November, Hezbollah and Israel reached a ceasefire deal in a conflict parallel to Israel’s war on Gaza. Meanwhile, an attacker armed with a knife seriously injured one person in Tel Aviv before being shot by an armed civilian, according to the Israeli police. A 30-year-old Israeli was wounded in the attack and is in critical condition at the hospital, according to the Israeli media. Hamas hails the stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, calling it a “natural response to the Zionist massacres” and saying it won’t stop “until the (Israeli) occupation departs”. “We mourn the perpetrator of the operation from Tulkarem who stabbed a group of settlers on one of the streets of Tel Aviv,” the group said in a statement on Telegram. Under the deal, the three-stage ceasefire starts with an initial six-week phase when caltives held by Hamas will be exchanged for prisoners and detainees jailed in Israel. Thirty-three of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded captives, are to be freed in this phase. In return, Israel will release almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails. They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war. Israel’s Justice Ministry published their details early on Saturday, along with the ceasefire agreement, which said 30 Palestinian prisoners would be released for each female captive on Sunday. After Sunday’s hostage release, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the accord calls for four more female hostages to be freed after seven days, followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter. With the accord opposed by some Israeli cabinet hardliners, media reports said 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government backed the deal while eight opposed it in the cabinet vote. The opponents said the ceasefire agreement represented a capitulation to Hamas. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved and urged other ministers to vote against it. However, he said he would not bring down the government. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also threatened to quit the government if it does not go back to war to defeat Hamas after the first six-week phase of the ceasefire. In Gaza, Israeli forces have kept up heavy attacks. Medics in Gaza said an Israeli air strike early on Saturday killed five people in the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” area, west of Khan Younis in the enclave’s south. The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that a man from the Qudra family was killed along with his wife and their three children in the attack. An Israeli drone strike also killed three Palestinian civilians in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City late on Friday, according to Wafa. This brought to at least 119 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment since the ceasefire accord was announced on Wednesday. Despite the attacks, many Palestinians who were displaced from their homes are looking forward to the ceasefire. Mahmoud Sheikh Abed, who was displaced from Rafah, said he is hoping that there would not be any violations. “We hope by the name of God that today is the last day of war. People are tired. We are tired from displacement, illnesses, from starving, from fatigue.” Tareq Zumlot, another Palestinian refugee, said he cannot wait to return to his home in Jabalia. “We will return to our home and check on our family and friends. We hope we will have silence and safety.” *Aljazeera* *Three Killed In Russian Airstrike On Kyiv, Officials Say* Russian forces unleashed a combined drone and missile strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Saturday, killing three people in a central district, officials said. Explosions boomed across the pre-dawn sky as air defences repelled the attack, which also wounded three others, according to city military administration chief Timur Tkachenko. A shopping mall, business centre, metro station and water pipe were also damaged, he said. "Russian forces initially launched drones and then a ballistic-missile strike," parliamentary ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on social media. "These acts merely underscore the enemy's ruthlessness and barbarity." Rescue workers plodded through a flooded street as they sifted through debris. The charred remains of a van were visible in front of the station, whose facade was marked by twisted metal and blown-out windows. As daylight broke, they could be seen examining missile fragments and loading a body bag into a truck. Air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian media that both missiles that had been aimed at Kyiv were destroyed, but that one of them was shot down at a low altitude, resulting in heavy damage. There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has denied deliberately targeting civilians. Russia also struck the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where the regional governor said 10 people were wounded and the offices of an industrial facility were damaged. The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed 24 of 39 drones and two of four missiles launched by Russia across various parts of Ukraine during the overnight attack. On Friday, a Russian missile strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown, killed four people and partially destroyed an educational facility, officials said. "All those who assist the Russian state in this war must face pressure as impactful as these strikes," Zelenskiy wrote on social media in response to Saturday's attack. Russia has carried out regular air strikes on towns and cities far behind the front line since the start of its almost three-year-old invasion of Ukraine, targeting critical infrastructure in particular. *Reuters* *White House Says TikTok Threat To Go Dark Is A 'Stunt'* The White House has said a threat by TikTok to shut down in the US on Sunday unless tech firms get assurances they will not be punished for violating a law that bans the app is a "stunt". Late on Friday, the social media platform said it needed a commitment from the outgoing Biden administration that companies such as Apple and Google will not face prosecution for ignoring the looming ban. "It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Instead the Biden administration has said it will be up to President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, to decide how and if it wants to implement the law. *BBC* *South Korea's President Yoon Attends Court Hearing On Extending Detention* South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attended a court hearing on Saturday to fight a request by investigators to extend his detention on accusations of insurrection. Yoon on Wednesday became the country's first sitting president to be arrested, in a criminal probe related to his short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3. Investigators requested a detention warrant on Friday to extend their custody of Yoon for up to 20 days. He has been refusing to talk to investigators and has been held in Seoul Detention Centre since his arrest. After the hearing, Yoon returned to Seoul Detention Centre to await the court's decision, which is expected on Saturday or Sunday. The hearing at Seoul Western District Court lasted nearly five hours. Yoon spoke for about 40 minutes during the hearing, Yonhap said, citing Yoon's lawyer. "(Yoon) sincerely explained and answered questions on factual relationships, evidence and legal principles... We will quietly wait for the court to decide," said Yoon's lawyer, Yoon Kab-keun, after the hearing. Yoon had decided to attend the hearing "to restore his honour by directly explaining the legitimacy of emergency martial law and that insurrection is not established", his lawyer said earlier on Saturday. TV channels showed a convoy of around a dozen cars and police motorbikes escorting Yoon from the detention centre to the court, as well as back to the detention centre. Since police broke up a crowd of Yoon's supporters blocking the court gate in the morning, thousands of supporters surrounded the court after the hearing began at around 2 p.m. (0500 GMT) behind a police barricade chanting "release the president". "There are so many supporters of President Yoon Suk Yeol around the court, who still believe in the rule of law and are defending the president," said Lee Se-ban, a 30-year-old man. Multiple people were arrested by police for trying to break into the court grounds, including a young man who tried to escape, according to a Reuters witness. Insurrection, the crime alleged against Yoon by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, is one of the few that an incumbent South Korean president does not have immunity from. *Reuters* *Brentford 0-2 Liverpool: Darwin Nunez Scores Late Double In Premier League* Substitute Darwin Nunez scored a late double to guide Liverpool to victory at Brentford and extend their lead at the top of the Premier League table to seven points. It looked like Liverpool's wait for a league win in 2025 was going to stretch to three games until Nunez stepped up in stoppage time. Nunez grabbed the opener in the 91st minute with a simple finish from close range after meeting a low cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold. The Uruguay forward scored again two minutes later, showing patience in a crowded area to round off a counter-attack as Brentford were caught short in defence. Despite taking so long to break the deadlock, Liverpool had dominated possession and territory for large periods and were fully deserving of all three points. Dominik Szoboszlai saw an effort crash off the top of the crossbar in the first half and Luis Diaz should have made better of an attempt with his head after emerging unmarked at the far post. Brentford were happy to sit deep and soak up pressure but struggled to pose any serious threat on the counter, with striker Bryan Mbeumo left isolated. Liverpool maintained complete control of the tempo in the latter stages as Brentford dropped ever deeper, but lacked the potency in front of goal which they oozed in the first half of the season until Nunez delivered the decisive blows. Victory gives the league leaders further breathing space over second-placed Arsenal, who face Aston Villa at 17:30 GMT, while Brentford stay 11th. The Gtech has been the place to go for goals this season. A combined 52 have been scored in the 12 fixtures - 29 for Brentford and 23 by visiting teams. But Brentford never looked like adding to that tally as they invited pressure from the first whistle and spent the majority of the afternoon trying to keep Liverpool at bay. It felt inevitable that Liverpool would find a way through as they attempted 37 shots and eventually Brentford, who remain the only club yet to keep a clean sheet in the Premier League this season, folded. Thomas Frank's side have picked up all but five of their 28 points at home this campaign but that bubble looks to have burst. They have won just one of their past seven Premier League games and it is just one win in nine across all competitions. Mbeumo lacked support throughout and was easily marshalled by Liverpool's centre-back pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, while top scorer Yoane Wissa struggled to make his mark on the game. Brentford's campaign will not be defined on performances against the league leaders, but Frank will be hoping for an improvement in the weeks to come as their next five games come against teams currently below them in the table. *BBC*