London, United Kingdom | AFP | Premier League champions Chelsea completed a challenging transfer window on Friday by bringing in England midfielder Danny Drinkwater from Leicester City and Italy right-back Davide Zappacosta from Torino. Chelsea manager Antonio Conte saw moves for several targets fail to come off over the course of …

Montevideo, Uruguay | AFP | Philippe Coutinho shrugged off his transfer disappointment with a goal as Brazil beat Ecuador to guarantee top spot in South America’s 2018 World Cup qualifying race on Thursday while Chile and Argentina stumbled once more. Liverpool star Coutinho, who had seen his hopes of a dream …

Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | Uganda’s annual headline inflation reduced from 5.7% for the year ended July 2017 to 5.2% for the year ending August 2017, representing a 0.5 percentage point drop, Uganda Bureau of Statistics announced on Aug. 31. The statistics body attributed the drop to the decline in …

Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | Deborah Malac, the US Ambassador to Uganda has called upon more donors, especially countries and organizations that historically do not respond to refugee crises to step up and share the burden of caring for refugees in Uganda. There are over 1.3 million refugees living in …

In smartphone age, the hajj is for sharing Mecca, Saudi Arabia | AFP | Arm outstretched, Abdul Rahman sweeps his mobile phone across the vista of Mecca, the Great Mosque dazzling in the sun, so his son in Tanzania can experience the pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites. He may be thousands …

Berlin, Germany | AFP | The gadgets on display at Berlin’s mega consumer electronics fair this week may not look radically different, but they are smarter than ever before and designed to meet our every need — often before we’ve even thought of it ourselves. As smartphones and other electronic devices …

Buñol, Spain | AFP | Extra police were deployed at Spain’s annual “Tomatina” tomato throwing festival in the eastern town of Bunol on Wednesday in the wake of the deadly twin vehicle attacks in Catalonia. A total of 740 security forces were on duty, including police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers, …

  Washington, United States | AFP | The US economy grew at its fastest pace in more than two years in the second quarter, hitting President Donald Trump’s goal for the first time since he took office, according to data released Wednesday. Higher consumer spending and business investment prompted a sharp …

Seoul, South Korea | AFP | A former South Korean spy chief was jailed for four years Wednesday for leading an online smear campaign against the man who is now president, Moon Jae-In, during the 2012 election. Won Sei-Hoon, who led the National Intelligence Service (NIS) from 2009 to 2013, orchestrated …

Mecca, Saudi Arabia | AFP | More than two million Muslims from around the world began the hajj pilgrimage at Islam’s holiest sites Wednesday, a religious duty and an epic multi-stage journey. This year sees pilgrims from Shiite Iran return to Mecca in Saudi Arabia after a hiatus following a diplomatic …