Author: Osas Monday

Beijing accused Washington on Wednesday of harming its own credibility after a top US intelligence official said his agency believed the pandemic “most likely” caused by a laboratory incident in Wuhan, China. FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News on Tuesday that the Bureau has now assessed the source of Covid-19 was “most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.” Chinese officials have angrily denied the claim, calling it a smear campaign against Beijing. “The United States once again stirs up the laboratory leak theory, which will not discredit China, which will further lower its own credibility,” foreign ministry spokesperson…

Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to overturn her conviction and 20-year sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls, US media reported. The 61-year-old British socialite was convicted in December 2021 of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. The American financier killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting his own sex-crimes trial. Maxwell, his lover turned close friend, was arrested the following year. In a filing late Tuesday with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan, Maxwell’s lawyers argued she was denied a fair…

Belarus strongman and close Kremlin ally Alexander Lukashenko said during a visit to China Wednesday that his country fully supports an initiative put forward by Beijing to achieve peace in Ukraine. The post Lukashenko in China says Belarus 'fully' supports Beijing's Ukraine plan appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday ruled out any delay in elections after the devastating quake that killed tens of thousands in Turkey, saying the vote would push ahead on May 14 as planned. The post Erdogan says May election to go ahead despite Turkey quake appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.

Two more people in Equatorial Guinea have died of Marburg haemorrhagic fever, a cousin of the Ebola virus, bringing the toll of fatalities to 11, the authorities say. The post Death toll in Equatorial Guinea Marburg outbreak rises to 11 appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.

The death toll from a devastating shipwreck off Italy’s southern coast rose to 64 on Tuesday, while three men were in detention accused of human trafficking, officials said. The “alleged smugglers” held following Sunday’s shipwreck of a boat loaded with migrants heading for Europe included two Pakistanis and a Turkish national, a police spokesman told AFP. Italy’s coastguard on Tuesday morning recovered another body on the beach at Steccato, in the southern region of Calabria, bringing the death toll to 64, a spokeswoman for the fire service told AFP. She said the number of dead was expected to further rise,…

South Africa’s unemployment rate fell slightly for a fourth consecutive quarter, official data showed on Tuesday, a small piece of good news for the country’s struggling economy. The high unemployment rate has fuelled protests as well as the anti-foreigner sentiment. Between October and December 2022, the jobless rate declined by 0.2 percent over the third quarter to 32.7 percent of the workforce, StatsSA said. The drop follows falls of 1.0, 0.6 and 0.8 percentage points in the previous three quarters of the year. Unemployment stood at 35.3 percent at the end of 2021, when the number of unemployed people peaked…

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has sent a fiery appeal with urgent warnings, saying human rights are being trampled all over the world. Guterres opened the session of the UN Human Rights Council with the appeal on Monday in Geneva. “As the international community marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is under assault from all sides. “It is misused and abused. It is exploited for political gain and it is ignored often by the very same people. “Some governments chip away at it. Others use a wrecking ball. Today’s public disregard and private disdain for…

The president of the European Commission will meet King Charles on Monday during a visit to Britain to discuss an overhaul of the post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland. “The president will also meet this afternoon His Majesty the King,” EU spokeswoman Dana Spinant told reporters, in an update to Ursula von der Leyen’s talks with British premier Rishi Sunak. Buckingham Palace confirmed the meeting. “The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” a spokesman told reporters. “The head of state and president…

The death toll from floods and landslides in southeast Brazil a week ago was officially increased to 64 Sunday, as the search continued for one missing person. The post Brazil storm death toll rises to 64 appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.