Author: Osas Monday

Since the earthquake destroyed her home, Syrian teacher Suzanne Abdallah has lived in a small truck crammed with her family members, just a stone’s throw from where their house stood. “Ten of us pile into this truck. We sleep sitting up,” said the 42-year-old, wearing multiple layers of clothes and a wooled scarf wrapped around her head against the biting winter cold. Her infant boy was sleeping in a makeshift hammock made from a blanket that was swinging from the packed vehicle’s roof, as seven other children were sharing a basic breakfast inside. “Conditions are difficult, especially as I have…

China was Germany’s biggest trading partner in 2022 for the seventh year in a row, figures published Thursday showed, as policymakers worry about economic over-reliance on Beijing. Goods worth 297.9 billion euros ($318.9 billion) were exchanged between the two countries last year, up 20 percent despite the continuing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the federal statistics agency Destatis. Germany’s trade deficit with China — the difference between the larger value of imports and smaller exports — hit 84.3 billion euros, the largest figure since the statistics body’s records began in 1950. Imports from China rose to 191.1 billion…

Voter registration ahead of year-end presidential elections got underway on Thursday in DR Congo’s troubled east, where armed groups control swathes of territory and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. Electors in the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma lined up, some of them for hours, to obtain their voting card ahead of the December ballot, AFP reporters saw. “The army and police have been mobilised to secure the electoral process,” the province’s military governor, Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, told reporters. “All displaced people will be registered according to their places of origin,” he said. The vast central African country…

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake rocked the central Philippines on Thursday, the US Geological Survey said, though there were no reports of casualties or significant damage. The strong and shallow quake struck just off the coast of Masbate province in the centre of the archipelago nation shortly after 2 am (1800 GMT). The epicentre was 11 kilometres (seven miles) from the coastal village of Miaga in Masbate’s Uson municipality, USGS said. The Philippine seismological agency said it had recorded more than 80 aftershocks. “It was a bit strong,” Masbate provincial police chief Rolly Albana told AFP. “I was sleeping when we…

At least 39 people, most of them undocumented US-bound migrants who had just survived a perilous jungle crossing, died in a bus crash in Panama on Wednesday, officials said. Maria Isabel Saravia, Panama’s deputy director of migration, said 28 people were also injured in the accident. The bus plunged down a ravine and hit a minibus about 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the capital Panama City, the National Migration Service said in a media statement. It said the injured, including children, were being treated at various hospitals and clinics and the latest death toll was based on “preliminary information.”…

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday welcomed “any positive stance” from Arab nations, including many that severed ties with Damascus since the outbreak of its civil war. His remarks came during a meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in Damascus, after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria on February 6, leaving a combined death toll of nearly 40,000 people. Safadi’s visit is the second by a top Arab diplomat to Syria since the quake, after Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan also met Assad in Damascus on Sunday. “The Syrian people welcome and respond to any…

German carrier Lufthansa said Wednesday that IT problems were forcing it to cancel and delay flights across its different airlines, in what appeared to be a major outage. The post Lufthansa hit by major IT outage, flights cancelled appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.

NATO members relaunched debate Wednesday on the thorny issue of ramping up national defence spending targets after Russia’s war on Ukraine upended security. Moscow’s nearly year-long all-out invasion of its neighbour has seen a string of European allies commit to spending billions more on their armed forces. Some at the US-led Western military alliance are now pushing to enshrine the increases by using an upcoming summit in Vilnius in July to raise NATO’s current target of two percent of GDP. Most NATO members appear to agree that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression means that two percent should become a “floor,…

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation Wednesday after more than eight years leading its devolved government, in a shock move jolting UK politics on both sides of the border. The post Scotland's leader Sturgeon announces shock resignation appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.

The United Nations said Wednesday that $5.6 billion was needed this year to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine and to the millions who have fled the war-ravaged country. Nearly a year after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion, the need for aid was “enormous,” with some 21.8 million Ukrainians requiring assistance, it said. “The war continues […] The post UN appeals for $5.6 billion for aid to Ukraine in 2023 appeared first on The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News.