The death toll from a powerful earthquake in eastern Turkey rose to 29 as rescue workers raced against time Saturday to find survivors under the rubble. The magnitude 6.8 quake struck on Friday evening, with its epicentre in the small lakeside town of Sivrice in Elazig province, and was felt across neighbouring countries. The Turkish […]
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Lasting peace and the prosperity that comes with it cannot be achieved without justice, the Commonwealth Secretary-General has declared, during a keynote speech in the Hague. Patricia Scotland was addressing the International Criminal Court (ICC) as guest of honour for the opening of the new judicial year. The distinguished lawyer and former Attorney General in […]
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World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday said novel coronavirus is not a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Several members of the WHO Emergency Committee considered that it was too early to declare it PHEIC, given its restrictive and binary nature. In a statement issued from its headquarters in Geneva, the UN body said […]
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Wuhan, a Chinese city of nearly nine million people, has announced that it would temporarily shut public transport as it struggles to halt the outbreak of a new virus. Bus, subway, ferry, and long-distance transport networks will shut down from 10:00 local time on 23 January, while the city’s airport and train stations will be […]
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In developing economies, the key to socio-economic growth is access to finance, but the challenge is to increase loans to individuals and SMEs without suffering the fall-out of bad debt. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) increased the minimum loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) of commercial banks from 60 percent to 65 per cent in the latter […]
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Suspected Misseriya tribesmen killed at least 29 people, where some were burned to death in their homes, in an attack on a village in the disputed Abyei border region of South Sudan on Wednesday, a regional administrator said. The status of Abyei was supposed to have been resolved via referendum after a 2005 peace deal […]
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Embattled President Donald Trump of the United States of America, may sign an executive order expanding visa restrictions to seven countries including Nigeria. It is expected that the affected countries will be Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration might not place full visa bans […]
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President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the United Kingdom to investigate “Nigerian fugitives” who “escaped to the UK” amid corruption allegations. Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, quoted Buhari as making the request during a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 […]
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President Muhammadu Buhari has said Nigeria’s borders were closed because of the smuggling of arms and hard drugs into the country. Speaking with Nana Akufo-Addo, his Ghanaian counterpart, at a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London, Buhari said the borders were not shut because of food smuggling alone. He said he […]
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A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit a remote area of northwest China’s Xinjiang region late Sunday, the US Geological Survey said. The shallow quake struck at 9:27 pm (1327 GMT) around 100 kilometers (60 miles) east-northeast of the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. In its initial assessment, the USGS said there was a low likelihood of […]
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