Foreign News
Mass wedding for Nigeria orphans sparks outcry
The planned mass wedding of about 100 orphans has sparked widespread outrage across Nigeria. The orphans, some of whom are feared to be underage girls, are set to be married off on 24 May in the north-western state of Niger.
They have all lost parents to attacks by armed bandits, who regularly target civilians across the state.
Nigeria’s Women’s Affairs Minister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye said she has filed a court order to stop the ceremony.
According to reports, the mass wedding was supported by the Speaker of the Niger State Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkin-Daji, who said local religious leaders had approached him for help funding it.
The Imams Forum of Niger have said that the marriage ceremony should go ahead, insisting that the girls are not below 18 – the legal age of marriage.
However, critics have expressed concern that some girls may be younger than 18, or being forced to comply for financial gain.
Minister Kennedy-Ohanenye said the girls “deserve better” and that her department was looking into who the 100 girls are, their ages and whether they consented to the marriage.
Her department will offer the girls education and training, she said, adding that if the Niger State speaker attempts to block these efforts “there will be a serious legal battle between him and the Ministry of Women Affairs”.
On Friday, senior presidential aide Abiodun Essiet reiterated Ms Kennedy-Ohanenye’s plan of action.
Ms Essiet added: “My appeal to all stakeholders is to stop embarking on policies and programs that exploit economically handicapped vulnerable people, increase and recycle poverty, and deepen ignorance.”
Human rights activists in Nigeria have launched a petition to stop the plan. As of Friday evening, it has 10,500 signatures.
According to international campaign group Girls Not Brides, 30% of girls and 1.6% of boys in Nigeria are married before the age of 18. Some 12% of girls are married before their 15th birthday.
Child marriages are most common in the northern part of the country, among poor, rural households. It is seen as a way to reduce their families’ financial burdens or to improve political and social alliances.
Northern Nigeria is mostly Muslim and religious and cultural norms, such as polygamy, favour the practice.
(BBC)
United States President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to demand control of the Panama Canal after accusing Panama of charging excessive rates on US ships passing through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
He later doubled down during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, saying the US was “being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else”.
The US largely built the canal in 1914 and administrated territory surrounding the passage for decades. But Washington fully handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999 after a period of joint administration.
Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence around the canal, which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he said in the original post. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama. If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino firmly responded to Trump on Sunday.
“Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so,” Mulino said in a recorded message posted on social media.
He further denied that China or any other country has direct or indirect influence over the canal. He added that fees were not decided on a “whim”.
The canal is key to Panama’s economy and generates about one-fifth of the government’s annual revenue.
[Aljazeera]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
Champions Trophy: India vs Pakistan on February 23 in UAE
President receives blessings of the Chief prelates of Malwathu and Asgiri Temples
Trump threatens to take back control of Panama Canal over ‘ridiculous fees’
-
News7 days agoInnovative water management techniques revolutionising paddy cultivation in Lanka
-
Features6 days agoThe Degree Circus
-
Sports4 days agoSri Lanka to mend fences with veterans
-
Opinion6 days agoHas ‘Compass’ lost direction?
-
Editorial7 days agoA supreme irony
-
Sports2 days agoPathirana set to sling his way into Kiwi hearts
-
Opinion7 days agoDocs, Speakers and Profs
-
Features7 days agoGovt.’s anti-corruption agenda gets boost