Africa & World

The first group of Sri Lankans selected for jobs in the agricultural sector left for Israel last night (Dec 18).

According to the Foreign Employment Ministry, thirty (30) people were included in this group that left from the Katunayake Airport.

Another group of twenty (20) people will leave for Israel this morning (Dec 19), with another group of thirty (30) people is scheduled to be sent to Israel tonight.

Air tickets for the first batch of workers were handed over by the Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara at a ceremony held yesterday to mark International Migrant’s Day.

During the event, the Minister stated that, according to a bilateral agreement between the two countries, 10,000 workers will be able to fly to Israel in the next few weeks.

Emphasizing that there is no need to give money to any party for these jobs, he said if it is discovered after going abroad that someone has paid money to obtain these job opportunities, they will be brought back, as both governments have reached an agreement on repatriating those who have paid money.

Minister Manusha Nanayakkara further announced that Israel has also agreed to hire twenty thousand workers for job opportunities in the construction sector.

Mrs Gill Lever OBE – Officer of the Order of the British Empire – has been appointed as the British Deputy High Commissioner (DHC) in Abuja, Nigeria.

She takes over from Ms Gill Atkinson who recently concluded four years as Deputy High Commissioner in Abuja.

According to a statement from Atinuke Akande-Alegbe, a spokesperson of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in Abuja, Lever is an experienced career diplomat who has worked in different parts of the world including Romania, India and Japan.

“Before becoming the British Deputy High Commissioner (DHC) in Abuja, she served as the UK Deputy Head of Mission to Juba, South Sudan from 2022 – 2023.

Before then, she served as the Head of Overseas Health and Welfare at the FCDO in London.

In the UK, she has worked in a diverse range of roles including as Head of the Peacekeeping Team in the UN Department, Deputy Head of Southeast Asia Department and as a Human Resources Business Partner.

Gill was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2021 for services to the Health and Welfare and British Nationals while working on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

She has also worked in the voluntary sector, establishing child drowning prevention programmes, and raising funds for women’s and children’s projects in Vietnam.

To mark her arrival, Lever said: “I am delighted to be back in Nigeria. I was posted to Abuja 10 years ago with my husband and son and have such fond memories.

“I always knew I’d be back! I am excited about my new role as Deputy High Commissioner. I look forward to working with the talented High Commission team in Abuja, with colleagues in Lagos and in our other smaller posts across our Nigeria network, to deepen the special relationship between our two proud countries.”

There was shock and disbelief when the Saudi Arabian Authorities cancelled the visa of all the 264 passengers airlifted to Jeddah from Lagos and Kano on Sunday.

The authorities insisted that the airline should return them back to Nigeria.

The flight took off from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos via the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano on Sunday night and landed at King Abdul-Aziz International Airport, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

But to the consternation of the airline staff, the Saudi Arabian authorities announced that all the passengers’ visas had been cancelled.

This was despite the fact that the passengers went through the Advanced Passengers Information System (APIS) during the check-in formalities in Nigeria which was also monitored by the Saudi authorities.

Leading Reporters reports that Air Peace penultimate week launched a direct flight to Jeddah which has been recording high load factor.

A source who confirmed the development said, “The screening of passengers from the MMIA and Kano Airport was thorough and there was no issue with the visas. These were people who were duly issued the visa and they passed through the advanced passenger information system which is accessible to both authorities in Lagos and Jeddah. We are surprised because this cancellation was announced when the flight already landed.

“We are suspecting this is a strategy to frustrate the Nigerian carrier out of the route, some people are definitely not happy with the option Air Peace is providing, the direct flight to Jeddah as against using another foreign airline which attracts higher fares.”

It was learnt that, it was when the Nigerian embassy waded in that Saudi authorities reduced the number of passengers that would be returned to 177 from 264.

As of the time of filing this report, the Airline was on its way to Nigeria with the 177 passengers that were denied entry; majority of them going to perform lesser Hajj (Umrah).

The development comes at a time when President Bola Tinubu visited the country for a summit.

The Nigerian leader also proceeded for lesser Hajj at the end of the summit, where he met the high and mighty in the Arabic country.

Leading Reporters reports that prior to the commencement of direct flight by Air Peace, Saudia, a Saudi Arabian flag carrier, has been operating directly from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia.

At least 15 people have died in Kenya as floods swept away scores of houses and devastated farmland following torrential rains, the Red Cross said on Monday.

Heavy rainfall has pounded the country, particularly the bone-dry north, in recent days, and sent water gushing into homes and submerging roads, with similar scenes playing out across other parts of East Africa.

“As of yesterday, 15,264 households have been affected, with 15 casualties reported,” the Kenya Red Cross said on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 1,000 livestock have died while at least 240 acres (97 hectares) of agricultural farmland have been destroyed, it added.

The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said last month that eastern Africa would likely encounter heavier than normal rains over the October-December period because of the El Nino phenomenon.

Kenya’s Meteorological Department also warned last week that the heavy rains were “likely to be accompanied by gusty winds”.

“The strong winds may blow off roofs, uproot trees and cause structural damages,” it said in an advisory.

Images broadcast on local media have shown flood waters inundating entire villages and sending residents fleeing for higher ground.

Dramatic footage showed a civilian chopper rescuing people from a lorry marooned in Samburu county, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of the capital Nairobi.

El Nino is a naturally occurring weather pattern associated with increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.

Since the start of the current rainy season, more than 20 people have died and over 12,000 others have been forced out of their homes in Ethiopia’s Somali region due to flash flooding, the regional government said at the weekend.

Related News

Kenya announces visa-free access to Africans 

King Charles heads to Kenya as calls for colonial apology grow

Kenya leads UN-approved force to tackle Haiti’s deadly gangs

At least 14 people have also been killed in Somalia, OCHA said in a situation report released on Saturday.

“At least 47,100 people have relocated to higher grounds to avoid the risk of flooding,” the agency said, adding that the downpours had cut off access to markets and farmland in some areas.

The Horn of Africa is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, and extreme weather events are occurring with increased frequency and intensity.

Since late 2020, Somalia as well as parts of Ethiopia and Kenya have been suffering the region’s worst drought in 40 years.

At the end of 2019, at least 265 people died and tens of thousands were displaced during two months of relentless rainfall in several countries in East Africa.

The extreme weather affected close to two million people and washed away tens of thousands of livestock in Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Mike Johnson has been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, ending weeks of chaos and Republican infighting on Capitol Hill.

The conservative Louisiana lawmaker won with 220 votes in the lower chamber of Congress.

Mr Johnson is the fourth Republican nominated for the position since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster on 3 October.

The previous nominee, Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, abruptly dropped out of the race on Tuesday after about four hours.

Mr Johnson’s success in the hard-fought Speaker battle represents a victory for the ideologically right-wing, Trump-aligned faction of the Republican Party and a loss for its moderates, whose candidates struggled to gain traction among conservative representatives on Capitol Hill.

Mr Johnson, 51, is considered a staunch conservative and close ally of former President Donald Trump.

In 2020, he was a key figure in efforts to legally contest the results of the 2020 presidential election, urging Mr Trump to “keep fighting” and “exhaust every available legal remedy”.

The mild-mannered former lawyer and talk radio host has served in the House since 2016 and is a former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a position that is often seen as a first step toward leadership positions within the party.

He has also taken a hard-line conservative position on a number of policy issues, including abortion rights and same-sex marriage, which he opposes. Mr Johnson is also against further US aid to Ukraine.

When nominating Mr Johnson on the floor of the House, Elise Stefanik, the chair of the Republican conference, called him a “dedicated servant” and “titan” who has dedicated his life to “America’s great principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

But Democrat Pete Aguilar called him “the most important architect of electoral college objections” to the 2020 presidential vote and said he was chosen because he “can appease Donald Trump”.

China will send its youngest-ever crew of astronauts to the Tiangong space station this week, officials said Wednesday, as Beijing pursues plans for a manned mission to the Moon by the end of the decade.

Tiangong is the crown jewel of Beijing’s space programme, which has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon and made China the third country to put humans in orbit.

The station is constantly crewed by teams of three astronauts, who are rotated out every six months.

The Shenzhou-17 module carrying the trio to the station is scheduled to blast off at 11:14 am (0314 GMT) Thursday from the Jiuquan launch site in China’s arid northwest.

“It is the crew of astronauts with the youngest average age since the launch of the space station construction mission,” Beijing’s State Council Information Office said in a statement.

The all-male trio will be led by Tang Hongbo, who is on his first return mission to the Tiangong space station.

“Throughout the past two years, I have often dreamt of going back to space,” Tang said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“The space station is our other home that takes us away from Earth and into the universe,” he added.

Accompanying him will be Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin, both in their thirties and each making maiden space voyages.

The crew has an average age of 38, compared to 42 for the crew of Shenzhou-16 when it launched.

“According to the plan, the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft will conduct autonomous rendezvous and docking procedures after entering orbit,” Lin Xiqiang, spokesperson for China’s space programme, said during a Wednesday morning press briefing.

It will dock with the station’s core module “about six-and-a-half hours” after first initiating the procedure, he added.

– ‘Space dream’ –

Plans for China’s “space dream” have been put into overdrive under President Xi Jinping.

The world’s second-largest economy has pumped billions of dollars into its military-run space programme in an effort to catch up with the United States and Russia.

In June, the return capsule of the Shenzhou-15 spaceship touched down at a landing site in the northern Inner Mongolia region, with state media hailing the mission as a “complete success”.

That month also saw the launch of the Shenzhou-16 capsule, which carried the first Chinese civilian — Beihang University professor Gui Haichao — into orbit.

That crew will return to Earth on October 31 after completing a handover, officials said Wednesday.

Beijing also aims to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and plans to build a base on the lunar surface.

Spokesperson Lin reiterated that aim Wednesday, saying that the “goal of landing Chinese people on the moon by 2030 will be realised as scheduled”.

Finland’s former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari has died in Helsinki at the age of 86 after battling Alzheimer’s disease, the president’s office said Monday.

“It is with deep sadness that we have received the news of the death of President Martti Ahtisaari,” the current president, Sauli Niinisto, said in a statement.

Serving as president from 1994 to 2000, the mediator negotiated an end to conflicts around the globe, from Indonesia to Kosovo and Namibia, earning him worldwide recognition and a Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, as part of a formidable career spanning over 40 years.

The former UN diplomat was credited with overseeing the 2005 reconciliation of the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, bringing an end to a three-decade conflict that killed some 15,000 people.

The two sides described Ahtisaari as steely during the talks, but gifted with a sense of humour and warmth on the sidelines.

“I have enormous amounts of patience. I don’t usually get angry, but I can be tough,” he later said, adding that he felt the key to his success was an ability to understand people.

Ahtisaari also helped lead Kosovo down the path toward independence, even though his intense efforts failed to clinch an agreement with Serbia before Pristina unilaterally declared independence in 2008.

Ahtisaari withdrew from public life in September 2021 as he struggled with Alzheimer’s disease.