Amid fighting in Syria, some 13,000 people were seeking to cross into Greece from Turkey on Saturday evening (29 February), prompting Greece to close the border and call for EU talks. Europe seems to be under the threat of new waves of irregular migration which could assume the proportion of the 2015 crisis when hundreds of thousands of migrants and …

March 2020 brings some changes for people living in Germany as a result of new or amended laws and regulations. Some of these changes include mandatory measles vaccination for children, introduction of repeat doctor’s prescriptions, the prohibition of speed camera warning app on your smartphone and easier immigration for skilled workers from non-EU countries, among others.

Netflix has announced its official presence in Nigeria. The streaming giant announced the arrival of Netflix Naija with a new Twitter account on Tuesday, 26 February. An analysis of the likely impact of the development on the Nigerian film industry by News Agency of Nigeria. Netflix has been wooing Nollywood stylishly for a while now; from streaming Nollywood movies from …

President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, paid a 2-day State Visit to the Swiss Confederation on 28-29 February. It’s the third time in history that Switzerland organised a State Visit for a leader from Sub-Saharan Africa. The Ghanaian leader and his delegation were received by Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga and her ministers, and both parties held talks on a …

After days of uncertainties over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, the organisers of the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) Berlin has cancelled the event, which was to hold from 4-8 March. “With more than 10,000 exhibitors from over 180 countries ITB Berlin is extremely important for the world’s tourism industry. We take our responsibility for the health and safety of our visitors, …

Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, confirmed the country’s first case of coronavirus in a statement issued in the early hours of Friday, 28 February. It’s also the first case of the disease registered in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the statement, the case involves an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria and just returned from Milan, Italy on 25 …

The International Tourism Bourse (ITB) Berlin will hold from Wednesday to Sunday, 4 to 8 March, on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds ICC. ITB is the world’s leading travel trade show. Last year, the event attracted a total of 10,000 exhibitors from 181 countries and 160,000 visitors. Countries, cities and regions, tour operators, airlines, online booking portals and hotels, and many …

"After ten years of preparatory work by civil society, there will finally be a place at the end of the year where Berlin will be developed into a globally just city"

Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbé has won a fourth term in power, the national electoral commission declared on Monday. According to preliminary results, he received 72% of the vote, defeating six other candidates. Gnassingbé’s closest rival and main opposition leader, Agbéyomé Kodjo, clinched only 18% of the popular vote cast in the election. The final results are expected to be announced …

On 4 March 2020 in Brussels, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group will host the ECR-Africa Summit to discuss policy options about governance, participation of women, foreign direct investment and the digital economy to develop a stronger relationship between the EU and Africa. Guest speaker is the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo. The ECR’s co-chair Ryszard Legutko MEP, who …

Berlin Critics’ Week, an independent event about film criticism which yearly takes place during the Berlinale festival in Berlin, showed two films on Sunday (23 February). One of the films is The Lost Okoroshi, the second feature of Nigerian director Abba T. Makama, while the other is the Brazilian entry Seven Years in May by Affonso Uchôa. Set in the …

On 14 February 2020, the Council of Europe´s Education Department launched a toolkit aimed at integrating refugees as teaching staff or visiting experts into higher education institutions. The “CoLAB Toolkit” presents inclusive practices on how to best integrate refugees based on their competences and qualifications into the academic environment. The toolkit is based on the lessons learned from the project CoLAB implemented …

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) included 29 Nigerian English words in its January 2020 update. As the world’s foremost historical dictionary of English, the OED documents 600,000 words through 3.5 million illustrative quotations from over 1,000 years of history across the English-speaking world. Among the words, typically used by Nigerians, included in the latest edition of OED are Buka, Danfo, …

Kenyan Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong’o paid a short visit to Nigeria at the weekend to attend an event organised by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning Nigerian writer. The purpose of the event was for the Oscar-winning actress to intimate the Nigerian creative community with her screen-adaptation of Americanah, a novel by Adichie. HBO Max, a division of Warner Media Entertainment, …

The Netherlands has returned a ceremonial 18th century crown that had been stolen from Ethiopia in 1993. Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Ms Sigrid Kaag, personally handed over the crown to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when she called on the Ethiopian leader in Addis Ababa on Tuesday (18 February). The crown, which has depictions of Jesus Christ, …

Nayé Bathily, an official of the World Bank, writes about the increasing role of women in political leadership in Africa and how the continent is showing itself to be a forerunner in the race for gender equality The archetype of the strong African woman standing as an unmoving pillar of her community is one that transcends national borders on the …

The Nigerian government has called on the United States of America to consider the long-standing relationship between the two countries and reverse its visa restrictions on Nigeria. The Federal Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, made the call on Wednesday when he received the American Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, and her team at his office in Abuja. According to a …

Twelve African EdTech Companies Named as First Fellows at Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT. Pan-African group will receive support to scale up EdTech innovations that improve teaching and learning in secondary education KIGALI, Rwanda, 1 February 2020,-/African Media Agency (AMA)/- The Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) today announced …

The European Union has warned that it could impose restrictive visa implementation rules on Nigeria, if it failed to co-operate in the readmission of its nationals deported from EU member countries. A restrictive visa regime would make obtaining visas to EU countries more difficult for Nigerian applicants. The EU Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Ms Virginie Battu-Henriksson, said …

The mass murder in Hanau, a small town near Frankfurt, where on Wednesday a 43-year-old German man gunned down nine people at shisha bars, is the latest albeit most shocking incident in the increasing racist violence in the country. The murderer, identified as Tobias R, also shot his mother before killing himself. “On the suspected perpetrator’s home page, he had …