Russian troop build-up most significant since WW2 - US
Summary
- Russia now has up to 190,000 troops built-up around Ukraine according to US officials
- They say it is the "most significant military mobilisation" in Europe since WW2
- World leaders are meeting in Munich today for a security conference, but Russia won't attend for first time since 1999
- Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile says the situation in Eastern Ukraine is deteriorating
- Russia has been backing rebels in separatist-held areas there since 2014
- Moscow continues to deny planning an invasion of Ukraine and accuses the West of stoking "hysteria"
Indian court sentences 38 people to death over 2008 bombings
Record number of death sentences handed out over attacks in Gujarat city of Ahmedabad, which killed 56
A court in India has sentenced to death a record 38 people for a deadly terror attack in the Indian city of Ahmedabad in 2008, in which up to 20 bombs were set off across the city in hospitals, shopping centres and parks, leaving 56 dead.
It was the first time so many accused have received death sentences in a single case in the country. The sentence must be confirmed by a higher court. Judge AR Patel also sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment in the case.
Executions are relatively rare in India. The last people to be executed were the four accused in the notorious 2012 Delhi rape case, who were hanged in March 2020.
Brits scramble to leave Ukraine and get families out amid fears of invasion
British citizens are seeking support to bring their loved ones home as warnings increase over Ukraine
Brits are scrambling to leave Ukraine and get their relatives and loved ones out of the country following UK government advice and warnings of an imminent invasion by Russia.
British nationals in the country were told by the Foreign Office last week to leave while commercial flights were available and and not to count on any help with evacuation “in the event of a Russian military incursion.”
However, the government has since faced calls to help the family members of British citizens who are in Ukraine to leave the country and enter the UK - including by fast-tracking visas and relaxing immigration rules.
Africa groans under the weight of COVID-19 waste
African countries were already swamped by trash before the pandemic hit. Now COVID-19 related waste is making the situation worse.
Discarded masks can be found pretty well everywhere on the planet — littering streets, fluttering from trees, clogging drains and polluting waterways and oceans.
The baby-blue surgical masks have proved essential in helping curb COVID-19 transmissions during the pandemic.
But now the masks, along with other COVID-19 medical waste, have become a whole new problem.
Gov't bans construction firm from accepting foreign trainees after assault case
The Japanese government revoked Friday a construction firm's permit to accept foreign technical trainees after a Vietnamese man suffered serious injuries as a result of assaults by Japanese coworkers for about two years.
The firm called Six Create in Okayama Prefecture in western Japan is prohibited from accepting technical trainees for the next five years under the administrative punishment issued by the Immigration Services Agency of Japan and the labor ministry.
"Acts of human rights violation against technical trainees must never take place," Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa said at a press conference in Tokyo, adding the government will take strict action if similar cases occur in the future.
Nigeria is locked in an endless tug of war with its academics
Lecturers in Nigeria’s public universities are hoping to give the authorities a lesson on priorities.
In the 22 years since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, academics in its public universities have gone on strike a record 15 times. The 16th one, a one-month warning strike declared on February 14 to press for increased wages, comes barely two years after a nine-month industrial action.
In each case, the institutions have had to shut their doors, disrupting academic calendars to the frustration of students and parents nationwide. But for the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the umbrella body of the lecturers, a similar frustration is at the heart of its perennial struggle for better remuneration and improved infrastructure in the schools.
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