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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — In one of the deadliest explosions in years, fire and blast shook south-eastern Nigeria, Imo state, possibly the result of illegal oil refining of stolen crude or “kpofire”.
News reports described charred bodies left scattered among burnt palms, cars and vans after the weekend explosion which killed more than 100 people at an illegal depot on the border of Nigeria's Rivers and Imo states.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Kenya's former president Mwai Kibaki leaves a mixed legacy of economic reforms and a new constitution alongside a controversial election which led to deadly violence and entrenched corruption.
His death at 90 years of age was announced by his successor, President Uhuru Kenyatta. A British-educated economist, Kibaki assumed the presidency after four decades as a lawmaker, government minister and then vice president to his predecessor, Daniel arap Moi.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has joined other human rights groups in protesting plans by the United Kingdom to dump migrants and asylum-seekers who cross the Channel thousands of miles away to Rwanda as the government tries to cut the record numbers of people making the perilous journey.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | DURBAN (IDN) — Record-breaking levels of rainfall threaten a new round of flooding and landslides in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal. Already, the calamity has taken over 400 lives, left some 40,000 homeless, with an economic cost yet to be tallied.
Weather forecasters and climate scientists, speaking to the Daily Maverick news outlet, are predicting a repeat of such events, potentially sooner than expected.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — When Patrick Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant, died at the hands of a police officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, his life was cut down by violence much like the home-grown executions Congolese have been facing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for years. Close to a thousand summary executions take place in the DRC each year.
Nigerian Gospel Singer Dead at 42
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwen
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — A good number of those I have spoken with since the news of her tragic death broke on April 8 night, said Nigerian gospel artiste, Osinachi Nwachukwu, 42, should not have died. She was such a tremendous gift to millions of people and inspired even millions more through her songs, yet she had not even reached the peak of her potential.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Fellowships to 180 exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form were announced on April 7 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Chosen from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2500 applicants, the successful applicants were chosen on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — While political leaders around the world jockey for comebacks, to extend their terms in office or merely to ignore a no-confidence vote, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was scheming to make sweeping changes to the constitution which, critics say, would have expanded his powers and create a ‘super presidency’.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Danielle Twum, a cancer immunologist from Ghana, West Africa, has been honoured in the United States with a life-size statue for her research contributions.
Twum was one of over a hundred women honoured by the Smithsonian during Women’s History Month. The Smithsonian’s “#IfThenSheCan—The Exhibit,” features 120 orange life-size 3D statues of women who have excelled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | MAPUTO (IDN) — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) returns with a set of new funded programmes to Mozambique, six years after the lender halted its previous deals in the wake of a financial scandal involving three fraudulent security-linked companies, and two banks—Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia, on the basis of illicit loan guarantees issued by the government under former President Armando Guebuza.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.