Foreign News
Ghanaian Lawmaker Seeks ECOWAS Legislation to End Female Genital Mutilation, Child Marriage
Hon. Laadi Ayamba, a member of the ECOWAS Parliament from Ghana has urged countries of the sub-regional bloc to adopt and implement a law that will end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.
Ayamba made the call while speaking with newsmen on the sideline of the ongoing ECOWAS Parliament delocalised meeting in Monrovia, the Liberian capital on Thursday.
According to her, female genital mutilation and child marriage are some of the oldest cultural practices that violate the right of the girl-child.
She said though Ghana had already criminalised the mutilation of the female genital, some parents still took their children to neighbouring countries to get the procedure done.
She said the trend could be stopped if all ECOWAS member states were to agree to make the practice a punishable offense under their national laws.
“My constituency is one of the places where the prevalence rate of female genital mutilation is highest. And after the President brought in the issue of imprisonment for anyone found culpable, those who practiced it started crossing the borders again to neighbouring countries.
“They go to countries such as Burkina Faso and Togo to do this thing. When you realise that the girl concerned is not around, you investigate. And when you discover that such person has been sent to a certain place for her genitals to be mutilated, you make a report.
“There is no particular tribe that has been able to come out and tell us that there is economic sense in what they were doing or that there are benefits a girl stands to gain.
“The only thing we come to hear is that they are doing it for the girl-child to be preserved for her to-be husband and to show that she is brave.
“I am saying that we should ensure that we do a regional or a cross country linkage to make sure that if in Ghana there is a law against the practice, in Togo it should be the same and in Burkina Faso too.
“All ECOWAS countries should have the same laws against female genital mutilation so that if you are arrested in Ghana, you can still be arrested in any of the other countries in the sub-region for breaching the same law.
“It is when we are able to do this that as a region, we can end female genital mutilation with one voice,” Ayamba said.
She said the time had come for ECOWAS to embark on an awareness campaign to communities to sensitise parents to the dangers of female genital mutilation and child marriage.
Ayamba also called for a law to stop child marriage, which she identified as another impediment to the development and empowerment of the girl-child.
Foreign News
Russian Army Fires Ballistic Missiles at Kiev from Crimean Peninsula
The Russian Army has hit the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, with ballistic missiles, injuring four people and damaging an uninhabited three-storey building, according to officials.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that two of the injured people were in a central neighbourhood and had been taken to hospital.
Rocket debris also fell in two other neighbourhoods.
According to the Ukrainian air force, two ballistic missiles were fired at the city of millions, from the Russian-controlled Crimea Peninsula.
Both were shot down.Half a dozen explosions from anti-aircraft missiles had previously been heard in the city centre.
The air raid warning was only triggered a few seconds beforehand, it said.
Ukraine has been facing Russian invasion for over two years.
Since then, the Ukrainian air defence system has been massively reinforced with Western systems. (dpa/NAN)
Foreign News
Cambodia Arrests 2 Foreigners for Smuggling 2.27 kg Narcotics
Cambodian customs police at the Phnom Penh International Airport said they have arrested two South Korean nationals for an attempt to smuggle 2.27 kg narcotics to South Korea.
The duo, a man and woman, were caught Sunday night while they checked in for a ZA215 flight bound for Seoul.
The General Department of Customs and Excise of Cambodia said in a news release on Monday.
In their body searches, our customs officials found many packs of drugs wrapped around their waists, the news release said.
“As a result, some 1.29 kg of crystal methamphetamine and 0.98 kg of ketamine were seized from the two suspects’ possession.’’
The Southeast Asian country has no death sentence for a drug trafficker.
Under its law, someone found guilty of trafficking more than 80 grammes of illicit drugs could be jailed for life.
According to the country’s Anti-Drug Department (ADP), Cambodia nabbed 3,899 drug-related suspects, including 106 foreigners, in 1,659 cases from Jan. 1 to March 3, 2024.
According to the report they confiscated a total of 2.79 tonnes of narcotics.
Most of the seized drugs were ketamine, crystal methamphetamine, methamphetamine tablets, heroin, ecstasy, and cocaine. (Xinhua/NAN)
Foreign News
February Ends with Extreme Heat – WMO
The UN weather agency, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), says February saw more extreme heat and unusually high temperatures in both hemispheres.
Summarising the state of the climate, it said the month ended with extreme heat in the southern hemisphere where it is summer, while high temperatures atypical of the northern hemisphere winter prevailed.
Parts of North and South America, northwest and southeast Africa, southeast and far eastern Asia, western Australia and Europe all saw record-breaking temperatures, either on a daily basis or for all of February.
“The anomalous heat is consistent with the persisting warming observed since June 2023, with seven consecutive new global monthly temperature records, including January 2024,” Alvaro Silva, a climatologist working with the WMO, said in a statement.
Global sea surface temperatures were record high. While the El Niño weather pattern “has stoked temperatures in some parts of the world, human induced climate change is the long-term major contributing factor,” he added.
Conversely, a large part of northwestern Canada, central Asia – and from southern central Siberia to southeastern China – witnessed exceptional cold during the last week of the month.
The meteorological winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern hemisphere finished officially at the end of February.
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) raised increasing concern on Friday that more refugees would cross into Chad from Darfur in the coming weeks amid a worrying lack of food and other essentials.
Almost a year since the start of the civil war between rival militaries in Sudan, neighbouring Chad urgently needs more humanitarian aid and significant development investment, the agency reported, especially in its eastern areas which are hosting the refugee influx.
This investment will allow the country to continue its generous open-door stance towards refugees.
“Chadian officials are concerned that many more hungry Sudanese families will come in the next weeks,” said Kelly Clements, UNHCR’s Deputy High Commissioner, who is in the country to review the relief operation.
“The country is committed to keeping its borders open, despite the fragility of this region.
“But, doing so will put even more strain on Chad, which has so graciously been hosting refugees from Sudan’s war – now raging almost a year – and other refugees still here from earlier emergencies.” (NAN)