NIGERIA ROLLS OUT MALARIA VACCINATIONS TO YOUNG CHILDREN.

Nigeria has begun implementing a malaria vaccination programme in an effort to ease the world’s highest burden of the mosquito-borne disease which last year killed some 200,000 people.

The vaccination schedule targets young children, with the first dose administered at five months.

One of the first areas where the programme is being rolled out is the southern state of Bayelsa, which has one of the country’s highest rates of malaria.

Rebecca Godspower brought her six-month-old baby to a clinic for the vaccination after having twice treated him for malaria.

A view echoed by another mother, Esther Michael, who also visited the clinic.

NIGERIA SUFFERS POWER OUTAGE AFTER GRID FAILURE.

Nigeria suffered a widespread electricity blackout after its national grid collapsed.

The country’s power distribution companies said this.

Nigeria’s grid is prone to failure and has this year suffered partial or total collapse at least 10 times, mainly due to faults and vandalism at power installations.

Distribution companies across Nigeria, also known as Discos, said in separate statements that the grid had failed at around 1233 GMT and they hoped electricity would be restored soon.

Data from the Transmission Company of Nigeria showed electricity generation plunged from 3,087 megawatt before the grid collapse, to zero as of 1400 GMT.

MALI ARRESTS, NIGER SITE SEIZURE RATTLE WESTERN MINERS.

The arrest of mining executives in Mali, threats by Burkina Faso’s junta to strip permits and the seizure of a French-run uranium site in Niger have unsettled Western miners operating in West Africa and could limit further investments.

Day-to-day production in Mali and Burkina Faso has so far been largely unaffected.

The escalation is expected, however, to hit firms seeking finance and insurance – curbing supply growth in Africa’s engine of gold output, more than a dozen people, including mining employees, financiers, insurance providers and government

The push by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger’s military governments to renegotiate terms with mining companies and gain a bigger share of revenues has coincided with a surge in gold and uranium prices.

It has also followed a series of coups, starting with Mali in 2020, and the three countries’ shift towards Russia and away from their traditional backers France, the United States and the United Nations.

Moscow has strengthened its military and diplomatic presence in the region. There is no evidence yet Russian companies have positioned themselves to take over mining assets, but analysts said that could not be ruled out.

ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD FROM SIERRA LEONE SURVIVES THREE DAYS AT SEA.

An 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone was rescued overnight after three days at sea as the sole survivor of a shipwreck off Italy’s Lampedusa island.

Germany’s Compass Collective said crew on its vessel were en route to another emergency when they heard shouting from the water and picked up the girl around 3 a.m. wearing a life jacket and hanging on to a pair of tyre tubes.

She told them she had set off from the Tunisian city of Sfax in a metal boat carrying 45 people that sank in a storm.

Charity crew took care of the girl and took her to Lampedusa which is closer to North Africa than the rest of Italy and is often a first landing point for migrants.

After medical assistance, the girl was moved to a migrant holding centre where Italian Red Cross staff and volunteers were looking after her, the Red Cross said.

“In this festive period, in which the majority of us is lucky to be with their loved ones, my thoughts go out to the girl from Sierra Leone,” said Nicola Dell’Arciprete, head of U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in Italy.

SUDAN AGAIN TOPS INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE CRISES WATCHLIST.

Sudan for the second year in a row topped a 2025 watchlist of global humanitarian crises released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid organization, followed by Gaza and the West Bank, Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan.

The New York-based IRC began the watchlist more than 15 years ago as an internal planning tool to prepare for the year ahead, but chief executive David Miliband said it now also served as a call to action globally.

The report said 305.1 million people around the world are in humanitarian need – up from 77.9 million in 2015 – and that the 20 countries on the IRC watchlist account for 82% of them. Miliband described the numbers as “crushing.”

“There are more resources to do more good for more people than at any time in history. This makes it all the more bewildering that the gap between humanitarian need and humanitarian funding is also greater than ever,” he wrote in the watchlist report.

The report said the humanitarian crisis in Sudan was the largest since records began and that the country accounts for 10% of all people in humanitarian need, despite being home to just 1% of the global population.

War erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, and triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis.

The remaining 15 countries on the IRC watchlist are: Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria, Ukraine and Yemen.

ERDOGAN MEETS SOMALIA, ETHIOPIA LEADERS SEPARATELY AMID SOMALILAND DISPUTE.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held separate meetings with the leaders of Somalia and Ethiopia as part of his efforts to resolve a dispute between the two Horn of Africa neighbours at odds over the breakaway Somaliland region.

In two posts on X, the Turkish Presidency said Erdogan held bilateral meetings with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Ankara.

There were no other details about the contents of the meetings.

Abiy held a bilateral meeting with Erdogan and their respective delegations, Ethiopia’s Office of the Prime Minister confirmed.

Somalia’s national broadcaster SNTV reported Sheikh Mohamud and Erdogan held discussions on strengthening bilateral relations and paving the way for a third round of talks between Somalia and Ethiopia, mediated by Turkey, during their bilateral meeting.

Turkey has so far hosted two rounds of meetings between the East African neighbours in an attempt to repair their relations.

A third round of talks that had initially been set to take place in September were cancelled, underlining the tensions between the two countries.

Somalia and Ethiopia fell out earlier this year after the Ethiopians announced plans to build a port in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland, which has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991.

Landlocked Ethiopia, which has thousands of troops in Somalia to fight al Qaeda-linked insurgents, said it would officially recognise Somaliland’s independence in exchange for a strategic strip of land, near where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean.

ISRAELI STRIKES ON GAZA KILL 35 PALESTINIANS ON THURSDAY.

At least 35 Palestinians were killed early on Thursday in Israeli bombings of various areas in the Gaza Strip.

Children and women were among seven killed when a residential building in Gaza City’s al-Jalaa Street was bombed, WAFA said.

Another 15 were killed in the bombing of a house where displaced people were taking shelter, west of Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, the agency added.

In the western area of Rafah city, south of the Gaza Strip, 13 Palestinians were killed and others were injured, according to WAFA, in a strike that hit people providing aid.

Earlier, medics said at least 30 people were also wounded in the Rafah attack, with several in critical condition.

In the nearby city of Khan Younis, another group of men tasked with security for aid shipments was hit by a separate Israeli airstrike that wounded several of them, medics said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Armed gangs have repeatedly hijacked aid trucks shortly after they roll into the enclave, prompting the Islamist Hamas group to form a task force to confront them.

The Hamas-led forces have killed over two dozen members of the gangs in recent months, according to Hamas sources and medics.

On Wednesday, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the immediate release of all hostages.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war. The United States, Israel and seven other countries voted against the ceasefire resolution, while 13 countries abstained.

SYRIAN REBEL LEADER, AFTER ASSAD’S OUSTER, PUTS HIS OWN STAMP ON STATE.

Rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa’s Islamist group is stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys – raising concerns over how inclusive Damascus’ new rulers intend to be.

Since Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group swept Bashar al-Assad from power on Sunday at the head of a rebel alliance, its bureaucrats – who until last week were running an Islamist administration in a remote corner of Syria’s northwest – have moved into government headquarters in Damascus.

The appointment of Mohammed al-Bashir, the head of the regional government in HTS’ enclave of Idlib, as Syria’s new interim prime minister on Monday underlined the group’s status as the most powerful of the armed groups that battled for more than 13 years to end Assad’s iron-fisted rule.

Although it was part of al Qaeda before breaking ties in 2016, HTS had reassured tribal leaders, local officials, and ordinary Syrians during its march to Damascus that it would protect minority faiths, winning broad approval.

The message helped smooth the rebels advance and Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – has repeated it since Assad’s ouster.

US SAYS CHINA MILITARY ACTIVITY ELEVATED AROUND TAIWAN.

The de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan said on Thursday that Chinese military activity in the region is currently elevated but it did not see that wider activity as a response to President Lai Ching-te’s recent U.S. visit.

Lai, who China detests as a “separatist”, returned from a trip to the Pacific last Friday, during which he made what are officially transits in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam.

Taiwan’s defence ministry on Monday went on the alert after reporting a large rise in Chinese military activity, both around the island and more broadly in the East and South China Seas.

A spokesperson for the American Institute in Taiwan said it continued to monitor with concern Chinese military activity near Taiwan and in the region.

“Although the PRC has not announced a ‘Joint Sword’ military exercise in response to President Lai’s transit, PRC military activity is elevated in the region, consistent with levels we have seen during other large exercises,” it said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

China has held two round of war games around Taiwan so far this year, “Joint Sword-2024A” and “Joint Sword-2024B”, the last one being in October.

“The elevated activity in the East China Sea and South China Sea follows a broader increase in the PLA’s military posture and military exercises over the last several years. With that said, we do not see this wider activity as a response to President Lai’s transit,” it added.