Newscast - Africa

President Muhammadu Buhari, has unveiled Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s sponsored yearly intervention projects at the nation’s foremost military university, Nigeria Defence Academy, Nigerian Airforce Institute of Technology, Kaduna Polytechnic as well as Kaduna State University.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Defence, Senator Aliyu Wamakko, noted that the projects at NDA gulped over N685 million, AFIT over N604 million, KASU over N491 million, and Kaduna Polytechnic over N450 million for the 2020/2021 annual intervention and merged projects.
Senator Wamakko stressed the importance of education in the nation’s development, adding that inaugurating the projects, would in no small measure enhance teaching and learning in the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in Senegal, lauded the provision of $538.05m by the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development for the first phase of the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones for Nigeria programme.
He urged his counterparts to allocate at least 10 percent of their nations’ budgets to agriculture as agreed in the Malabo Declaration of the African Heads of State and Government.
Buhari says the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones for Nigeria, which is in the first phase will cover seven States in the Federation.

Iraq’s prime minister has replaced the governor of the country’s Central Bank following a weekslong plunge of the Iraqi dinar.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani made the move after Central Bank of Iraq Governor Mustafa Ghaleb Mukheef told him he no longer wishes to stay on the job.
Mukheef, who was in the post since 2020, was replaced by Muhsen al-Allaq, the agency added.
al-Sudani says that the successors for the key posts were known for their experience, their abilities and their integrity.

The United States has joined its allies in Europe in issuing fresh sanctions against Iranian officials and entities over Tehran’s crackdown on ongoing anti-government protests.
The US Treasury Department says that its sanctions, taken in coordination with the European Union and the United Kingdom, targeted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cooperative Foundation and five of its board members, as well as four senior IRGC commanders.
Iran’s Deputy Minister of Intelligence and Security Naser Rashedi was also blacklisted.

United States law enforcement says North Korean hackers were behind the theft of $100m worth of digital assets from a US crypto firm last year.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the North Korean hacking groups Lazarus Group and APT38 carried out the cyber heist on crypto firm Harmony last June.
Harmony, which has its headquarters in California, announced in June that hackers had stolen $100m in digital coins from Horizon bridge, a so-called blockchain bridge used to move cryptocurrencies between different blockchain networks.
The FBI, which previously issued an advisory about a malware campaign used in the heist dubbed “TraderTraitor”, says it had frozen some of the funds with the cooperation of some of the virtual asset service providers.

US President Joe Biden called for Congress to act quickly to ban assault weapons, as California reeled from two deadly mass shootings in less than 48 hours.
A group of senators reintroduced a federal Assault Weapons Ban and legislation that would raise the minimum purchase age for assault weapons to 21.
A suspected gunman was in custody Tuesday over the killing of seven people in a rural community in northern California, just two days after a mass shooting at a Lunar New Year celebration near Los Angeles.
A law banning assault rifles expired in 2004 and Congress has repeatedly failed to renew it even as the country endures repeated mass shootings.

The global nurses’ federation says Britain’s recruitment of nurses from poorer countries as a quick fix for its own underinvestment in the profession is a serious cause of concern.
The International Council of Nurses says wealthy countries recruiting nursing staff from some of the world’s most fragile health systems was extremely hard to justify and perhaps should be stopped entirely.
The ICN says seven or eight wealthy countries notably Britain, the United States, and Canada were driving around 80 percent of international nurse migration, to try to address their domestic shortages.
ICN chief executive Howard Catton cited talks between Britain and Ghana whereby London will pay Accra £1,000 per nurse recruited.
The ICN says international recruitment focused largely on experienced, specialised nurses, rather than the myth that only newly-qualified nurses were being targeted.

The US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, is visiting South Africa on the latest stage of a three-nation African tour aimed at boosting US influence.
The tour - which also included Senegal and Zambia - comes as Washington faces growing competition in the region with Russia and China.
South Africa has recently taken over the chair of the BRICS economic group - made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - which was set up as a counterweight to US global dominance.
While in South Africa, Ms. Yellen is expected to push President Cyril Ramaphosa to pursue plans for a gradual transition away from heavy reliance on coal to cleaner energy.

The European Union has allocated €102.5 million in humanitarian aid to help vulnerable communities in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, as the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate in the Lake Chad region.
The organization, says violence in the region, where the civilian population is increasingly the victim of targeted attacks, is resulting in large-scale displacement, disruption of livelihoods, and lack of access to basic services.
The total amount for 2023, it added, will be distributed as follows: Nigeria (€34 million), Niger (€25 million), Chad (€26.5 million), and Cameroon (€17 million).

The maximum lending rate in the banking sector hit 29.13 percent while savings deposit rates were 4.13 percent as of the end of December 2022.
The report from the Central Bank shows that the prime lending rate was 13.85 percent, while the interbank call rate was 12 percent.
The Treasury bill rate was 4.35 percent, the one-month deposit rate was 8.15 percent, three months deposit rate was 3.79 percent, six months deposit rate was 8.68 percent, while 12 months deposit rate was 8.22 percent.
The National Institute of Credit Administration stated in its report blueprint report for the growth, development, and sustainability of micro, small, and medium-size enterprise sector in Nigeria that there was a need to support businesses with single-digit loans as high-interest rates was affecting economic growth.