World News

The United States has pledged an additional $100 million to assist Pakistan’s recovery from devastating 2022 floods, bringing total U.S. assistance to over $200 million since August.

In 2022, heavy monsoon rains caused flooding and landslides in Pakistan, killing around 1,700 people and injuring tens of thousands of others. An estimated 33 million people were affected, and hundreds of thousands remain displaced. Cropland was destroyed and sanitation systems were damaged.

New metro line operated with Chinese-made automated driverless trains, capable of speed of up to 74.5 miles (120 kilometers) per hour with daily capacity of 800,000 passengers, now connects central Istanbul and Turkey’s capital’s new international airport. The fully-automated, driverless trains were built by Chinese company CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co., Ltd., which signed a purchase and commissioning contract with Türkiye’s Directorate-General of Infrastructure Investments back in January 2020.

A hotel with a heart is the promise of Wonil Hotel Perth in Australia. It’s a new Handwritten Collection hotel set to open at the Forrest Hall Precinct in early February.

Wonil is the Noongar name for the peppermint tree and the new hotel is located on the banks of the Swan River surrounded by peppermint trees, adjacent to The University of Western Australia.

Jamaica Prime Minister, Most Hon. Andrew Holness, will make the headline address at the Global Tourism Resilience Conference.

This conference is being held from February 15-17, 2023, at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica.

Open-source technologies have revolutionised the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) industry in India, driving digital transformation and modernisation across the sector.

One key factor driving this transformation is the widespread adoption of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a digital payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

The Gambia's Vice-President Badara Alieu Joof has died in India, President Adama Barrow has announced.

The vice-president died after a short illness, although Mr Barrow did not mention whether he was receiving treatment in India. Mr Joof was not seen in public for months, it was reported from the capital, Banjul.

With a company which looks after Usain Bolt's investments is under investigation, the burning question that was being raised remained; “who stole his millions?”  After reports that the multi-Olympics winning legend may have lost millions of dollars to fraud, officials in his Jamaica homeland launched a major investigation after the sprint star said $12.7 million which he deposited into a brokerage account read $12,000 instead.

The Guam Visitors Bureau (GVB) marked an important milestone in the shared history of Taiwan and Guam in celebrating the 50th anniversary of a significant sister city agreement.

Guam signed the sister city agreement with Taipei City on January 12, 1973, by the island’s first elected Governor, Carlos Camacho, and then Taipei Mayor, Chang Feng-hsu. Overall, this is the third sister city agreement signed between Taipei City and the United States.

Lisa Marie Presley will be buried near her father and late son at the family's Tennessee estate, Graceland, according to a family representative. The singer, who died after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest in her home, was the only child of the "King of Rock 'n' Roll", Elvis Presley.

"Lisa Marie's final resting place will be at Graceland, next to her beloved son, Ben," a representative for her daughter said. Presley's son, Benjamin Keough, took his own life in August 2020 aged 27.

US senators are demanding answers from Southwest Airlines for the holiday meltdown of cancelled flights that occurred over the holidays.

“The mass flight cancellations at Southwest Airlines during the last week of December ruined the holidays for tens of thousands of travellers, stranding them at gates without their bags and forcing them to miss celebrations with families and friends,” wrote the senators.

The US Government lifted entry screening and public health monitoring of travelers to the US who have been in Uganda in the prior 21 days.

This came following The World Health Organization announcement on January 11, 2023, that declared Uganda free from Ebola after 42 consecutive days of no new infections since the last case was recorded.

Reem Hamdan was one of few female electrical engineers when she started her career as a trainee in 1993 with the Electricity Distribution Company (EDCO) in Jordan. Today Hamdan is EDCO’s director general.

She credits that advancement to hard work and Engendering Industries, a U.S.-backed program aimed at increasing the number of women in male-dominated fields.

The best way to stave off the worst effects of climate change is to reduce CO2 emissions around the world. And one way to do that, says Zhongwei Chen, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, is to capture the CO2 and convert it into other useful chemicals, such as methanol and methane for fuels.

Stopping emissions at the source, and further reducing future ones by replacing CO2-producing fuels with cleaner ones “…is a way to close the circle,” Chen says.

A rule banning unmarried Nigerian police officers from getting pregnant and ensured their sacking if they did, has been scrapped. In a landmark case, a judge ruled the regulation was discriminatory as it did not apply to male officers who got co-workers pregnant.

The case was brought by a corporal who was sacked in 2021 after getting pregnant. The woman was awarded 5m naira (£9,100) in compensation.

Peter Pottinga has been appointed as the General Manager of the soon to open InterContinental Chiang Mai Mae Ping hotel. A well-respected hospitality veteran, he will oversee all aspects of the hotel’s pre-opening and opening phases.

A native of Holland, Pottinga began his career in hospitality in 1997 with Des Indes InterContinental, The Hague, and the InterContinental New Orleans working his way up from Night Manager to Rooms Division Manager.

Jamaica Tourism Minister is urging players in the private sector to invest in the highly successful Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Festival.

This as Hon. Minister Edmund Bartlett revealed that the Jamaica Tourism Ministry is seeking to hand-over the event, which is the Caribbean’s only coffee festival, to private sector entrepreneurs within the next two years.