ADDIS ABABA: More than eight million Ethiopian people are in dire need of food aid owing to violence that has triggered mass displacement compounded by the persistent effects of past droughts, officials said.
The crisis has prompted an Ethiopian government to make an appeal for $1.3 billion to provide emergency food and non-food assistance for its 8.3 million people.
The droughts induced by climate change has hit the country already devastated by chronic civil war.
Around 3 million people remain displaced in the Horn of Africa country of 100 million, according to the United Nations, largely due to a spate of ethnic clashes, mostly in the southwest and east, since last year.
The outburst of violence has overshadowed reforms initiated in late 2017 with mass releases of political prisoners that were intended to reduce tensions triggered by anti-government protests in 2015.
Some 7.9 million people were in need of food assistance in 2018 and 5.6 million the year before, requiring over $3 billion in humanitarian aid.
LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May is meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron today to ask for a Brexit delay, media reports said.
Her ministers in London hold talks with the opposition lawmakers to try to break the deadlock.
UK’s departure from the EU has been delayed once. However, PM Theresa is asking for yet more time.
May will travel to Berlin and Paris ahead of an emergency EU summit in Brussels on Wednesday, British lawmakers will hold a debate on Theresa’s proposal to delay Britain’s EU departure date to June 30. (Agencies)
NEW DELHI: Indian Congress President Rahul Gandhi criticized the BJP manifesto of being short-sighted and arrogant, Indian media reported.
He slammed it of not being representative of the people.
Top brass of the BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, among others unveiled the party manifesto named ‘Sankalp Patra’ in New Delhi on April 8.
The opposition Congress had unveiled its manifesto named ‘Congress Will Deliver’ on April 2.
Rahul said the Congress manifesto was ‘created through discussion’, and alleged the BJP manifesto of being created in a closed room. (Agencies)
KATHMANDU: With the general elections just around the corner, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India has unveiled its election manifesto with commitment for good governance, national security, and prosperity for the next rule.
The election manifesto was unveiled amid a special program in the Indian capital New Delhi on Monday for 17th Lok Sabha election which is beginning from April 11.
BJP, in the manifesto, expressed commitment to recognize 11 Nepali speaking communities of Darjeeling and Sikkim as indigenous nationalities in an effort to take them into confidence.
BJP had made similar commitments in the general elections of 2014, too.
FLORIDA: Scientists have caught a female python in Florida Everglades that was more than 17 feet long, weighed 140 pounds and contained 73 developing eggs.
The snake is the largest python ever removed from Big Cypress National Preserve, a 729,000-acre expanse of swampland west of Miami in South Florida, according to a statement.
Facebook statement on the Big Cypress National Preserve’s says, “using male pythons with radio transmitters allows the team to track the male to locate breeding females. The team not only removes the invasive snakes, but collects data for research, develop new removal tools, and learn how the pythons are using the Preserve.
The team tracked one of the sentinel males with the transmitter and found this massive female nearby.”
KUALA LUMPUR: Police said that they found 37 people believed to be Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar on a beach in northern Malaysia, international media reported on Monday.
According to the report, the finding has filled authorities with fear as they believe it could be a new wave of people smuggling by sea.
In recent months, dozens of Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh have boarded boats to reach Malaysia.
There was a sharp decline in arrivals after a 2015 crackdown on trafficking. Last month, 35 migrants were found on Sungai Belati beach in the northern state of Perlis.
On Monday, 37 men were detained around the town of Simpang Empat after landing at the same beach in the early morning . (Agencies)
KATHMANDU: The US-China trade dispute is pushing American multinational companies to relocate their factories and adjust business strategies for their supply chains in the next 12 months, according to a survey by Bain and Company.
“The shift is happening,” said Gerry Mattios, vice president at consulting firm, Bain. “Back at (the) end of 2018, when we ran a similar report, we found out a lot of companies — over 50 percent — were actually sitting on the fence … there were no major actions taken,” Mattios told.
But now, 60 percent of the respondents said they are ready to take action, as they see headwinds on their balance sheets, he added. “They see customers having to pay part of it, and they are trying to see how to reassess their supply chains.”
A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute the firm’s products. Even though China has had a significant cost advantage that propelled the country to its leading position as the world’s manufacturing hub, that advantage is eroding as costs rise, Mattios said.
The survey polled more than 200 high-level executives and senior supply chain officers at U.S. multinationals with operations in China, and sought to gauge their perspectives on the ongoing trade dispute. However, some manufacturing will still remain in China as the country moves toward being a consumption-driven economy, he said. Items that would’ve been exported will see some assembly lines move to Southeast Asia said.
Still, he added, “we don’t think Southeast Asia will become the factory of the world in the way China did two decades ago.”
KUALA LUMPUR: Two Nepali people have died in a road accident in Malaysia.
The deceased are identified as Ramu Chaudhary of Bardiya and Jaganath Singh Tharu of Sarlahi, confirmed Nepali Embassy in Malaysia.
The accident took place when a vehicle carrying staffers of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport met with an accident at Sepasang on Sunday night.
Aside from two Nepali nationals, other 11 migrant workers including Bengali, Indonesian nationals died in the accident.
A total of 43 people were traveling in the ill-fated vehicle, the Embassy said quoting local police.
WASHINGTON: Amid President Donald Trump’s growing frustration and bitterness over the number of Central American families crossing the southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned.
Trump announced on Sunday in a tweet that US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would take over as acting head of the department.
McAleenan is a longtime border official who is well-respected by members of Congress and within the administration. The decision to appoint a top immigration officer to the post reflects Trump’s priority for the sprawling department founded to combat terrorism following the Sept 11 attacks. (Agencies)
SEOUL: Hyundai Motor Co has denied a report of signing a preliminary deal with Chinese technology firm Tencent Holdings to develop software for driverless vehicles.
Hyundai’s comments come a day after medias saying that the two companies planned to conduct joint research and development on safety and security systems for self-driving cars, which Hyundai seeks to roll out commercially by 2030.
Hyundai said in a statement on Sunday that its cooperation with the Chinese tech giant was focused on infotainment. Modern cars have so-called infotainment systems on a screen below the dashboard to provide services such as navigation and music.
(Agencies)