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By Suleiman Ugbokhe The Executive Chairman of Etsako East Local Government Area, Hon. (Princess) Benedicta Ebuehi has congratulated His Excellency, Godwin Obaseki, the Executive Governor of Edo State on the "Extraordinary Personality Award" bestowed on him yesterday by Silverbird Group. Expressing her felicitation with His Excellency, Honourable Ebuehi described the award as "a call for rededication to the service of the people of Edo State to whom you have remained steadfast in providing dividends of democracy in areas of socioeconomic and educational infrastructures throughout the nooks and crannies of the state. "It is said that a golden fish has no hiding place. It is therefore not surprising that Silverbird Group, a frontrunner in media, and creativity development in Nigeria as well as an International Player in Global Razzmatazz activities for decades and still growing stronger, picks you out of a multitude as the 2019 "Extraordinary Personalit...

Image copyright SOCIÉTÉ SUISSE DE RADIODIFFUSION ET TÉLÉVISION Image caption Residents face evacuating the town of Mitholz for more than ten years A Swiss village may have to evacuate for over a decade while authorities clear a huge World War Two arms dump. The defence ministry concluded last year that the cache posed an "unacceptable" risk to the nearby people of Mitholz. Now, authorities say residents may have to leave while they clear the site. "Depending on how the work develops, residents should expect the evacuation to last up to more than 10 years," the ministry said. Residents would have to approve the plan to leave the area. A public consultation is under way to see how best to proceed. "People live there who have been rooted in the village for generations," Brigitte Rindlisbacher, chair of the Mitholz working group, reportedly said. "It hurts to see them in this situation." What is the arms dump? The depot partially expl...

Image copyright REUTERS Image caption Virus fears are only the latest in a string of troubles for Hong Kong Hong Kong will hand out cash to adult permanent residents, to help boost spending and ease financial burden. As part of the annual budget, $10,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,280; £985) was announced for about seven million people over the age of 18. The territory's economy has been battered by months of violent political unrest, and more recently suffered from the impact of the coronavirus. The city has had 81 confirmed cases of the virus and two deaths. "Hong Kong's economy is facing enormous challenges this year," Financial Secretary Paul Chan said on Wednesday. "After careful consideration, I have decided to disburse HK$10,000 to Hong Kong permanent residents aged 18 or above, with a view to encouraging and boosting local consumption on the one hand, and relieving people's financial burden on the other," Mr Chan said. The individual h...

Share Image copyright GETTY IMAGES Image caption A trafficked pangolin in Kuala Lumpur: the animal is a suspect in the outbreak The race is on to find out how the deadly coronavirus jumped from animals to humans. Helen Briggs looks at how scientists are trying to trace the source of the outbreak. Somewhere in China, a bat flits across the sky, leaving a trace of coronavirus in its droppings, which fall to the forest floor. A wild animal, possibly a pangolin snuffling for insects among the leaves, picks up the infection from the excrement. The novel virus circulates in wildlife. Eventually an infected animal is captured, and a person somehow catches the disease, then passes it on to workers at a wildlife market. A global outbreak is born. Scientists are attempting to prove the truth of this scenario as they work to find wild animals harbouring the virus. Finding the sequence of events is "a bit of a detective story", says Prof Andrew Cunningham of Zool...

Image copyright CCF Image caption Bun Sen, left, and Bun Chea last saw each other in 1973 Two Cambodian sisters - aged 98 and 101 - have been reunited for the first time in 47 years after each thinking the other had died during the Khmer Rouge's 1970s reign of terror. Bun Sen, 98, was also reunited with her 92-year-old brother, who she thought had passed away, a local NGO said. The two sisters last saw each other in 1973, two years before the Pol Pot-led communists took control of Cambodia. Around two million people are thought to have died under Khmer Rouge rule. Many families were broken up during this period, with children often removed from their parents as the regime sought to exert absolute control over the country. Image copyright GETTY IMAGES Image caption Pol Pot projected an image to the world of Cambodians thriving under his radical leadership Image copyright CCF Image caption Bun Sen was also reunited with her 92-year-old brother, left Bun S...