After days of uncertainties over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, the organisers of the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) Berlin has cancelled the event, which was to hold from 4-8 March. “With more than 10,000 exhibitors from over 180 countries ITB Berlin is extremely important for the world’s tourism industry. We take our responsibility for the health and safety of our visitors, …

Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, confirmed the country’s first case of coronavirus in a statement issued in the early hours of Friday, 28 February. It’s also the first case of the disease registered in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the statement, the case involves an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria and just returned from Milan, Italy on 25 …

The International Tourism Bourse (ITB) Berlin will hold from Wednesday to Sunday, 4 to 8 March, on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds ICC. ITB is the world’s leading travel trade show. Last year, the event attracted a total of 10,000 exhibitors from 181 countries and 160,000 visitors. Countries, cities and regions, tour operators, airlines, online booking portals and hotels, and many …

"After ten years of preparatory work by civil society, there will finally be a place at the end of the year where Berlin will be developed into a globally just city"

Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbé has won a fourth term in power, the national electoral commission declared on Monday. According to preliminary results, he received 72% of the vote, defeating six other candidates. Gnassingbé’s closest rival and main opposition leader, Agbéyomé Kodjo, clinched only 18% of the popular vote cast in the election. The final results are expected to be announced …

On 4 March 2020 in Brussels, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group will host the ECR-Africa Summit to discuss policy options about governance, participation of women, foreign direct investment and the digital economy to develop a stronger relationship between the EU and Africa. Guest speaker is the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo. The ECR’s co-chair Ryszard Legutko MEP, who …

Berlin Critics’ Week, an independent event about film criticism which yearly takes place during the Berlinale festival in Berlin, showed two films on Sunday (23 February). One of the films is The Lost Okoroshi, the second feature of Nigerian director Abba T. Makama, while the other is the Brazilian entry Seven Years in May by Affonso Uchôa. Set in the …

On 14 February 2020, the Council of Europe´s Education Department launched a toolkit aimed at integrating refugees as teaching staff or visiting experts into higher education institutions. The “CoLAB Toolkit” presents inclusive practices on how to best integrate refugees based on their competences and qualifications into the academic environment. The toolkit is based on the lessons learned from the project CoLAB implemented …

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) included 29 Nigerian English words in its January 2020 update. As the world’s foremost historical dictionary of English, the OED documents 600,000 words through 3.5 million illustrative quotations from over 1,000 years of history across the English-speaking world. Among the words, typically used by Nigerians, included in the latest edition of OED are Buka, Danfo, …

Kenyan Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong’o paid a short visit to Nigeria at the weekend to attend an event organised by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning Nigerian writer. The purpose of the event was for the Oscar-winning actress to intimate the Nigerian creative community with her screen-adaptation of Americanah, a novel by Adichie. HBO Max, a division of Warner Media Entertainment, …