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“Year of Rabbit” celebration strengthens China, Nigeria ties

By Ochiaka Ugwu

There is no doubt that the celebration of Chinese Lunar New Year in Abuja has once again strengthened the People to People Contacts between the Nigeria people and its Chinese counterparts.

The event tagged the year of Rabbit which was observed Saturday at the China Cultural Centre in Abuja in a carnival like mood was particularly relevant for Chinese residents, who wish to maintain tradition and share their culture heritage with their Nigerian friends.

The gathering was one of the events hosted by the Chinese embassy to celebrate the Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival, which falls on Jan. 22 this year.

Speaking during the event, Nigeria’s Permanent Secretary of Information and Culture, Lydia Shehu Jafiya said that Nigeria and China share close affinities in cuisines, hospitality and in festivals.

She cited the New Yam Festival from the Eastern part of Nigeria as a typical example which he said led to rapid growth of deep fraternal cultural cord that was unequivocally incontestable.

Jafiya said she was proud of the outstanding cultural ties existing between our dear nations which has flourished nonstop for over three (3) decades with memorable milestones in all spheres of human development and infrastructures for mutual benefits and economic prosperity.

“The Nigeria/China cultural cooperation has always been on the upward swing from inception, soaring with an enviable symbolic partnership for wider scope of cultural exchanges/activities which was recently demonstrated by the China’s donation of desktop computers to the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.

“This, I witness within few days of my assumption into office as the Permanent Secretary and I assure you that the Ministry remains committed to sustain this excellent momentum” she said.

The celebration reached its climax with a dragon dance -- a traditional Chinese dance performed to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck. The long, sinuous dragon twisted and turned through a long red carpet, mesmerizing onlookers with its graceful movements. The dragon, made of colorful silk and paper, was carried by a group of Nigerian dancers who moved to the beat of drums and cymbals.

Also speaking, China Ambassador to Nigeria, CUI Jianchun, noted that people-topeople exchanges between the two countries had bridged cultural differences and fostered a sense of community and harmony among peoples.

Some Nigerians performing the traditional China Dragon Dance during the event

California battles deadly storms with millions under flood watch

Around 25 million people in California are under a flood watch this weekend as the latest in a parade of deadly storms drenches the state.

Several waterways have flooded, at least 19 people have died and thousands have been told to evacuate their homes.

In Montecito, a town 84 miles (135km) north-west of Los Angeles, locals say the rain aggravates their trauma.

A mudslide here killed 23 people in 2018 and many are afraid it could happen again.

Rita Bourbon credits Italian stone masons with saving her life. The craftsmen built her home more than a century ago and she says it’s like a fortress.

She survived the storm five years ago, crying inside with her daughter and some friends as they listened to the sound of boulders and other houses ripped from their foundations crashing into her home.

The next day, the neighbourhood up the coast from Los Angeles was wrecked and almost two dozen were dead, including her neighbour whom she found in her garden in the mud.

“It’s a sound I used to love,” she says of the creek burbling in her garden, which is now bursting with ripe citrus and persimmon trees, as a blue heron drinks from her muddy pool.

“Now I know what it can do. We all have a bit of PTSD.”

Montecito creek became a violent, raging flow again this past week, prompting fire officials to issue a “Leave Now!” warning to the entire community, which includes some of California’s most famous residents such as Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The evacuation order in Montecito has been lifted, but residents remain on edge. And with so much of the land already saturated, the risk of flooding and landslides is very real.

Abe Powell is the co-founder of the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade, formed in 2018 to mobilise volunteers to clean up after the deadly mudslide.

This week, Powell led volunteers around the community, filling sandbags and digging trenches. He took us on a perilous drive up a narrow mountain road where giant boulders and mud blocked access to some homes.

“We don’t want to hang around here,” he said, looking at the fresh boulders.

Film producer Steve McGlothen is one of the volunteers. He has lived in the area for half a century and in his cliff top home for 27 years.

Helping others, he said, takes his mind off the problems at his own property and the despair he feels as the rain keeps falling. Plastic sheets cover the hillside, which slid away for the first time this week - an attempt to stop this latest deluge from making the slide worse.

“We’re looking at earth that has never moved,” he said. “Close to 50 years - this has never moved. It’s never been a problem before.”

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, joined the volunteers filling sandbags in Santa Barbara. He says the area is a “hot spot” he’s concerned about in the coming days.

“We’ve experienced some 24 trillion gallons of water falling on this state in the last 16 days in the middle of a mega drought,” Governor Newsom told the BBC. He says California needs to reimagine the way it manages water, because the infrastructure here was built for a time which no longer exists.

Californians are used to extreme weather - wildfires, drought and the threat of earthquakes, with many awaiting the “Big One” that so many experts predict. But the “storm parade” pummelling California is new.

At least 19 people have died in these storms, which began in late December. A five-year-old boy is still missing after he was ripped from his mother’s arms in fast-moving flood water in central California, when they got trapped while driving to school.

Nepal mourns victims of worst air disaster in decades

Nepalis are observing a day of mourning for victims of the country’s worst air disaster for some three decades.

At least 68 people died when a flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara crashed on landing and caught fire on Sunday morning.

Mobile phone footage showed the Yeti Airlines flight rolling sharply as it approached the airport.

It is unclear what caused the crash, but Nepal has a tragic history of fatal airline accidents.

A search and rescue operation that involved hundreds of Nepalese soldiers was suspended overnight due to darkness but is due to resume on Monday morning.

Earlier, local TV reports showed rescuers scrambling around charred sections of the aircraft which hit the ground in the gorge of the Seti River, just over a kilometre from the airport.

Most of the 72 passengers and crew died, but there were unconfirmed reports that several people had survived, although critically injured.

The prime minister of Nepal declared Monday a national day of mourning, and the government set up a panel to investigate the cause of the disaster.

Local resident Divya Dhakal told the BBC how she rushed to the crash site after seeing the aircraft plunge from the sky shortly after 11:00am local time (05:15 GMT).

“By the time I was there the crash site was already crowded. There was huge smoke coming from the flames of the plane. And then helicopters came over in no time,” she said.

“The pilot tried his best to not hit civilisation or any home,” she added. “There was a small space right beside the Seti River and the flight hit the ground in that small space.”

Aviation accidents are not uncommon in Nepal, often due to its remote runways and sudden weather changes that can make for hazardous conditions.

This Himalayan nation, home to some of the most breath-taking mountains in the world, has some of the most difficult terrain to navigate.

A lack of investment in new aircraft and poor regulation have also been blamed in the past.

In May 2022 a Tara Air plane crashed in northern Nepal, killing 22 people. Four years earlier 51 people were killed when a flight travelling from Bangladesh caught fire as it landed in Kathmandu.

The European Union has banned Nepalese airlines from its airspace over concerns about training and maintenance standards.

The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara left the Nepalese capital just after 10:30 (04:45 GMT) for what should have been a short trip.

It had 68 passengers on board, including at least 15 foreign nationals, and four crew members.

Of the passengers, 53 were said to be Nepalese. There were five Indian, four Russians and two Koreans on the plane. There was also one passenger each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France among others. Source: BBC