TheNewsGuru

Tag: Bi-lateral Relations

  • President Tinubu calls for home-grown solutions to Africa’s challenges

    President Tinubu calls for home-grown solutions to Africa’s challenges

    During his three-day official visit to Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu emphasized the need for African countries to develop home-grown solutions to their socio-economic and political challenges.

    Tinubu stressed the importance of closer collaboration and solidarity among African nations to address these issues.

     

    He also highlighted the need to address the exodus of skills and talents from Africa on a regular basis thus saying research and development should be encouraged and rewarded.

    He emphasized the need for African leaders to strengthen the continent, cultivate one another, and ensure peace on the continent.

     

    TheNewsGuru.com  reports that Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea signed an agreement on a Gulf of Guinea pipeline project, which is expected to open up new opportunities for gas exploration and employment between the two countries.

    The two leaders also discussed security challenges, the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), and food security.

     

    President Tinubu’s visit to the Central African country aimed to strengthen bilateral- relations between them and exploring opportunities for cooperation between Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea.

  • WAR: Russia strengthens relationship with North Korea

    WAR: Russia strengthens relationship with North Korea

    Amid its war with Ukraine,  Russia is seeking to strengthen its ties with the Asian country of North Korea.

    Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin made this known via a statement signed and released by him on Sunday in Moscow.

    In a letter sent to his counterpart Kim Jong-un on Pyongyang’s liberation day, Mr. Putin said the move would be in both countries interests.

    In his reaction, North Korean President, Kim said their relationship dates back to pre-World War years with victory over Japan.

    He added that their “comradely friendship” would grow stronger.

    North Korean Television, KCNA, reports that the expanded bilateral relations would “conform with the interests of the two countries”.

    It added that “strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity” between the two countries “had been put on a new high stage, in the common front for frustrating the hostile forces’ military threat and provocation”.

    Pyongyang did not identify the hostile forces by name, but the term has been used repeatedly by North Korea to refer to the US and its allies.

    The Soviet Union was once a major ally of North Korea, offering economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and aid.

    Meanwhile, the relationship between these two nations went sour the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) disintegrated into smaller units in 1989

    In July, North Korea was one of the few countries to officially recognize two Russian-backed separatist states in eastern Ukraine, after Russia signed a decree declaring them an independent.

    Meanwhile both leaders  Kim Jong Un and  Vladimir Putin met  on Thursday at a summit designed to show that Washington is not the only power able to set the agenda on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

    Putin and Kim, in their first ever face-to-face encounter, shook hands outside the summit venue, a university campus, then sat down in a conference room to exchange greetings in front of the television cameras

    However, Ukraine which is at war with Russia, in his retaliation, has cut off all diplomatic ties with Pyongyang in North Korea.

  • Spain, Morocco re-open land borders after two years of closure

    Spain, Morocco re-open land borders after two years of closure

    The North African country of Morocco and European nation of Spain have re-opened the land borders between the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, two years after they were closed down due to COVID -19 restriction and a diplomatic disagreement between the two nations.

    The enclaves on the Mediterranean coast in northern Morocco have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa.

    The gates opened shortly after 11:00 pm local time (2200 GMT) on Monday night, letting dozens of cars and queues of pedestrians pass in both directions.

    At the Fnideq border post, smiles lit up the faces of the travellers crossing to see their families on the Moroccan side.

    “I was stuck for two years in Ceuta, I’m very happy to be back home,” said Nourredine.

    “I am happy that Morocco and Spain have restored their relations, it allows us to see our families,” said one man in his sixties.

    Meanwhile the reopening of the borders of the two enclaves initially remains limited to residents of Europe’s open-borders Schengen area and their family members.

    It will be expanded to cross-border workers after May 31.

    The economies of the two sides recived a major boost due to large crossing of the people and their goods.

    The Ceuta and Melilla crossings were closed during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

    The borders became the focus of a major dispute last year, when Madrid allowed the leader of a Western Saharan independence movement to be treated for Covid-19 in a Spanish hospital.

    Ten thousand migrants surged across the Moroccan border into Ceuta as local border forces looked the other way, a move widely seen as a punitive gesture by Rabat.

    In March this year, Spain moved to end the diplomatic crisis with Morocco by changing its decades-long stance of neutrality and backing the kingdom’s autonomy plan for the Western Sahara, which Rabat insists must remain under its sovereignty.

    Recall that maritime travel between the two countries resumed on April 12, 2022 and process was on going to re-open land borders.