Reps to investigate Onitsha fire outbreak

On May 5, 1992, on the French island of Corsica, local football club Bastia were hosting Marseille for a French Cup semi-final. But what should have been a day of celebration turned into a nightmare. Less than 10 minutes before the start of the match, the top of the temporary metal stand that had been installed to double the Furiani stadium's capacity collapsed.

Nigeria is suffering its worst flooding in a decade largely because of heavy rain and climate change. Properties worth millions have been lost with hundreds injured. GuardianTV speaks to a resident of Bayelsa, one of the many states badly hit by the flood, and here is how she narrated the current state of things in the South-South state.

US President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in storm-battered California as more bad weather is expected. Extreme storms have battered the West Coast state for weeks.

Public anger is growing after a Tokyo court ruled that despite seismologists' warnings, TEPCO officials could not have anticipated the powerful earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.

The government will remove regulatory hurdles to invest in new electricity infrastructure. Loadshedding has almost brought South Africa's economic growth to a standstill.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a national "state of disaster" over the country's rolling power shortages. Energy provider Eskom says its ageing coal-fired power plants cannot keep up with demand and it's been imposing scheduled cuts. The blackouts are weighing on business activity and South Africa's economic growth.

"When is our suffering going to end?" is a common sentiment among Syrians after years of war, hunger, and now a devastating earthquake which hit the region a week ago. Deputy head of Oxfam’s mission in Syria spoke to FRANCE24, agreeing with the UN’s aid chief on the feelings of abandonment plaguing Syrians.

There is much sympathy in Iran for earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, but the disaster has also stoked fears. Iranian authorities seem to have learned little from similar past catastrophes in their country.

Thousands of illegal gold miners are accused of destroying the lives of the indigenous Yanomami people, who have lived for centuries in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. Miners have flooded into the area, poisoning rivers, attacking people and even raping women and girls.

The stampede in October 2022 during a soccer match left 135 people dead, with over 40 children among the victims. Both officials were found guilty of negligence.

South Africa rolls back a state of disaster over a national power crisis, even though rolling blackouts are still crippling the country's economy. Also, the WTO says goods exports are declining in Africa even though the continent has absorbed the shocks from Covid and the war in Ukraine better than expected. Finally, we report on how Tunisia takes pride in its varied use of orange blossom.

A divided U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling on Wednesday, with majority support from both Democrats and Republicans to overcome opposition led by hardline conservatives and avoid a catastrophic default.