Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the continent’s leading provider of infrastructure financing solutions, is to provide a $250 million Sharia-law compliant trade loan facility to the Government of Egypt in partnership with the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), a member of the Islamic Development Bank Group. The proceeds from the loan will contribute to addressing Egypt’s immediate priorities and boost economic resilience by financing the purchase of critical petroleum products and agricultural commodities, essential pillars of Egypt’s economic infrastructure. The trade loan facility, meticulously structured in accordance with Sharia principles, represents a dynamic response to the evolving economic landscape in Africa. AFC had recently also supported the JPY 75 billion 5 year Samurai bond issued by the Government of Egypt as a re-guarantor. AFC has 42 member countries and has invested US$12.7 billion across Africa since inception.

Famine in Ethiopia: Amhara and Tigray (Drone Strikes)Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay WalkerModern Tokyo TimesLocal authorities in Tigray confirm that over 200 hundred people have died from starvation in the town of Edaga Arbi. AMHARA – ETHIOPIA AND DRONE STRIKESEven with famine stalking parts of Amhara and Tigray, central Ethiopian armed forces have used artillery and drone strikes against Fano and Amhara militias. These drone strikes have even hit schools. In recent months, artillery and drone strikes have killed the Amhara. Modern Tokyo News is part of the Modern Tokyo Times grouphttp://moderntokyotimes.com Modern Tokyo Times – International News and Japan Newshttp://sawakoart.com – Sawako Utsumi and Modern Tokyo Times artisthttps://moderntokyonews.com Modern Tokyo News – Tokyo News and International NewsPLEASE JOIN ON TWITTERhttps://twitter.com/MTT_News Modern Tokyo TimesPLEASE JOIN ON FACEBOOKhttps://www.facebook.com/moderntokyotimes

By Izzy Hawksworth via SWNSPassers-by were forced to do a double take after spotting a mallard duck swimming on a pond - with a baby's pacifier in its beak. Photographs taken of the bizarre scene show the show ducks playing with the pacifier before one mallard picks it up with its beak. Andrew also witnessed the ducks fight each other for the pacifier before the animals realized it was actually inedible. The retired aircraft fitter said: "The duck was swimming about with it, dropped it and then another duck picked it up. "As soon as the duck realized it wasn't food, it dropped the dummy again.

These and more indelible moments appear on the Television Academy’s new list of the 75 most impactful moments in TV history, spanning introductions, endings and history-making events. MTV premieres with its first music video – “Video Killed the Radio Star,” 198113. “All in the Family” – viewers meet the working-class Bunker family, 197135. 8.” M*A*S*H” series finale, 198326. But these classic TV moments that stirred audiences when they first aired are still resonant and frequently referenced in contemporary culture.

Livermore, CA (94550)TodayCloudy with occasional rain...mainly this evening. Winds light and variable. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..TonightCloudy with occasional rain...mainly this evening. Winds light and variable. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.

"It has not recovered from the war - the horrible asset-stripping and destruction, the mass displacement, from the failure to pay salaries, from the destruction of employment. And on top of that there has been a terrible drought," he told BBC Newsday.

The drone attack took place on Friday, January 12, near a school compound in Alem Ketema, the capital of the district of Merhabetie, according to residents and the school administration. The strike took place at around 1 p.m. near the entrance to Arbegnoch Comprehensive High School, the school’s principal, Ashagre Abebe told the BBC. The principal added that the students of the school, shocked by the drone attack that occurred on Friday, chose not to return to school on Monday. According to residents, two Fano members were reportedly killed in this drone attack, and at least four civilians on the street were injured. The second-shift students were in school at the time of the attack, and it triggered an all-out panic, the principal reported.

Fears of a regional escalation have spiked, with Iran and its proxies stepping up attacks across the region in solidarity with Hamas. In their unprecedented October 7 attacks that triggered the war, Hamas militants dragged about 250 hostages back to Gaza, 132 of whom Israel says remain there, including at least 27 believed to have been killed. Qatar's foreign ministry announced Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group had agreed to deliver medicines to Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for supplying aid to civilians, following French and Qatari mediation. - Hostage deaths announced -Israel has concentrated operations on Khan Yunis since announcing on January 6 that it had dismantled Hamas's military structures in the north. An Israeli kibbutz on Tuesday confirmed that two hostages whose deaths were announced by Hamas in a video had been "murdered" in Gaza.

A bomber fleeing police blew himself up at a busy cafe in central Mogadishu on Tuesday, killing at least five people and injuring seven others, police and witnesses confirmed. ReutersThe coastal capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, enjoyed a long peaceful spell before Tuesday’s explosion, which was heard many kilometres from the scene. Ethiopia and Somalia share a long land border and Ethiopian forces are in Somalia as part of African Union peacekeeping. Addis Ababa has just announced it will not attend a regional mediation meeting scheduled for Thursday in Kampala, Uganda. Somalia had called the meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, of which both countries are members.

These explosive remnants of war (ERW) imperil safety, threaten livelihoods, and hinders the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) of former combatants. To address this issue, the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia’s Office of Security Cooperation and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) launched a historic collaboration with the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and the Ethiopian Mine Action Office (EMAO) January 15. The primary objective of this exercise was to formulate a series of requirements for the EMAO, aligning them with available DoD and DoS resources. A subsequent delivery of equipment, training, and additional resources will take place within the next six months. To learn more about the #Ethiopia_US120Years of partnership visit: U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia and follow U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa | Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Later, as an adult, I was the head of a single-parent household, raising my daughter who was born in 2000. Charting the household finances of single-parent households across decades underscores these changes. Where single-parent households can still gain groundThe share of single-parent households that save money actually fell over the 30-year period examined, from 45% to 41%. The average finances of single-parent households have improved over the years, but individual household finances can hit setbacks along the long-term climb. The article 30 Years of Change in Single-Parent Household Finances originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Beset by economic woes and worried by new disagreements with Somalia, Ethiopia's first days as a newly minted member of BRICS were anything but easy. "But Ethiopia will also significantly improve its relations with new partners, such as the BRICS countries, whose economies are growing quickly." Addis Ababa put the costs of reconstruction at $20 billion (€18 billion). Germany did not follow suit and continued to support Addis Ababa, which was greatly appreciated by Ethiopia. Financial support from BRICSOne of the founding ideas of the BRICS was to counter Western dominance in international financial policy.

By Dr. Suleiman WalhadThe Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, has been in power for now nearly five years. The idea was originally seen as a way of appeasing the population of his country, which are turning against him, but Abiy Ahmed seems to be adamant. The world was, indeed, perplexed by the sudden turn of events in the Horn of Africa at the hands of the Nobel Laureate Prime Minister and they have mostly come to the aid and support of Somalia. Somalia, of course, and also the other neighbors in the Horn of Africa are perplexed at the moves of Abiy Ahmed, who seems to have lost his radar. The Somali war, the fourth of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, appears to be coming, unless some miracle gets in the way, and it is where the Prime Minister will stumble and fall, and Ethiopia will start to crumble.

A former Israel Defense Forces officer is determined to enrich the diet of the combat soldiers he once trained by revolutionizing the recipe for traditional Ethiopian flatbread he ate at home growing up. Upon leaving the army, he decided to start making the traditional Ethiopian food he had eaten at home as a child. “I grew up in an Ethiopian home and I wanted to eat Ethiopian food,” says Ishta, who arrived in Israel with his family at the age of three. An Ethiopian woman preparing injera in the traditional way (Depositphotos)The restaurateur also told Ishta that the local Ethiopian and Eritrean communities made their own traditional meals at home and his client base was actually Asian and European diners. Teff flour is mixed with water and fermented for three days in the traditional injera recipe (Depositphotos)The formula is the company’s “industrial secret,” Ishta says.

British oil giant Shell has paused transit through the key Red Sea shipping route indefinitely, over fears of escalating tensions involving Yemen's Huthi rebels, according to a media report Tuesday. Shell decided to suspend transit last week, considering worries that a successful attack could cause a major spill and threaten the safety of ship crew, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The Journal also reported that in December, a tanker chartered by Shell was targeted by a drone in the Red Sea, and harassed by Huthi boats. The oil major's decision comes after Britain's BP said in December that it would suspend transit of oil through the Red Sea. At the start of the month, shipping giant Maersk also noted it would divert vessels around Africa instead of using the Red Sea and Suez Canal for the foreseeable future.