Germany under tougher restrictions amid COVID-19 rise.
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Featured Contents
Germany under tougher restrictions amid Covid rise
The country closes schools and non-essential businesses in an attempt to curb the virus.
'Narrow path' available for Brexit deal - EU chief
The president of the EU Commission says the "next few days" will be decisive for trade negotiations.
MacKenzie Scott gives away $4.2bn in four months
The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been focusing on women, people of colour and food banks.
Iraqi activist 'killed by gunmen in Baghdad'
Salah al-Iraqi played a prominent role in anti-government protests in Iraq's capital.
Paris authorities fined for hiring too many women
City mayor Anne Hidalgo mocks the "absurd" penalty for breaking equal employment rules.
Tom Cruise 'shouts at film crew' over Covid safety
A recording emerges of the Mission: Impossible star apparently letting fly about social distancing.
Santa is here: Disguised police carry out drugs raid
Police in Peru raid a house dressed as Santa Claus and an elf, and detain a suspected drug dealer.
Features & Analysis
Latest Updates
The government in the Democratic Republic of Congo has announced that a curfew will be imposed from 21:00 to 05:00 after a spike in cases of coronavirus.
The restriction will start on Friday.
DR Congo's Communication Minister Jolino Makelele announced this among new measures, including schools closing earlier for the Christmas holidays, a ban on ceremonies before burials and a ban on public gatherings of more than 10 people.
The Central African country has seen a spike in number of newly contaminated cases since the beginning of December, with an average of 100 new cases daily in the capital, Kinshasa, the epicentre of the pandemic.
The Health Ministry announced on Wednesday that a record of 345 people had tested positive the previous day.
More than 14,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus and more than 350 of those have died in the country since the pandemic began.
Read more:
A new museum, the Humboldt Forum, is opening in a reconstructed royal palace in the centre of Berlin on Wednesday - although the official opening is for now being held online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But it is controversial.
The museum will house art from all over the world - including some of the Benin Bronzes, sculptures stolen from Nigeria at the end of the 19th Century.
The Humboldt Forum, which dominates the centre of Berlin, is supposed to showcase global culture, and become a symbol of tolerance and diversity.
But the museum has found itself in the middle of a row about looted art and colonialism.
Some of the key exhibits are the Benin Bronzes, from Nigeria, valuable sculptures looted by British soldiers in 1897.
The Nigerian government has called for them to be returned to Nigeria.
Pressure has been growing within Germany too.
Historians and anti-racism activists in Germany say the museum needs to do more to explain where these treasures come from and how they got to Europe.
Museum officials in Berlin say they are investigating the matter.
But so far Germany’s government hasn’t responded to Nigeria’s request.
Read more:
Namibia's President Hage Geingob has reduced the number of people allowed to attend public gatherings from 200 to 50 for indoors and 100 for outdoors as Covid-19 cases in the country increase.
Bars and restaurants in the country will now close at 22:00 local time and owners have been asked to ensure tables are two metres apart.
The new restrictions take effect from Wednesday at midnight and will remain in place for 14 days.
Public transport drivers and passengers have also been asked to have their masks on throughout their journeys.
Namibia has 16,913 confirmed coronavirus cases including 164 deaths.
As the festive season approaches, some governments have tightened restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Video content
Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasa is bearing down on Fiji and with current winds speeds of 160mph, it's the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane.
Four northern states in Nigeria have ordered the immediate closure of schools following the abduction of hundreds of students in Katsina State.
The closure order affects schools in Kano, Kaduna, Zamfara and Jigawa states.
The Nigerian teachers’ union has also threatened to go on strike over insecurity in the country.
It says pupils and teachers are being targeted by gunmen and kidnappers.
Last week hundreds of students were abducted from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara.
The Islamist militants Boko Haram said they carried out the abductions.
The federal government is yet to reveal the extent of discussions it is having with the abductors.
Some 333 students are still missing.
Read more: Nigeria's Katsina school abduction: 'How I escaped my kidnappers'
Nigerians have up to two weeks to register their mobile phones numbers with identity cards, in a move that the government said was meant to ensure it could trace people who use phones to commit crime.
Users who would not have registered their mobile phone numbers by the end of the deadline would be cut off.
But the directive has sparked an uproar, with many people saying the time is not enough.
In a country of over 200 million people, only 41.5 million Nigerians have registered for identity cards as of May 2020, according to the National Identity Management Commission.
The identity cards were rolled out in 2007.
Nigeria is estimated to have over 198 million active mobile lines.
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