Briefly

TONGA

Island back online after cable repaired

Internet connection was restored in Tonga on Tuesday, five weeks after a massive volcanic eruption shredded the undersea cable that connects the Pacific nation with the rest of the world. Telecom providers Digicel and TCC said data connectivity had been restored to two main islands, after breaks in an 80-kilometer stretch of cable were finally fixed. Residents reported services were quickly coming back online, with emails that seemed blazingly fast after 38 days in the internet doldrums and a slew of calls from family overseas coming in. The eruption last month was so powerful that it was heard as far away as Alaska and caused a tsunami that flooded coastlines around the Pacific.

NIGERIA

Gunmen kill 10 in raid on community

Ten people were killed in an early Monday attack by a group of unknown gunmen who invaded a community in Nigeria's north-central state of Niger, police said. Monday Bala Kuryas, the police chief in Niger, told reporters that four security personnel and six civilians were gunned down during the attack on the Galkogo community in the Shiroro local government area. Kuryas said the gunmen rode into the community on motorcycles, burning down at least eight houses and a building under renovation, belonging to the government-backed Joint Security Task Force. The motive of the attack remains unknown.

EGYPT

China, Egypt donate doses to Palestine

China and Egypt have donated 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to Palestine to boost its fight against the pandemic, said the Chinese Embassy in Egypt in a statement on Monday. The vaccines were locally produced in Egypt through a partnership between the Egyptian Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines, or VACSERA, and Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac, said Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Egypt's acting health minister and higher education minister, who attended a ceremony held at VACSERA's headquarters on Sunday to mark the donation.

JAPAN

Record draft budget clears lower house

Japan's lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved a record 107.60 trillion yen ($936.78 billion) draft budget for fiscal 2022, amid rapidly growing social security costs and defense spending, with the budget to be enacted before April 1. For the 10th year in a row, the general-account budget will be a record high, rising from the initial 106.61 trillion yen for fiscal 2021. The budget will be deliberated following its passage by the upper house of parliament and will, as per the Constitution, be automatically enacted 30 days after it is sent to the upper chamber. The opposition Democratic Party for the People also backed the draft budget, in a move rarely seen.

Agencies - Xinhua