14, January 2020
Bundes: Berlin to invest 62 bn euros by 2030 to modernise rail network 0
The German government on Tuesday agreed to pump 62 billion euros into modernising its rail network system, as part of a wider plan to incite commuters to opt for greener public transport options.
“We’ve just signed the most important programme of modernisation ever in Germany,” said Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, adding that “this is the decade for railway”.
Besides the massive sum stumped up by the state, equivalent to $69 billion, German rail operator Deutsche Bahn will also plow an additional 24 billion euros into the renewal programme.
The investments will go towards “replacing obsolete installations”, improving access to disabled passengers as well as renovating rail bridges, said Scheuer.
Deutsche Bahn chief Richard Lutz also vowed to improve punctuality of trains — a key turn-off for commuters, even though he also called for patience in view of the disruptions that rail upgrading will undoubtedly bring.
Getting more people to switch to trains instead of the more polluting cars or planes is a central plank of a government climate package aimed at helping Germany lower its emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
As part of the package, train fares are going down while air travel prices are set to rise with higher taxes to be imposed.
Source: AFP
14, January 2020
7 Christians killed as Boko Haram strikes villages in French Cameroun 0
At least seven Christians were killed as gangs of around 300 Boko Haram militants raided five Christian villages in Far North Cameroon, reports a Barnabas contact.
In the first attacks, which began late at night on 6 January, two men were killed and two children kidnapped when heavily armed militants invaded the village of Hitere, Tourou district. Hitawa village, in the same district, was also raided and looted.
In Moudokou village, Moskota district, three Christians were killed in a raid and a ten-year-old boy was kidnapped. Another Christian man was murdered by the Islamists in an attack on Guitsenad village.
A survivor of the recent brutal Boko Haram attacks sits in a church in one of the villages in Far North Cameroon
On 7 January, a seventh Christian was murdered in a Boko Haram assault on a fifth village, Guedjelé in Koza district.
The two church buildings used by the affected communities were sabotaged and burnt.
Eyewitness reports described heavily armed militants encircling villages and shouting and chanting menacingly throughout the night. In the prolonged attacks, the militants swept through the communities breaking into homes to kill, loot, burn and destroy.
A local pastor pleaded for prayer, “We don’t know what to do. Pray for those who lost their beloved. Pray also for little children left without even clothes.”
At least ten Christians were murdered in an intense wave of Boko Haram attacks late in 2019. Seven were killed and 21 children and young adults were kidnapped in Mayo Sava district in December. In November, a 12-year old Christian schoolboy was hacked to death when he resisted militants’ attempt to abduct him as a “child soldier” during a raid on Tourou district. Earlier the same month pioneering pastor, David Mokoni, and a hearing-impaired Christian boy were killed when militants attacked their church in Moskota village.
Source: Barnabas Fund