World in brief: February 23, 2024
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GERMANY: German lawmakers approved a government plan today to liberalise rules on cannabis, paving the way for the country to decriminalise limited amounts and allow members of “cannabis clubs” to buy it for recreational purposes.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said the government’s aim is to “fight the black market” and better protect young people. He said current laws in Germany have failed, with consumption rising and increasing problems with contaminated or overly concentrated cannabis.
SPAIN: Firefighters and army experts were calculating the risks today of entering a residential block that was destroyed by fire in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, killing four people and leaving 14 missing.
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ROGER McKENZIE looks back 60 years to the assassination of Malcolm X, whose message that black people have worth resonated so strongly with him growing up in Walsall in the 1980s
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ROGER McKENZIE welcomes an important contribution to the history of Africa, telling the story in its own right rather than in relation to Europeans