Friday
DPR shuts down seven filling stations in Rivers
File Photo The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) says it has closed seven Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) retail outlets in Rivers for operating without valid licences. Bassey Nkanga, Zonal Operations Controller of the agency, made the disclosure during a meeting with Petroleum Products Marketers Association and Petrol Tankers Drivers Union (PTD) on Friday in Port Harcourt. Mr. Nkanga said the enforcement of safety requirements/sanction against violators became necessary to support effective regulation in the downstream sector. “We are in a very peculiar season, the harmattan season when fire incidents usually occur at filling stations. This challenge had, in most cases, occurred as a result of avoidable mistakes, hence, the need to step up safety consciousness amongst stakeholders in ...
Ghana’s ruling NPP holds Islamic thanksgiving prayers today
Ghana’s governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has scheduled an Islamic thanksgiving prayer for President-elect, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice President-elect, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at the Central Mosque in Abossey Okai. The thanksgiving prayer is to express gratitude to the Almighty Allah for a successful election and the re-election of President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia. The National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu will lead the thanksgiving prayers after Jummah (Friday congregational prayers) at the Central Mosque. The President-elect, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Vice President-elect, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia will be in attendance. The party has also slated a Christian version of the thanksgiving service for Sunday, December 13, 2020. Get more stories ...
India’s Serum Institute seeks approval for COVID-19 vaccine
The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer by volume, has sought government approval for emergency-use authorisation of the coronavirus vaccine that it has developed in partnership with the University of Oxford and British drugmaker AstraZeneca. “As promised, before the end of 2020, @SerumInstIndia has applied for emergency use authorisation for the first made-in-India vaccine, COVISHIELD,” the company CEO Adar Poonawalla tweeted on Monday. The experimental vaccine can be stored at two to eight degrees Celsius and can be distributed more easily in India, which has the world’s second-highest number of infections at 9.6 million. The company has applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), with Poonawalla saying the vaccine will “save countless lives” witho...
AU welcomes Nigeria ahead of AfCFTA kick-off
The African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Albert Muchanga, said in Addis Ababa on Friday that instruments signifying Nigeria’s entry into the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be received at the commission’s headquarters shortly ahead of next year’s kick-off of trading. Speaking during the AfCFTA Business Forum 2020 to discuss the status of preparations to launch the continental trading, Muchanga said the launch of trading will facilitate the growth of African enterprise and enhance the capacity of industries producing goods to a wider population. Nigeria, which signed the AfCFTA agreement in 2019, officially ratified the agreement on 12 November. The instruments of ratification are expected to be received at the AU on Saturday, 5 December, the deadline for the...
African environment ministers support green recovery plan
Ministers of Environment from Africa on Friday agreed to support a comprehensive green recovery plan to boost economies and social systems aimed at building back better from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This is contained in a ministerial statement issued at the end of the eighth special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Nairobi, Kenya. Representatives of the 54 African governments re-affirmed their commitment to enhance environmental resilience as well as protect and sustainably use natural resources for the region’s development. The high-level ministerial regional conference held virtually under the theme “Enhancing Environmental Action for Effective Post-COVID Recovery in Africa”, further called to accelerate the protection and restoratio...
Ex-Defence minister Domkat Bali passes on
Former Minister of Defence, General Domkat Yah Bali, is dead. He was aged 80. Bali, a respected general, was member of the highest decision making body of government during the military era in the 1980s. He was a member of the Supreme Military Council from 1984 to 1985 during the Major General Muhammadu Buhari military regime. Bali also served as member of the Armed Forces Ruling Council from 1985 to 1990 during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. President Muhammadu Buhari has condoled with the people and government of Plateau State over the passing of a highly decorated retired military officer, who served Nigeria as minister of defence during the military eea in 1980s. A statement by presidential spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, said the president who spoke with the wife of the deceas...
Jerusalem church suffers damage in arson near Garden of Gethsemane
Israeli police on Friday arrested a man for trying to set fire to an east Jerusalem church by the Garden of Gethsemane, the site revered by Christians as the place where Jesus prayed before he was crucified. The 49-year-old Israeli suspect poured flammable liquid inside the Church of All Nations, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The man then set it alight, a separate police statement said, before the church guard detained him. “Preliminary investigation and the suspect’s details strengthen the assessment that the background to the incident was criminal,” police said, suggesting investigators believed it was not a hate crime. Reuters pictures showed a charred bench and a small blackened portion of the mosaic floor of the Catholic church, which overlooks Jerusalem’s walled Old City. “T...
Lagos by-elections: INEC cautions against vote buying, others
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday cautioned politicians against vote buying, food sharing and other activities capable of buying the conscience of voters at polling units duing Saturday’s Lagos East by-elections. Dr Adekunle Ogunmola, INEC Supervisory National Commissioner in charge of the by-elections, told newsmen in Lagos that the commission would not tolerate any act that would discredit the polls. Answering questions on how the commission intended to tackle vote buying, Ogunmola said that though INEC was not a security agency, it had done quite a lot in ensuring that the menace was reduced. “We are in collaboration with EFCC and ICPC and some other security agencies in ensuring that people that perpetrate such acts were brought to book. “The issue of makin...
Ethiopia aid pact not good enough – EU official
A senior European Union official said on Friday that an agreement between relief organizations and the Ethiopian government for access to the war-hit Tigray region limits aid to federal-controlled areas only and requires too much bureaucracy. “The agreement … has some important shortcomings,” EU Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic told reporters. “Humanitarian aid should also go to areas not under government control in line with the fundamental principles of humanitarian aid. There may be malnourished children on the other side also.” There was no immediate reaction from Ethiopia’s government, which says it is channelling aid already into the northern region, where it has battled rebellious local forces for a month. Get more stories like this on Twitter You Deserve to Make Money ...
President Buhari: Improved Nigeria-South Africa relations will quicken African development
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday expressed optimism that improvement in relations between Nigeria and South Africa would speed up the process of development on the African continent. Speaking in concurrence with the Chairman of the African National Congress (ANC) and South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, who came to the State House, Abuja on Friday as Special Envoy of his country, President Buhari cited his last trip to South Africa during which he and President Cyril Ramaphosa worked together in resolving the migrants’ crisis between two brotherly nations. The President in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu said, “There was this ‘small problem’ between our countries. I went there and we resol...
Post-EndSARS: Stop scaring police off their beats – minister
The Federal Government on Friday called on Nigerians to empathise with and appreciate personnel of the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies instead of victimising them. The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who made the call while meeting with Title Editors of Nigerian newspapers in Lagos, also urged the public to resist the temptation to tag all officers with the same brush. “Today, many of them are even afraid to wear their uniforms and the result has not been pleasant, in terms of security of life and property. “I want to remind all of us of the saying that a society that makes war against its police had better learnt to make friends with its criminals,” he said. The minister recalled that six soldiers and 37 policemen were killed across the country d...
Court remands Abdulreasheed Maina in prison custody
The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Friday, remanded the former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team, Abulrasheed Maina, in prison custody. The remand order came barely 24 hours after Maina who is answering to a 12-count money laundering charge, was arrested at Niger Republic and extradited back to the country by the Interpol. The former pension reform boss jumped bail since September 29 and refused to appear for continuation of his trial. Following his arrest, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Friday, produced him Defendant in court. The anti-graft agency, through its lawyer, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, further applied that he should be remanded in custody of the Nigerian Correctional Service. Mohammed reminded the court that Maina’s re-appearance was sequ...
