Population
Hundreds of thousands protest in Myanmar as army faces crippling mass strike
Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Myanmar for a ninth day of anti-coup demonstrations on Sunday, as the new army rulers grappled to contain a strike by government workers that could cripple their ability to run the country. People surround a police vehicle as they protest against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar February 12, 2021 in this still grab obtained by Reuters from a video on February 13, 2021. Trains in parts of the country stopped running after staff refused to go to work, local media reported, while the military deployed soldiers to power plants only to be confronted by angry crowds. A civil disobedience movement to protest against the Feb. 1 coup that deposed the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi started with doctors. It now affects a swa...
INEC intensifies consultation on new polling units
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has intensified consultations with stakeholders on the creation of new Polling Units (Pus), across the country. The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, who held a meeting with the media in Abuja, yesterday, said that existing 119, 973 PUs, created 25 years ago had become grossly inadequate, leading to crisis situations during elections. He said, “Nigeria has a critical problem of voter access to Polling Units. The country currently has 119,973 Polling Units established a quarter of a Century ago in 1996 by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON). At that time, the voter population was projected at 50 million. “The voters’ register increased to 84,004,084 by 2019. We envisage that by the next General Election in 2...
Nigeria expects 41 million coronavirus vaccine doses from African Union
Nigeria expects to receive 41 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from the African Union, the head of the country’s primary healthcare agency said on Monday, while the health minister said vaccines from Russia and India were being considered. Authorities in Africa’s most populous country, which has 200 million people, plan to inoculate 40% of the population this year and another 30% in 2022. The African Union initially secured 270 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from manufacturers for member states. Last week it was announced that the bloc would receive another 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Faisal Shuaib, who heads the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said Nigeria’s previous request for 10 million doses through the AU had been increased four-fold. “We have applied...
China possibly committed ‘genocide’ against Xinjiang Muslims
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said on Thursday that new evidence had emerged in the past year that “crimes against humanity – and possibly genocide – are occurring”. The CECC also accused China of harassing Uighurs in the US. China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centres” to stamp out “extremism” and give people new skills, but others have called them concentration camps. The United Nations says at least one million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang. Faith leaders, activist groups and others have said crimes against humanity, including genocide, are taking place there. Beijing denies abuse accusations. The CECC report called for a formal US “determination on whether atro...
Joe Biden receives second dose of coronavirus vaccine on camera
Joe Biden on Monday received the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on camera, as part of an effort by the President-elect’s incoming administration to reassure the country of the safety of the vaccines. Biden was administered the shot in his left arm by Ric Cuming, chief nurse executive at ChristianaCare’s Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, according to Biden’s transition team. The President-elect said he would be announcing his plan to “get the entire Covid operation up and running,” including the necessary costs, on Thursday. Biden said he had a meeting with members of his team later Monday afternoon. Biden said he was “not afraid of taking the oath outside,” and that his team has been getting briefed, when asked if he had any fears about taking the oath of office...
2021: Banks to walk a tightrope amid low revenue environment
Nigeria’s deposit money banks (DMBs) must brace up for the challenge of 2021 that might tax their resolve to remain in business. Reason: the industry is faced with a tougher operating environment that could threaten the operators’ ability to meet their stakeholders’ needs and expectations yet perform meaningful corporate social responsibility roles. Their valuable customers such as high net-worth individuals, corporate bodies and other institutions are equally challenged. In his book, Business Stripped Bare, celebrated iconic entrepreneur and founder of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson, says, “without trustworthy banks, there can be no business, no employment, no money. According to Branson, “People have got to be able to go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that the money they depo...
AfDB grants $11.26 million for women, girls’ education in Chad
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a grant of $11.26 million to the Government of Chad to finance the Girls’ Education and Women’s Literacy Project – the bank’s first grant exclusively targeting women and girls. The project will be financed from the Bank’s Transition Support Facility and will be implemented over a five-year period by the Chadian Ministry of National Education and Civic Promotion, in coordination with partners involved in the education sector, civil society organisations, and youth organisations. The Chadian government will contribute a non-monetary contribution of $713,000 towards the program. “Through this financing, the African Development Bank is providing support to the Chadian government to reduce inequalities through access to educati...
Coronavirus: Nigeria now at tipping point – PTF
The Federal Government, yesterday, took stock of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic vis-a-vis the attitude of Nigerians to embracing safety precautions, and concluded that the country was now at a tipping point. This came as government announced its decision to establish oxygen plants in all states of the federation as part of measures to resolve the “oxygen crisis” that had engulfed some of the isolation and treatment centres in the country. Meanwhile, Edo State has recorded 28 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 270, as the state government cautions residents to abide by the precautionary health and safety guidelines. Vanguard, meanwhile, gathered that former vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe and th...
Nigerian government begs residents not to reject coronavirus vaccines
Federal authorities have appealed to Nigerians not to be hesitant to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it gets to Nigeria. Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, and head of Nigeria’s primary healthcare agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, made the appeal at the PTF briefing on Thursday in Abuja. Nigeria intends to get 42 million COVID-19 vaccines to cover one fifth of its population through the global COVAX scheme, the PTF had earlier announced. The initial vaccines would come as part of Nigeria’s plan to inoculate 40 percent of the population in 2021 and another 30 per cent in 2022, with 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arriving by the end of January 2021. The COVAX scheme was set up to provide vaccines to poorer countries including Nigeria whose 200 million people and poor ...
NANS: Nigerian government’s 2021 budget for education worst in 10 years
The President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Com. Sunday Asefon, has frowned at the 2021 budgetary provision for education under President Muhammadu Buhari, describing it as the worst in the last ten years in the country. Disturbed by the neglect of the education sector, which was apportioned with a paltry of 5.6 percent in the 2021 budget and the high level of insecurity in the country, NANS has planned to organise a Security and Education Summit to partner stakeholders on how to arrest the drift in the two critical sectors Asefon said this in Ado-Ekiti, on Thursday, during a courtesy visit to the office of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Correspondents’ Chapel, Ekiti chapter. He said: “I condemn totally, the federal government’s 2021 budgetary provision to edu...
Russian coronavirus vaccine trials begin in UAE as cases rise
Abu Dhabi has started Phase III clinical trials of Russia’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine, known as Sputnik V, amid a surge in infections in the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi’s media office said on Thursday. The human trial, announced in October before the recent rise in cases, is initially seeking up to 500 volunteers to be vaccinated at a hospital in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Two doses of the vaccine will be given, 20 days apart, to volunteers, the statement said. Participants will have to be 18 years or older, have not previously been infected with COVID-19 or participated in other COVID-19 vaccine trials, it said. The UAE is also conducting Phase III trials of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). The UAE has approved the vaccine and it is a...
UK needs tighter coronavirus rules to avert catastrophe – epidemiologist
Britain’s government needs to bring in tighter coronavirus lockdown rules to avert a fresh wave of deaths from a new strain of the disease, a leading epidemiologist and government adviser warns. Britain reported 41,385 new COVID cases on Monday, the highest number since testing became widely available in the middle of 2020, and English hospitals say they have more COVID patients than during the first wave of the pandemic in April. “We are entering a very dangerous new phase of the pandemic, and we’re going to need decisive early national action to prevent a catastrophe in January and February,” said Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London, on Tuesday. More than 71,000 people in Britain have died within 28 days of a positive test for the dis...
