Relations
Taiwan says China seeking political gain with Honduras vaccine move
Taiwan condemned China on Wednesday for seeking to use vaccines for political gain after Taipei’s diplomatic ally Honduras said it was considering opening an office in China in a bid to acquire much needed COVID-19 shots. Honduras does not have formal relations with China and is one of a group of Latin American nations that have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said that to buy Chinese vaccines, he would do as the Chinese had suggested and look for a “diplomatic bridge”. read more Several Latin American nations are receiving Chinese vaccines, but countries that have built ties with Taipei rather than Beijing, such as Honduras and Guatemala, are not. Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said...
Ramadan: Israel donates food items to support Nigerian Muslim families
The Embassy of Israel in Nigeria on Monday donated some food items to support some Muslim families in the on-going Ramadan fasting in the country. Mr Yotam Kreiman, Charge d’Affairs of Israel to Nigeria, who presented the items in Abuja, said that the items worth 260, 000 meals was to support about 1,800 families. Newsmen report that the items donated included some bags of rice, beans, maize, groundnut oil, pasta among others. The envoy said that the items were put together to further deepen ties between Israel and Nigeria. Kreiman said that lessons from the Holy Books during month of Ramadan often reminded people of their needs to always be kind, helpful and thoughtful, especially as the world slowly recovered and battled with COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, it is important to lend h...
Saudi and UAE condemn Israel over Palestinian clashes at Al-Aqsa
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Saturday condemned Israel’s plans to evict Palestinians from homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers, following a night of violence in Jerusalem. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades towards rock-hurling Palestinian youth at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque late on Friday. The clashes at Islam’s third holiest site and around East Jerusalem, which injured 205 Palestinians and 17 police officers, came amid mounting anger over the planned evictions. “Saudi Arabia rejects Israel’s plans and measures to evict dozens of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem and impose Israeli sovereignty over them,” the kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement carried on Saudi-owned Al Arabiya. The UAE, which normalised relations with...
NBMA reiterates commitment to clamp down on GMOs
The National Biosafety Management Agency, NBMA, Tuesday, reiterated commitment to ensuring the eradication of Genetically Modified Organisms, (GMOs) in the country, as well as assuring Nigerians of safe products in the market. The Director-General of the NBMA, Dr. Rufus Ebegba, made the disclosure while addressing newsmen in Abuja, stating that Nigerians should be aware of the roles of the Agency in the proper regulation of GMOs in the country. He insisted that the NBMA has not been resting on its oars in ensuring that only safe and approved genetically modified seeds and grains for food and feed processing are allowed into the Nigerian market. Hence, he said, the constant upgrading of GM detection, analysis laboratory, and constant inspection of GMO facilities, confined field trial sites,...
Zimbabwe street vendors reel under virus curbs
For years, Zimbabwean single mother Spiwe Tembo would sell buns on the streets of central Harare, earning enough to feed her three children. But her fortunes have dived. Since authorities banned street hawkers a year ago as part of a raft of measures to limit the spread of Covid-19, she plays cat-and-mouse with the police who comb the streets to rid them of vendors. “Things are tough,” the 34-year-old said, waving a packet of large buns to potential customers on a busy street in a part of Harare that locals call “Third World” because it is always teeming. She said: “We get arrested by municipal and national police. Almost daily I pay bribes to police officers to avoid getting arrested.” On the days she doesn’t have any cash, the inevitable happens and she is arrested and her wares seized. ...
Navy’s newest offshore survey vessel begins homeward voyage to Nigeria
The Nigerian Navy (NN), says its newest offshore survey vessel, NNS LANA, has began her homeward journey to the country. This is contained in a statement issued on Saturday in Abuja by the Director of Information, Naval Headquarters, Commodore Suleman Dahun. He, however, said the ship will visit ports in Lisbon, Las Palmas, Banjul and Tema-Ghana, before heading to Nigeria on May 17. According to Dahun, the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Adm. Awwal Gambo, had addressed the ship’s company. The CNS noted that the foremost desire of every littoral state is to have a fleet with the right mix of platforms to meet its operational objectives. Gambo acknowledged that the homebound voyage of NNS LANA was another milestone in the NN’s fleet recapitalisation efforts. He added that the induction of N...
Minister: Nigerian government worried about rising unemployment rate
Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said the federal government is worried over the rising unemployment rate in the country. Speaking at the 2nd Shakeholders’ Meeting on Expatriate Quota Administration organized by the Citizenship and Business Department of the Ministry of Interior, the Minister said: “Anyone that is not worried about the unemployment rate in the country is not a patriot.” He lamented that the unemployment rate of 33 per cent released by the National Bureau of Statistics was indeed worrisome and a wake up call that something urgently needed to be done to keep Nigerians employed and drastically reduce the unemployment rate. The Minister, who called on all stakeholders at the meeting to ensure quality inputs were brought to the table that will lead to the produ...
Nigerian army urges journalists to protect national interests
The Commander, Sector 2, Operation Lafiya Dole, Adamu Nura, has appealed to journalists to prioritise Nigeria’s national interest in their reporting. Nura made the appeal, on Friday, while hosting members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), who paid him a courtesy visit in Damaturu. “National interest is more important than any other interests, including public interest; because when you protect national interest, public interest will automatically be covered,” he said. He, therefore, enjoined journalists to always cooperate with security agencies, to protect the national interest in their reporting “and avoid giving any form of publicity to terrorists”. “Security is everybody’s business, without security nothing can be achieved,” he said. He added that the sector was ready to build...
2023: PDP panel throws presidential tickets open
File Photo Amidst thinking from many stakeholders that North-East and South-East geo-political zones that have had the shortest stints at the Presidency, should be given special consideration, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) panel has thrown open the 2023 presidential ticket. The governor of Bauchi state and Chairman, PDP 2019 election review committee, Bala Mohammed, gave this recommendation on Wednesday while submitting the report of the committee to the party leadership. The Governor said: “In line with certain unwritten conventions of the nation’s history, many people think that, for fairness and equity, the North East and South East geo-political zones that have had the shortest stints at the Presidency, should be given special consideration, in choosing the presidential flagbearer...
Russia calls U.S. allegations over Putin-directed election meddling ‘baseless’
Russia on Wednesday described U.S. intelligence allegations that President Vladimir Putin had likely directed efforts to try to swing the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump as baseless. A 15-page American intelligence report, released on Tuesday, added heft to longstanding allegations that some of Trump’s top lieutenants were playing into Moscow’s hands by amplifying claims made against then-candidate Joe Biden by Russian-linked Ukrainian figures in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election. “The document prepared by the U.S. intelligence community is another set of baseless accusations against our country for interfering in American domestic political processes,” Russia’s embassy in the United States said in a statement on Facebook. “The conclusions of the report on Russia conducting...
Police: Why we detained OPC members after arresting ‘kidnapper’
The police in Oyo State have confirmed detaining three members of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) for arresting suspected kidnapper, Iskilu Wakili, on Sunday. The police in a statement by its public relations officer, Olugbenga Fadeyi, said the three members of OPC detained are being interrogated for their involvement in arson and murder. “The Oyo State Police Command would like to inform the general public that at about 0900 hrs of date (7th March 2021), information was received that a group of persons, (later found out to be members of the Odua Peoples Congress OPC), had invaded Kajola community in Ibarapa axis of the State. “The invasion was reportedly aimed at arresting one Wakili, a Fulani by tribe, who is alleged to be the sponsor and mastermind of various criminal attacks against ...
Lobbyist says Myanmar junta wants to improve relations with the West, spurn China
An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist hired by Myanmar’s junta said on Saturday that the generals are keen to leave politics after their coup and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence official who has previously represented Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s military rulers, said Myanmar’s generals also want to repatriate Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations says more than 50 demonstrators have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won polls in November by a landslide. On Friday, a U.N. special envoy urged the Security Council to take action against t...
