Belarus protests: Nationwide strike to go ahead, says opposition leader
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has called for nationwide strike action to go ahead on Monday after police fired stun grenades at crowds marching against the president.
Ms Tikhanovskaya issued an ultimatum earlier this month threatening a strike if Alexander Lukashenko did not resign.
Protests have swept the country since Mr Lukashenko claimed victory in an August poll widely viewed as rigged.
Social media posts suggest the strike has already begun.
Videos posted to independent media site Tut.by show empty factories and students walking out of their universities.
More than 200 people were detained on Sunday, according to rights group Vesna.
“Today the regime has once again shown Belarusians that violence is the only thing it is capable of,” Ms Tikhanovskaya said in a social media post, adding: “Therefore tomorrow, October 26, a national strike will begin.”
Earlier, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched for the 11th successive Sunday of protests.
Footage showed people running from flashes and loud bangs as they tried to make their way to Mr Lukashenko’s residence at the Independence Palace in the capital, Minsk.
Ms Tikhanovskaya issued her ultimatum on 13 October, threatening a mass walkout by workers if Mr Lukashenko – who has ruled Belarus for 26 years – ignored their demands.
On Sunday, protesters gathered in the streets of Minsk and other cities across Belarus, many waving the opposition’s red and white flags and chanting “strike” as they marched.
Local media estimated that about 100,000 people had joined the demonstration in the capital.
image captionBelarusian police blocked roads in central Minsk as tens of thousands of protesters marched on Sunday
The country’s interior ministry told Russia’s Tass news agency that riot control weapons were deployed as darkness fell and large crowds continued to make their way through the streets of the capital.
According to other Russian news agencies, citing their correspondents at the scene, at least 10 stun grenades went off. There were also reports that riot police had fired rubber bullets.
Security forces also blocked roads in central Minsk and water cannon were put in place.
image captionThe opposition rally in the capital Minsk drew tens of thousands of people
Videos posted on social media earlier showed buses transporting security personnel to central Minsk.
Ms Tikhanovskaya had earlier this month called for a nationwide strike because Belarus had “had enough” after two months of “political crisis, violence and lawlessness”.
She issued three demands from a location in Lithuania, where she has been in exile since August.
The ultimatum is an attempt to increase the political pressure on Mr Lukashenko but it also seems intended to inject new energy into the street protests.
Chileans have voted overwhelmingly in support of rewriting their constitution, which dates to the dictatorship of Gen Augusto Pinochet.
With nearly 90% of the vote counted, 78% of people had voted “yes” in a referendum that was called after mass protests against inequality.
President Sebastian Piñera acknowledged the result and praised the peaceful vote. According to him, the exercise was “the beginning of a path that we must all walk together”.
A mass anti-government protest movement began in Chile a year ago. From the beginning one of the demonstrators’ key demands was that the country needed a new constitution to be able to fix deep inequalities in society.
“Until now, the constitution has divided us,” Mr Piñera said as people took to the streets in celebration. “From today we must all work together so that the new constitution is the great framework of unity, stability and the future.”
The referendum was delayed by seven months due to the coronavirus pandemic
The referendum asked Chileans two questions – firstly, if they wanted a new constitution, and secondly, what kind of body they would want to draw it up.
A large majority have voted for the new constitution to be drafted by a convention made up entirely of elected citizens, as opposed to one that would also include lawmakers.
The National Examinations Council has postponed the ongoing nationwide Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations indefinitely due to the current security challenges, occasion by the #EndSARS protests.
This was contained a statement signed by the Head of Information and Public Relations Division NECO, Azeez Sani, and made available to newsmen in Minna on Sunday.
Sani said the #EndSARS protests disrupted the smooth conduct of the examinations in some parts of the country.
He said, “The Governing Board of the National Examinations Council at its Special Meeting held on Thursday, 22nd October, 2020 reviewed the on-going 2020 SSCE (internal) nationwide. The Council had in a press release, dated 21st October 2020, informed the general public of rescheduling some papers of the 2020 on-going SSCE.
Arising from that meeting, today (Sunday) the Governing Board resolved that the 2020 SSCE (Internal) be postponed indefinitely in view of the current security challenges, occasioned by the ENDSARS protests, which disrupted the smooth conduct of the examinations in some parts of the country.
The Indian doctor taking care of thousands of elephants
Dr Sharma says he has treated over 10,000 elephants
Kushal Konwar Sarma is affectionately known as the “elephant doctor” in India’s wildlife community. He has spent 35 years of his life caring for elephants, saving the lives of thousands of them in the forests of India and Indonesia, writes BBC Hindi’s Dilip Kumar Sharma.
“I am the happiest when I am around elephants,” says Dr Sarma. “The amount of time I have spent with elephants is more than the time I have spent with my family.”
The 60-year-old grew up in a village called Barma in India’s north-eastern state of Assam, which is home to around 5,000 of the country’s more than 27,000 elephants, according to the last survey conducted in 2017.
He says he has been able to understand the “language” of elephants. “In addition to feeding them, I communicate with them through signs,” he says, adding that “now most of the elephants here recognise me”.
Dr Sarma was awarded Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours, for his work earlier this year. According to his own estimate, he has treated more than 10,000 elephants so far.
It all began in 1984, when he first treated a sick elephant under the tutelage of his mentor, Professor Subhash Chandra Pathak.
“I remember the first time I went with him to Manas National Park to treat elephants. I was very excited that day,” Dr Sarma says.
image captionAssam state is home to around 5,000 of India’s elephants
His connection to elephants can be traced to his childhood, when his family took care of a female elephant called Laxmi in their home. “When I was about seven, I used to sit on Laxmi and go around the village – it’s one of my most vivid memories of her. That’s how I began to love elephants.”
This love and bond with elephants has cemented his career as the go-to doctor in the state, especially during the monsoon season. Assam is particularly prone to heavy flooding, often putting the animals there at risk.
The Kaziranga National Park, a Unesco Heritage Site in the state, is one such area. Most recently, the state was hit by flooding in July and officials said at least 51 animals in the park died.
“Animals suffer greatly during the flooding season in the park. Many animals die and even elephants get washed away,” Dr Sarma, who often helps officials with their animal rescue efforts, says. “It’s common for baby elephants to get separated from their mothers. In such situations, they need extra care and support. That’s why I help out during the floods.”
He isn’t always officially asked to go and help during the floods. “But I always go because I want to try and save as many animals as possible.”
image captionDr Sharma’s says he’s risked his life numerous times as part of his job
Dr Sarma has covered over 300,000km (186,411 miles) of dense forest in Assam, encountering and treating thousands of elephants. But in addition to his childhood elephant, another one remains close to his heart – Geeta, a female elephant who lives in the Kaziranga National Park.
“Once when I was visiting the US, I got news that someone had shot Geeta while she was in the Kaziranga National Park. Fortunately, none of the five bullets hit any vital organs, but I was very anxious,” he recalls, adding that he even considered abandoning his trip to fly back to India.
“But instead, I assisted in Geeta’s treatment over the phone,” he says. As soon as he returned a week later, he drove straight to the park to meet Geeta.
image captionAnimals at the Kaziranga National Park are at high risk during monsoon floods
“I assured her that I would treat her well and that I would extract all the bullets from her body. After locating the bullets with a metal detector, I removed the first three bullets through surgery.”
He says the other two were lodged deep inside her body, making it difficult to extract them. “But I continued my treatment and finally after five surgeries, even the last bullet was taken out of her body. My dear Geeta is still alive and very much healthy.”
Even though Dr Sarma loves his job, he knows it comes with risks.
He says he’s probably risked his life various times as part of the job. “I often wonder, how did I survive?” he muses.
“Once I had to spend the whole night on a tree in order to try and sedate a wild elephant that we were trying to capture for treatment.”
But despite the dangers involved, he says the work has been fulfilling. He hopes to inspire his daughter, who has completed a degree in veterinary science, and often helps him with his work.
“I want my daughter to carry forward the responsibility of treating elephants after me.”
Covid-19: Poland President Duda tests positive for virus
Polish President Andrzej Duda has contracted Covid-19 but is feeling “good”, he says.
Mr Duda, 48, was tested on Friday and found to be positive, but it is not clear when he contracted the virus.
He joins a handful of world leaders who have been ill with Covid-19, among them US President Donald Trump and UK PM Boris Johnson.
Poland faces a surge in the coronavirus pandemic, with a daily record of more than 13,600 new cases on Friday.
The country has now entered a nationwide “red zone” lockdown that includes the partial closure of primary schools and restaurants.
Mr Duda attended an event in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, on Monday where he met Bulgarian President Rumen Radev who later went into quarantine. He also met Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, who has since tested negative.
“I didn’t have and I don’t have any symptoms, especially the serious ones like lack of taste or lack of smell, but the result of the test is absolutely clear,” Mr Duda said in a video message posted on Twitter.
“I feel good right now. I will spend the upcoming days in self-isolation along with my wife and I will be working remotely; it’s not a problem at all.”
Mr Duda visited a field hospital under construction to Poland on Friday
Presidential minister Blazej Spychalski, who first gave details of the president’s positive test, has himself tested positive and is going into quarantine.
On Friday, Mr Duda visited a field hospital under construction at the National Stadium in the Polish capital, Warsaw. Pictures show the president wearing a face mask while meeting workers at the site.
He also met 19-year-old tennis star Iga Swiatek, winner of the French Open this year, to award her the Gold Cross of Merit for achievements in sport.
“Neither I nor members of my team have symptoms of coronavirus. We carry out tests regularly. We will quarantine ourselves in accordance with current procedures,” Ms Swiatek said in a Twitter post (tweet in Polish).
The second wave of infections is hitting Poland hard, with the number of new cases 22 times higher than the highest number of cases in the spring, although testing is now more prevalent.
The number of hospital beds in use by coronavirus patients rose by 6.5% on Friday to 11,496, which means 60% of the total available are now filled.
Under the new restrictions, gatherings of more than five are banned, and children must be accompanied by an adult when outdoors. People aged over 70 are being urged to stay at home.
Tinubu visits Sanwo-Olu, says I didn’t go nowhere, I’m still Jagaban
All Progressives Congress chieftain, Bola Tinubu, has lamented the invasion and wanton looting of public and private assets in the state of late.
Tinubu made this known on Saturday when he paid a visit to Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, at the State House in Marina.
Addressing journalists after the meeting with the governor, Tinubu said he did not travel out of the country as reported by some sections of the media He told reporters that the purpose of his meeting with Sanwo-Olu was to ask him if he had ordered soldiers to attack #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate on Tuesday.
The former Lagos governor said he asked Sanwo-Olu “if he didn’t order the attack, who ordered the attack? That’s all I needed from him.”
Tinubu has come under fire in the last few days over the Lekki incident as rampaging hoodlums burnt down investments reportedly linked with him including a television station, a newspaper house as well as assets of the Lekki Concession Company, the managers of the toll gate.
Speaking on Saturday, Tinubu stressed the need for a thorough investigation into Tuesday night attack.
He said, “First, we have to segregate the calendar – those who suffered casualty before the protests from the hands of SARS. You have to separate that from those who suffered casualty due to what happened at the toll gate.
“For those who suffered casualty from SARS, the Commission of Inquiry that is already set up will unearth that and will make their recommendations. I trust the calibre and the character of the people there, they are independent. That is one.
“Those who suffered casualty during the gunshots need to answer some questions too. Even though we want to help, we still must extract information that will help the government to prepare in future and understand how and when to react because the governor, in particular, is a youth.
“As a youth himself, he (Sanwo-Olu) quickly went to Abuja with the 5/5. The government immediately put into action, dissolved the SARS and had to work through other recommended actions, the needs they demanded. Within a few days, he reported back to the public. That is responsive enough.
“But where are we getting the looting, the carnage, the burning, the invasion of police stations, stealing of arms, maiming of the innocent? It is a handshake beyond the elbow.”
Asked about his whereabouts in the past few days, Tinubu said, “I didn’t go nowhere; I’m a Lagosian and I still hold the title of Asiwaju of Lagos and I am still a Jagaban.
“Fake news is all over the place. They say Seyi my son was kidnapped and was chased but look at him. I didn’t pay a penny to bring him here.”
Tuesday night attack at the Lekki toll gate has been condemned by both local and international civil rights organisations and personalities.
President Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden have faced off in their second and final presidential debate of the election campaign.
They traded arguments and accusations on everything from the coronavirus pandemic, to the economy and even the “caging” of children of migrants crossing the border from Mexico. Reality Check has unpicked some of the claims.
Verdict: Coronavirus is not going away – cases and hospital admissions are rising and deaths remain high.
The White House’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has disputed the president’s assertion that the US is turning a corner, calling the latest statistics “disturbing”.
Around 60,000 new coronavirus cases a day are being reported across the US, up from around 50,000 a day at the start of October, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
Hospital admissions have also increased by more than 30% since the start of October.
Confirmed deaths have remained at around 800 a day through October.
Biden: “The coronavirus spikes are in red states”
Verdict: That’s not right. Coronavirus cases are rising in both Republican (red) and Democratic (blue) states.
The Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden implied that the rise in infections was centred on Republican run states.
Covid-19 cases are rising in more than 40 US states and these include both Republican and Democratic controlled states.
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin have seen the most coronavirus cases per capita over the last week, according to New York Times.
The Dakotas are run by Republican governors, but Montana and Wisconsin both have Democratic governors – although all of these states voted for President Trump in 2016.
Mr Biden also pointed to spikes in Republican states in the Midwest – but the midwestern state of Illinois, which voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and has a Democratic governor, is also experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases.
Trump: “2.2 million people, modelled out, were expected to die”
Verdict: This is misleading.
The figure is mentioned in a study published by Imperial College London in March in the case of an “unmitigated epidemic”.
But the study describes 2.2 million deaths from Covid-19 in the US not as the “expected” number, but instead what would occur “in the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour”.
So far, there have been more than 223,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US.
Trump: “I have a plan to help people with pre-existing conditions”
Verdict: President Trump may have a plan to do this but he hasn’t shared it with the American people.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed under President Obama, made it illegal to deny healthcare coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
The Trump administration wants to repeal it and now seeks to dismantle the law in the Supreme Court.
The president has repeatedly said he would replace the act with something better and protect people with pre-existing conditions, but his plan to do this is yet to be published.
But there is no detail about how this will be done or funded.
Biden: “We commuted over 1,000 people’s sentences…the federal prison system was reduced by 38,000 people under our administration”
Verdict: He’s right about the number of commutations during the Obama administration, but not about the federal prison reduction.
About 1,700 inmates had their sentence commuted (or changed to a less severe one) by President Obama and a further 212 received a pardon.
But in 2016, the last year Mr Obama and Mr Biden were in office, there were 16,500 fewer inmates in the federal prison system compared to 2009.
Trump: “I’ve got the Nato countries to put up an extra $130 billion going to $420 billion a year, that’s to guard against Russia”
Verdict: This implies these figures are annual increases – that’s not correct.
President Trump said he’d been tough on Russia and insisted he’d boosted defence spending by Nato members.
Since 2016, European countries and Canada have increased investment in their defence budgets by $130 billion. But this has been over a number of years rather than every year.
According to a Nato report: “By the end of 2020, European Allies and Canada will have spent an extra 130 billion US dollars on defence since 2016. This figure is due to rise to 400 billion by the end of 2024”.
Biden: “He [Trump] has caused the deficit with China to go up, not down”
Verdict: That’s not quite right.
After rising in 2017 the trade deficit with China – the gap between imports and exports – fell sharply after 2018, following tariffs imposed by Washington on Chinese goods.
It stood at about $308bn in 2019, slightly less than the $310bn in 2016.
According to data from the US Census Bureau, the first six months of 2020 saw a $130bn deficit in both goods and services with China – that’s $34 billion less than the first half of 2019 and nearly $53 billion less than in the first half of 2018.
Trump: “They did it, we changed the policy…They built the cages”
Verdict: This needs context. It’s true that some migrant children were detained in sites with chain fences under President Obama, but the law said they couldn’t be held for more than 72 hours.
There were heated exchanges over the controversial policy of the Trump administration that led to the separation of children from their parents at the US border.
Mr Trump said it was the Obama administration that built “the cages” used to hold them.
When Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in office, facilities with chain link fencing were built to house the high numbers of unaccompanied children who crossed into the US from Mexico, before they were transferred elsewhere.
Jeh Johnson, the head of Homeland Security during the Obama administration referenced this issue in 2019: “Very clearly, chain link, barriers, partitions, fences, cages, whatever you want to call them, were not invented on January 20, 2017, OK.” (This is the date of President Trump’s inauguration).
But he said their detention was meant to be temporary, noting that under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, children could only be held in those facilities for 72 hours before being transferred to the health authorities.
The two candidates sparred over the facilities for detaining migrants under President Obama
Trump: “We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water”
Verdict: He is right about clean air but not about water.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the US currently has the cleanest air on record.
Over the past few decades, air quality – a measure of six major pollutants – has improved significantly in the US.
On water, however, the US is ranked 26th in the world on sanitation and drinking water, according to Yale University.
On this ranking, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK have the cleanest water.
Biden: “I have never said I oppose fracking”
Verdict: He has had to clarify previous statements on fracking, although his policy is to oppose new sites on federal lands.
President Trump repeated his claim that Joe Biden wants to ban fracking – the controversial process of drilling below ground and using high-pressure water to force out gas.
In March 2020, during a Democratic debate, Mr Biden said “No more — no new fracking.”
He later clarified it: “I said I would not do any new leases on federal lands.”
Mr Biden’s campaign site says the Democrats would protect “America’s natural treasures by… banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.” But they are not opposed to fracking in general
Virus to stay ‘at least until next summer’ – France’s Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron says his country will be fighting the virus until at least the middle of next year as cases there surged past a million.
On Friday France recorded more than 40,000 new cases and 298 deaths. Other nations including Russia, Poland, Italy and Switzerland also saw new highs.
The World Health Organization said the spike in European cases was a critical moment in the fight against the virus. It called for quick action to prevent health services being overwhelmed.
Daily infections in Europe have more than doubled in the past 10 days. The continent has now seen a total of 7.8m cases and about 247,000 deaths.
“The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
Globally there have been more than 42m cases and 1.1m deaths.
Scientists have warned that although progress is being made at unprecedented speed to create a vaccine, it would not return life to normal in spring. A vaccine could take up to a year to roll out, they have suggested.
Speaking on a visit to a hospital in the Paris region, Mr Macron said scientists were telling him that they believed the virus would be present “at best until next summer”, he said.
But he said it was still too early to say whether France would go into a new full or partial lockdown.
An overnight curfew in the country is being extended to about two-thirds of the country – 46 million people – from Friday night for six weeks.
The curfew could be relaxed when new infections dropped back down to between 3,000 and 5,000 a day, Mr Macron said – a level of infection that was last seen at the end of August.
Meanwhile the head of a Paris hospital group warned that the second wave of infections could be worse than the first.
“There has been a perception in recent months that a second wave does not exist, or that it is a small wave. The situation is the opposite,” Martin Hirsch, the head of the AP-HP hospital group, told local media.
People in much of France must be home by 21:00 local time from Friday
Many of those currently in intensive care in his hospitals were older people who had been self-isolating but had become infected when their children visited them, Mr Hirsch said.
“There are many positive people, infectious, in the streets without knowing it and without anyone else knowing it,” he added.
Covid patients currently occupy nearly half of France’s 5,000 intensive care beds.
And Prime Minister Jean Castex said a further influx of patients was likely – “The new cases of today are the hospitalised patients of tomorrow. The month of November will be difficult,” he said.
Guinea elections: Violent protests as Alpha Condé set for victory
Gunfire has erupted in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, as provisional election results show President Alpha Condé, 82, is on course to win a controversial third term.
The government has deployed soldiers to assist the police deal with the protests against Mr Condé.
Opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo has alleged large-scale fraud and declared himself winner.
Internet and phone services have been cut in the West African nation.
Ethnic clashes during the campaign had raised fears of nationwide violence if the results are disputed.
It is important to know that residents in opposition strongholds say that many people are holed up in their homes and that the police are using live ammunition instead of tear gas against protesters.
According to sources the army has been requisitioned to support the police in maintaining Candidates and their supporters, in Guinea’s presidential election, have had to campaign during Covid-19.
Communications by telephone are barely going through and the internet has been shut down.
At least 10 people, including two police officers, have been killed since Sunday’s poll, according to the authorities. Other sources put the figure at 20 deaths.
Results released from 37 out of 38 constituencies show Mr Condé gained 2.4 million votes, well ahead of Mr Diallo with 1.2 million votes. Some other opposition groups boycotted the poll.
Candidates need more than 50% of the vote for outright victory, or there will be a second round on 24 November.
Some 5.4 million voters were eligible to vote.
Despite widespread criticism, Mr Condé pushed for a change of the constitution making him eligible to seek re-election.
Months of protests have often turned deadly. At least 12 people were killed in the week leading up to the election.
Australia child abuse: Police arrest 44 suspects and rescue 16 children
Police in Sydney arrest a man suspected of possessing child abuse material
Australian police have arrested 44 men across the nation on suspicion of possessing and producing child abuse material.
Sixteen children had been “removed from harm” in the process, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said.
The arrests followed a year-long investigation into images and videos that were shared online.
Arrests of the suspects – all aged between 19 and 57 – were made in every Australian state.
Police laid a total of 350 charges, all related to possessing or producing child exploitation material.
The men had allegedly used a cloud storage platform to share the abuse. The AFP described some evidence as among “the most abhorrent produced”.
Commissioner Reece Kershaw said identifying and rescuing victims was a “race against time” in such cases.
“Pixel by pixel, our investigators painstakingly look for clues and never give up,” he said.
Hundreds of police and other specialists worked on the operation across Australia’s states and territories.
The arrests numbered 11 in Victoria, 11 in Queensland, nine in South Australia, eight in New South Wales, seven in Western Australia, five in Tasmania and one in the Australian Capital Territory.
The suspects worked in industries including construction, transport, law enforcement and hospitality.
“Children are not commodities and the AFP and its partner agencies work around-the-clock to identify and prosecute offenders,” Mr Kershaw said.
The AFP said it had rescued 134 children from child exploitation this year, including 67 who were not in Australia.
In 1983, the novelist Chinua Achebe published a short treatise called The Trouble With Nigeria. With characteristic acuity, his very first paragraph answers the question posed in the title.
“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which are the hallmarks of great leadership.”
Decades later, these words ring just as true. This month, Nigerian citizens have risen up in their tens of thousands to protest against the brutality with which they are treated by state security forces. The specific target of their anger was the notorious special anti-robbery squad (Sars), which has been implicated in routine harassment and intimidation, torture, assault and even extrajudicial killings.
These protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. But, as if to prove their point, the response of the state has been anything but.
At least 56 people have been killed over the past two weeks, according to Amnesty International. Some 38 of those deaths occurred on Tuesday. That day, in Lagos, security forces corralled protesters onto the Lekki-Ikoyi Bridge; and then, when there was no escape, they opened fire with live ammunition. Ambulances and first responders were prevented from accessing the scene.
As tragic as this violence is, it is not surprising. As political strategist Chude Jideonwo noted in an opinion piece this week, for as long as there has been an independent Nigeria, its government has been killing its people. “It killed them in several protests during and against military rule in the 1970s long before I was born, and killed them again in the 1980s when I was just a child. It killed them in the 1990s when citizens dared to step into the streets to demand the announcement of the winner of the historic 12 June elections, and killed them again in my teens, under the presidency of General Sani Abacha.”
This is not, of course, a uniquely Nigerian phenomenon. On this continent alone, we have seen civilians killed this year by state security forces in Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa, among others.
For too long, our governments appear to have fatally misunderstood their purpose. Political leaders are supposed to serve and protect their citizens — not the other way round. Brutality on the scale of what we have witnessed in Nigeria this week has no place in any democracy. That it can happen at all is, ultimately, a failure of leadership — exactly as Achebe pointed out all those years ago.
Days after kicking against it, Nigeria has told the World Bank and the G20 that debt relief will not sustain the financing needs of Nigeria, Angola and South Africa.
Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, made this disclosure while speaking virtually at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank meeting,
Speaking on behalf of Angola and South Africa Constituency, Ahmed commended the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) and the G20 Leadership for the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and calls for its extension.
She however lamented “the associated flows from the DSSI may not sustain the massive financing needs of countries”.
She therefore asked the global bodies to pay “more attention to debt management and domestic resource mobilisation”
Ahmed also said Nigeria welcomes the Progress Report on the 2020 IBRD and International Finance Corporation (IFC) shareholding reviews and continue to support the gradual adjustment of membership shareholding in the World Bank Group (WBG) to address the underrepresentation of members.
“However, given the need for encashments of recently approved IBRD and IFC Subscriptions, as well as the constrained fiscal environment, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, adjustment this time is not advised,” she said.
Given the huge financing gap that exists to support the recovery of African economies, “we share concerns on the capital adequacy of the WBG institutions.
“In this regard, we urge all stakeholders to work together and ensure that Development Association (DA) has enough resources to help the poorest and most resource- constrained members of the WBG.”
To mitigate impact of COVID-19 pandemic on jobs, Ahmed appealed for more investments in broadband network and vocational skills from the international community to close the unemployment gap in the country.
She called for global solidarity in upgrading the digital space in Africa so that the continent can benefit from new jobs.
Ahmed said: “Assuming a strong recovery in 2021 full year (FY21), most of the current jobs may not return, while new jobs will be created”.
Taiwo Adebulu, a Nigerian journalist, has won the 2020 African Fact-check Award.
His story “FACT CHECK: Nigeria told UN that 7 varsities run strictly on renewable energy, but is this true?” was rated as the best among 192 entries from 27 countries across the continent.
Adebulu, a reporter with TheCable, an online newspaper, had investigated how Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Mohammed Mahmood, had grossly misinformed the United Nations at its Climate Action Summit in 2019.
In a ceremony on Thursday as part of the virtual African Investigative Journalism Conference, Africa Check, organisers of the competition, said the impressive entries submitted for the 2020 award showed the growing and vibrant practice of fact-checking on the continent.
“In what has been a year like no other, we’ve received the highest number of entries in the history of the African Fact-Checking Awards: 192 entries from 27 countries across Africa.
“We’ve gone from strength to strength since our inaugural awards in 2014, when we had about 40 entries from 10 countries. This growth can only be a wonderful advertisement for the growing and vibrant practice of fact-checking on the continent,” the organisers said.
Adebulu, who holds a Master’s in Communication Arts from the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, is also a recipient of the 2020 BudgIT/Civic Hive Media Fellowship.
In 2017, Adebulu won the Sustainable Development Goals category of the Zimeo Excellence in Media Award in Ethiopia.
He was a finalist for The Future Awards Africa Prize for Journalism 2018 and recently won the 2020 PwC Media Excellence Award.
Coronavirus: France extends overnight curfew as cases surge
France will extend an overnight curfew to dozens more areas in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Jean Castex has announced.
“The second wave is now under way,” he said, shortly before the country announced a record 41,622 new cases.
The 21:00 to 06:00 curfew will come into force at midnight on Friday, and some 46 million people will now be affected by the measure.
Countries around Europe are struggling with rising infection rates.
France, Italy, Spain and the UK are all hotspots.
“The coming weeks will be hard and the number of deaths will continue to rise,” Mr Castex told a press conference on Thursday. Over the last 24 hours France recorded 162 more deaths.
“If we fail to stop the pandemic, we will be facing a dire situation and we will have to mull much tougher measures,” he added.
“We still have time to avoid that but we don’t have much time,” he said.
The prime minister’s announcement came less than a week after the same curfew was applied to the Paris region and eight other cities, including Marseille, Lyon, Lille and Toulouse.
The restrictions will be extended to 38 more administrative departments as well as the overseas territory of Polynesia, and will remain in place for six weeks.
The overnight curfew has drawn complaints from restaurant owners, whose businesses are already suffering after the two-month lockdown in the spring.
But President Emmanuel Macron has said they are necessary to avoid the risk of hospitals being overrun.
France has reported more than 20,000 new cases over the past six days, and the total number of confirmed infections now stands at nearly one million
Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM) has expressed sadness over the shooting of protesting youths by Nigerian security forces.
The security forces were reported on Tuesday to have used live bullets on the youths that are carrying out peaceful protest across the country against Police brutality.
The church in a statement by its PR Taskforce Committee and signed by the chairman, Brother Collins Edomaruse, frowned at the incident, saying: “Those who shed innocent blood, their own blood will certainly be shed.”
The full statement
MFM SADDENED BY SHOOTING OF PROTESTERS BY SECURITY FORCES
The Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries is deeply saddened by the unwarranted, unnecessary, callous, barbaric and inhuman use of live bullets by the security forces on Nigerian youths in Lagos, who were on peaceful protests to register their grievances with regards to violation of their fundamental human rights by the security agents.
It is indeed a Black Tuesday in the annals of Lagos and Nigeria. This is least expected in this century. While youths all over the world are contributing their own quota to good governance, the security forces are shooting their own in cold blood, devoid of human feelings and empathy.
Biblical principles of the Almighty God, says that the wickedness of the wicked, will consume the wicked. Those who shed innocent blood, their own blood will certainly be shed.
Let it be known that whatever is done under the cover of darkness with the belief that nobody sees it, will surely be brought to light and God the Ultimate Judge, will definitely judge speedily.
For it is written in Psalm 10.18 “You will hear the cries of the oppressed and the orphans; you will judge in their favor, so that mortal men may cause terror no more”.
Our hearts and prayers go to the Nigerian youths and all others negatively affected by this unfortunate and avoidable situation. We pray that God Almighty will minister peace and comfort to their hearts.
We also commiserate with the parents and guardians of the victims of this extreme show of force ,lack of empathy and lack of brotherly love, from those that committed this dastardly act.
To the Nigerian government, we will like to advise that going forward, utmost care and caution, coupled with divine wisdom, should be employed in bringing a lasting solution to the problem at hand.
Nigeria is all we have as Nigerians.
LET THE PEACE OF GOD REIGN SUPREME IN NIGERIA IN JESUS’ MIGHTY NAME. AMEN.
Collins Edomaruse (Chairman, PR Task Force Committee)
Breonna Taylor: Officer in shooting says it ‘was not a race thing’
Breonna Taylor, 26, was a decorated emergency medical technician
A US policeman involved in the controversial killing of black woman Breonna Taylor in her home has broken his silence in his first interview.
Sgt Jonathan Mattingly, who was shot in the leg by Ms Taylor’s boyfriend, said the case had “nothing to do with race”.
Last month a Kentucky jury recommended that the three officers involved in the drug raid face no homicide charges.
The death of the 26-year-old hospital worker spurred Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
Mr Mattingly is one of three Louisville Metropolitan Police officers who prosecutors say were cleared of murder charges by a grand jury last month.
In an interview with ABC News and The Louisville Courier Journal, Mr Mattingly accused city officials of not coming to his defence in the aftermath of the shooting.
“It’s been excruciating,” he said. “When you have the truth right there in your hands and everything else is getting crammed around you, it’s frustrating.”
He added that although Ms Taylor’s death was tragic, it was not similar to other high-profile killings by police in recent months.
“It’s not a race thing like people want to try to make it to be. It’s not. This is a point where we were doing our job, we gave too much time when we go in, I get shot, we returned fire,” he said.
“This is not us going, hunting somebody down. This is not kneeling on a neck. It’s nothing like that.”
“She didn’t deserve to die,” he continued. “She didn’t do anything to deserve a death sentence.”
In September, Mr Mattingly drew scrutiny after an email he wrote to more than 1,000 of his colleagues on the police force accused the city’s mayor and police chief of failing “all of us in epic proportions for their own gain and to cover their asses”.
He wrote “legal, moral and ethical thing that night,” adding: “It’s sad how the good guys are demonised, and the criminals are canonised.”
What happened to Breonna Taylor?
Plainclothes police officers Hankison, Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove stormed Ms Taylor’s Louisville home shortly after midnight on 13 March.
Ms Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, at the time.
The officers were executing a search warrant as part of a drugs investigation.
Mr Walker fired a shot from his licensed gun, later telling police he thought that Ms Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, had broken in, according to the New York Times. Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker describes the night she was killed by police
Officials say Mr Walker’s bullet struck Mr Mattingly in the leg. The three officers returned fire, discharging 32 rounds, according to a ballistics report from the FBI.
Ms Taylor was shot amid the commotion and died on the hallway floor.
A subsequent police report contained errors, including listing Ms Taylor’s injuries as “none” and saying no force was used to enter, when a battering ram had been used.
Mr Hankison was fired from the police after investigators found he had “wantonly and blindly fired 10 rounds” during the raid, according to his termination letter.
Mr Mattingly and Mr Cosgrove were reassigned to administrative duties.
The search warrant obtained by police included Ms Taylor’s name and address. Authorities believed Mr Glover was involved in a drug ring and had used her apartment to hide narcotics.
No drugs were found at the property, though Jefferson County Prosecutor Thomas Wine said the search was cancelled after the shooting.
The grand jury ruling last month reignited protests in Kentucky
Mr Glover was arrested for drug possession on the night of Breonna Taylor’s death. He has said that prosecutors pressed him to name Ms Taylor as a “co-defendant” in the case against him.
In May, Louisville postal inspector Tony Gooden said that another government agency had been asked in January to investigate whether Ms Taylor’s home had been receiving suspicious mail. Mr Gooden did not name the agency but said it had found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Mr Glover also told the Courier Journal that he had sent packages of clothes and shoes to Ms Taylor’s apartment because he feared they would be stolen.
Many killed and wounded in Afghanistan visa stampede
At least 11 women have been killed and many more injured in a stampede in a stadium in Afghanistan where people were applying for visas, officials say.
The incident happened after “thousands of people” gathered to request permits to Pakistan, a local spokesman said. The crowd had been redirected to a sports stadium instead of the usual visa centre in the city of Jalalabad.
Visa applications to Pakistan have just resumed after a seven-month pause due to the pandemic.
“The visa applicants jostled to secure their token from the consulate officials,” an official in Jalalabad said.
“The crowd got out of control, leading to a stampede.”
Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, said he was “deeply saddened” by the incident and that his country was “engaged with Afghan authorities for better facilitation of visa applicants”.
In the conservative Muslim society of Afghanistan, it is common that women and men queue separately.
It is thought a number of other women and elderly people have also been injured.
Many Afghans travel each year to neighbouring Pakistan to visit relatives, seek medical treatment, find jobs or escape the ongoing violence in their own country.
Expecting a large number of applicants after the long pause of the visa service, the Pakistani consulate in the eastern province of of Nangarhar, directed the crowd to a nearby football stadium.
“Unfortunately this morning tens of thousands of people had come to the football stadium which led to the tragic incident,” the provincial governor’s spokesman Attaullah Khogyani told news agency.
The US government has filed charges against Google, accusing the company of abusing its dominance to preserve a monopoly over internet searches and online advertising. In other words, Google is dominating and abusing it’s dominance online.
The lawsuit marks the biggest challenge brought by US regulators against a major tech company in years.
It follows more than a year of investigation and comes as the biggest tech firms face intense scrutiny of their practices at home and abroad.
Google called the case “deeply flawed”.
The company has maintained that its sector remains intensely competitive and that its practices put customers first.
“People use Google because they choose to – not because they’re forced to or because they can’t find alternatives,” it said upon replying.
Google has been issued with huge fines in the EU over market dominance
The charges, filed in federal court, were brought by the US Department of Justice and 11 other states. The lawsuit focuses on the billions of dollars Google pays each year to ensure its search engine is installed as the default option on browsers and devices such as mobile phones.
Officials said those deals have helped secure Google’s placeas the “gatekeeper” to the internet, owning or controlling the channels for about 80% of search queries in the US.
“Google has thus foreclosed competition for internet search,” the lawsuit said. “General search engine competitors are denied vital distribution, scale, and product recognition – ensuring they have no real chance to challenge Google.”
It added: “Google is so dominant that ‘Google’ is not only a noun to identify the company and the Google search engine but also a verb that means to search the internet.”
The case could be the first of many in the US that challenge the dominance of big tech firms and potentially lead to their break-up.
Coming just a few weeks before the US presidential election, it has also been viewed as a move by the Trump administration to prove its willingness to challenge the influence of the sector if it gains a second term.
Officials said they had not rushed the investigation to ensure it was filed before the election.
“We’re acting when the facts and the law warranted,” deputy attorney general Jeffrey Rosen said, adding that the department’s review of competition practices in the technology sector is continuing.
Not less than three people were feared killed in Oojo area of Ibadan, Oyo State capital on Tuesday, as policemen opened fire on hoodlums who reportedly attacked a police station during the ongoing #EndSARS protest.
THISDAY learnt that the protest was going on peacefully before some hoodlums hijacked it and started throwing stones and bottles at a police station.
It was gathered that the development made the policemen to open fire on the protesters, killing at least two people in the process.
Sporadic gunshots were heard for almost an hour which made people scampered to safety.
It was further gathered that after normalcy was briefly restored, the hoodlums gathered again and burned down the police station.
UK plan to be first to run human challenge Covid trials
The UK is pushing ahead to be the first nation to carry out “human challenge” studies where up to 90 healthy people will be deliberately exposed to Covid.
The trials, which could begin in January, aim to speed up the race to get a Covid-19 vaccine.
The government is putting £33.6m towards the groundbreaking work. Safety will be a number one priority, experts insist. The plans will need ethical approval and sign-off from regulators before they can go ahead.
Human challenge studies provide a faster way to test vaccines because you don’t have to wait for people to be exposed to an illness naturally.
Researchers would first use controlled doses of the pandemic virus to discover what is the smallest amount that can cause Covid infection in volunteers aged 18 to 30.
These human guinea pigs, who will be infected with the virus through the nose and monitored around the clock, have the lowest risk of harm due to their young age and good health.
Next, scientists could test if a Covid vaccine prevents infection.
Could human challenge trials speed up the development of a coronavirus vaccine?
Lead researcher for the project Dr Chris Chiu, from Imperial College London, said: “My team has been safely running human challenge studies with other respiratory viruses for over 10 years. No study is completely risk free, but the Human Challenge Programme partners will be working hard to ensure we make the risks as low as we possibly can.”
Prof Peter Openshaw, co-investigator on the study and director of the Human Challenge Consortium, said deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen was “never undertaken lightly”.
“However, such studies are enormously informative.
“It is really vital that we move as fast as possible towards getting effective vaccines and other treatments for Covid-19.”
There are hundreds of Covid vaccines being developed around the world and several front-runners already in the final stages of testing, including one from Oxford University.
While some of these could get results and start to be used before the new trial has chance to begin, researchers say the work will still be useful, particularly for head-to-head studies to compare which vaccines work best.
Experts say we will probably need a few different vaccines, as well as effective treatments, to defeat Covid. They will also need to be tested in those at highest risk from Covid – the elderly and vulnerable.
The first stage of the human challenge project will be delivered by a partnership between Imperial College London, the Royal Free Hospital’s specialist and secure research unit in London and a company called hVIVO.
After exposure to Covid, the young volunteers will need to stay in a biosecure facility until they are no longer infectious.
They will be financially reimbursed for their time, and monitored for up to a year after taking part in the study to check for any side-effects.
Purposely infecting someone with Covid does pose an ethical dilemma, especially since there is no treatment to cure patients, although there are ones that might make it less deadly.
Prof Julian Savulescu, an expert in ethics at Oxford University, said the trials were justified: “In a pandemic, time is lives. So far, over a million people have died.
“There is a moral imperative to develop to a safe and effective vaccine – and to do so as quickly as possible.
“Given the stakes, it is unethical not to do challenge studies.”
Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “We are doing everything we can to fight coronavirus, including backing our best and brightest scientists and researchers in their hunt for a safe and effective vaccine.”
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
