South Africa’s Olympic long jump silver medallist Luvo Manyonga has been provisionally suspended for anti-doping whereabouts failures.

The 30-year-old, who battled drug addiction before winning silver at Rio 2016, was charged by the Athletics Integrity Unit on Friday.

The delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics are scheduled to start on 23 July 2021.

Manyonga is among the favourites to win gold in Tokyo after winning the 2017 World and 2018 Commonwealth titles.

In 2012, Manyonga was banned from athletics for 18 months after testing positive for crystal meth.

The AIU says athletes must provide “accurate and up-to-date” details about their whereabouts as a way to “ensure compliance to anti-doping rules”.

A whereabouts failure against an athlete will be recorded if they fail to submit their whereabouts by the required deadline, have not provided updated or sufficient details to administrators, or are not available for testing in an agreed 60-minute time slot.

Under World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, any combination of three whereabouts failures within 12 months is an anti-doping rule violation.

A ban up to two years could be imposed for the offence.

In May last year, Manyonga was fined for public drinking and contravening South Africa’s strict lockdown restrictions

Twenty-three soldiers accused of being behind the assassination of former president of Democratic Republic of Congo have been released after spending nearly two decades behind bars.

Laurent Kabila was shot dead by a bodyguard in 2001. A military trial that followed jailed dozens of soldiers, including Col Eddy Kapend, his personal aide.

Human Rights groups criticised the trial. Some in DR Congo believe the soldiers were used as scapegoats.

There has been much speculation about who gave the orders for Kabila’s assassination, including suggestions that foreign powers were involved, as it came at a time when several neighbouring countries were involved in the conflict in DR Congo.

The soldiers’ release follows pardons issued by President Félix Tshisekedi who took over from Joseph Kabila, the son of the late president, two years ago.

Mr Kabila repeatedly resisted calls to pardon the prisoners – 11 of whom died whilst in custody.

The release comes amid a power struggle between President Tshisekedi and his predecessor, who continues to wield considerable influence in the country.

Mr Tshisekedi ended his coalition with Mr Kabila’s party – which holds a majority in parliament – following years of tension.

The president is currently seeking new coalition partners that would give him a majority in parliament

Thousands of refugees and migrants urgently need proper shelter in Bosnia-Herzegovina after weeks outdoors in freezing cold, the UN has warned.

Some 2,500 people are in unheated tents or sleeping rough near the northern town of Bihac. A UN official says some are now being moved to heated tents.

Local authorities have refused to reopen a nearby reception centre.

Instead hundreds have been forced to return to a temporary camp that was ravaged by fire last month.

Peter Van der Auweraert of the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) showed photos of the basic tents erected at the Lipa camp by the Bosnian army a few days ago.

The camp was set up hastily in the summer when the coronavirus pandemic forced crisis measures including border closures.

But aid agencies pulled out of the camp in December, saying it was unsustainable without water and electricity.

Some residents forced to leave the facility looted equipment and set fire to tents, police said.

However, about 900 migrants had to go back there, after local officials refused to let them move to the empty reception centre in Bihac. Another 1,500 are struggling in primitive conditions elsewhere near the town.

The migrants are from South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and got stuck in Bosnia while trying to reach Croatia, an EU member state seen as a gateway to the EU.

Some of the migrants have refused to use the tents in Lipa because they lack heating and sanitation. Some also went on hunger strike, angry at the lack of amenities. But on Tuesday many did receive Red Cross food parcels.

“We want people in proper reception centres where they have access to services, like the 6,000 other people in Bosnia,” Mr Van der Auweraert, the IOM’s head in Bosnia-Herzegovina, told the BBC’s Balkans correspondent Guy De Launey at Lipa.

The IOM says about 8,500 non-EU migrants are living in Bosnia, still hoping to get to northern Europe.

No casualties were recorded at the scene of incident, according to LASEMA.

An accident involving a fuel tanker has resulted in a massive fire outbreak in Lagos State.

The tanker, loaded with Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), exploded at Toyota Bus Stop along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway on Thursday, January 7, 2021.

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) said the tanker exploded after it disconnected from its turntable head due to reckless driving.

“The impact of the collision with the ground resulted in the spark and subsequent explosion,” the agency said.

US intelligence agencies have said they believe Russia was behind the “serious” cyber compromise revealed in December.

President Trump had previously suggested China might have been behind the hack, although other members of his administration had pointed the finger at Moscow.

In a joint statement, the intelligence bodies say they currently believe fewer than 10 US government agencies saw their data compromised, although other organisations outside of government were also affected.

They say work is still going on to understand the scope of the incident, which appears to have been aimed at gathering intelligence and which they say is “ongoing” a month after details first emerged.

The update on the investigation came in a statement from a task force called the Cyber Unified Coordination Group which was set up to deal with the incident. It comprises intelligence and law enforcement agencies including the FBI and NSA.

The group said it was still working to understand the scope of what had taken place.

Soon after the incident was revealed, President Trump raised the possibility that China might be responsible, but members of his own administration including the secretary of state and attorney general pointed the finger at Moscow.

The latest statement shows the assessment of US intelligence agencies is that Russia was behind it, although it does not go so far as accusing the Russian state itself, saying only that the actor was “likely Russian in origin”. Moscow has denied playing any part.

President-elect Joe Biden has previously said it was important to take “meaningful steps” to hold those responsible to account. It is not yet clear, though, what that might involve. While some US politicians suggested the breach might even be compared to an “act of war”, most cyber-experts disputed this and the US intelligence community has now played down suggestions that it could have had destructive impact.

“At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence-gathering effort,” the latest statement says. This is significant since it suggests no evidence has been found that this was preparatory activity for a more destructive cyber-attack which might switch off systems. This may limit the US response since espionage operations do not breach the cyber norms the US itself promotes (largely because it too carries out such intelligence-gathering operations against other nations

The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is being rolled out to hundreds of GP-run vaccination sites in England.

As part of the biggest vaccination programme in NHS history, the aim is to offer jabs to most care home residents by the end of January.

By mid-February, the target is to vaccinate 13 million people in the top four priority groups.

But one surgery visited by the health secretary to promote the initiative said its delivery had been delayed.

More than 700 local vaccination sites will administer the jabs.

Another 180 GP-led sites, 100 new hospital sites and a pilot scheme involving local pharmacies will open this week.

The Oxford jab was initially given to patients in selected hospitals, including first recipient 82-year-old Brian Pinker.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was now being supplied to GP practices across the country as he visited the Bloomsbury Surgery in central London.

Mr Hancock said he was “delighted” care homes residents would begin receiving their first Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs this week.

“This will ensure the most vulnerable are protected and will save tens of thousands of lives,” he said.

But GP Ammara Hughes, a partner at Bloomsbury Surgery, told broadcasters its first delivery of the jab had been pushed back 24 hours to Thursday.

She said: “It’s just more frustrating than a concern because we’ve got the capacity to vaccinate. And if we had a regular supply – we do have the capacity to vaccinate three to four thousand patients a week.”

Mr Hancock said the “rate-limiting” factor in efforts to get people vaccinated was supply from the manufacturers.

The surgery said it was continuing to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and had so far received three deliveries of that jab.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said vaccination centres and GP surgeries needed better information about deliveries of the vaccine and how much to expect to arrive.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth tweeted that the scenes at the surgery were like something from political comedy The Thick of It, but added: “Sadly it’s no laughing matter.”

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first to be approved by the UK’s medicines regulator in early December, followed by the British-made Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine four weeks later.

Because it does not need to be stored at ultra-cold temperatures like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, it can be transported and stored more easily, making it simpler to vaccinate housebound people and those in care homes.

Around half a million doses of both vaccines are ready to be used this week, with millions more in the pipeline in the coming weeks.

Next week, seven major vaccination hubs across England are set to begin operating, including the Excel Centre in London and Millennium Point in Birmingham.

This, we agree, is a giant stride towards ensuring a safe nation amid the pandemic.

Citizens have been left stranded and frustrated outside offices of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) as staff of the commission embarked on industrial action.

“Consequent upon the just concluded congress of the above-mentioned association that took place on January 6, 2020, the unit executive directs all members of grade level 12 and below in the head office and state offices to report to their respective duty posts tomorrow January 7, 2020, and do nothing,” the notice stated.

The notice which was signed by Chairman of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, NIMC branch, Asekokhai Michael, and its Secretary, Odia Victor also stated that “all members at the local government offices and special centres are advised to stay away from their various centres as task force and implementation committees would be on parade to ensure total compliance to the directive.”

In December, the Nigerian Communications Commission directed all telecommunication firms to disconnect the SIM cards of all persons who have not integrated their National Identity Numbers with their phone lines by the end of January.

More than 95 million Nigerians are yet to integrate their National Identification Numbers and has brought about huge crowds to gather at the offices of NIMC nationwide in breach of the COVID-19 protocol.