Four Lions at Barcelona Zoo in Spain have tested positive for coronavirus, veterinary officials say.
Three females named Zala, Nima and Run Run and one male called Kiumbe were tested after displaying mild symptoms.
Two staff members also tested positive for the virus, the zoo said.
An investigation is under way to establish how the animals became infected, but it is thought they may have been in contact with an asymptomatic member of staff.
Zookeepers reportedly carried out a standard PCR swab test on the four lions – the same method used on humans – because they are comfortable having close contact with staff.
The animals had been showing upper respiratory symptoms, according to an earlier statement from the zoo. Most symptoms have disappeared other than minor coughing and sneezing.
They are being treated with anti-inflammatory drugs and monitored closely. “The lions were given veterinary care for their mild clinical condition – similar to a very mild flu condition – and [they] responded well,” a statement said. Some of the famous zoo’s animals have begun to notice the lack of visitors
It is only the second known case in which large felines have contracted coronavirus.
One of the tigers, Nadia, is believed to be the first known case of an animal becoming infected with Covid-19 in the US.
All of the animals at the Bronx Zoo made a full recovery.
The risk of infection between zoo animals and visitors, meanwhile, is low became of a lack of proximity. “Simply, no one who comes to see [the lions] gets close enough,” the Barcelona Zoo statement said.
A UK grandmother has become the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer Covid-19 jab as part of a mass vaccination programme.
Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, said it was the “best early birthday present”.
She was given the injection at 06:31 GMT – the first of 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that will be dispensed in the coming weeks.
Up to four million more are expected by the end of the month.
Hubs in the UK will vaccinate over-80s and some health and care staff – the programme aims to protect the most vulnerable and return life to normal.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has dubbed Tuesday V-day, said he was thrilled to see the first vaccinations take place but urged people to keep their resolve and stick to the rules for the next few months.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said viewing footage of the moment gave her “a lump in the throat”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on a visit to a London hospital to see some of the first people getting the jab, said getting vaccinated was “good for you and good for the whole country”
At University Hospital, Coventry, matron May Parsons administered the very first jab to Ms Keenan.
“I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against Covid-19,” Ms Keenan, who is originally from Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, said.
“It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year.
“My advice to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it. If I can have it at 90, then you can have it too,” she added.
The second person vaccinated in Coventry was William Shakespeare, 81, from Warwickshire, who said he was “pleased” to be given the jab and hospital staff had been “wonderful”.
image captionSecond in line for the jab at University Hospital in Coventry was 81-year-old William Shakespeare from Warwickshire
Throughout the morning, patients and health workers at some 50 hospitals around the UK, have been getting the jab:
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Breakfast there was a “long march ahead of us but this marks the way out” Matt Hancock says he is thrilled but warns that people must still stick to the rules
While pleased to see the first jabs being given, he said the “virus is deadly” and “we’ve got to stick by the rules”.
More than 60,000 people in the UK have died within 28 days of a Covid-19 test, but there are signs the UK could be at the peak of the pandemic’s second wave.
New data released by national statisticians for the week ending 27 November showed that of the 14,106 deaths registered, nearly 3,400 involved Covid.
This is 20% higher than the five-year average but is similar to the percentages seen in the past two weeks.
image caption81-year-old Lyn Wheeler tells the prime minister she’s doing it for Britain
On a visit to London’s Guy’s Hospital, Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to 81-year-old Lyn Wheeler, who was the first to receive the vaccine there.
“It is really very moving to hear her say she is doing it for Britain, which is exactly right – she is protecting herself but also helping to protect the entire country,” Mr Johnson said.
Earlier, the prime minister thanked the NHS and “all of the scientists who worked so hard to develop this vaccine”, the volunteers and “everyone who has been following the rules to protect others”.
Nigerian government, on Tuesday, refuted claims by the United States of America, that the country abuses religious freedom, insisting that both Christians and Muslims are victims of terrorism in the country.
Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, made the remark in a statement made available to DAILY POST.
Mohammed described the allegation as a case of honest disagreement between the two nations on the causes of violence in Nigeria.
However, Mohammed, in a statement by his Media Aide, Segun Adeyemi said: ”Nigeria does not engage in religious freedom violation, neither does it have a policy of religious persecution. Victims of insecurity and terrorism in the country are adherents of Christianity, Islam and other religions.”
He said Nigeria jealously protects religious freedom as enshrined in the country’s constitution and takes seriously any infringements in this regard.
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is being treated in hospital.
The president wrote in a tweet: “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!”
Mr Giuliani, who has led the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to the election results, is the latest person close to the president to be infected.
The president and his team have been criticised for shunning safety guidance. Mr Trump was ill in October.
Mr Giuliani, 76, was admitted to the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC on Sunday, according to US media reports.
Following news of Mr Giuliani’s diagnosis, the Arizona legislature announced sudden plans to shut down for one week. Several Republican lawmakers in the state had spent hours with the former New York mayor last week discussing election results.
In a tweet, Mr Giuliani thanked well-wishers for their messages, and said he was “recovering quickly”.
His son, Andrew Giuliani, who works at the White House and tested positive for the virus last month, tweeted that his father was “resting, getting great care and feeling well”.
It is not clear if Mr Giuliani is experiencing symptoms or when he caught the virus.
Nearly 14.6 million people have been infected with Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 281,234 people have died – the highest figures of any country in the world.
On Sunday, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator, criticised the Trump administration for flouting guidelines and peddling “myths” about the pandemic.
“I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work towards herd immunity,” Dr Birx told NBC.
“This is the worst event that this country will face,” she said
In April 2018, Giuliani joined President Donald Trump‘s personal legal team. His activities as Trump’s attorney have drawn renewed media scrutiny, including allegations that he is engaged in corruption and profiteering. In late 2019, Giuliani was reportedly under federal investigation for violating lobbying laws, and possibly several other charges, as a central figure in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which resulted in Trump’s impeachment.
Following the 2020 election, he represented Trump in many lawsuits attempting to overturn the election results, making false and debunked allegations about rigged voting machines, polling place fraud, and an international Communist conspiracy.
A satellite-controlled machine-gun with “artificial intelligence” was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, a Revolutionary Guards commander says.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was shot dead in a convoy outside Tehran on 27 November.
On Sunday, Brig-Gen Ali Fadavi told local media the weapon, mounted in a pick-up truck, had been able to fire several rounds at Fakhrizadeh without hitting his wife beside him.
Iran has blamed Israel and an exiled opposition group for the attack.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
How was Fakhrizadeh killed?
The Iranian authorities have put out conflicting accounts of how the scientist was gunned down as he travelled in a car through the town of Absard.
One Iranian report quoted witnesses as saying that “three to four individuals, who are said to have been terrorists, were killed”. A Nissan pick-up was also said to have exploded at the scene.
In a speech at Fakhrizadeh’s funeral, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it was actually a remote attack, using “special methods” and “electronic equipment”. But he provided no further details.
Gen Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, told a ceremony in Tehran on Sunday that a machine-gun mounted on the Nissan pick-up was “equipped with an intelligent satellite system which zoomed in on martyr Fakhrizadeh” and “was using artificial intelligence”.
image captionA remote-controlled machine-gun fired 13 bullets at Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s car, according to Brig-Gen Ali Fadavi
The machine-gun “focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh’s face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25cm [10 inches] away, was not shot”, he said.
The general reiterated that no human assailants had been present at the scene, saying that “in total 13 bullets were fired and all of them were shot from the [weapon] in the Nissan”. Four bullets struck Fakhrizadeh’s head of security “as he threw himself” on the scientist, he added.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed to avenge the assassination, demanding the “definitive punishment” of those behind it.media captionMohsen Fakhrizadeh was buried in Tehran following his assassination on Friday
On Friday, Israeli public radio reported that Israeli security officials had warned some former nuclear scientists to be cautious. The experts used to work at the reactor in Dimona, a top secret nuclear site deep in the Negev desert.
The Israeli government did not comment on the report, which came a day after the Israeli foreign ministry told Israeli citizens travelling in the Middle East and Africa to be vigilant in light of what it called threats from “Iranian elements”.
A source who works in the Lekki area of Lagos, has confirmed the heavy presence of police and soldiers at the toll gate plaza.
In what appears to be an attempt to forestall another round of #EndSARS protests, armed police officers and soldiers were on Monday spotted at the Lekki toll gate, Lagos.
According to different Twitter users, the security operatives were deployed around midnight.
The Lagos State Police Command had on Sunday in a statement by its spokesman, Muyiwa Adejobi, threatened that “security agencies will not fold their arms” as youths plan fresh protests against police brutality and extortion.
The statement was issued after a poster, titled “#EndSARS reloaded phase II” went viral on social media.
It was stated in the poster that the “phase II” of the #EndSARS protest would begin on Monday, December 7 in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Delta, and Bayelsa.
The demands of the protesters are “Buhari, Buratai, Sanwo-Olu must resign and face ICC for killing innocent Nigerians at Lekki toll; free all #EndSARS protesters; unfreeze all bank accounts of #EndSARS protesters and referendum.”
In October, many citizens took to the streets across Nigeria to express their frustration against police harassment.
However, hoodlums hijacked the demonstrations to unleash violence on citizens. Public and private properties were looted and destroyed in the process.
Meanwhile, Nigerians have continued to tweet on #ENDSARS on social media, calling for an end to bad governance and police brutality. Old videos of the protests held in Abuja and Lagos are being circulated online with the hashtag.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said President-elect Joe Biden’s statement that there “is not plan” to deliver a vaccine for the coronavirus to people across the country “nonsense” during an appearance Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.”
“With all respect that’s just nonsense, we have comprehensive plans from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country,” Azar said after Fox’s Chris Wallace played a clip of Biden making the remark.
“There is no detailed plan, that we’ve seen anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody’s arm,” Biden said in the clip shown by Wallace.
Azar added that the administration was “leveraging our retail pharmacies, our public health departments, our community health centers,” to get a vaccine out.
He said the rollout was “being micromanaged and controlled by the United States military” as well as the private sector.
“We’re leveraging the systems that are known and that work within the United States,” he said.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the number of vaccines being delivered by the end of year is now expected to fall far short of promises from the Trump administration that hundreds of millions of doses would come by the end of 2020.
Azar said he had also said tens of millions of doses would be delivered by the end of the year and that he had been consistent. He also said career scientists were working to make sure no “red flags” were found on the vaccines, but that he was hopeful approvals could be given in days, and that the vaccines could then be delivered across the country quickly.
Azar went on to say the vaccines represent “the light at the end of the tunnel” and are “why we need people to hang in there” as far as mitigation efforts such as mask-wearing anf social distancing.
Both Pfizer and Moderna are set to submit their vaccines for emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in the next two weeks. Azar said the first doses could be distributed within days of committee approval.
“Those bright days are ahead and want everyone to be there to get their vaccinations,” he added.
The Hill has reached out to the Biden transition team for comment.
Jessica Case, a publisher with Pegasus Book who worked with him on his last book on President Trump, told the BBC: “His knowledge and insight into psychology were unmatched. He was endlessly curious.”
Bio critical information
Post, born in 1934 in New Haven, attended Yale University, where he did his undergraduate degree, before heading to medical school.
He then undertook his postgraduate psychiatric training at Harvard Medical School and the National Institute of Mental Health, according to the Washington Post.
Post spent more than 20 years working at the CIA. He set up the agency’s Centre for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behaviour in the early 1970s.
The unit analysed foreign leaders such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi. Their assessments enabled presidents and high-profile officials to prepare for negotiations and crisis situations.
Post wrote the “Camp David Profiles” of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which were said to have significantly influenced President Jimmy Carter’s strategy for negotiations at Camp David – the US presidential retreat in Maryland – in 1978. The ensuing accords, signed by the two leaders, led directly to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.
In his book Keeping Faith, Post said: “After Camp David, there was scarcely a major summit without our being asked to prepare profiles and assessments of the foreign leaders.”
Post was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit in 1979.
He then went on to assume his position of director of the political-psychology programme at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
However, US government officials later called on Post again to help guide them in their decisions surrounding Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
Speaking to the BBC in 2002, Post said Hussein had a “traumatic upbringing”. Hussein fled his parent’s home, who refused to give him and education, and went to live with his uncle who “filled him with these dreams of glory”.
Post said this cultivation of grandiose fantasy turned him into a “malignant narcissist”.
Analysing the US president
Post wrote 14 books on a range of topics, from the mind of terrorists and the increase of politicians with narcissistic personalities.
He faced some criticism during his career for diverging from the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Goldwater Rule, which prohibits psychiatrists from commenting on the mental health of public figures, or diagnosing them, without examination and consent.
However, Post argued that it was sometimes unethical to stay quiet.
“I think there’s a duty to warn,” Post told The New Yorker in 2017. “Serious questions have been raised about the temperament and suitability of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” he said about President Trump.
In 2019, he took this idea further, co-writing a book with Stephanie Doucette titled: “Dangerous Charisma: The Political Psychology of Donald Trump and His Followers”.
“Should Trump win, as he did in 2016, he will make it a much bigger win and talking [sic] about the fraudulent election support on the Democratic side. But should Trump lose narrowly, I think we can be assured that he will not concede early.
“Trump may not even recognise the legitimacy of the election,” he said.
Following the book’s publication, Post’s health began to decline and he suffered a stroke in July.
He spent his final weeks at home and died on 22 November, a week after testing positive for coronavirus.
Police in Italy have arrested 19 people accused of running a smuggling ring bringing migrants to Europe.
The smugglers allegedly transported migrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to Italy and then on to northern Europe.
Those arrested included Iraqi Kurds, Afghans and Italians, police said.
Police announced the findings following a two-year investigation that linked the suspects with smugglers in Turkey and Greece.
Investigators began looking into the alleged smuggling ring when ships carrying migrants began to arrive in the Sicilian city of Syracuse in 2018.
According to police, the migrants paid roughly €6,000 (£5,412).
Prosecutors said that the migrants were brought from Turkey and Greece to Italy in sailboats that were hired or stolen. Those who drove the boats were paid about €1,000.
They then travelled onward to northern Europe or were given the choice of remaining in Italy.
According to the investigation, specific groups across the country had their own special task.
Those in Bari, southern Italy, were responsible for finding the migrants accommodation and provided documents and residence permits that allowed the migrants to move around the country.
Senegalese football hero Papa Bouba Diop, who died in France last week aged 42, is being buried in a private ceremony at his birthplace near Dakar.
On Friday, President Macky Sall led tributes to him, saying the nation’s loss was “immense”.
Diop scored the only goal in the 2002 World Cup match which saw Senegal upset then reigning champions France.
Several of his former teammates, some overcome with emotion, attended Friday’s ceremony.
They wore the shirts of the national team bearing his name, and his number, 19.
image captionDiop’s former teammates comforted his widow, Marion
Striker El Hadji Diouf said Diop had been a model team-mate, while Henri Camara said he had lost his “twin brother”.
Diop’s body was flown back on Friday from Lens in northern France, where he died after a long illness.
‘The Wardrobe’
President Sall said that Diop’s goal against France meant Senegal would go down in the annals of global football.
After beating France, Senegal reached the quarter-finals. No African team has gone further.
image captionPresident Macky Sall (centre) led the tributes
The president announced that a museum at a 50,000-seater stadium being built outside the capital, Dakar, would be named after Diop, who has also been given a posthumous national award, the Knight of the National Order of Merit.
The highlight of his club career was winning the 2008 FA Cup with Portsmouth. He also played for Fulham, West Ham United, Birmingham City and French club Lens.
Billionaire businessman and father-in-law of actress, Dakore Egbuson-Akande, Harry Akande, has died. He was 77 years old.
The billionaire businessman, an Ibadan man, died in the early hours of today Saturday, December 5 after a brief illness.
Late Akande who is described as one of the richest men in Nigeria was the chairman of Akande International Corporation (AIC) with interest in healthcare, engineering, building construction and power. He was also a one-time presidential aspirant on the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) platform.
He is survived by his children including Olumide, his son who is married to actress Dakore Egbuson-Akande.
A statement released by Olumide announcing his father’s passing reads
”Chief Harry Ayoade Akande, Agba Oye of Ibadanland (March 3, 1943-December 5, 2020)
In the early hours of Saturday December 5, 2020, our patriarch Chief Harry Ayodele Akande passed away following a brief illness.
Chief Harry Akande , an was an astute businessman of international repute whose legacy and influence cut across continents.
But by far his greatest passion was for a better Nigeria that guaranteed equity and justice for all. It is our fervent hope that this will be a reality in the not too distant future.
His passing is a huge shock to his immediate & extended family, friends & associates. We are all grappling to make some sense of it.
As we seek the repose of his gentle soul, we ask you to in turn to uphold us in your prayers while we pass through this very turbulent period of our lives occasioned by the loss of someone as dear as him.
The court ruled that there was evidence that Maryam stabbed her husband to death.
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has on Friday, December 4, 2020, affirmed the death penalty imposed on Maryam Sanda, who was sentenced to death for killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello.
Presiding Judge, Justice Steven Adah held that it was not in doubt that the Maryam killed her husband, adding that she has no reason to set aside the judgement that convicted her of murder.
Maryam Sanda’s first sentence
In a judgment delivered on January 27, 2020, Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory had held that circumstantial evidence proved that Maryam “fatally” stabbed her husband to death.
President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee say they have raised $207.5m (£154m) since the US election last month.
Since October – including the weeks running up to the vote – Trump committees have raised a total of nearly half a billion dollars.
The money is funding legal challenges to Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
Mr Trump has refused to concede and alleges without evidence that Mr Biden’s win was the result of fraud.
Over the same period, Mr Biden’s campaign has raised $112m, according to a filing with the Federal Elections Commission.
Mr Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said the fundraising “positions President Trump to continue leading the fight to clean up our corrupt elections process in so many areas around the country”.
The post-election fundraising drive saw emails sent to supporters asking them to contribute to an “Official Election Defense Fund” to “protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day”.
However the small print showed that most of the money would be spent on other priorities
China has planted its flag on the Moon, more than 50 years after the US first planted the Stars and Stripes there.
The pictures from China’s National Space Administration show the five-starred Red Flag holding still on the windless lunar surface.
They were taken by a camera on the Chang’e-5 space probe before it left the Moon with rock samples on Thursday.
Two previous Chinese lunar missions had flags on the crafts’ coatings – so neither could be affixed to the moon.
The US planted the first flag on the Moon during the manned Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Five further US flags were planted on the lunar surface during subsequent missions up until 1972.
In 2012 Nasa cited satellite images as showing that five of the flags were still standing, but experts quoted in media reports say they are likely to have been bleached white by the sun’s glare.
The first flag was said by astronaut Buzz Aldrin to have been placed too close to the Apollo lunar module and was, he said, probably blown away when the module blasted off.ADVERTISEMENT
China’s mission?
The state-run Global Times newspaper said the Chinese flag was a reminder of the “excitement and inspiration” felt during the US Apollo missions.
The fabric flag was unfurled by the Chang’e-5 lander vehicle just before its ascender vehicle took off using the lander as a launchpad.
image captionChang’e-5 landed in the northwest of the Moon’s nearside. The flag can be seen on the right
It has taken soil and rock samples to China’s lunar orbiter 15km (nine miles) above the lunar surface – which will then be enclosed in a module that will be aimed at China’s Inner Mongolia region.
The Chinese flag is 2m wide and 90cm tall and weighs about a kilogram. All parts of the flag have been given features such as protection against cold temperatures, project leader Li Yunfeng told the Global Times.
“An ordinary national flag on Earth would not survive the severe lunar environment,” project developer Cheng Chang said.
image captionUS astronaut Buzz Aldrin next to the first US flag to be planted on the Moon in 1969image captionFive further US flags were placed on the lunar surface
China’s national flag was seen on the Moon during its first lunar landing mission, Chang’e-3 in photographs taken by the lander and rover of each other. The Chang’e-4 lander and rover brought the flag to the dark side of the moon in 2019.
However, in both cases the flag was on the crafts’ coating rather than being an actual fabric flag on a pole.
The Chang’e-5 mission is China’s third successful landing on the Moon in seven years
“As a child I saw it as a totally normal name,” said Mr Uunona, who won his seat with 85% of the vote.
“It wasn’t until I was growing up that I realised: This man wanted to subjugate the whole world,” he said, adding. “I have nothing to do with any of these things.”
Mr Uunona said his wife calls him Adolf and he goes by the name in public, and has no plans to change it.
Former US presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton have volunteered to have their Covid-19 vaccinations be publicly televised.
The trio of two Democrats and one Republican said they would get the jab once it has been approved by regulators and recommended by US health officials.
The move is intended to boost public confidence in the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines.
Polls indicate large swathes of the US public are reluctant to get the jab.
A Gallup poll – conducted in October before the results of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine trials were released – showed roughly six in 10 Americans would be willing to take the vaccine, up from a low of 50% in September.
No vaccination has yet been approved in the US, but government regulators will be examining Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines in the coming weeks.
“I promise you that when it’s been made for people who are less at risk, I will be taking it,” Mr Obama said in a SiriusXM radio interview on Wednesday.
“I may end up taking it on TV or having it filmed, just so that people know that I trust this science, and what I don’t trust is getting Covid.”
Representatives for Mr Bush and Mr Clinton told CNN that the former presidents – who have banded together in the past – pledged to take the vaccine “as soon as available” to them and urged all Americans to do the same.
image captionThe Florida sanctuary owned by Carole Baskin (pictured) was featured on Tiger King
A tiger “nearly tore” off the arm of a volunteer at a big cat sanctuary in Florida that featured in the Netflix series Tiger King.
Candy Crouser, 69, a volunteer at Big Cat Rescue – the animal refuge made famous by Tiger King character Carole Baskin – was injured on Thursday.
In a statement, the sanctuary said Ms Crouser was hurt after Kimba, a male tiger rescued from Guatemala, bit her.
She broke protocols by sticking her hand into his cage, it added.
Ms Crouser, who had been with the sanctuary for five years, had arrived for feeding to find that the tiger was “locked in a section that was away from where he was usually fed”, the statement said.
After reaching inside to unlatch a door, the tiger “grabbed her arm and nearly tore it off at the shoulder”.
The statement added: “Candy said she just wasn’t thinking when she reached in to un-clip it [the door].”
Bystanders used a belt as a tourniquet, and packed ice around Ms Crouser’s arm in an effort to save it.
Ambulance workers arrived to transport her to hospital in around 20 minutes, the statement adds.
image captionKimba was rescued from a Guatemalan circus
Ms Crouser was still conscious after the attack, “and insisted that she did not want Kimba Tiger to come to any harm for this mistake”. The organisation added that her arm had been broken in three places and that her shoulder had been “badly damaged”.
The tiger is being kept in quarantine for 30 days as a precaution, Big Cat Rescue said, adding, “but [he] was just acting normal due to the presence of food and the opportunity”.
The incident comes during the same week that the US House of Representatives is due to consider a law that would ban private big cat ownership and the handling of young cubs.
The Big Cat Public Safety Act had been championed by Ms Baskin and Big Cat Rescue, which cited Thursday’s incident as evidence for why the law must be passed.
It “confirms the inherent danger in dealing with these animals and why we need the Big Cat Public Safety Act to eliminate having them untracked in backyards around the country and ending up in sanctuaries”, the group said.
The Tampa-based sanctuary is home to over 50 exotic cats including lions, bobcats and servals.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has slammed the Inspector General of Police over what it termed “open and brazen disobedience and disloyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari” who gave clear directive and instruction openly and publicly to the state governments in Nigeria to constitute, judicial panels of inquiry into police brutality which was the basis of the End SARS protests.
The group in a statement on Thursday, described the decision of the police high command under the headship of Mohammed Adamu to institute a suit at the Federal High Court seeking to abort the proceedings at the different judicial panels of inquiry in different states of the Federation, as disgraceful, and a direct affront to the authority of the President of Nigeria and an unmitigated desecration of the Constitution.
HURIWA stated that it is irresponsible, insanely irrational, and senseless for the IGP to deep his hands into the public to file a case against the same public – his employers, adding that the Nigerian people are the employers of the police.
According to the association, “It is an indescribable disgrace that the IGP wants the court of law to stop the victims of police brutality from ventilating their grievances before the properly constituted judicial panel of inquiry.”
“So, what is the IGP afraid of or are his hands stained with the blood of the innocent citizens killed over the many years by Special Anti-Robbery squad of the Nigeria Police Force?
“Why is the IGP scared of the truth that are coming out from the panels of inquiry and why does he not want the victims of police brutality to obtain justice?
“The suit instituted at the Federal High Court by the IGP is provocative, unconstitutional, illegal, primitive, despicable and must be withdrawn forthwith or the IGP must be asked to refund the money used to institute the matter and be fired.
“The IGP will have to state if the instruction to go to court was given to him by President Muhammadu Buhari in which case Nigerians will have to see that the President is not honest about changing the status quo of policing which is deeply enmeshed in the use of torture and extralegal executions.
“This frivolous suit shows that the police hierarchy indeed supports the use of torture and extrajudicial killings by operatives of the Nigerian police,” the statement said.
A Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos has ordered the final forfeiture of the sum of N235.4 million traced to the account of convicted fraudster, Okeke Obinwanne known as Invictus Obi to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
This came after the Chief Executive Officer of Invictus Group pleaded guilty to two charges of computer fraud and wire fraud after his arrest in the United States.
Justice Liman had on March 23, 2020, ordered the interim forfeiture of the money domiciled in First City Monument Bank (FCMB) following an ex parte application dated December 18, 2019, by the Lagos Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He also ordered the commission to advertise same in any national newspaper for anyone to show cause why the said money should not be finally forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Serving an update on the case, Spokesperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Wilson Uwujaren said Justice Liman has ordered a final forfeiture of the sum.
It was gathered that the final forfeiture order was granted after EFCC counsel, I. Sulaiman, prayed for the confiscation.
Okeke who made it into Forbes Africa’s Under 30 List in 2016, was nabbed for $11 million fraud after an official account belonging to a steel company’s CEO was hacked. The FBI was contacted about the scam by the representatives of Unatrac Holding Limited, the export sales office for Caterpillar heavy industrial and firm equipment.
This world remains an amazing one. Who could imagine that reptiles from Mexico will be smuggled to another country?
German airport customs officers have found 26 rare reptiles – 10 of them dead – smuggled inside parcels of toys and sweets from Mexico.
Some of the dead animals had suffocated as they had been stitched inside cloth dolls, a statement from Cologne Bonn airport customs said.
The endangered horned lizards, alligator lizards and box turtles were destined for private buyers in Germany.
They are among many species that the global Cites accord seeks to protect.
image captionReptiles died after being sewn inside some of these dolls
German officials are now trying to trace the origin of the reptiles, using DNA samples.
It is not yet clear if they came from the wild or from captive breeding programmes. They were in two packages seized on 30 October and 8 November.
The customs service is collaborating with Mexican authorities and with zoologists at the Alexander Koenig Research Museum (ZFMK) in Bonn. The smugglers could be fined, if the police can identify them.
The 16 surviving reptiles might be returned to their Mexican habitat.
ZFMK’s work with customs mostly focuses on illegal goods made from poached endangered species, such as snakeskin handbags or furs.
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