The Nation Newspaper

Category: Foreign

  • Niger sanctions will be lifted if junta shows goodwill, says ECOWAS Speaker

    Niger sanctions will be lifted if junta shows goodwill, says ECOWAS Speaker

    Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament Mr. Sidie Tunis has declared that the sanctions on Niger Republic will be lifted if the junta releases President Mohamed Bazoum.

    The Speaker gave the assurance when a 19-man delegation from Africans Without Borders visited him in Abuja.

    The visit was to prevail on the parliament to support the lifting of sanctions on Niger to ease the suffering of ordinary people in that country, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported.

    The speaker tasked the delegation to prevail on the junta to unconditionally release Bazoum and his family, and set a short transition to returning the country to constitutional governance.

    Tunis said in spite of several efforts made by the bloc, there has been no breakthrough since the military junta ousted the democratically elected government in Niger.

    “We are more interested in what is happening in Niger, we have sent delegation to investigate the situation after the military coup, but we need you as citizens to help to lessen the effect with your intervention as well.

    Read Also; Sanwo-Olu promises medical palliatives to residents

    “We represent you as Members of the ECOWAS Parliament; citizens diplomacy in my opinion is the best form of diplomacy that if used well can solve a whole lots of problems, not only in this sub-region but in the entire continent of Africa.

    “As Members of Parliament we are all concerned about the situation in Niger, and I must tell you, immediately after the coup in Niger happened, we formed a committee to go and look at the situation of things in that country.

    “At the moment there has not been a breakthrough, but we believe that a group like this will be in the position to also help the situation,” he added.

    Tunis assured that the ECOWAS would continue to be on the side of the people of Niger.

    The President of African Without Borders, Mr. Ziwana Abdounahamane, said the sanctions have negatively affected the citizens of Niger and neighbouring countries.

    He added that they were grateful to ECOWAS contributions to Niger, and would not disregard the benefits enjoyed so far.

    Abdounahamane prayed that the region would stay strong and together in spite of the recent hard times.

  • U.S., Spanish, Irish leaders to Israel: you are losing support

    U.S., Spanish, Irish leaders to Israel: you are losing support

    • UK-based NGOs demand British govt halt arm flows to Israel
    • Sanders presses Biden to deny Jewish State $10.1b in military aid

    Israel is facing mounting international pressure over its war in Gaza, with even key backer the United States criticising the “indiscriminate” bombing.

    U.S. President Joe Biden told a campaign event that Israel had “most of the world supporting it” immediately after the October 7 attack, but that “they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place”.

    The White House said it has conveyed its concerns to Israel about the military campaign on Gaza yesterday.

    “We have had concerns and we have expressed those concerns about the prosecution of this military campaign, even while acknowledging that it’s Hamas that started this, and it’s Hamas that is continuing,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing.

    Washington’s support for Tel Aviv is not diminished, he reiterated a day after US President Joe Biden said Israel is losing support around the world due to its indiscriminate bombing in the Palestinian enclave.

    Kirby said the U.S. president was expressing concern about civilian casualties in Gaza.

    Now in its third month, the war has left Gaza in ruins, killing more than 18,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from the Hamas-run health ministry, and causing “unparalleled” damage to its roads, schools and hospitals.

    The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed a non-binding resolution for a ceasefire on Tuesday.

    However, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged the European Union yesterday to speak out against Israel as it continues to pursue its relentless attacks on the Gaza Strip.

    “It is time to speak openly about what is happening in Israel and Palestine,” Pedro Sanchez said at the General Assembly of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

    Sanchez called on European lawmakers to “stop the silence and speak with the same clarity and unity about what is happening in Israel and Palestine.”

    “If we want the world to respect us as a coherent and relevant geopolitical actor, if we want our citizens to be proud of our actions and to see that European values are not just words, we must speak loudly, clearly and with one voice,” he continued.

    Also, Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said yesterday that what is happening in Gaza is also a disaster for Israel because it is losing support and sympathy.

    It is a disaster “because this will not bring them security,” Varadkar told parliament in the nation’s capital, Dublin.

    “What the Israeli government is doing is jeopardising the long-term and medium-term security of the Israeli people.

    “It won’t bring them peace, and they are very quickly losing support and sympathy all around the world. Even their closest ally, the United States, I believe, is beginning to have second thoughts about what they’re seeing unfolding in Gaza,” he noted.

    Defining Tuesday’s UN General Assembly vote for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, the Irish premier said it was significant and Ireland welcomed it.

    “Only 10 countries now siding with Israel and what we’re seeing unfolding in Gaza is an absolute disaster for the Palestinian people, and they are experiencing such terrible suffering,” said Varadkar.

    The non-binding resolution, presented by Egypt, with the support of nearly 100 countries, including Türkiye, passed with 153 votes in favour as the 193-member General Assembly gathered for an emergency special session on Palestine.

    Read Also: Violence escalates between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah amid Gaza assault

    Several NGOs demanded yesterday that the British government “immediately” halt arms transfers to the Israeli government and suspend relevant licenses.

    In a joint letter to Foreign Secretary David Cameron, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the UK government should immediately suspend extant licences for military equipment and technology.

    “There is a clear risk that arms and military equipment transferred to Israel might be used to facilitate or commit serious violations of international law, including attacks that may amount to war crimes,” said the letter that was released by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), which was among the signatories.

    It said it should also suspend the issuing of new licenses “while the Israel Defence Forces continue to carry out widespread serious violations including war crimes, with impunity.”

    Also yesterday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) urged President Biden to withhold $10.1 billion in military aid to Israel that would support the Israeli military’s invasion of Gaza, arguing that the Netanyahu government’s military offensive “is being conducted in a deeply immoral way.”

  • Disappointment as COP28 adopts ‘transitioning away’ from fossil fuels

    Disappointment as COP28 adopts ‘transitioning away’ from fossil fuels

    Young climate activists in Dubai were disappointed in a new compromise text at COP28 climate talks yesterday because it stopped short of seeking fossil fuel phase-out.

    The new proposal doesn’t go so far as to seek a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, which more than 100 nations had pleaded for. Instead, it calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade.

    That transition would be in a way that gets the world to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 and follows the dictates of climate science.

    Bangladesh youth advocate Farzana Farouk Jhumu said the mitigation in the new text “is not in full” and there is no mention of fossil fuels other than coal.

    Read Also: Coping with COP28

    Jhumu and other young activists held a demonstration ahead of a plenary to demand the funding of an equitable phaseout from global leaders.

    Some of the language in previous versions of the draft that most upset nations calling for dramatic action to address climate change was altered. Actions that had previously been presented as an optional “could” changed to a bit more directing “calls on parties to.”

    Victoria Walen, an environmental justice lawyer from the United States said, called the new text “poor.”

    Nations were given a few hours to look at what COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber and his team produced.

    Within minutes of opening Wednesday’s session, COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber gaveled approval of the central document — the global stocktake that says how off-track the world is on climate and how it will get back on track — without asking for comments. Delegates stood and hugged each other.

    Earth is on its way to smashing the record for hottest year, endangering human health and leading to ever more costly and deadly extreme weather.

  • Pope chooses to be buried in Rome tomb

    Pope chooses to be buried in Rome tomb

    Pope Francis has chosen to be buried not in St Peter’s Basilica alongside his immediate predecessors but in a basilica in Rome, he revealed in an interview broadcast yesterday.

    “The place is already prepared. I want to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore,” the pontiff, who turns 87 this weekend, told Mexican broadcaster Televisa’s N+ streaming service.

    In the same interview, he revealed he planned to visit Belgium in 2024, and also hoped to visit his native Argentina and Polynesia.

    Francis’s decision means he would become the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican for more than 100 years.

    The last to eschew a tomb in St Peter’s was Leo XIII, who died in 1903. His remains lie in the basilica of St John the Lateran in Rome.

    Read Also: Pope Francis counsels Celtic players on sportsmanship

    Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the four papal basilicas in Rome, and one with which Francis said he felt a “special connection”.

    He would often go there on a Sunday while visiting Rome before becoming pope. Since his election in 2013, he prays there before and after taking a trip, and has also prayed there after undergoing surgery.

    Seven popes have previously been laid to rest in the basilica, according to the Vatican News official media outlet.

    The pontiff has suffered from increasing health issues in recent years, and was forced to cancel a visit to COP28 climate talks in Dubai due to bronchitis.

    In his interview recorded on Tuesday, in which he appeared much better, he paid tribute to his predecessor Benedict XVI for having had “the courage” to step down when his health was failing him.

    The German pontiff in 2013 became the first pope since the Middle Ages to resign.

    Benedict died on December 31, 2022, and after a funeral in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican — led by Francis — his body was buried in the tomb under the church.

    It was the same tomb that held former pope John Paul II’s body before it was moved for his beatification in 2011.

  • Russia to hold presidential elections in occupied Ukraine

    Russia to hold presidential elections in occupied Ukraine

    The Russian election commission has given a hint that the upcoming presidential election would take place in regions of Ukraine that are currently under partial Russian occupation, Interfax reported on Monday, December 11.

    As the war in Ukraine approaches its second anniversary, the Russian news agency Interfax reports that it might be possible to hold elections in the areas currently under partial Russian control.

    In Russian law, the CEC can hold elections in areas that are subject to martial law, but only after first conferring with the Defence Ministry and FSB, Moscow Times reports.

    The Kremlin has announced the annexation of several regions in Ukraine. The areas affected include Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.

    Read Also: Zelensky thanks world’s media for fostering support for Ukraine

    “Not only is the electoral system of the four [occupied regions]… in working order, but it’s highly professional,” said deputy CEC chairman Nikolai Bulayev.

    President Vladimir Putin intends to seek a fifth term in office.

    He is expected to win given the current political landscape in Russia.

    The next year’s presidential election is scheduled for March 15–17.

  • Violence escalates between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah amid Gaza assault

    Violence escalates between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah amid Gaza assault

    Violence has escalated at Lebanon’s border with Israel as Hezbollah launched explosive drones and missiles at Israeli positions, and Israeli air strikes rocked several towns and villages in south Lebanon.

    An Israeli air strike on the town of Aitaroun destroyed five homes and damaged many more, Ali Hijazi, a local official, said yesterday.

    “Divine intervention prevented anyone being martyred. Three women and two men were wounded,” he told Reuters news agency.

    Senior Hezbollah politician, Hassan Fadlallah, in a statement to Reuters, said Israeli air strikes were a “new escalation” to which the group was responding with new types of attacks, be it “in the nature of the weapons [used] or the targeted sites”.

    The Israeli army earlier said “suspicious aerial targets” had crossed from Lebanon, and two were intercepted. Two Israeli soldiers were moderately wounded and a number of others lightly injured from shrapnel and smoke inhalation, it said.

    Israeli fighter jets carried out “an extensive series of strikes on Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanese territory”, it said. Sirens sounded in Israel at several locations at the border.

    In Beirut, residents saw what appeared to be two warplanes streaking across a clear blue sky, leaving vapour trails behind them.

    Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the war in Gaza erupted two months ago in their worst hostilities since a 2006 conflict. The violence has largely been contained to the border area.

    Hezbollah says its attacks aim to support the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 18,000 people – most of them women and children – have been killed by Israel in two months.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Beirut would be turned “into Gaza” if Hezbollah started an all-out war.

    Read Also: Actress Sarah Martins defends Israel DMW amid marriage crisis

    UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, said in a statement “the potential for a miscalculation that could trigger a wider conflict is increasing”.

    In one of several attacks announced by Hezbollah on Sunday, the group said it had launched the explosive drones at an Israeli command position near Ya’ara. In another, Hezbollah said it had fired Burkan (Volcano) missiles, which carry hundreds of kilogrammes of explosives.

    Israeli air strikes were also reported on the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Yaroun, not far from the location of another of the Israeli positions Hezbollah said it had targeted on Sunday.

    Those air strikes broke windows of houses, shops and a school in the nearby village of Rmeich, Toni Elias, a priest in Rmeich, told Reuters by phone.

    Violence at the border has killed more than 120 people in Lebanon, including 85 Hezbollah fighters and 16 civilians. In Israel, the hostilities have killed seven soldiers and four civilians.

  • Islamic countries urge U.S. to pressure Israel on Gaza ceasefire

    Islamic countries urge U.S. to pressure Israel on Gaza ceasefire

    Several Arab and Islamic countries have called on the United States to play a “broader role” in pressuring Israel into accepting a ceasefire in the Gaza war, according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry.

    In a statement, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said the call was made at a meeting in Washington between Qatari, Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Palestinian, and Turkish foreign ministers with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    They are members of a ministerial committee formed by an emergency Arab-Islamic summit, hosted by Saudi Arabia last month to discuss the Gaza situation.

     During their talks with Blinken, the statement indicated, officials expressed disappointment at the UN Security Council’s failure to pass a resolution for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for humanitarian reasons after the U.S. used its veto power.

    While 13 of the 15 members of the world body voted in favour last Friday, the U.S., Israel’s key ally, vetoed the draft submitted by the United Arab Emirates. Britain abstained.

    Members of the Arab-Islamic committee also renewed their “unified rejection” of the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza, an impoverished enclave of around 2.3 million people, and called for an “immediate and complete” ceasefire to protect civilians.

    Read Also: Now that the draft UNSC resolution on Gaza has collapsed

    In the past 24 hours, Israeli attacks on Gaza claimed another 133 lives, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry on Saturday.

    No fewer than 71 dead and 160 injured were brought to the al-Aqsa Hospital, on top of 62 dead and around 100 injured taken to the Nasser Hospital, the authority announced on Saturday.

    Most of the attacks took place in the central and southern part of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian reports.

     Israeli ground troops are mainly deployed in the north and south of the coastal strip, supported by the air force.

    On Saturday, an Israeli army spokesman issued an appeal in Arabic to residents of homes in the northern Gaza Strip to flee from the fighting to a safer area in the western part of Gaza city.

    A westward evacuation will also be permitted from Khan Younis, the announcement said.

    In the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt, a four-hour ceasefire will allow the supply of humanitarian aid from the morning onwards.

    Fierce fighting has been reported in the southern city of Khan Younis, considered a stronghold of the Islamist terrorist organisation Hamas.

    So far, Israel’s National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said the Israeli armed forces have killed around 7,000 Hamas terrorists in the war on Gaza.

    Israeli units have also moved very close to Hamas command centres in Jabalia and Shejaiya in the north of the Gaza Strip, Hanegbi told Channel 12 on Saturday evening.

    The Israeli leadership’s plan is to kill Hamas leader Yehya al-Sinwar, he said.

    “If we kill him, and that is the plan, then the leadership that succeeds him may understand that if they want to escape his fate, they will have to leave Gaza, as losers,” said Hangebi.

    A total defeat of Hamas would also clear the way for the liberation of 138 hostages still held by the Islamists, he said.

    Meanwhile, as Israeli soldiers continue their attempts to rescue the hostages held in Gaza, a 25-year-old Israeli man who was abducted on Oct. 7 has died, according to statements released on Saturday.

    “It is with deep sorrow and a broken heart that we announce the murder of Sahar Baruch (25) who was kidnapped from his home by Hamas terrorists on October 7th,” Kibbutz Be’eri, where Baruch lived, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters said in a joint statement.

    Renewed fighting also took place on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, after militants reportedly launched rockets from southern Lebanon into Israeli territory.

    The Israeli military said retaliatory strikes were carried out.

    There were initially no reports of casualties on either side.

    Lebanese security sources told dpa that the border village of Aita al-Shaab was hit by heavy air strikes during the night.

    The sources believed that mainly Hezbollah members were there at the time.

    The Hezbollah-affiliated broadcaster Al Mayadeen reported that several houses in the village were destroyed.

    The Lebanese TV station Al-Manar, which is run by the political wing of Hezbollah, reported that other villages in the border area had also been hit by Israeli fire.

    Hezbollah itself did not immediately comment on the strikes.

    Israel’s military spoke of “terror targets,” including Hezbollah command and control centres.

    Since the start of the current war in Gaza, there have been repeated confrontations between Israel’s army and militant groups including Hezbollah in the Israeli-Lebanese border region.

    It is the most serious escalation since the 2006 war in Lebanon.

    The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, carried out by terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other extremist groups on Oct. 7 near Israel’s border with Gaza.

    More than 1,200 people were killed on the Israeli side, including at least 850 civilians, according to the Israeli government.

    According to the latest figures from the Health Ministry in Gaza, almost 17,700 people have been killed in Israel’s counter-attacks.

    A further 48,780 people were injured, said Ashraf al-Kudra, spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

  • Javier Milei takes office pledging deep spending cuts for Argentina

    Javier Milei takes office pledging deep spending cuts for Argentina

    Javier Milei, a maverick libertarian economist, has promised deep cuts in spending after being sworn in as president of Argentina, saying that only radical change can pull the South American nation out of its worst crisis in decades.

    “Today we are ending a long and sad history of decadence and decline and we are beginning the journey to rebuilding our country,” Milei, 53, told cheering crowds outside congress after taking the presidential oath.

    Watched by foreign dignitaries including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, King Felipe VI of Spain and politicians from the right such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, Milei ended his 35-minute speech by repeating his trademark campaign slogan of “Long live freedom, dammit!” to cheers from the crowd.

    “The challenge we have in front of us is titanic but the true strength of a people can be measured in how it confronts the challenges when they present themselves,” Milei said.

    “The speech was exactly what Milei has always said and it’s the Milei we voted for,” said Liliana Danesi, a 67-year-old pensioner. “He gives me a lot of hope that our young people won’t have to keep leaving the country, because so many have gone.”

    Milei only entered politics in 2019 and first won elected office in 2021. His insurgent campaign defeated long-established politicians by playing on his flamboyant personality and pledging to take a “chainsaw” to the Argentine state. Now he has taken on one of the world’s most daunting economic challenges from the outgoing leftwing Peronist government.

    Read Also: Injured Messi listed for Argentina’s World Cup Qualifiers

    Inflation is expected to exceed 200 per cent this year, more than 40 per cent of the population is living in poverty, a recession is looming and the peso’s value has collapsed. Net international reserves are negative and payments of over $4bn are due to the IMF and to private-sector creditors by the end of January.

    Keen to mark a break with Argentina’s political class, whom he denounced during the campaign as a “corrupt caste”, and to underline his status as an outsider, Milei arrived at congress in a simple dark-blue Volkswagen.

    After taking the oath inside the chamber, he walked down the steps to make his inaugural speech outside in the early-summer sunshine, rather than inside to legislators, as has been the custom since Argentina’s return to democracy from military rule in 1983.

    His address dwelled on the dire state of the country but avoided giving details of the measures he planned, beyond a five percentage point cut in public spending which he said would fall entirely on the state and not the private sector.

    Milei was expected to send draft legislation outlining his emergency economic measures to congress over the coming days, where it will face a difficult reception. His La Libertad Avanza party has only a small number of seats in congress and a recent alliance with the centre-right bloc of former president Mauricio Macri still leaves him well short of a majority.

    Milei said he would avoid pursuing vendettas and would welcome “with open arms” anyone who shared his project of rebuilding the country under a new social contract where “the state does not direct our lives, it looks after our rights”.

  • ‘Why Nigerian students, others face mental health challenges in Wales’

    ‘Why Nigerian students, others face mental health challenges in Wales’

    Director of a  not-for-profit group BAME Mental Health Support (BMHS), Alfred Oyekoya , has said  Nigerian students in Wales and the broader Black community face substantial mental health challenges compounded by institutional apathy, structural inequalities, racism, fear, stigma, and discrimination.

    He noted that particularly for Nigerians, unfair limitations during settlement in the UK pose significant challenges.

    Oyekoya said  the demand for six months’ payslips for securing accommodation and the requirement of relevant UK experience for minimum-wage jobs and  unnecessary barriers worsen existing problems related to immigration, health, and finances, further impacting their well-being.

    “The harsh reality is that a substantial number of individuals in dire need of mental health care face significant barriers in accessing high-quality health services. This critical situation is compounded by the pervasive stigma associated to mental health, acute shortages in human resources, fragmented service delivery models, and a glaring lack of research capacity needed to drive impactful implementation and policy changes. ‘’

    Read Also: How to avoid mental health issues, by experts

    In this interview with Chinyere Okoroafor, Oyekoya, a British-Nigerian speaks on the mental health challenges among Nigeria students, the black and Asian communities in Wales especially in Swansea.

    The efforts the organisation is putting in place to support victims with mental health, advocacy activities in the community and other issues. Excerpt.     Globally, a significant portion of the world’s population is grappling with various mental health challenges. Therefore, mental health remains a pressing issue in different countries both in the schools, workplace, and family life. Do you feel mental health victims are getting enough treatments in comparison to other ailments? Globally, it is evident that a significant segment of the world’s population grapples with a range of mental health challenges. Unfortunately, the provision of adequate mental health treatments are still very low in comparison to other ailments.

  • ‘Lagos will continue to promote mental wellness’

    ‘Lagos will continue to promote mental wellness’

    The Lagos State Head of Service, Bode Agoro, has said the administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu will continue to promote physical fitness and mental wellness among public servants.

    Agoro, who spoke at the grand finale of the 17th Head of Service Games at the Onikan Stadium, said optimal service delivery to residents is key, and only healthy workers can make such delivery. 

    He said the primary objective of the HOS games was to foster the spirit of sportsmanship and camaraderie among public servants.

    The HOS, who congratulated the winners at different categories, said some of the talents discovered in past editions have made the state proud in several competitions, both locally and internationally. He stressed that more talents will be discovered and added to the state’s strength. 

    He said: “As of today, the game has grown in leaps and bounds and has become bigger and better, with majority of MDAs, Local Government and Local Council Development Areas now showing keen interest in partaking in the competition, a testament that the competition is now getting the required wide acceptance from the Public Servants.”

    Read Also: It is difficult to maintain mental wellness in our industry, says Korede Bello

    Agoro maintained that the games has scaled up in terms of talent discoveries and more innovations would be introduced in the coming years 

    The Permanent Secretary, Public Service Office, Mrs. Sunkanmi Oyebola, expressed satisfaction with the participation of workers from different ministries, parastatals, council areas. She called on workers to do regular medical checks to ascertain their health status.

    Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu presented trophies and medals to winners, among which were the New Town Development Agency team which won the female tug of war games, while the Fire Service and Rescue agency won the male tug of war, as well as the Public Service Office team which won the Female soccer category.