Category: Foreign

The United Kingdom (UK) government has announced that the country’s terror threat level will be raised after an attempted bomb attack on Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Four people are now in custody over the incident, which occurred on Sunday and left one person, believed to be the assailant, dead.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the terror threat level would be moving from “substantial” to “severe” after the attack, which comes less than a month after the murder of the politician David Amess.

The level, which is set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, means that an attack is now considered to be “highly likely”.

“There’s a live investigation taking place right now,” Ms Patel said yesterday.

“They will need the time, the space, to do the work that they are doing in terms of investigating the incident,” she said.

Russ Jackson, the head of Counterterrorism Policing in northwest England, said the Sunday explosion was caused by “the ignition of an explosive device” that was brought into the vehicle by a passenger.

The male passenger died in the explosion and fire that followed, and the taxi driver was injured.

Jackson said: “Enquiries will now continue to seek to understand how the device was built, the motivation for the incident and to understand if anyone else was involved in it.”

Three men in their 20s were arrested elsewhere in the city under the Terrorism Act on Sunday, and a fourth was detained yesterday. All are believed to be “associates” of the dead passenger, police said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to chair a meeting of the government’s COBRA crisis committee on Monday in response to the blast.

Suspicions about a motive for the explosion have been aroused by the timing — just before 11 a.m. on Remembrance Sunday, the moment people across Britain hold services in memory of those killed in wars.

Jackson said investigators had not found a link to remembrance events, “but it is a line of inquiry we are pursuing.”

“Although the motivation for this incident is yet to be understood, given all the circumstances, it has been declared a terrorist incident,” he said at a news briefing.

He said the passenger had been picked up by the cab a 10-minute drive away and asked to be taken to the hospital, where the explosion occurred. The driver, named locally as David Perry, managed to escape from the car. He was treated in hospital and released.

Police said officers had searched two addresses in the city linked to the passenger, and found “significant items” at one of them.

Police and forensic officers in attendance at Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Nov. 15, 2021, in Liverpool, England. A man was killed when the taxi in which he was riding exploded outside the hospital just before 11 a.m. Sunday. The driver of the taxi was injured but survived.

Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson said the taxi driver locked the doors of his cab so the passenger couldn’t leave. Police did not confirm that account.

“The taxi driver, in his heroic efforts, has managed to divert what could have been an absolutely awful disaster at the hospital,” Anderson told the BBC.

The prime minister also said the driver appeared to have behaved “with incredible presence of mind and bravery.”

Nick Aldworth, a former senior terrorism investigator in Britain, said the taxi appeared to have sustained “a lot of fire damage with very little blast damage.”

He said: “Whatever was in that vehicle was either a low yield or didn’t work properly, or possibly an incendiary. So, I think it’s very much open to debate at the moment about what has happened.”

Britain’s official threat level from terrorism stands at “substantial,” the middle rung on a five-point scale, meaning an attack is likely. The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre sets the threat level based on intelligence about international terrorism at home and overseas.

 

THE Head of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, has urged Russia to be transparent about its military plans after an increase in the numbers of troops on its border with Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said a “large and unusual” build-up of Russian forces had been spotted on the border in recent weeks.

He spoke amid speculation Russia could be planning to invade Ukraine.

Moscow has dismissed such fears as “alarmist” and complained of increasing Nato activities in the region.

Speaking after talks with Ukraine’s foreign minister in Brussels, Stoltenberg said the important thing was to stop tensions from spiralling out of control. He warned Russia against taking any “aggressive actions”.

Stoltenberg said: “We see an unusual concentration of troops, and we know that Russia has been willing to use these types of military capabilities before to conduct aggressive actions against Ukraine.”

A large part of the Russian force is in Crimea, the peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March 2014. Troops are also massing near Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the name for Luhansk and Donetsk areas under the control of Russian-backed separatists.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week there were nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers near Ukraine’s border.

Stoltenberg said the troop build-up was dangerous because it cut the amount of warning time should Russia decide to “conduct a military aggressive action against Ukraine”.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said the border situation was “concerning” and that Britain would back Ukraine “in the face of Russian hostility”.

According to U.S. media reports, Washington warned European Union allies last week about intelligence suggesting Moscow was preparing for a possible invasion of Ukraine.

THE son of the late Libyan ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, registered yesterday to run in the country’s presidential polls next month, the electoral commission said.

The 49-year-old, who is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), appeared in an electoral commission video in traditional brown robe and turban, and with a grey beard and glasses, signing documents at the election centre in the southern town of Sebha.

After a decade in various forms of detention, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi surfaces in Sebha, southern Libya, to submit his candidacy papers for presidential elections scheduled for next month.

“Saif al-Islam Gaddafi submitted… his candidacy for the presidential election to the High National Electoral Commission office in the city of Sebha,” said a statement by the commission.

Gaddafi had completed “all the required legal conditions”, the statement read, adding that he was issued with a voter registration card for the Sebha district.

Libya’s first ever direct presidential poll, with a first round on December 24, is the climax of a process launched last year by the United Nations to draw a line under years of violence since the revolt that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Libya opened registration for candidates today.

Gaddafi is one of the most prominent – and controversial – figures expected to run for president, a list that also includes eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar, Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah and parliament speaker Aguila Saleh.

However, while his name is one of the best known in Libya, and though he once played a major role in shaping policy before the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that destroyed his family’s regime, he has barely been seen for a decade.

In June, sources close to Saif al-Islam said he was planning a political comeback. In July, he told the New York Times in an interview that he wanted to “restore the lost unity” of Libya after a decade of chaos and did not exclude standing for the presidency.

Until the interview, Saif al-Islam had not been seen or heard from since June 2014, when he appeared via video link from Zintan, in the west of the country, during his trial by a Tripoli court.

His father was overthrown and killed in 2011 in a NATO-backed uprising that has left the country in a state of upheaval ever since.

During the uprising, Saif al-Islam became for many the face of the government’s defiance, regularly denouncing the opposition as “terrorists” and promising that his father’s administration would “fight to the last minute, until the last bullet”.

 

 

Many world leaders and activists have expressed disappointment this weekend with the climate deal that emerged from two weeks of heated negotiations in Glasgow, Scotland.

They warned that countries will have to strengthen their commitments if they want to avert disastrous consequences and help at-risk nations cope with the damage that’s already occurring from climate change.

Key officials in the United States and Europe vowed to work harder to help developing nations shift to cleaner energy sources, after delegates from China and India proposed a last-minute edit that weakened a provision in the text to phase out fossil fuels.

The paragraph initially called for the “phase out” of unabated coal and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, but the final agreement refers only to a “phase-down”.

European Union (EU) Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that while some meaningful progress was made on the goals of COP26, more work remains and that the key to determining the impact of the conference will be how the commitments secured in Glasgow are actually implemented.

“1.5 degrees Celsius remains within reach; but the work is far from done,” she said, referring to a long-standing global goal of limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

As part of the pact agreed upon in Glasgow, countries face pressure to reassess their targets to cut emissions by the end of next year and to provide more aid to nations bearing the brunt of climate change. But these voluntary measures do not put the world on track to limit earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a central goal of the 2015 Paris accord.

“We’re all well aware that, collectively, our climate ambition and action to date have fallen short on the promises made in Paris,” said Alok Sharma, the British minister of state and president of the Glasgow talks, who appeared emotional Saturday after the last-minute change to the fossil fuels provision.

Also, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, in a video after the agreement won approval from nearly 200 nations, said: “Secretary-General said: “The approved texts are a compromise. They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today.

“They take important steps, but unfortunately the collective political will was not enough to overcome some deep contradictions.

“We must end fossil fuel subsidies, phase out coal, put a price on carbon, protect vulnerable communities from the impacts of climate change and make good on the $100 billion climate finance commitment to support developing countries.

“We did not achieve these goals at this conference, but we have some building blocks for progress.”

The United States, which took on a position of leadership at COP26 after four years of near-absence in the global climate conversation under President Donald Trump, celebrated the Glasgow climate pact but called for more action.

“The text sets out a path to increase the commitments and actions of countries starting next year, outlines new rules of the road for the Paris Agreement that will provide transparency for countries to turn words into actions, and doubles the amount of support that is going to vulnerable countries to enhance their resilience to the crisis,” a statement from the White House read. “But it is not enough.”

“More work remains as we leave Glasgow to get where science tells us we need to be and the United States will continue to push for more progress at home and abroad in this decisive decade for climate action,” the statement continued.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson struck a more upbeat tone in his statement after the conclusion of COP26.

“We asked nations to come together for our planet at COP26, and they have answered that call,” Johnson said. “There is still a huge amount more to do in the coming years. But today’s agreement is a big step forward.”

Many observers were, like many delegates, disappointed with the financial commitments by the developing world. The wealthiest nations had agreed to provide $100 billion a year in funding by 2020, but the actual package of grants, loans and investments fell short. At the conference, the donor nations again promised to provide $100 billion starting in 2023.

Wealthy countries provided $79.5 billion in 2019, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, but Sachs noted that part of that came through loans and private investments that are hard to measure.

 

A U.S. journalist detained in Myanmar was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a military court on Friday.

Danny Fenster was convicted on a three – count charge of breaching immigration law, unlawful association and incitement to sedition, his employer Frontier Myanmar said.

The 37-year-old faces further charge of terrorism and sedition that were added on Wednesday and could see him handed a life sentence, his lawyer says.

Those counts will be heard separately at an upcoming trial.

The military junta in Myanmar has been cracking down on critical voices since it took power in a coup in February.

Fenster has been detained for five and a half months and is a senior editor of the English-language Frontier Myanmar magazine.

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He was arrested at Yangon airport May ending just before he was due to board a flight to the United States.

He has since been held at Insein Prison, which is notorious for its appalling conditions.

“Everyone at Frontier is disappointed and frustrated at this decision. We just want to see Danny released as soon as possible so he can go home to his family,’’ Frontier Myanmar’s chief executive Thomas Kean said.

Myanmar’s military ousted de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the coup on Feb. 1, the 76-year-old is under house arrest and facing trial for various alleged offences.

The military junta is suppressing resistance with brutal force; more than 1,200 people have been killed, according to an estimate from prisoners’ aid organisation AAPP.

About 10,000 others have been arrested, including many journalists, and others have fled the country.

Foreign media representatives have long been considered relatively safe. (dpa/NAN)

THE United Kingdom (UK) government has launched a £27.5 million (N15,110,005,025.50) Urban Climate Action programme (UCAP) to support the cities and regions in developing countries most affected by climate change to accelerate their transition to net zero.

The programme will help cities like Lagos, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpar and Bogotá develop low-emission public transport systems, renewable energy generation, sustainable waste management, new climate-smart buildings codes and climate risk planning.

Press & Public Affairs Officer, British Deputy High Commission Ndidiamaka Eze, in a statement yesterday, said with a growing population and as one of the most vulnerable coastal cities, Lagos will receive support to implement its low-carbon, inclusive and climate resilient urban development plans through UCAP.

The funding programme will support cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America to take action to tackle climate change and create a sustainable future.

To date, over 1,000 cities and regions across the world – over a fifth of the global urban population –have committed to slashing their emissions to net zero by 2050 and Lagos is one of them.

With a growing population and as one of the most vulnerable coastal cities, Lagos will receive support to implement its low-carbon, inclusive and climate resilient urban development plans through UCAP.

UK’s Deputy High Commissioner in Lagos, Ben Llewellyn-Jones said:  “The population of Lagos is projected to double by 2050, and the speed and scale of urbanisation may lock in high-carbon infrastructure and inequality if we do not act now.

“Lagos has continued to drive action to tackle climate change and protect people’s livelihoods. And, I am glad that the UK’s new programme will provide invaluable support to the state for sustainable growth, enhance resilience to climate risks, and secure a greener future for generations to come.”

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who recognised the urgency to tackle climate change by quickly reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions, had on behalf of Lagos State signed up to the Zero Emission Vehicles Joint Statement.

He said: “Lagos State considers Net Zero an imperative and commits to converting public transport vehicles to electric as well as embracing solar and other clean energy sources. We must go faster.”

Yesterday, as part of the UN COP26 climate summit’s Cities, Regions and Built Environment Day in Glasgow, the UK called on cities yet to make commitments to step up and set a net zero target that will help protect the places where people live and work, future-proofing the world for future generations.

 

 

SOUTH Africa’s last apartheid President Frederick William de Klerk, who released Nelson Mandela from prison, has died at the age of 85.

A statement by F.W. de Klerk Foundation yesterday indicated that the former president died after a battle with cancer at his home in Cape Town.

“It is with the deepest sadness that the FW de Klerk Foundation must announce that former President FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye earlier this morning, following his struggle against mesothelioma cancer. Mr. De Klerk was 85 years old. He is survived by his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan and his grandchildren,” the statement said.

“The family will, in due course, make an announcement regarding funeral arrangements.”

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, de Klerk studied at Potscheftroom University before pursuing a career in law.

Joining the National Party, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white minority parliament of Pieter Willem Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts.

President Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday that the death de Klerk, “is the end of an era because of his tremendous impact on history and the cause of justice”.

Reacting to the demise of de Klerk in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity Mallam Garba Shehu, President Buhari said: “Mr. de Klerk was a remarkable moral force for change, who will be celebrated for years beyond his death.”

According to the President, “ending the obnoxious apartheid system by a white President was an incredible act of moral courage and fierce commitment to human rights regardless of the colour of the victims of racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa.”

President Buhari noted that “the late South African leader had put humanity and justice before personal political ambition by dismantling the abhorrent apartheid system.”

 

 

 

 

 

President Muhammadu Buhari has warned world leaders and global health institutions that sidelining less-privileged countries in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines would undermine the entire effort for safety.

According to a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, President Buhari gave the warning yesterday while delivering a keynote statement at the Paris Peace Forum (PPF).

The President said export restrictions that encourage needless hoarding of vaccines need to be lifted, welcoming the pledges by industrialised countries to share vaccines.

The President said the pledges should be fulfilled in a timely manner, appreciating some countries, like France, that have donated vaccines to developing countries.

“Resolving supply-chain constraints would require better coordination within the manufacturing process; and between manufacturers and end-users.

“There is a clear need for the expansion of vaccine production capacity in Africa. In this regard, African countries already have a roadmap: the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA) developed in 2007 by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) on the basis of an African Union Summit decision taken in 2005.

“Licensing agreements should be reached with pharmaceutical companies for the transfer of intellectual property and technology to support the production of vaccines in Africa.  If global vaccination is the only way to end the COVID-19 pandemic, then all stakeholders must act in a coordinated manner to plug the vaccine supply gap in Africa,’’ he said.

President Buhari, in a remark focused on “Lessons Learned from the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Importance of Coordination Among All Actors for Vaccine Delivery,” said the coordination for distribution had to be total and the objective had to be the same: to deliver vaccines to the world.

“The state of vaccine delivery across the world leaves much to be desired,’’ he said, “We have a situation where some countries are giving booster third doses for their citizens when millions across the world, especially in the developing world, are yet to receive a single dose.’

“Let us compare vaccination rates to give an idea of the dimension of the problem. According to recent data, as of 4th November, 2021. 91.3 doses of vaccine had been given for every 100 persons across the world. On the same date, however, only 14.7 doses of vaccine per 100 persons had been administered in Africa – a clear case of lopsidedness. According to Bloomberg, countries with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated ten times faster than those with the lowest income.

“As of 5th November 2021, Africa had fully vaccinated 77 million persons, amounting to just 6 per cent of the continent’s population. By comparison, 60 per cent of the European Union population had been fully vaccinated by September 2021.

“This massive gap between vaccine requirements in Africa and vaccine availability is undermining the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic on the continent. Even if Africa were to receive the 600 million doses of vaccine expected to be delivered to the continent by the end of 2021 under the COVAX arrangement there would still be a considerable shortfall when compared to the population of the continent which currently stands at 1.383 billion,’’ he added.

Quoting the World Health Organisation, the President said even the planned COVAX deliveries to Africa had been cut by 25 per cent due to supply shortages and export bans.

The Nigerian leader thanked the President of the Paris Peace Forum, Mr. Pascal Lamy, for the invitation to share thoughts on the importance of coordination among all actors in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.