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Category: Foreign

  • Diaspora APC seeks inclusion in Buni-led committee

    Diaspora APC seeks inclusion in Buni-led committee

    By Alao Abiodun

    The Committee of Diaspora Chairmen of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged the Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker Committee to include diaspora members in the structure and administration of the party.

    A statement by Chairman, APC UK and APC Diaspora Forum Philip Idaewor and Chairman, APC Scandinavia and Secretary, APC Diaspora Forum, Lawal Ayoola, said Nigerians in the Diaspora have long called for their inclusion in the political processes.

    The agitations, they said, have been without regard to political party affiliation.

    Read Also: APC group urges transparency in registration

    The statement reads: “If Nigerians living abroad remain as patriotic as consistently shown by their financial contributions to the Nigerian economy, they ought to also be received and seen as equal partners in the Nigerian project.”

    The duo expressed satisfaction with the party’s resolve in fully recognising the place of the Diaspora in the country’s political evolution.

    “We are pleased that APC is already blazing the trail in recognising the place of Nigerians in the Diaspora. We look forward to continuous engagement to making APC the party of choice for the Nigerian progressive family and social democrats.”

  • Trump insists election is ‘not over’ as Electoral College prepares to seal Biden’s victory

    Trump insists election is ‘not over’ as Electoral College prepares to seal Biden’s victory

    Agency Reporter

    United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump is not abandoning his hopes that he can remain president, even as the Electoral College that is expected to cast more than 300 ballots for president-elect Joe Biden meets today to vote.

    “No, it’s not over. We keep going. And we’re going to continue to go forward,” Trump said of his campaign’s challenges to the election results in a pre-taped interview with Fox & Friends Weekend.

    The interview was recorded on Saturday and aired early yesterday.

    On Friday, the Supreme Court roundly rejected a lawsuit from Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton, which called for throwing out the election results in the four decisive swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Michigan — all of which broke for Democratic president-elect Joe Biden.

    The nine justices — three of whom were nominated by Trump over the last four years and confirmed by a GOP Senate — dismissed the case on the grounds that Texas did not have legal standing to challenge how another state ran its elections.

    In the months leading up to the election and the weeks since, a number of Republicans have made baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

    Dozens of state and federal courts dismissed legal challenge after legal challenge brought by Trump’s campaign questioning state and local election processes, with judges pointing to the paucity — or, often, the complete lack — of substantiating evidence.

    Lawmakers on the right have either fallen in line behind the president or remained circumspect about his bluster.

    Yesterday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said he wouldn’t acknowledge Biden as the president-elect even after the Electoral College’s expected vote for the Democrat today.

    The legal process ought to play out to its end, Scalise said.

    Read Also: U.S. Election: First Lady Melania Trump ‘wants to go home’

    In the president’s interview with Fox News, he resumed his criticism of Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp for refusing to overturn the Georgia election results, which would have disenfranchised millions of people in the Peach State, who delivered a victory for Biden at the ballot box.

    “We have a governor, Republican governor, that’s worse than a Democrat,” Trump said, claiming that it’s Kemp’s actions — and not his own false rhetoric — that’s jeopardising the campaigns of GOP Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

    “He’s terrible, and he’s hurting Kelly and David very badly, the senators that are terrific people,” Trump said of the senators who are in runoff races set for January 5.

    As the formalities of solemnising the 2020 presidential election drag on with the electoral vote today and Congress’ certification of that vote slated for January 6, Trump lamented that time is running out.

    “We’re going to speed it up as much as we can. But you can only go so fast. They give us very little time,” he said.

    The interview featured the usual fare of baseless claims and conspiracy theories about election fraud, despite the fact that the president’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, has denied such things happened.

    Most judges have dismissed Republican legal challenges to the election because the plaintiffs either haven’t had standing or because their evidence was sparse or nonexistent.

    Trump claimed, falsely, that if only judges would agree to hear his campaign’s cases, then they would rule in his favour.

  • First Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses arrive New York

    First Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses arrive New York

    Agency Reporter

    New York has received its first doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

    Blasio told CNN on Monday morning that he would visit a hospital later in the day to witness a healthcare worker receive the first shots.

    He stated that the vaccine offered hope to the city, “and New Yorkers could now see the light at the end of the tunnel”.

    “It is going to be a good day,” the mayor said.

    He was not specific on the number of doses that arrived on Monday, but reports say officials were expecting enough to vaccinate 170,000 people.

    This represents a quarter of the estimated 1.8 million people on the priority list in the first phase of inoculation in the state, reports say.

    Monday’s shipment is part of the state’s initial allocation, and priority will be given to people considered most at risk as is the case nationwide.

    The first groups to be inoculated will be frontline healthcare workers, and staff members, and residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

    READ ALSO: Pfizer-BioNtech seek authorisation of COVID-19 Vaccine

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that New York was the hardest-hit state in the U.S. during the first wave of the pandemic.

    According to John Hopkins University, total infections and fatalities in the state were no fewer than 775,160 and 35,557, respectively.

    The vaccine’s arrival came at a time the state is experiencing a resurgence of infections, which are increasing by no fewer than 10,000 daily.

    New York is also currently recording a daily death increase by 107, as hospitals get flooded by patients in numbers last seen in May.

    Soon after the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) approved the vaccine on Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state was ready for distribution.

    Cuomo said the state government had prepared the necessary groundwork for “the most aggressive distribution administration programme”.

    “The vaccine is coming and we’re ready to administer it,” he said.

     

    (NAN)

  • Central China County finds COVID-19 on imported frozen food

    Central China County finds COVID-19 on imported frozen food

    Agency Reporter

    Yuanyang County in central China’s Henan Province has found that an imported frozen food packaging sample tested positive for the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).

    The sample was taken from the packaging of a batch of imported frozen shrimp from South America, local authorities in Yuanyang reported late Sunday.

    As of Monday morning, local authorities have conducted nucleic acid tests on 22 relevant people, including those, who had direct contact with the food.

    READ ALSO: Police seize vehicles with imported rice, frozen foods

    All results showed negative.

    Authorities have also sealed the shipment of frozen food from which the tainted sample was taken and disinfected the storage facility.

    The tainted sample in Yuanyang County was from the same shipment of imported frozen shrimp where COVID-19 had been found days ago in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.

    (Xinhua/NAN)

  • Britain, EU extend post-Brexit trade talks’ deadline

    Britain, EU extend post-Brexit trade talks’ deadline

    Britain and the European Union have agreed to extend post-Brexit trade talks beyond a deadline set for yesterday after leaders conducted a call on “major unresolved topics”.

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement that it was “responsible at this point to go the extra mile”.

    They have told their negotiators in Brussels, Belgium to “to see whether an agreement can even at this late stage be reached”.

    Earlier last week, Johnson and von der Leyen set a deadline of Sunday to decide whether to halt negotiations or keep them going.

    Britain left the European Union on Jan. 31 but leaders have been spending the past 11 months on post-Brexit matters.

    They have until Dec. 31 to agree on a trade deal plus other things, such as fishing rights. That’s when they would move onto World Trade Organisation rules.

    Tariffs on goods being bought and sold between the two sides could be introduced with prices on certain products possibly going up. The EU is by far Britain’s biggest trading partner with 450 million consumers.

    With no deal, Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility estimates 2% of its economic output, $53 billion, would be cut out and more than 300,000 people unemployed by the second half of next year.

    Even with a deal, the OBR said in November there would be a loss of output of around 4% compared to Britain remaining in the European Union.

    “Despite the exhaustion after almost a year of negotiations, despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over, we think it is responsible at this point to go the extra mile,” von der Leyen said.

    Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin told the BBC on Sunday no deal would be “so damaging to workers” for parties and represent “an appalling failure of statecraft.”

    She characterised the talks as “constructive and useful”.

    Britain’s Labour party has called on the government to “deliver on the promise” of securing a deal to “allow us to move on as a country.”

  • ‘Chinese party members hold positions at British consulates, major UK, U.S. firms’

    ‘Chinese party members hold positions at British consulates, major UK, U.S. firms’

    A leaked database has revealed that 1.95 million registered members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are holding positions at British consulates around the world, universities, and major corporations.

    Some members were also employees of American aerospace giant Boeing and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

    The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a global coalition of lawmakers, obtained the database from an unnamed Chinese dissident, then shared the material with four media organizations, according to a Dec. 12 report by British newspaper The Mail on Sunday, which obtained the list and reviewed it.

    IPAC, in a statement yesterday, said one of its representatives received the database from a “non-government source” and the coalition had experts verify the list.

    “IPAC will push for governments and companies to respond, setting out how they intend to safeguard their values in the face of infiltration,” IPAC stated.

    According to the outlet, the database contained names, dates of birth, and ethnicity, while some also had addresses and telephone numbers. The database was first leaked on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, after it was allegedly extracted in 2016 by people believed to be Chinese dissidents, from a Shanghai server.

    Most of the CCP members in the database were from Shanghai.

    Read Also: US to ban goods from Chinese company

     

    The Mail found that major aerospace companies Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and Boeing employed hundreds of CCP members. Additionally, Pfizer and British drugmaker AstraZeneca employed a total of 123 Party members. British automaker Jaguar Land Rover also employed CCP members.

    The database also showed that over 600 CCP members were employed across 19 branches of British banks HSBC and Standard Chartered.

    Chinese academics with party membership also worked at British universities, where they were involved in sensitive research including aerospace engineering and chemistry, The Mail found.

    Some CCP members worked for British consulates. At the British consulate in Shanghai, one CCP member was a senior official whose duty included supporting visits by British officials to China. Another CCP member worked “near to a team of MI6 officers operating under diplomatic cover,” according to The Mail. MI6 is the name of the British intelligence service.

    The Mail concluded that “there is no evidence that anyone on the party membership list has spied for China.” However, the outlet stated that a group of about 30 MPs said they would table an urgent question about the database in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the UK’s bicameral parliament.

    “The [British] Government must now move to expel and remove any members of the Communist Party from our Consuls throughout China. They can either serve the UK or the Chinese Communist Party. They cannot do both,” British MP Iain Duncan Smith told The Mail.

    An unnamed former agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and White House intelligence analyst told the outlet that the CCP should not be trusted.

    “They’re (CCP) always looking for opportunities where they can take advantage of relationships, friendships, whatever, to further the interests of the Communist Party,” the former CIA agent said.

    CCP members are required to pledge their loyalty to the party. To become a member, people must first take an oath with their fist raised, while reciting words that they must “carry out the party’s decision, strictly observe Party discipline … be loyal to the party … and never betray the party.”

     

     

  • Trump: Supreme Court let us down on presidential election

    Trump: Supreme Court let us down on presidential election

    Agency Reporter

    President Donald Trump has recorded his biggest setback so far to upturn the result of the November election after the US Supreme Court dismissed a bid by Texas to reverse the results of the poll.

    In a tweet following the verdict, President Trump said the court had “let us down” and accused it of having “No Wisdom, No Courage!”

    The longshot suit lodged late Tuesday against four states key in the November 3 vote — Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — challenged Biden’s victory in each jurisdiction.

    But the Supreme Court, made up of nine justices including three appointed by Trump, said Texas — which voted for the president — “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.”

    The court’s decision “is an important reminder that we are a nation of laws, and though some may bend to the desire of a single individual, the courts will not,” tweeted Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel.

    Biden spokesman Mike Gwin said the ruling was “no surprise.”

    “Dozens of judges, election officials from both parties, and Trump’s own Attorney General have dismissed his baseless attempts to deny that he lost the election,” he said.

    The Texas suit had been seen as audacious and legally unsound, given that no one state has any legal right to interfere in another’s voting processes. Even so, it was backed by 106 Republican lawmakers and 17 state attorneys general.

    READ ALSO: U.S. Election: First Lady Melania Trump ‘wants to go home’

    Texas alleged that the results in the other four states were “unconstitutional” because of their heavy use of “fraud-prone” mail-in votes during the coronavirus pandemic.

    It offered no proof of significant fraud and didn’t challenge the use of mailed ballots in states Trump won.

    The suit cited numerous alleged examples of potential fraud already rejected by lower courts.

    Even so, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani insisted the allegations were “sound.”

    “They have to be tested but that’s what the court is for. They can’t just dismiss it like that,” he told Fox News.

    White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox that the court “dodged” and “hid behind the procedure.”

    But perhaps the most eyebrow-raising reaction came from the chairman of the Texas Republican Party, who slammed the ruling and appeared to suggest the state should secede.

    “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution,” Allen West said in a party statement.

     

  • Ghana’s main opposition party NDC rejects ‘flawed’ election results

    Ghana’s main opposition party NDC rejects ‘flawed’ election results

    By Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

    Ghana’s main opposition  party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), said yesterday it will not accept the results of the general elections announced by the Electoral Commission (EC).

    The commission gave victory to incumbent President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

    Minority Leader in Parliament Haruna Iddrisu said the NDC has “overwhelming” evidence that proved that the party’s candidate, John Dramani Mahama, won the poll.

    The NDC said it was heading to court to challenge the election results over alleged overwhelming evidence of election corruption, which it said made it impossible to accept the result.

    “As a party, we have had extensive consultations and detailed analysis of the outcome of the elections as announced by Jean Mensa, the EC chair.

    “We have come to only one irresistible conclusion, that it is a flawed, discredited election and therefore we reject the presidential result without any reservation,” Iddrisu said.

    Akufo-Addo will begin a second four-year term on January 7, 2021.

    The EC’s collated results showed that Akufo-Addo polled 6,730,413 votes (51.59%) against former President Mahama’s 6,214,889 (47.36%). There were 12 presidential candidates.

    Local news reports quoted Iddrisu as saying that the NDC believes that there are attempts to rob the party of both their presidential and parliamentary victories.

    He said Mahama wrote a petition to the EC before the results were announced to voice his concerns over the collation.

    “That (petition) was treated with utmost contempt and that we consider unacceptable. We also want to serve notice that the blatant effort even to deny us a parliamentary majority will be fiercely resisted.”

    President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated Akufo-Addo over his re-election.

    In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, President Buhari also appealed to the other contestants in the Ghanaian presidential race to put national interest above any other consideration and allow peace to reign.

    He urged that whatever misgivings they have about the results should be pursued through legal means.

    “The President also commends the people of Ghana on the successful conclusion of the presidential and parliamentary elections, attesting further that with the right institutions and political leadership, constitutional democracy in the West African sub-region has come to stay.

    “President Buhari appeals to other contestants in the elections to put national interest above personal and partisan considerations and maintain the peace, while seeking resolution of grievances through established legal avenues.

    “The President notes that Nigeria and Ghana share close historic and cultural ties, adding that he looks forward to working with his Ghanaian counterpart in realising shared goals that bring peace, security and prosperity to the citizens of both countries in particular and the ECOWAS community in general.”

    According to Iddrisu, the party is taking “decisive” decisions to challenge the presidential and parliamentary results.

    “Ghana’s democracy has come under severe attack and needs some rescue urgently,” he said.

    But, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) for the general elections has decried the problems of transparency of campaign finance and misuse of state resources in the West African country’s elections.

    In its preliminary report in Accra on Wednesday, Chief Observer, Mr. Javier Nart, said these problems were flagged in their previous mission to Ghana, but they still persist.

    The report said Monday’s presidential and parliamentary elections were organised in an efficient manner and took place in a peaceful atmosphere.

    “However, shortcomings identified by previous EU EOMs, mainly related to the transparency of campaign finance and misuse of state resources, still persist,” he said.

    Nart said, “Unregulated campaign finance, the reportedly common practice of vote-buying, and the prevalent misuse of state resources for electioneering purposes did not contribute to creating a level-playing field among contestants. It would benefit future elections in Ghana if these issues are addressed.”

  • Argentina lower house approves bill to legalize abortion

    Argentina lower house approves bill to legalize abortion

    Our Reporter

    Argentina’s lower house of Congress approved a government-backed bill to legalize abortion in the early hours of Friday morning, a big step forward for the legislation that could set the tone for a wider shift in conservative Latin America.

    The draft law, which would provide for the legal termination of pregnancy up until the 14th week, was passed with 131 votes in favor, 117 against, and 6 abstentions. It will now move up to the Senate, where an even tighter vote is anticipated.

    The South American country is the birthplace of Pope Francis, and the abortion bill comes as a number of countries in the predominantly Roman Catholic region are seeing drives to give women greater reproductive rights.

    Following a mammoth debate that began on Thursday, the landmark bill faced a vote on Friday morning, after protesters in favor and against the legislation had massed in the streets outside Congress.

    “This is a fundamental step and recognition of a long struggle that women’s movements have been carrying out in our country for years,” Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, the government’s Women, Gender and Diversity minister, said after the vote.

    “We are going to continue working so that the voluntary termination of pregnancy becomes law.”

    Protesters supporting the bill had gathered outside Congress wearing green scarves for an overnight vigil to await the news. A similar vote to legalize abortion was narrowly defeated in a Senate vote in 2018 after passing the lower house.

    Opposition groups, wearing light blue scarves, also took to the streets to demonstrate against the bill.

    “They don’t want to show what an abortion is,” said Mariana Ledger who was protesting against the bill holding a cross and a dummy of a headless and bloodied foetus.

    READ ALSO: Maradona: PFAN condoles with Argentina Footballers Union

    “This is it, and they don’t want to show it. They are hiding the truth, we are not foolish people.”

    Amnesty International welcomed the lower house approval and called on the country’s Senate not to “turn its back” on women and help end clandestine abortions that risk women’s lives.

    The initiative includes a parallel bill that will face a separate vote to assist women who want to continue with their pregnancy and face severe economic or social difficulties.

    Argentine law currently only allows the voluntary interruption of pregnancy when there is a serious risk to the mother or in the event of rape, although activists say many women often do not receive adequate care.

    The country has seen a gradual rise in agnosticism in recent years. While the current Peronist government is strongly behind the bill, that was not the case in 2018 during the conservative administration of Mauricio Macri.

    “We are not in favor of abortion, we do not recommend or suggest it, we are against clandestine abortion that kills thousands of women,” Argentine actress and campaigner Carola Reyna posted on Twitter.

    “We believe that it is a practice that should be regulated by the State, guaranteeing women’s health.”

    (www.newsnow.co.uk)

  • Buhari swears in committee for Nigeria, Czech tech transfer

    Buhari swears in committee for Nigeria, Czech tech transfer

    By Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

     

     

    President Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated the implementation committee for a Memorandum of Understanding between Nigeria and the Czech Republic on transfer of technology.

    The ceremony, which was performed on behalf of the President by his Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, had representatives from various ministries, agencies and departments in attendance, while the main partnership would be run by of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).

    Explaining the target of the agreement to reporters after the ceremony, the Executive Vice Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer of NASENI, Prof. Mohammed Sanni Haruna, said the programme has mutual benefits for both countries.

    According to him, primary areas of target for cooperation and technology transfer include agricultural development as well as solid minerals.

    “This was for the inauguration of the implementation committee of Memorandum of Understanding between Czech Republic and the Federal Republic of Nigeria on technology transfer and joint research for the mutual benefits of the two countries, but most importantly, for bridging technology gap between Nigeria and developed nations.

    “The Czech Republic is represented by Technology Agency of Czech Republic, while Nigeria is represented by NASENI. Mr. President has approved the implementation of the MoU and there are imputes from relevant ministries through participation of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Budget and national Planning, to ensure that Nigeria derives maximum benefit from this relationship.

    Also speaking after the ceremony, the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Aisha Abubakar, explained that the agreement would create opportunities for the youth in the areas of Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence.

    “This is focusing on technology transfer between Nigeria and the Czech Republic; and as you are very much aware, the Czech Republic is one of those countries in Europe that has vast amount of technology and in the yester years, we used to send our students to the former Czechoslovakia as it was called.”