Category: Foreign

Saudi Arabia has suspended travel to China for both citizens and non-Saudi residents of the kingdom, State News Agency (SPA) said on Thursday.

Citizens, who break the suspension would be held accountable, SPA sai, while foreign residents would not be allowed back into the country if they traveled to China.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities said the death toll from the coronavirus reached 563 across the country with 28,018 people confirmed infected.

China’s National Health Commission said 73 people had died over a 24-hour interval.

The virus has spread to about two dozen countries since first being identified in December, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare a global emergency.

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Countries around the world have been flying their citizens out of the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the disease.

The coronavirus broke out at a seafood market in Wuhan that reportedly sold exotic animals for consumption, similar to the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

SARS – a disease that infected 8,000 people and killed 800 globally between 2002 and 2003, and also began in China – was linked to the consumption of civet cats, another exotic meat.

The coronavirus belongs to the same family of viruses.

(Reuters/NAN)

Agency Reporter

SOUTH African judge said she was left with no choice but to issue former President Jacob Zuma with an arrest warrant after he failed to appear in court on Monday.

Zuma’s legal team said he was receiving medical care outside the country. But Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Dhaya Pillay was skeptical of the document they submitted as evidence of Zuma’s illness, calling it “puzzling” and questioning if it was even signed by a medical doctor.

By Tajudeen Adebanjo

HE International Muslim Women Union (IMWU) yesterday condemned the deal proposed by the United States President Donald Trump to resolve the long lingering crisis between the Palestine and the Israel.

A statement by IMWU’s Council of Trustee member Sherifah Yusuf-Ajibade described the deal as a shame.

The plan, announced by Trump last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, was rejected outright by the Palestinians. It would give Israel most of what it has sought during decades of conflict, including nearly all Palestinian land on which it has built settlements.

She said: “With greater intransigence and arrogance, the attacks on the State of Palestine, its land, its people and its holy places, continues before the eyes of the world rulers, people, international organisations, human rights and civil society.

“What was yesterday an idea, became today an ominous plan, a deal of shame, arranged between an occupying party and an authoritarian state that imposes its hegemony on the world and the people, flouting all international norms and conventions and overcoming the rights of peoples, namely, the right to self-determination.”

According to her, the deal was a blatant conspiracy that seeks to completely eliminate the rest of the State of Palestine through its fragmentation, the confiscation of the rights of its people, their lands and their capital, and the denial of the right of the Palestinian diaspora to return to their homeland, and to finally abort the entire Palestinian cause.

“We, therefore, call first on all Palestinian parties to be united in the face of this malicious conspiracy, and we call on the international community, the Arab and Muslim states, to take a unified and courageous stand and to exert maximum pressure so that this plot never sees the light,” she said.

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The IMWU warned against the repercussions of the deal on the fate of the Palestinian people and on the future of the Arab and Muslim World.

The European Union (EU) also rejected parts of plan for the Middle East yesterday, prompting an angry response from Israel, which has strongly backed the U.S. proposal.

The EU, which often takes time to respond to international developments because of a need for unanimity among its 27 members, had said last week that it needed to study the Trump plan before it would give its verdict.

It made its conclusions public yesterday in a statement from EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said Trump’s plan departs from “internationally agreed parameters”.

THE Democratic Party’s bid to choose a candidate to take on President Donald Trump at the Nov.3 U.S. presidential election was in disarray on Monday, after technical problems delayed vote counting in Iowa to the dismay of the party faithful and the delight of the Republican president.

There was still no winner as at yesterday’s evening from Monday’s Iowa caucuses voting, with officials blaming “inconsistencies” related to a new mobile app used for vote counting in the state that traditionally kicks off a U.S. presidential election year.

It was a clumsy start to 2020 voting, after a bad-tempered presidential campaign four years ago that produced a surprise winner in Trump and led to a two-year federal investigation into election interference by Russia.

Despite a new, wider rollout of a mobile app to transmit caucus results, local party officials in Iowa said the mobile app was not part of any caucus chair training.

Linda Nelson, a Democratic caucus chair in Pottawattamie County, told CNN that precinct chairs did not receive training because the app wasn’t ready.

Zach Simons, the party chair in Wapello county told The New York Times: “The app wasn’t included in the chair training that everyone was required to take.”

In Des Moines, Polk County Democratic Chairman Sean Bagniewski told CNN that app problems actually surfaced last week during testing. When some precinct chairs reported trouble last Thursday, Bagniewski told those who couldn’t get the app to work to call in their results to the Iowa Democratic Party as they had in previous years.

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“When you have an app that you’re sending out to 1,700 people and many of them might be newer to apps and that kind of stuff, it might have been worth doing a couple months’ worth of testing,” Bagniewski told The New York Times.

The head of Iowa’s Democratic Party promised to release results “as soon as possible” yesterday but said the top priority was ensuring the integrity of the process and accuracy of the results.

“Every second that passes undermines the process a little bit,” said Roger Lau, campaign manager for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Trump mocked the Democrats, calling the caucus confusion an “unmitigated disaster” in a Twitter post on Tuesday.

Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, expressed frustration with the delayed results on Tuesday, after having said at a late-night rally he was going to the next early voting state of New Hampshire victorious.

By Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

KENYA’S longest-serving president Daniel Arap Moi, whose rule was marred by corruption and torture of opponents, died yesterday, the office of the president said. He was 95.

There was no immediate explanation for Moi’s death, but he had been in and out of hospital with breathing problems in recent months.

Plaudits poured in from Kenyan politicians, but some of his victims were less forgiving.

“Our nation and our continent were immensely blessed by the dedication and service of the late … Moi, who spent almost his entire adult life serving Kenya and Africa,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a statement.

Moi died peacefully in hospital at 5.20 a.m. (0220 GMT), surrounded by his family, said his son Gideon Moi, a senator. He came to power in 1978, when he was serving as vice-president and the nation’s first leader President Jomo Kenyatta died. He remained in power until the end of 2002 when his constitutional term ran out. Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Jomo Kenyatta, was Moi’s preferred successor but lost the election to the opposition. Uhuru Kenyatta became president in 2013.

He was credited for keeping Kenya relatively stable compared with its troubled neighbours, and he worked for peace in the region.

But he oversaw massive corruption scandals that are still costing Kenyan taxpayers. One scandal, Goldenberg, led to the loss of at least $1 billion in central bank money via compensation payments for bogus gold and diamond exports.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday described the late former Kenyan President as a stabilising factor in the history and politics of East Africa and the African continent.

He stated this in a condolence message he sent to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the people of Kenya.

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The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a statement, recalled the humble background of the late president and how he lived his life upholding the tenets of democracy.

“A frontline nationalist, who gave his best for his country’s development and was a key factor in the stability of the East African region and Africa in general.

“From a humble beginning (as a school teacher), the late Arap Moi became a politician, a committed democrat, was elected President, upheld the values of democracy and worked for its sustenance throughout his lifetime.”

The President noted that the longest serving President of the country voluntarily handed over to his successor in 2002 in an election having ruled the country since 1978, a feat that was uncommon at that time.

Buhari urged Kenyans to uphold the ideals of love, peace, progress, unity and loyalty that the late statesman stood for even as he called on other African leaders to emulate these virtues.

He prayed God Almighty to repose his soul and comfort family and friends as they mourn the departed statesman.