The Nation Newspaper

Category: Foreign

  • Gaddafi’s son has right to run for president, says Libya’s army chief

    By Agency Reporter

    Saif Islam Gaddafi, the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has every right to run for president, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the head of the Libyan National Army (LNA), said.

    Haftar told Sputnik in an interview that there was no enmity between the two of them.

    When asked about Saif Islam Gaddafi’s plans to run in the upcoming presidential election, the army chief said: “He is a Libyan citizen. If the legal conditions are met, it is his natural right (to participate in the elections).”

    The field marshal added that it was not his concern “if he (Gaddafi) is in the country or abroad”.
    He added: “I do not know where he is now and there is no communication between us, but this, of course, doesn’t mean any disagreement or enmity.

    Read Also: Buhari seeks peaceful Libya for Africa’s benefit

    “Our enemies are the terrorists, and everyone who carries arms against the citizens, attacks the sanctity of the people, preys on their dignity, loots the wealth of Libyans and jeopardises the safety of the country.”

     

    Haftar’s LNA, which controls the east of the country, has emerged as one of the major forces in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi’s government was toppled and the Libyan leader himself was killed in 2011.

     

    The UN-backed Government of National Accord led by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj controls the west of the country.

  • Buhari congratulates Ethiopian Prime Minister for winning 2019 Nobel Peace prize

    By Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

    President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, who was declared winner of 2019 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in Oslo, Norway.

    He said it portends a good sign for the peace processes within countries, and across borders on African continent.

    President Buhari, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, felicitated with the Prime Minister, his cabinet and all Ethiopians on the remarkable global recognition of winning the 100th peace prize, which was attributed to a decision to end 20-year conflict between two African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

    Read Also: Aisha Buhari to declare COWLSO’s national women conference open

    The President reiterated his belief that African development is strongly tied to peaceful co-existence, and deliberate efforts by governments and people to sustain harmony within and between countries.

    He urged for more concerted and collective partnership on peace in the continent.

    President Buhari prayed that the global recognition will spur more interest on issues of peace in Africa, and drive home the immeasurable benefits.

  • Fed Govt plans ‘visa-on-arrival’ policy for visitors

    Vincent Ikuomola, Abuja

    Nigeria is gradually moving towards a “visa-on-arrival” regime as part of efforts to improve “Ease of doing business.

    Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama stated this on Tuesday at a meeting with his Namibian counterpart, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, in Windhoek, the Namibian capital.

    The two countries have also agreed to strengthen cooperation in areas that would be beneficial to them as well as the African continent.

    Onyeama said Nigeria is moving towards a “visa-on-arrival” regime as part of the policy of “Ease of doing business”.

    The minister added that “online applications will facilitate that, but it is still a work in progress”.

    Read Also: Nigeria to seek global support to combat terrorism, increased FDI – Onyeama

    He noted that they addressed issues regarding the issuance of visas to Namibians and Nigerians.

    “Any Namibian wishing to obtain a visa to Nigeria can apply and will be considered as was the case in the past. Once the requirements are met satisfactorily, such a person will be issued a visa. Same applies to a Nigerian wishing to go to Namibia,” he said.

    The meeting also agreed that any visa denial or deportation will not be stamped in the holder’s passport. Furthermore, consular meetings will be held quarterly to assess how things are progressing.

    He also said over the years, Nigeria has engaged with Namibia through the Technical Aid Corps (TAC), which is “one mechanism through which we support countries by sending out our brightest young professionals in various fields – medical, educational etc depending on the needs of the country for a period of time”.

    He reiterated his belief that the partnership being forged through the Joint Commission can “transform the lives of our peoples in the framework of the 2063 Agenda of the African Union (AU) and the 2030 Sustainable Development goals of the UN”.

    Diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Namibia date back to the March 2, 1990, following the country’s attainment of independence. Since then, relations have been warm and cordial owing to the role Nigeria played during Namibia’s liberation struggle with the provision of financial, material and logistical support for SWAPO.

  • White House to defy Congress, won’t cooperate on impeachment inquiry

    The White House will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry in the US House of Representatives, calling it constitutionally illegitimate and accusing Democrats of engaging in political theatre.

    In a letter to the lawmakers on Tuesday, the White House called for them to abandon the inquiry, claiming they are seeking to overturn the results of the 2016 election, which President Donald Trump won.

    House Democrats in September launched the probe amid accusations Trump used his power as president to try to have Ukraine dig up dirt on his domestic political rival, Joe Biden, and aid his upcoming re-election campaign.

    US public opinion is split on the issue.

    The Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, called the White House’s refusal to cooperate unlawful in a statement responding to the letter, which she said is manifestly wrong.

    The move to not comply with any requests for testimony or documents was described by a senior administration official as a full halt on cooperation.

    This sets up a stalemate between the executive and legislative branches, which likely will see the courts being asked to decide on specific issues.

    President Trump and his Administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances,the White House said to Democrats.

    Pelosi said the latest move by the Republican president was an effort to stonewall Democrats’ investigations, claiming they had evidence that Trump abused his office.

    The White House alleged lawmakers were violating Trump’s due-process rights in the inquiry, including the right to issue subpoenas and question witnesses.

    Moreover, the executive branch dismissed the legitimacy of the investigation, saying there was no full vote in the House on starting the inquiry.

    Democrats do not believe such a vote is necessary, as Congress is constitutionally vested with oversight of the White House.

    There is also an argument that the president will have full due process rights if the Democratic controlled House impeaches and the Senate then holds a trial.

    The letter from the White House to Democrats came hours after Trump’s administration blocked Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, from testifying to lawmakers.

    Read Also: Trump, Africa and development

    In justifying his move, Trump called the House of Representatives a kangaroo court.

    Sondland featured in text messages between US diplomats released last week, which show at least one senior official alarmed by Trump’s behaviour towards Ukraine, worried he was using the power of his office to gain a political edge.

    Adam Schiff, a Democrat leading the House investigations, said he believes there is important information on Sondland’s electronic device, which is being held by the State Department.

    He said this showed the need to be able to get documents from the administration.

    The president, in the days since the scandal erupted, openly called for Ukraine and China to investigate his rival and his son, Hunter Biden.

    The younger Biden received a cushy salary and job on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was a key government figure working on Ukraine.

    There is no evidence they did anything illegal, but the appearance of a conflict of interest is haunting the family.

    Trump says he did nothing wrong in a call with Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky in July.

    A reproduced transcript of the call, released by the administration, shows Trump asking for a favour from Zelensky and bringing up investigations into Biden.

    Trump surrogates push his line that there was no quid pro quo with Zelensky, though this argument does not deal directly with the accusation that the president was seeking dirt on his political rival from a foreign government.

    There is also concern Trump was withholding military aid to Ukraine as part of his efforts.

    The decision by the White House to stop any cooperation is not without political risk for the Republicans. Democrats may charge they are carrying out a cover-up.

    Outspoken Republicans have said the process is too flawed to warrant cooperation and will not be fair to the president.

    Trump continues to enjoy broad support within his own centre-right party.

     

    NAN

  • Trump Calls on Hillary Clinton to Enter Presidential Race

    By Agency Reporter

    President Donald Trump on Tuesday challenged Hillary Clinton to join the 2020 U.S. presidential race on condition that she gives an explanation regarding the notorious email scandal.

    The emails he refers to in his tweet are related to an FBI investigation into Clinton who used a private server and email accounts during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State.

    Clinton was accused of culling out some 30,000 of her personal emails without following the correct National Archives procedures.

    The Clinton email saga, also known as emailgate, has followed Clinton for many years.

    Read Also: House subpoenas Pentagon, budget office in Trump impeachment inquiry

    In 2017, materials handed over to Judicial Watch by the State Department revealed examples of what appeared to be `pay-to-play’ politics.

    It was alleged that Clinton would receive generous donations to the Clinton Foundation from private and state donors in exchange for government appointments, policy positions, and government contracts.

    Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was President Trump’s principal rival in the 2016 presidential election.

    She lost to Trump despite winning the majority of the popular vote.

  • 100m-year-old dinosaur footprints found in East China

    Palaeontologists announced on Tuesday in Beijing they had discovered a group of 100 million-year-old fossils of dinosaur footprints in east China’s Zhejiang Province.

    According to Xing Lida, an associate professor with the China University of Geosciences, Beijing, over 20 footprints, ranging from 22.7 cm to 82 cm in length, were discovered in a village in the city of Lanxi.

    However, experts estimated the dinosaurs’ body length ranged from 3.8 to 14 metres.

    The footprints were believed to date back 100 million years to Cretaceous Period, indicating a large number of sauropods were active in the area, believed to be rich in water and grass at that time.

    Experts said there would have been carnivorous dinosaurs in symbiosis with these herbivorous dinosaurs, but no evidence had been found so far.

    Lida and Martin Lockley, a professor at the University of Colorado, were among the authors of the study, which was published in Historical Biology. Paleontologists are now working with local authorities to better protect these rare footprints.

     

    (NAN)

  • House subpoenas Pentagon, budget office in Trump impeachment inquiry

    House lawmakers spearheading the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump issued subpoenas for the Department of Defence and the White House budget office on Monday, demanding documents related to US relations with Ukraine.

    Democrats in the House of Representative have already issued subpeones for the White House, Vice President Mike Pence and the State Department, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    The lawmakers have warned that failure to comply may be seen as obstruction and held against any officials in the executive branch.

    The Democrats said in a letter to Secretary of Defence Mark Esper that their investigation is focusing on whether Trump endangered U.S. national security by seeking foreign interference in the upcoming U.S. elections and withholding military aid to Ukraine.

    Read Also; Two of a kind, part one: Trump and Johnson

    In July, Trump held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and asked for a “favour” in investigating Joe Biden, currently the Democrats’ leading candidate for the party’s nomination to run against Trump next year.

    The president has said there was no quid pro quo, but text messages between U.S. diplomats released last week show at least one was alarmed that Trump was seeking help from Ukraine with his domestic political campaign at the expense of U.S. foreign policy objectives.

  • Trio win medicine Nobel for work on how cells adapt to oxygen

    Two Americans and a Briton won the 2019 Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for discovering a molecular switch that regulates how cells adapt to fluctuating oxygen levels, opening up new approaches to treating heart failure, anaemia and cancer.

    William Kaelin at the U.S. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School was “almost speechless’’ when told that he and two other doctors, Gregg Semenza of Johns Hopkins University and Briton Peter Ratcliffe of Oxford University, would share the 9-million Swedish-crown (913,000 dollars) prize, the Nobel award-giving body said.

    “They were extremely happy, and happy to share the prize with each other,” Thomas Perlmann, a member of the Nobel Assembly, told reporters as the prize was announced.

    The scientists’ work established the basis for understanding of how oxygen levels are sensed by cells – a discovery that is being explored by medical researchers seeking to develop treatments for various diseases that work by either activating or blocking the body’s oxygen-sensing machinery.

    Read Also: Three Lagos teachers get President’s award

    Their work centres on the hypoxic response – the way the body reacts to oxygen flux – and “revealed the elegant mechanisms by which our cells sense oxygen levels and respond’’, said Andrew Murray, an expert at Britain’s University of Cambridge who congratulated the three.

    Randall Johnson, a professor at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute where the annual prize is awarded, noted that since “oxygen is essential for life and is used by virtually all animal cells,’’ the work is central to how the body functions.
    “It’s a prize that really tells us the fundamental truth about how cells work,” he said, adding “for example when you’re exercising, you’re using up oxygen at a much more rapid pace … and this is a switch that helps the cell figure out how much oxygen it’s getting and how it should behave”.

    “If you have a stroke there’s suddenly no oxygen going to the brain… Those cells, if they are going to survive, need to find a way to adapt to that level of oxygen,” he said.
    Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes given each year.

    The prizes for achievements in science, peace and literature have been awarded since 1901 and were created in the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.

    Nobel medicine laureates have included scientific greats such as Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, and Karl Landsteiner, who identified separate blood types and so enabled safe transfusions to be widely introduced.

    Perlmann said he had reached Kaelin by phone early on Monday, after first having dialled the wrong number.
    “He was really happy, almost speechless,” Perlmann said.

    Ratcliffe was at his office and Semenza was asleep, he said.

    Last year American James Allison and Japanese Tasuku Honjo won the prize for discoveries about how to harness the immune system in cancer therapies.

  • Rape allegations: Police arrest former Speaker in Nepal

    Police in Nepal on Monday said they have arrested Krishna Mahara, former Speaker of House of Representatives over rape allegations by a government worker.

    Mahara, resigned from his job after the woman accused him of sexually assaulting her at her apartment in Kathmandu last week.

    “We received a complaint of attempted rape against him from the woman. We have also investigated the incident,’’ said Uttam Subedi, the head of the police in Kathmandu.

    Subedi said police took the former speaker into custody late Sunday and he would be presented before the court next week, due to the annual Dashain festival holiday.

    Mahara initially denied the allegations, but on Tuesday said he was stepping down to facilitate an impartial and fair investigation into the allegations.

    Read Also; 87-year-old Nigerian leaves behind 102 grand children

    Mahara is the highest profile politician to face charges of rape in Nepal.

    If convicted, he faces up to five years in jail.

  • Time for us to get out of this ridiculous endless wars – Trump

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday justified his decision to withdraw his country’s troops from northern Syria, saying in his tweeter page that many of the wars were tribal.

    Trump tweeted “It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home.’’

    “The Kurds fought with us, but were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so.”

    Trump, in a surprise reversal of U.S. policy on Syria, said Turkey would soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria.

    Read Also: Donald Trump’s year of scandals

    He said that Washington had relied on Syrian Kurdish militias as the most effective group in fighting Islamic State in Syria.

    “The U.S. was supposed to be in Syria for 30 days, that was many years ago. We stayed and got deeper and deeper into battle with no aim in sight. When I arrived in Washington, ISIS was running rampant in the area. We quickly defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate.’