News & Announcements

Unaccounted persons have been feared killed in a gas explosion that has rocked the Nigerian commercial capital city of Lagos.
The sad event happened in the evening of Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at the Afariogun area of Isolo in Isolo Local Government Area of Lagos.
According to information gathered, the explosion occured in a gas shop and a source from the scene said the explosion is not unconnected with a electric spark inside the shop

‘We have been having epileptic power supply and I think that the explosion might have been caused by a spark from electricity.”
However, men of the fire service and other essential workers were seen at the scene evacuating the dead and the incident caused heavy vehicular traffic in the area.

FA, the world football governing body, has slammed Manuel Nascimento, the president of Guinea Bissau Football Federation, a ten ten-year ban from all football and football-related activities for his involvement in a mob incident against a man in his country.

The international ban was handed the football administrator late Friday evening, less than 24 hours before he was due to contest Saturday’s election for his third term in office as the leader of the football federation.

Nascimento, who was seeking a third, four-year term in Saturday’s polls was also hit with a fine of 100,000 Swiss francs Swiss (about 93 thousand Euros) for the offense.

The decision means he will not contest Saturday’s election and there will be a new leader in charge of the Guinea-Bissau federation after Saturday morning’s election in the country’s capital.

Seven candidates are running for the presidency of the Football Federation of Guinea-Bissau following the ban imposed on Nascimento for the incident that occurred in the capital Bissau.

The adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee found Nascimento guilty of breach of his duty to protect the physical and mental integrity of others, in violation of the FIFA Code of Ethics.

“In its decision, the adjudicatory chamber ruled that, based on information, including video material, gathered by the investigatory chamber, Mr. Nascimento had breached his duty, as per the FIFA Code of Ethics, to protect the physical and mental integrity of the man who was the victim of the mobbing,” the FIFA statement read.

“Consequently, the adjudicatory chamber found that Mr. Nascimento had breached art. 23 (Protection of physical and mental integrity) of the FIFA Code of Ethics and sanctioned him with a ban from all football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level for ten years. In addition, a fine in the amount of CHF 100,000 has been imposed on Mr. Nascimento.”

Nascimento wrote off the ban, saying: “Imagine, one day before the elections, and this matter was made public. I am calm. I spoke with my lawyer and said I have 60 days to do what we have to do “.

He has 60 days to appeal the decision at the Court for Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in Switzerland.

Nascimento is a hugely divisive figure in African football often publicly verbally attacking people who are politically opposed to him in the trajectory of African football.

In 2017 just before the CAF elections, he reportedly vowed to quit football administration if Issa Hayatou, whom he so much supported, lost the CAF presidential election in Addis Ababa, where current leader, Ahmad Ahmad won.

But refused to stand down when they Cameroonian was pummeled at the polls, claiming the youth of his country wants him to continue in the position.

Since that election, he has wasted no time in attacking Ahmad for his policies and was among the few who were actively plotting to bring down the Malagasy leader of Africa’s football governing body.

The ban all but ends Nascimento’s participation in African football politics as the world would have moved on by the time he gets the opportunity to overturn the decision or return to the game in 2030 when the ban elapses.

President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone has saluted the first lady and his wife, Her Excellency Fatima Maada Bio as well as the country’s Chief Judge and the entire judiciary for their support in the efforts towards ridding the country of Sexual Offences.
Taking to his Twitter handle to express delight in the setting up of the Sexual Offences Model Court, the president said the need to “Hands Off Our Girls” had become a rallying point of resistance in the fight against Sexual crime in the country.

The president said the support from his wife, the Chief Judge and the entire judiciary had become very immeasurable in the efforts of his administration in saving the girls and women in the country.
He twitted: “We are establishing a Sexual Offences Model Court. Thank you First Lady for your tenacity.

“Hands Off Our Girls’ has become a rallying cry of resistance.
“Thank My Lord, the Chief Justice and members of the judiciary for your interminable support,” President Bio tweeted.
Sierra Leone, it will be recalled, has been in the forefront of the fight against Sexual Offences and the present administration under President Maada Bio has priorize eradication of Sexual crime since he came on board.

Fresh facts have emerged on how more than twenty persons were roasted alive when a tanker laden with petroleum products burst into flames after it exploded at Koko Junction in the ever-busy Benin, Sapele High Way in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Edo State in South-South Nigeria.

According to an eye witness who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, the driver of the tanker would have avoided the accident if he had been cautious at the bad spot on the junction.

“The driver fell into a gutter but that road is bad and he ought to have been very careful. He was not careful at that spot and that made him fall with his tanker.
“I was close to that place doing shopping when I heard a loud bang and the next thing was fire everywhere.

“We normally have such incidents there and that is why vehicles, particularly the articulated ones, must be very careful.
“Because it was sudden, a lot of vehicles on that road could not see how to escape and that is also because the road is not very good.
“All of them were burnt and that is how so many people died.

“I personally counted more than twenty bodies and I am very sure that the least that could have died in the fire will be twenty-four.
“In one of the burning vehicles, onlookers could see trapped occupants yelling, shouting, and battling for their lives as the fire from spills of the tanker was raging seriously.”

On whether the men of the fire service did not respond immediately, he said they might have been delayed by traffic, but commended their efforts in putting out the fire eventually.
“If you look at how the fire was raging, it was difficult for anyone to get close and that is why so many people were helpless in assisting those trapped in their vehicles
“But the fire service tried though they did not arrive on time maybe because of traffic.
“But immediately they arrived, they worked tirelessly to stop the fire,” says the eye witness named Chika, an undergraduate of the University of Benin, who is staying with his parents in the Edo State capital due to the lockdown on academic activities in the Nigerian ivory towers, saying more than fifteen vehicles were burnt in the process.

The Government of Sierra Leone will conduct what it called the mid-term population and housing census of all the inhabitants of the country soon.
According to President President Julius Maada Bio through a tweet late Tuesday, the exercise will commence on December 4, 2020.

The president said the census became very imperative as it would help the country to plan effectively and ensure equitable distribution of resources to all parts of Sierra Leone.

President Bio tweeted: “The Mid-Term Population and Housing Census of all inhabitants of #SierraLeone will commence on the 4th of December 2020.

“This will help us plan properly, ensure equitable distribution of resources, and foster economic and social development,” the president said in the tweet.
Meanwhile, the last time population census was conducted in the country was in 2015. It marked the second post war enumeration exercise in the country.

The census then was conducted with both technical and financial support coming from the UNFPA and its partners.

Four persons have been feared killed after a car they were traveling with fell into the river in Ogun State, South West Nigeria.

Meanwhile, in the accident that occured when the car, an Opel Salon, fell into the Ososa River in Odogbolu Local Government Area of the state late Tuesday, two other passengers of the ill-fated vehicle sustained injuries.

Speaking on the accident, Mr. Babatunde Akinbiyi, the Public Relations Officer of the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency, confirmed the occurence.

Akinbiyi said the vehicle marked, GGE 596 DV, heading for Sagamu from Ijebu-Ode, plunged into the river at the second bridge around 10.20am on Tuesday.

Akinbiyi said: “The car was coming from Ijebu-Ode and heading for Sagamu when the accident happened.

“The car was speeding when it suddenly lost control and plunged into the Ososa River. 

“Six persons were in the vehicle; one female and five males, including the driver, which is against the COVID-19 guidelines and protocols.

“The two injured have been taken to the Ijebu-Ode General Hospital and the four dead bodies have been deposited at the morgue of the hospital.”

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday proposed new tax credits for those who care for children, seniors and disabled people and said he would build tens of thousands of new child-care facilities as part of a plan to bolster what his campaign called the “caregiving economy.”

Biden, CNN reports, is set to detail his plan in a speech Tuesday afternoon in New Castle, Delaware. It’s the third plank of the “build back better” economic platform the former vice president is rolling out in advance of next month’s Democratic National Convention.

Biden’s plans — which have included manufacturing and clean energy, and are also expected to include a future speech on how he would address racial injustice in the economy — have been offered as economic stimulus programs that would restore jobs lost during the Coronavirus pandemic and add millions more on top of those losses.

Biden’s campaign said the plan would cost $775 billion over 10 years. Biden would pay for it by repealing tax breaks for real estate investors who earn more than $400,000 and, according to a campaign document, “taking steps to increase tax compliance for high-income earners.”

Of that, $450 billion would go to clearing a waiting list for Medicaid home and community services that, citing Kaiser Family Foundation data, Biden’s campaign said numbers more than 800,000 and can last as long as five years.

Once the backlog is cleared, Biden’s campaign said, he would propose allowing states to scrap their existing Medicaid home- and community-based care service waivers — which allow people to receive long-term care in their homes rather than institutional settings — in favor of a new program with more federal funding.

Biden’s campaign also said it would fund the hiring of 150,000 community health care workers.

The plan also includes elements aimed at aiding unpaid caregivers who take care of family members, offering them a $5,000 tax credit and Social Security credits.

Biden’s plan also covers early childhood education. He is proposing $8,000 tax credits for families with one child and $16,000 credits for those with two or more children making up to $125,000 per year. Those earning too much to qualify for the full credit, but less than $400,000 per year, would receive partial credits.

Biden’s plan also includes an alternative to tax credits. Families earning up to 1.5 times their state’s median income could instead have their child care subsidized so that they are paying no more than 7% of their income.

Tragedy struck in Kukum Daji Village in Laura Local Government Area of Kaduna State in the North Central of Nigeria as killers suspected of being Fulani herdsmen allegedly killed 21 persons with scores of others sustaining varied degrees of injuries. 

The President of the Community, Mr. Yashen Titus, while speaking to the press on Monday, said the men suspected to be Fulani herdsmen invaded the venue of a wedding party in the community at about 10 pm on Sunday night.

Titus, who explained that the suspected herdsmen opened fire on the people who attended the party, said 19 people died on the spot while two others later died at the hospital.

The remaining injured ones according to him were rushed to the Barau Dikko teaching hospital and other clinics in the state capital for treatment.

The Council Chairman, Emmanuel Adamu, who confirmed the attack, said the gunmen unleashed mayhem on Ankpon Village in Nandu and Kabamu Village in Fadan Karshi, all of Numana district.

While describing the incident as unfortunate, he said the gunmen killed 38 persons including women and children.

An explosion hit a power plant in the central Iranian province of Isfahan on Sunday, state news agency IRNA reported, saying it was over faulty equipment and caused no casualties.

An explosion hit a power plant in the central Iranian province of Isfahan on Sunday, state news agency IRNA reported, saying it was over faulty equipment and caused no casualties.

The facility returned to normal working conditions after about two hours and Isfahan’s power supply was uninterrupted, he added.

The incident is the latest in a string of fires and explosions at military and civilian sites across Iran in recent weeks.

Two explosions rocked Tehran in late June, one near a military site and the other in a health centre, the latter killing 19 people.

Fires or blasts also hit a shipyard in southern Iran last week, a factory south of Tehran with two dead and the Natanz nuclear complex in central Iran earlier this month.

Iranian authorities called the Natanz fire an accident without elaborating and later said they would not reveal the cause, citing “security reasons”.

The string of fires and explosions have prompted speculation in Iran that they may be the result of sabotage by arch enemy Israel.
The Jewish state accuses the Islamic republic of seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb while Tehran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

As the global cases of Coronavirus continue to rise, India on Friday became the third country in the world to record one million positive cases, following Brazil and the United States where infections also continued to surge.

The virus has killed more than 588,000 people and infected nearly 14 million around the world since first being detected in China late last year.

But, despite extraordinary restrictions on people travelling that have crippled the global economy, the pandemic is worsening in many parts of the world.

India’s surpassing of one million infections came a day after confirmed cases in Brazil topped two million.

The United States also on Thursday posted yet another record daily spike in infections, as the virus deepened political divides with Western nations accusing Russia of trying to steal vaccine research. 

The hacking accusation came as European leaders prepared to hold a face-to-face summit on Friday in an attempt to hammer out a post-virus economic rescue plan.

With more than 600 people dying daily in India, lockdowns have been reimposed on millions of people across the world’s second-most-populous nation.

India’s main hotspots had previously been the megacities of Mumbai and New Delhi, but smaller cities and rural areas — where 70 percent of Indians live — have recently begun to raise the alarm.

The coastal tourist region of Goa on Thursday evening became the latest Indian state to go under lockdown, imposing a three-day shutdown and a nightime curfew until August 10.

With per capita spending on health care among the lowest in the world, India’s hospitals are reeling.

“The fear of catching the infection is very real as I am in a high-risk zone almost round the clock,” Showkat Nazir Wani, a doctor working at an intensive care unit at Sharda Hospital just outside the capital New Delhi, told AFP.

“It’s not going to go away till a vaccine comes… I have to keep fighting and trying to save every single life.”

Hopes for a vaccine were given a boost on Thursday when British media reported that an Oxford University trial had shown a prototype generated an immune response against the virus.

But hours later Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said the research project was among a number of British labs targeted by a hacking group attempting to “steal valuable intellectual property”.

The agency said it was “almost certain” the hackers were part of Russian intelligence, with the US and Canada backing the claim in a joint security advisory.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the idea, saying Russia has “nothing to do with these attempts”.

In Europe leaders from the 27-member EU bloc are gearing up for their first in-person meeting in five months on Friday, where they will discuss a post-virus economic rescue plan.

Officials have drawn up proposals for a huge stimulus package but northern capitals led by the Netherlands are holding out against doling out cash to their southern neighbours without strict conditions.

Economies have been battered by months of lockdowns and many countries barely had a chance to get the wheels turning again before second waves of the virus brought fresh restrictions.

Bars and schools were closed in Hong Kong this week as infections in the densely populated city started to climb, although the record infection numbers in the dozens is far lower than other parts of the world.

A record 293 cases were also reported in Tokyo on Friday.

In Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, a second wave has continued to worsen despite the reimposition of a lockdown. A daily record of 423 new cases were confirmed on Friday.

Brett Sutton, the chief health officer overseeing Melbourne, warned tougher restrictions were being considered for the city of five million people.

“We have not turned the corner here, worse than that,” he said.