Governor of Kano state north-West Nigeria, Dr. Umar Ganduje has freed 90 inmates from correctional centers across the state as an act of prerogative of Mercy to mark the Eid-Al-Ahda Celebration and decongest Prisons.
In all, the Governor has freed 3,898 Inmates in the last 7 Years of his administration of Kano state, the second biggest commercial city in Nigeria.
The exercise is conducted through the State Prerogative of Mercy Committee at the intervals of Sallah festivities.
In a visit to the Gorondutse Correctional Centre on Saturday, the Sallah Day, Governor Ganduje said the 90 inmates who were released this year were among the released 3,898 in mates in the past seven years.
Governor Ganduje assured that he would continue with the good work up to 2023 when his administration ends.
The Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has announced Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate in the 2023 general election.
The announcement was made by Tinubu while addressing journalists in Daura Katsina on Sunday during his visit to President Muhammadu Buhari to pay Sallah homage in the company of the Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari.
Tinubu said that Alhaji Masari has withdrawn as the running mate placeholder and expects that the name of Shettima, a former 2-term governor of Borno state will be formally announced soon.
An Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano State, Dr. Labaran Aliyu, has stated that life expectancy of women in Nigeria will remain low until the government addresses poverty and illiteracy.
Dr. Aliyu says though there are many reasons for the low life expectancy of women in the country, the most important two are illiteracy and poverty.
Speaking in an interview, the gynecologist identified poverty and illiteracy as the root causes of low life expectancy in women.
According to the 2020 World Population Data Sheet, the life expectancy of females in the country is 56 years while that of males is 54 even as the national figure was put at 55 years in a population of over 200m people.
The maternal health expert explained, “There are many reasons for the low life expectancy of our women, but the most important two are illiteracy and poverty. Whatever reason you want to look at, you will ultimately come back to these two. So these are the root causes.
“In a poor family for example, if a woman is pregnant and develops complications and there are no resources to access healthcare, what will be the result? She will die from the complications.
“Although, sometimes, it is not about not having enough resources to access healthcare, but because of Illiteracy, many don’t know what to do when they are sick or what not to do to get better.”
According to the gynaecologist, looking at Illiteracy in the context of maternal health, it is important women know what they need to eat to be healthy.
Nigerian Women
“A lot of cases that we see in the hospitals and even in the communities are evidence of Illiteracy. For instance, if a woman is sick in the family and the sickness has a diagnosis, you can say this is the cause of that sickness. But because of illiteracy, it will be attributed to some other trivial issues based on the belief in the community.
“She will stop seeking care from the health providers and the sickness will worsen, ultimately she will die of the disease”, he said.
Aliyu maintained that the poverty rate in the country is too high, stressing that if the issues are not properly addressed, a lot of women will continue to die from preventable causes and life expectancy will remain low.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics in its Poverty and Inequality report 2019, 1 in 10 or more than 82.9 million Nigerians live in poverty.
Also, the World Bank says 96 million Nigerians will be living in poverty by 2022.
Besides poverty and Illiteracy, the maternal health expert identified high fertility rates and poor nutrition as other factors responsible for the low life expectancy of women in Nigeria.
“Our fertility rate is very high. The fertility rate is part of the problem because the more children the women have, the less they have to cater for themselves.
“Again, in some communities that don’t accept family planning, women in such communities keep having children and exposing their lives to risk,” the associate professor said.
On what could be done to improve the life expectancy of women in Nigeria, Aliyu said the government has a role to play and the best role they can play is by providing an enabling environment for people to earn a decent living.
“If the government cannot provide jobs, they should provide an enabling environment by which individuals can be engaged in a specific trade.
“The government should provide training for people to enable them to have a vocation. Education is key. So, the government should make education free, available and accessible for women.
“We need community education, that is creating awareness in the communities”, he said.
China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine is complicating U.S.-Chinese relations at a time when they are already beset by rifts and enmity over numerous other issues, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Chinese counterpart on Saturday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the U.S. for the downturn in relations and said that American policy has been derailed by what he called a misperception of China as a threat.
“Many people believe that the United States is suffering from a China-phobia,” he said, according to a Chinese statement. “If such threat-expansion is allowed to grow, U.S. policy toward China will be a dead end with no way out.”
In five hours of talks in their first-to-face meeting since October, Blinken said he expressed deep concern about China’s stance on Russia’s actions in Ukraine and did not believe Beijing’s protestations that it is neutral in the conflict.
The talks had been arranged in a new effort to try to rein in or at least manage rampant hostility that has come to define recent relations between Washington and Beijing.
“We are concerned about the PRC’s alignment with Russia,” Blinken told reporters after the meeting in the Indonesian resort of Bali. He said it is difficult to be “neutral” in a conflict in which there is a clear aggressor but that even it were possible, “I don’t believe China is acting in a way that is neutral.”
The Chinese statement said the two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on Ukraine but provided no details.
The Biden administration had hoped that China, with its long history of opposing what it sees as interference in its own internal affairs, would take a similar position with Russia and Ukraine. But it has not, choosing instead what U.S. officials see as a hybrid position that is damaging the international rules-based order.
Blinken said every nation, China included, stands to lose if that order is eroded.
Iran has begun to use advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium at the underground Fordo facility, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency report obtained by international media on Saturday.
The new machines mentioned in the confidential document obtained by Reuters have been the object of concern among Western states, as they make it easier for the Iranians to shift between enrichment levels.
Iran has told the IAEA it only plans to reach 20 percent enrichment with the upgraded centrifuges, below the necessary 90% needed for a nuclear weapon.
The report came amid stalled efforts by Western powers to forge an agreement with Iran that would place restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and prevent it from being able to weaponize the material.
Iran has held direct talks with the remaining parties to the deal, and indirect talks with the US, since last April in a bid to restore the previous deal signed in 2015, but those negotiations have been at an impasse since March.
Elon Musk announced Friday that he will abandon his tumultuous $44 billion offer to buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts. Twitter immediately fired back, saying it would sue the Tesla CEO to uphold the deal.
The likely unraveling of the acquisition was just the latest twist in a saga between the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social media platforms, and it may portend a titanic legal battle ahead.
Twitter could have pushed for a $1 billion breakup fee that Musk agreed to pay under these circumstances. Instead, it looks ready to fight to complete the purchase, which the company’s board has approved and CEO Parag Agrawal has insisted he wants to consummate.
In a letter to Twitter’s board, Musk lawyer Mike Ringler complained that his client had for nearly two months sought data to judge the prevalence of “fake or spam” accounts on the social media platform.
“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter has ignored Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Musk incomplete or unusable information,” the letter said.
Musk also said the information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance, and is needed to finish the merger.
In response, the chair of Twitter’s board, Bret Taylor, tweeted that the board is “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon” with Musk and “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
The trial court in Delaware frequently handles business disputes among the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.
A state court temporarily blocked Pennsylvania from participating in a regional carbon pricing program to combat climate change, ruling Friday in favor of coal-related interests that argue the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf is seeking to impose an unlawful tax.
Commonwealth Court granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits the Wolf administration from “implementing, administering, or enforcing” the carbon-pricing policy, which is meant to curb power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide and has long been the centerpiece of the Democratic governor’s plan to fight global warming.
The Wolf administration said it will appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Wolf made Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel state to adopt a carbon pricing policy, in which power plants fueled by coal, oil and natural gas are required to buy a credit for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit. Pennsylvania is one of the nation’s biggest polluters and power producers.
The Power Pa Jobs Alliance, a coalition of industry and labor groups, said that power plant operators would have started paying what it called the “carbon tax” on Friday had the court not issued its injunction. It contends the carbon policy will impose higher electricity costs on consumers. The group called Friday’s ruling a “significant win for working families.”
The regulation at issue committed Pennsylvania to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate consortium that sets a price and declining limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants run by fossil fuels. The Wolf administration estimates that the initiative will reduce Pennsylvania’s carbon dioxide emissions by up to 225 million tons through 2030, fulfilling the International community mandate on emission targets.
The court’s decision is “yet another roadblock and stalling tactic from RGGI opponents,” said Jessica O’Neill, an attorney for PennFuture, an environmental group. She contended that Pennsylvania’s participation in the carbon pricing program “will unquestionably save lives by improving air quality and is necessary to cut Pennsylvania’s significant carbon footprint from the power sector.”
Commonwealth Court said the plaintiffs — power plants, labor unions and coal mine owners — had “raised a substantial legal question” about whether the program imposes an unlawful tax, since taxing power rests with the General Assembly, not the executive branch. However, It did not rule on the merits of the case.
Toronto-based telecommunications company Rogers Communications Inc. said Saturday it has restored mobile and internet service for “the vast majority″ of customers after an outage that lasted more than 15 hours.
The disruption, which the Toronto-based telecommunications company offered no explanation for, started Friday morning. It left many customers without mobile and internet service and caused trouble for 911 services, debit transactions and even Service Canada’s beleaguered passport offices.
In a tweet, Rogers said some customers may experience delays in regaining full service as its network comes back online and traffic volumes return to normal.
“Our technical teams are working hard to ensure that the remaining customers are back online as quickly as possible,” the tweet said.
“Once again, we sincerely apologize for the disruption this had caused our customers and we will be proactively crediting all customers.”
Interac said its services are fully available again after debit transactions were halted by the Rogers network outage.
Tony Staffieri, chief executive and president of Rogers, said in an open letter that the company apologizes for the service interruption but offered no explanation for the outage or how many customers were affected.
Staffieri said Rogers is committed to understanding the cause and would make changes to meet and exceed expectations in the future.
The outage began early Friday and stretched into the evening, pushing businesses and organizations to notify customers that their operations were being affected by Rogers and that delays and service interruptions should be expected.
The outage forced the postponement of The Weeknd’s tour stop at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. The Toronto date was one of only two set for Canada.
Among the most serious impacts of the outage were warnings from police in Toronto and Ottawa, who reported connection problems when people called 911.
Many Rogers customers scrambled to find internet service, heading to coffee shops to connect and trade tales of the outage.
Arizona’s Governor has signed a law that restricts how the public can video police at a time when there’s growing pressure across the U.S. for greater law enforcement transparency.
US Civil rights and media groups opposed the measure that Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed Thursday. The law makes it illegal in Arizona to knowingly video police officers 8 feet (2.5 meters) or closer without an officer’s permission.
Someone on private property with the owner’s consent can also be ordered to stop recording if a police officer finds they are interfering or the area is not safe. The penalty is a misdemeanor that would likely incur a fine without jail time.
There needs to be a law that protects officers from people who “either have very poor judgment or sinister motives,” said Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, the bill’s sponsor.
“I’m pleased that a very reasonable law that promotes the safety of police officers and those involved in police stops and bystanders has been signed into law,” Kavanagh said Friday. “It promotes everybody’s safety yet still allows people to reasonably videotape police activity as is their right.”
The move comes nearly a year after the U.S. Department of Justice launched a widespread probe into the police force in Phoenix to examine whether officers have been using excessive force and abusing people experiencing homelessness. It’s similar to other investigations opened in recent months in Minneapolis and Louisville.
The Phoenix Police Department, which oversees the nation’s fifth-largest city, has been criticized in recent years for its use of force, which disproportionately affects Black and Native American residents.
The law has left opponents like K.M. Bell, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, incredulous.
Federal appellate courts already have ruled that recording police is “a clearly established right,” according to Bell.
Production of baby formula has resumed at the Abbott Nutrition factory in Michigan, United States whose February shutdown over contamination contributed to a national shortage, a company spokesman said.
Damage from severe thunderstorms including flooding had forced the Sturgis plant to halt operations in mid-June just two weeks after restarting production with additional sanitizing and safety protocols.
Production of EleCare, a specialty formula for infants with severe food allergies and digestive problems, was restored at Sturgis following a July 1 reboot, said Abbott spokesman John Koval.
“We are working to restart Similac production as soon as we can. We’ll provide more information when we have it,” he said via email.
Abbott recalled several leading brands of formula in February, including Similac. That squeezed supplies already been strained by supply chain disruptions and stockpiling during COVID-19 shutdowns.
The shortage was most dire for children with allergies, digestive problems and metabolic disorders who rely on specialty formulas.
President Joe Biden’s administration has since eased import rules for foreign manufacturers, airlifted formula from Europe and invoked federal emergency rules to prioritize U.S. production.
Abbott is one of just four companies that produce about 90% of U.S. formula. Koval declined to say how much of Abbot’s overall U.S. supply of infant formula is produced at the Sturgis plant.
The plant was closed in February after the Food and Drug Administration began investigating four bacterial infections among infants who consumed powdered formula from the plant. Two of the babies died. The company says its products have not been directly linked to the infections, which involved different bacterial strains.
FDA inspectors eventually uncovered a host of violations at the plant, including bacterial contamination, a leaky roof and lax safety protocols.
On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to help overseas makers of infant formula that have sent supplies, under emergency approval to address the shortfall, secure long-term authorization to market their formula in the U.S. The plan is to provide American consumers with more choices and make supplies more resilient against current or future shortages.
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