The National Bureau of Statistics has said the federal government generated N472.07 billion as Company Income Tax (CIT) in the second quarter of this year.
This is against N392.64 billion generated in Q1 2021 and N402.03 billion generated in Q2 2020, representing a 20.23 per cent increase Quarter-on-Quarter and 17.42 per cent increase Year-on-Year.
The NBS said professional services generated the highest amount of CIT with N130.09 billion and was closely followed by other manufacturing which generated N87.27 billion.
It said banks and financial institutions generated N60.01 billion while the textile and garment industry generated the least and closely followed by automobiles and assemblies and pioneering with N27.23 million, N62.15 million and N64.30 million generated respectively.
Out of the total amount generated in Q2 2021, N412.74 billion was generated as CIT locally while N51.61 billion was generated as foreign CIT payment,” it said.
According to the report, the balance of N2.72 billion was generated as CIT from other payments.
A 24-year-old Christian woman in northern India regained the ability to speak nearly a month after she went into shock from a Sikh family choking her unconscious and attacking her sister and mother, sources said.
Meenu Kaur Tank remains bed-ridden, on strong medicines, sometimes continues to fall unconscious and still barely speaks following the assault in Ghawaddi village, Ludhiana District in Punjab state, her sister said.
“Meenu is unable to come out of shock,” her 27-year-old sister, Harpreet Kaur Tank, told Morning Star News. “She has lost her appetite and hardly talks… [The assailant] caught my sister from the throat and pressed it so hard, almost choking her to death. She fell unconscious.”
In the June 20 attack on the widowed mother, sisters and others, five Sikh family members also partially stripped the Christian women as they beat them and reviled them for believing in Christ, sources said. The women, who became Christians in 2016, had just returned from an evening worship service.
Meenu Kaur Tank was rushed to a hospital immediately after the 45-minute ordeal, and when she regained consciousness there, she was unable to speak, a pastor helping the family said.
“The doctors said that she is in a state of shock and thus has lost her voice,” area pastor Vishnu Dev said. “It took almost a month for her to begin to speak.”
One of the Sikhs, identified as Manjeet Singh, first slapped and hit their mother, 48-year-old Munesh Devi, and then his son, identified as 22-year-old Monu, took over, punching and kicking her, Harpreet Kaur Tank said.
Monu also choked Harpreet Kaur Tank and tore her dress from the neckline to the waist, she said, in tears.
“A man belonging to the attacker family attempted to choke one of the daughters and then stripped her of her clothes,” Pastor Dev said. “He then turned to the other daughter and caught her by her throat, trying to kill her, until she fell unconscious.”
Also assaulting the women as they demeaned their Christian faith were Singh’s wife, daughter and younger brother, Sikander Singh, sources said.
Harpreet Kaur Tank said that their older sister, Gurjeet Kaur, who lives in the same village, came with her husband to rescue them, but they too were beaten.
QUESTIONING FAITH
The night of the attack, Harpreet Kaur Tank had gone to fetch water from a water cooler outside a Sikh worship place near her house to serve the couple who had dropped them home from the Christian worship service.
Singh stopped her on the way, complaining that her guests had parked their car near the Sikh temple, she said.
“Though it had nothing to do with Manjeet, yet I assured him that I will immediately get the car moved,” she said.
In coarse language, Singh began to berate her family for changing their religion for material gain, she said.
“He said that we were poor people once, and now we go about in cars. He also said, ‘He [Jesus] did not know who His [earthly] father was, how can you follow such a man?’” she said. “I still requested him to stay calm, and that I will immediately ask the guests to remove the car from the parked spot. But he continued to abuse, saying that he will set the car on fire.”
She went back into her house, and the guests moved the car to a different spot, but the Sikh family then came out and began beating Devi and her daughters, she said. After Monu struck Devi, then Singh, his wife and daughter began hitting her in turns, Harpreet Kaur Tank said.
“They were five of them and surrounded us,” she told Morning Star News. “They took turns and hit us on our heads, and when we would fall to the ground, they would kick us and punch us. As soon as we would rise, they would again hit us on the head, and we would fall to the ground again.”
When her sister, Gurjeet Kaur, arrived with her husband and were assaulted, one of the assailants tore some of her hair from her scalp, Harpreet Kaur Tank said.
Meenu Kaur Tank was refused admission to a nearby hospital and was taken to High Care hospital in Ludhiana, where she received treatment for a week, family members said. Pastor Dev said that he then learned of the attack, went to the hospital and arranged for her to be transferred to Christian Medical Centre, or CMC, where she remained until July 2.
POLICE RELUCTANCE
Police initially refused to register the victims’ complaint, doing so only after Christian leaders intervened, sources said.
When Devi and her daughters went to the Dehlon police station the night of the attack, officers told them to first go to a hospital for treatment and then they would register a First Information Report (FIR), Harpreet Kaur Tank said.
“It was 10:30 at night, and they said that as it is too late, they will only register the case in the morning,” she said.
Investigating Officer Jaswinder Singh of the Dehlon police station told Morning Star News that they initially did not register a complaint because “there were no external injuries.”
Police later visited the hospital and pressured the Christians to reach an agreement with the assailants, Pastor Dev said.
“This is how it is,” he told Morning Star News. “The rich and influential beat the poor and then want to hush the matter by paying money, denying them justice.”
Harpreet Kaur Tank recalled that a policeman told them, “We will get you treated [medically], what else do you want?”
Pastor Dev said he visited the office of the commissioner of police and, in his absence, met with the joint commissioner, who directed Dehlon police to immediately register a case. The FIR was registered that night, June 26.
Attorney Nav Chahal, who practices at the High Court in Chandigarh, said police delayed registering the case due to political pressure exerted by the assailants.
“They are influential and powerful people and well connected politically,” Chahal told Morning Star News.
Dehlon police registered an FIR (No. 0108) under sections of the Indian Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt, outraging a woman’s modesty, criminal intimidation, wrongful restraint and “common intention.”
“While narrating the incident to a policeman, who was noting the details, I was repetitively told not to go into details, and that I should state the matter broadly,” Harpreet Kaur Tank said. “They also told me that I would be required to present the details only before the magistrate. I had no experience and did not know that all the details should have been included in the FIR. We were all alone, struggling to be heard.”
Sub-Inspector Manjeet Kaur of the Dehlon police station told Morning Star News that she went to meet Meenu Kaur Tank in the hospital to record her statement on orders from the police commissioner’s office.
“When I went to see her, she was in CMC Hospital, and she was in a condition where she could not utter a single word,” the sub-inspector said. “The doctor there told me that she was in a state of shock, and that she was frightened, maybe because of what she had gone through.”
The sub-inspector recorded statements from her sister and mother, she said.
Police charged Singh, his son Monu and brother Sikander Singh, but the Christian family and other Christians regard the charges as too mild. A delegation of 8-10 Christian leaders met the commissioner of police on July 3 requesting stronger charges.
“The police faltered in taking action against the accused as they are well connected [politically], thus mild charges were lodged against them,” said Albert Dua, president of the Christian United Federation and one of the delegates.
Defending the allegation, Investigating Officer Singh told Morning Star News that charges were filed according to Harpreet Kaur Tank’s statement.
“Whatever statement she gave, we framed charges accordingly,” he said. “We cannot make changes to what she stated.”
Asked why the alleged assailants have not been arrested, he said, “We are raiding their home time and again, but they are absconding. We also carried out a raid yesterday [Monday, Aug. 2].”
Attorney Chahal lamented that the assailants were not arrested even though they were roaming openly and visiting their house.
A lower court has rejected pleas for interim bail by Manjeet Singh and Monu, while Sikander Singh has applied for bail in the High Court, I/O Singh said.
A hearing for Sikander Singh is scheduled for November, he said.
Meantime, the Christian family said they were receiving threats from the Sikh family’s relatives and were fearful as pressure continued for them to either settle or be expelled from village.
The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, against non-Hindus, has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say.
India ranked 10th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2021 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, as it was in 2020. The country was 31st in 2013, but its position worsened after Modi came to power.
The Israel Antiquities Authority says its archaeologists have found evidence of the earthquake that occurred during the Kingdom of Judah about 2,800 years ago, as mentioned in the book of Amos in the Bible.
The remnants of the earthquake’s destruction in Jerusalem — Judah’s ancient capital — were found during excavations in the City of David National Park, the IAA announced in a social media post this week.
The earthquake, which was probably one of the strongest and most damaging earthquakes in ancient times, “appears in the Bible and was previously exposed in several sites throughout Israel, but researchers believe that for the first time they were able to identify remnants of destruction indicating that the earthquake also hit Jerusalem — the capital of Judah,” it said.
Amos 1:1 says, “The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa—the vision he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.”
Zechariah 14:5 reads, “You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.”
The researchers said they have found a layer of destruction from when the building’s walls collapsed, including a row of shattered vessels, bowls, lamps, cooking utensils, smashed storage and storage jars. No sign of fire was found and it was not a deliberate event.
“This was most notable on the earliest floor of the southernmost room,” they said, according to The Times of Israel. “In this room, a row of smashed vessels was uncovered along its northern wall, above which fallen stones had been found. It appears that these stones were the upper part of the walls of the room, which had collapsed, destroying the vessels which had been set along the wall.”
The excavation’s directors, Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf, said they wondered “what could have caused that dramatic layer of destruction we uncovered.”
“Examining the excavation findings, we tried to check if there is a reference to it in the biblical text. Interestingly, the earthquake that appears in the Bible in the books of Amos and Zechariah, occurred at the time when the building we excavated in the City of David collapsed,” they said.
Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday refused to grant order of interim injunction sought by former Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha, against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFFCC and Imo State government to stop them from further interfering and confiscating his properties located in various parts of the country
The judge held that granting the order during various challenges to the court jurisdiction in the matter will not been in the interest of justice.
Justice Mohammed rather fixed August 24 to first hear the challenge by EFCC and Imo State that the motion on notice filed by Okorocha cannot be heard during court vacation.
Okorocha on Wednesday in Abuja had asked high court to issue a restraining order against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFFCC and Imo State government.
The senator currently representing Imo West Senatorial district in the Senate, sought the order of the Court to preserve his properties pending the resolution of court cases ongoing in the matter.
Okorocha had complained that his properties have been marked in several states for confiscation adding that unless the preservative order was issued against EFCC and Imo State, he would be prejudiced.
His motion on notice for the sought court order was filed by his counsel Oba Maduabuchi.
Divers in Egypt exploring the ancient sunken port city of Thonis-Heraklion have discovered the wreck of a warship buried in the seabed for more than 2,000 years.
The Egyptian-French team says the flat-bottomed vessel, with oars and a wide sail, sank while moored next to a temple which collapsed into the sea in the second century BC.
The city lies a few kilometres off the coast of Alexandria.
Once ancient Egypt’s largest port on the Mediterranean, Thonis-Heraklion eventually sank after being battered by a series of earthquakes and tidal waves.
Some of the techniques used in building the warship are clearly Greek, like the mortise-and-tenon joints (ones in which a tab from one piece of wood fits into a slot cut into the adjoining piece) that hold many of its timbers together.
But other aspects of the ship’s design and construction are distinctly ancient Egyptian. Those clues, combined with some timbers that had evidently been salvaged and re-used from older ships, suggest that the warship was built somewhere in Egypt.
The warship was clearly built for the Nile and the shallow channels of the river delta.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the country is prepared to assist Lebanon amid its spiraling financial crisis, but at the same time won’t accept further attacks on its border, after a barrage of rockets was fired at northern Israel by the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group last week.
“The crisis in Lebanon is devastating. The State of Israel calls on the international community to aid Lebanon. We are also willing to provide assistance. However, we will not let the tragedy in Lebanon cross the border into Israel,” Gantz said on a visit to the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command.
Lebanon is grappling with a raft of shortages, including gasoline, and the government is discussing lifting subsidies it can no longer afford, amid what the World Bank said is one of the worst financial crises since the 1850s.
The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market, and Lebanese state electricity companies are providing less than five hours of electricity a day in most areas, as they struggle to come up with the foreign currency for fuel imports.
On Friday, 19 rockets were fired at the Golan Heights and Galilee Panhandle from Lebanon. The IDF said 10 projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system and six landed in open areas around Mount Dov. Another three rockets failed to clear the border and landed in Lebanese territory.
The Nigerian Government has said the suspension on Twitter’s activities in Nigeria will soon be lifted following agreement that has been reached in most areas of contention with the platform.
“We’ve made tremendous progress,”minister for information Lai Mohammed said on Wednesday. “The end for an amicable solution is in sight.”
Mohammed gave the indication while briefing newsmen at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House, Abuja.
Giving update on the government’s negotiation with the microblogging site, the minister provided further insight into the government’s conditions given to the platform, saying that most of them have been accepted.
He said the areas still pending in the negotiations were Twitter setting up an office, a Twitter staff of management cadre that will serve as the country representative, among others were being discussed by the parties.
The minister revealed that in the area of a Nigerian office, even though Twitter has agreed to the condition, the microblogging platform is, however, maintaining that the earliest it can establish it is 2022.
Working documents which includes Standard Treatment Guidelines that contains all services and drugs covered by the Federal Health Insurance Scheme (FHIS), were launched in Abuja.
The documents which were presented to the public in the nation’s capital Abuja, is aimed at providing enrollee with firsthand information on services rendered by the FHIS.
While presenting the documents to the public, the FCT Permanent Secretary, Mr. Olusade Adesola who instructed managements of the scheme to devise means to include terminal diseases and other life-threatening sicknesses in the health services of the agency, suggested that the aged be included as beneficiaries of the initiative.
Mr. Olusade, who noted that ailments, such as cancer, liver related problems, sickle cell, are highly expensive to manage, therefore called for the need to get donors and other stakeholders to support such expansion.
The Permanent Secretary mandated stakeholders to come up with modalities that will guarantee improved service delivery to beneficiaries of the Scheme, warning that the administration will not condone any form of misappropriation of funds.
According to him, it is imperative to enjoin all those directly involved in the management of the Funds of the Agency to ensure prudent and optimal utilization of allocations made available to the Agency, as the Administration will not tolerate any form of financial sleaze and misappropriation of funds.
In his welcome remarks, the Director of the FHIS, Dr Ahmed Danfulani, said the working documents which includes the Standard Treatment Guidelines, Operational Guidelines, Benefit Packages and 3 other Documents, is expected to enhance the effectiveness of the FCT Health Insurance Scheme for the benefit of FCT residents.
He said the documents which was conceived over three years ago, is due for review every two years to capture recent realities in line with universal health coverage.
On his part, the Acting Secretary FCT Health and Human Services, Dr. Mohammed Kawu, expressed hopeful that the strategic documents will provide seamless relationship between health insurance service providers and the enrollees.
Kawu who was represented by the Executive Secretary, FCT Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Ndaeyo Iwot, assured that the FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat will continue to provide the required leadership as well as to ensure that the documents gets all the legal frameworks needed for its implementation.
Justice came the way of the Ogoni people of Rivers state on Wednesday at the federal high court in Abuja where a multi-national oil company, Shell Petroleum Company, agreed to pay a sum of N45.9B to the people for the loses suffered during oil spills that ravaged their communities.
The monetary compensation ordered by a federal high court ten years ago will be paid to the Ogonis through their lawyer Chief Lucius Nwosu.
Shell Petroleum Company through its lawyer Chief Aham Ejelamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria announced the decision to pay up the money while addressing Justice Ahmed Ramat Mohammed of the Federal high court Abuja on Wednesday.
The senior lawyer sought order of Justice Mohammed to permit payment of the debt through the chief registrar of the court in a bank account to be opened for the purpose.
Final decision to pay up the money was endorsed by Justice Ahmed Ramat Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja
Although the oil company had sought to pay through the chief registrar of the court, it was eventually agreed that the amount be paid to the aggrieved people through their lawyer
A soft-bodied robot that can change its colour to match its background like a chameleon has been built.
Professor Seung Hwan Ko of Seoul National University said the eventual applications of the technology would probably be as camouflage.
But he said it could also be used for “cosmetic” purposes to let clothes or buildings respond to their surroundings.
To make the colour-changing skin of the robot, the researchers used “thermochromic liquid crystal ink” which changes colour with temperature, in combination with “silver nanowire heaters”.
The resulting colour changes were fast enough to be “comparable to the physiological colour change found in animals” the researchers said.
The robot has colour sensors underneath, and while it can respond to the surface it crosses, it can’t mimic the patterns of complex backgrounds, Instead, it has a range of pre-programmed patterns which help it to blend in.
But because the colour change is caused by heating and cooling the “skin”, some experts have wondered about the effect that ambient temperature may have on its chameleon-like abilities.
Professor Ko said that while in the future this type of technology could be used to make military camouflage that matched its background, other applications could include active clothing worn simply for aesthetic reasons.
“You may imagine a cloth that changes its colour and patterns according to your taste or environment”, he said.
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