Russia on Thursday accused Britain of spreading lies over a warship confrontation in the Black Sea and warned it would respond resolutely to any further provocative actions by the British navy off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea.
Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding after the warship breached what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world say belong to Ukraine.
Britain said Russia was sowing inaccuracies and disputed Russia’s account, saying no warning shots had been fired and that no bombs had been dropped in the path of the Royal Navy destroyer Defender.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they believe it was a deliberate and premeditated provocation, in which Moscow said it fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the British destroyer.
He warned that in the event of a repeat of unacceptable provocative action – if those actions go too far, no options can be ruled out in terms of legally defending Russia’s borders.
British Defence Minister Ben Wallace accused Russian pilots of conducting unsafe aircraft manoeuvres 500 feet above the warship.
The Black Sea, which Russia uses to project its power in the Mediterranean, has for centuries been a flashpoint between Russia and its competitors such as Turkey, France, Britain and the United States.
Russia seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and considers areas around its coast to be Russian waters. Western countries deem the Crimea to be part of Ukraine and reject Russia’s claim to the seas around it.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the warship was acting in accordance with the law and had been in international waters.
Former Philippines President Benigno Aquino, the son of two of the Southeast Asian country’s democracy icons, died in a Manila hospital on Thursday of renal failure as a result of diabetes.
According to his family, Aquino,aged 61, who was president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016, had been hospitalised earlier on Thursday adding his His death certificate pronounced his death at 6:30 a.m. due to renal disease secondary to diabetes.
A statement read by Pinky Aquino Abellada, one of four surviving sisters said, “It is with profound grief that on behalf of our family, I am confirming that our brother, Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III, died peacefully in his sleep.”
President Rodrigo Duterte declared June 24 to July 3 as period of national mourning, with the national flag to be flown at half-mast on all government buildings.
Vice President Leni Robredo, who ran under the then Aquino-led ruling party when elected in 2016, said it was “heart-breaking” to hear of his death.
“He tried to do what was right, even when it was not popular,” she said in a statement. “He worked quietly and tirelessly for the good of everyone. He will be missed.”
Known popularly as Noynoy, Aquino rode a wave of public support to the presidency after the 2009 death of his mother, the revered “People Power” leader Corazon Aquino, who was herself president from 1986 until 1992.
His namesake father, a senator who staunchly opposed the rule of strongman Ferdinand Marcos, was assassinated when he returned home from political exile in 1983.
The killing shocked the nation and helped propel Marcos out of office in the 1986 People Power revolution and ushered in his mother’s presidency.
The European Parliament on Thursday approved a landmark law to make the Bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions targets legally binding, and paving the way for a policy overhaul to cut planet-warming pollution faster.
Swedish Social Democrat Jytte Guteland, Parliament’s lead lawmaker on the bill said, “Today is a historic day”. Unless we rapidly cut our emissions, the science is crystal clear. The future will be catastrophic.”
Negotiators from Parliament and the EU’s 27 member countries reached a deal in April on the climate law, which puts tougher emissions-cutting targets at the heart of EU policymaking.
The bill also sets targets to reduce net EU emissions by 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels, and eliminate net emissions by 2050.
Parliament formally approved the law with 442 votes in favour, 203 against and 51 abstentions. Some Green lawmakers abstained, after seeking a more ambitious 60% emission cut by 2030. Lawmakers from groups including the right-wing Identity and Democracy rejected it.
Frans Timmermans, head of EU climate policy, said this is the law of laws, because it will discipline us in the years to come since the climate law will guide EU regulations in the coming decades.
First up is a sweeping package of policies, which the European Commission will propose on July 14, designed to cut emissions faster to meet the climate targets. It will include more ambitious renewable energy targets, EU carbon market reforms and tighter CO2 standards for new cars.
Most EU laws are designed to meet the bloc’s previous target to cut emissions 40% by 2030, and need updgrading to meet the new aims. EU emissions in 2019 were 24% lower than in 1990.
The new targets are designed to put the EU on a pathway that, if followed globally, would limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degree Celsius.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board says the introduction of the National Identification Number (NIN) in the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise eliminated multiple registrations, application, impersonation and other malpractices associated with the examination.
Jamb re-affirmed that the importance of the partnership with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) which mandated the use of NIN in the registration process made it impossible for examination mercenaries to register multiple times as the board had recorded previously.
The Head Media and Publicity of the Board, Fabian Benjamin, in a statement countering media report that claimed that the introduction of NIN affected the revenue of JAMB and was responsible for the drop in its revenue to N5.8 billion, maintained that JAMB is neither a revenue generation agency nor purported to be one.
Fabian said “JAMB is not a revenue generating entity and, as such, is not interested in the ever-ballooning number of candidates. Rather, JAMB is concerned with how to address loopholes being used by fraudsters to distort national data in a bid to compromise public examinations.“
He added that “As far as the Board is concerned, having a realistic number of candidates sitting its examination is a major achievement which only the partnership with NIMC has made possible. It is our resolve not to ever compromise on the integrity of its processes on account of generating fat operating surpluses.”
Fabian maintained that NIN was a good initiative saying it sanitized the system and restored its credibility.
The Jamb Media Head insists that “it’s an error of fact to denigrate the contribution of NIN to the UTME registration process by insinuating that it had a deleterious effect on the financial base of the Board when in actual fact, the board is neither a revenue generation agency nor purported to be one.
He stated that the Board was pleased to be vindicated in its belief all along that the huge number of candidates applying for UTME every year could not be realistic especially when seen against the backdrop of WAEC candidates which is always around the figure recorded by the Board this year.
He further said that consequently, it is the Board’s firm belief that the introduction of NIN has helped in addressing one of the fundamental channels of perpetrating examination malpractice by way of multiple applications, among others.
Former Ivorian Prime Minister and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro has been sentenced in his absence in Abidjan to life in prison for “undermining state security” for acts committed in late 2019.
The Abidjan court of assizes followed the prosecution’s demands, as for the other main defendants, Souleymane Kamagate, former head of protocol of Mr. Soro, Affoussy Bamba, former minister and Toure Moussa, his former head of communication, sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Two of Guillaume Soro’s brothers and his former right-hand man Alain Lobognon were sentenced to 17 months in prison for disturbing public order.
The court also ordered the confiscation of the property of Guillaume Soro and his 19 co-defendants, as well as the dissolution of his movement, Générations et peuples solidaires , accused of engaging in “subversive” acts.
It ordered the convicts to pay 150 million euros jointly to the Ivorian state.
The former prime minister and former president of the National Assembly was accused of having fomented with his supporters a “civil and military insurrection” to overthrow the power during his aborted return to Côte d’Ivoire in December 2019, ten months before the presidential election of October 2020.
Guillaume Soro, who lives in exile, and his co-defendants were accused of “conspiracy”, “attempted attack against the authority of the state” as well as “dissemination and publication of false news discrediting the institutions and their functioning, having led to an attack on the morale of the population”.
Leader of the rebellion that controlled the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire in the 2000s, Guillaume Soro had militarily helped Alassane Ouattara come to power during the post-election crisis of 2010-2011 against incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to admit defeat at the ballot box.
Countries in Southern Africa have agreed to deploy forces to help quell a jihadist insurgency wreaking havoc in northern Mozambique over the past three years.
At the end of a one-day summit, the bloc’s executive secretary Stergomena Tax said that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc “approved” the deployment of the “SADC Standby Force in support of Mozambique to combat of terrorism and acts of violent extremism in Cabo Delgado.
A document leaked earlier this year recommended sending around 3,000 soldiers to Cabo Delgado province, where insurgents have seized control of towns and villages, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
The violence has escalated in the gas-rich north of Mozambique since breaking out in late 2017 and there are fears it could spill over into neighbouring countries.
On March 24, Islamic State-linked militants launched coordinated attacks on the northern town of Palma, ransacking buildings and murdering residents as thousands fled into the surrounding forests.
The assault marked an intensification of violence and has driven around 800,000 people from their homes, according to the United Nations, and claimed the lives of more than 2,800 people — half of them civilians.
The leaders of Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe attended the talks in Maputo.
The National Youth Service Corps Director-General, Brig. General Shuaibu Ibrahim, say the accounts of about 1,000 corps members nationwide who had tried to compromise its staff on posting and redeployment has blocked.
He said the NYSC was still investigating the incidents and anybody involved would be disciplined accordingly.
Ibrahim stated these in an interview with journalists at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria in Abuja after declaring open the 2020 inspectors development programme, with the theme: “Optimising the ideals of the scheme through effective utilisation of the NYSC inspector.”
The corps members whose accounts were suspended belongs to the 2021 Batch A, Streams 1 and 2, who sought redeployment from the original states they were posted to.
While some of the affected corps members were said to have sought redeployment from some states, especially in the North because of insecurity, a few others, however, sought redeployment on health grounds, among others.
Besides cancelling the redeployment, the NYSC was said to have also suspended their accounts and stopped their monthly allowance.
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has appointed his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba the commander of land forces in the army.
It is the second time in six months that the Head of State is promoting his 48-year old son in the security institution.
Muhoozi previously served as head of the Special Forces Command (SFC), which is an elite guard that specializes in protecting the President and first family.
he is known for posting warning messages towards Uganda’s ‘enemies’ on Twitter, Muhoozi and is seen by many as a candidate to succeed his father, should he elect to retire after being President for close to four decades.
His latest promotion comes days after Museveni also reappointed his wife the Minister for Sports and Education.
This coming after the 76-year old won the 2021 presidential elections after garnering 58 percent of all votes cast, according to the electoral commision.
In other announcements made on Thursday, June 24, 2021, Museveni, who is serving his sixth term five-year term, promoted Wilson Mbasu Mbadi to the rank of General and appointed him as the new Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), replacing Gen David Muhoozi who was recently appointed as the Minister of State for Internal Affairs.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it is adding a warning about rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults to fact sheets for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory groups, meeting to discuss reported cases of the heart condition after vaccination, found the inflammation in adolescents and young adults is likely linked to the vaccines, but that the benefits of the shots appeared to clearly outweigh the risk.
Health regulators in several countries have been investigating whether the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna shots using new mRNA technology present a risk and, if so, how serious.
The CDC said that patients with heart inflammation following vaccination generally recover from the symptoms and do well.
The U.S. Department of Health And Human Services, joined by leading U.S. doctors groups and public health officials, put out a statement underscoring that the vaccines are safe and effective and that the heart side effect is “extremely rare.”
Doctors and hospitals have been warned by the CDC to watch for symptoms of myocarditis or pericarditis, and the FDA warning will further raise awareness.
Concerns about the more highly transmissible Delta coronavirus variant taking hold in the United States, and its impact on younger people, have added to the urgency to increase vaccinations even as the inoculation effort here has slowed considerably.
The number of Americans receiving their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine is down about 85% since peaking in mid-April, and will likely fail to meet President Joe Biden’s goal to have delivered at least one shot to 70% of adults by July 4.
It could have been any one of four teams – and at different points during a dizzying couple of hours on Wednesday night, England were pencilled in to face all of them – but in the end, it was Germany.
Gareth Southgate’s side will line up against Joachim Low’s men in the last 16 of Euro 2020 on Tuesday in front of around 40,000 spectators at Wembley, in a fixture with as much drama as it has history over the years.
“Now we travel to England,” said Low after his side squeaked through with a 2-2 draw against Hungary. “It’s great news to play in London at Wembley against England.”
Despite Germany’s lukewarm start to the tournament, Low’s upbeat demeanour is understandable – it generally has not gone well for England in previous meetings.
World Cup 2010: Three Lions haunted by ‘ghost goal’
England’s World Cup ended in a mixture of humiliation and controversy as they were thrashed by Germany in Bloemfontein in 2010.
Germany’s deserved win and convincing victory margin was overshadowed by a moment England believe robbed them of the hope of reaching the last eight of the tournament in South Africa.
Matthew Upson had thrown England a lifeline just before half-time after a vastly superior Germany had taken a stranglehold on the game with goals from Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski.ADVERTISEMENT
And moments after Upson’s header, Frank Lampard’s superb lofted finish landed feet over the line behind German keeper Manuel Neuer, a fact obvious to almost everyone inside the Free State Stadium.
But the goal was not given and Thomas Muller added two more goals as Germany ran out convincing winners.
Euro 2000: England win, just…..
It has not always been one-way traffic when England and Germany have faced one another at a tournament.
The Three Lions finally overcame their footballing nemesis in a nail-biting Euro 2000 clash.
Skipper Alan Shearer scored the goal that gave the English a first competitive win over their arch-rivals since the 1966 World Cup final.
However, it was still not enough for England to progress from the group stage.
They lost their next game to Romania and made an early exit.
Euro 1996: Southgate misses from the spot
On 26 June 1996, England and Germany met at Wembley with the prize being a place in the Euro 96 final.
Shearer gave England a dream start with a goal after three minutes before Stefan Kuntz equalised after 16 minutes.
A tense semi-final went to extra time but the two teams could still not be separated so it came down to penalties.
England scored their first five before current England manager Southgate missed his attempt.
And when Andreas Moller tucked his attempt away, it sparked wild German celebrations to leave England fans heartbroken.
Will England overcome Germany this time?
This is Joachim Low’s last tournament in charge of Germany. Low has already announced he will step down from his role after the Euros.
Will next Tuesday’s match with England be his last?
The three-time European champions and four-time world champions were dumped out of the 2018 World Cup at the group stage.
Despite three years of experimenting since then, Low has yet to find a settled side or system and for long spells on Wednesday results as they stood would have left them bottom of Group F and eliminated.
One thing is for sure, England is likely to come to a standstill next Tuesday as Southgate’s side look to win their first major tournament since they beat West Germany in the World Cup final in 1966.
If they get past Germany, England will meet the winners of Sweden against Ukraine in the quarter-finals in Rome on 3 July.
Another penalty shootout?
Former England midfielder Danny Murphy says England have nothing to fear against Germany.
Speaking on BBC One, Murphy said: “We have players that could cause them and Portugal problems if we get them at a later stage.
“If you’re sat in that England squad, [you] shouldn’t have any fear.”
Former Germany head coach Jurgen Klinsmann said he was relishing the match.
“Both Germany and England are in a similar situation, position by position,” he added. “I think it will be a very even battle and it will be about the form on the day.Euro 2020: So Jurgen it’s England v Germany, will there be penalties…?
“We saw a different Germany face against Portugal and we saw a different face tonight, and England were the same against Scotland and Croatia.
“We will see a fascinating game in England v Germany because we do not know what to expect.
“If you go player by player and team by team in Germany and England, this is a 50/50 situation that could end up again in a penalty shootout.”
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