From Medical School To The Olympics: Erica Ogwumike Is Making It A Summer To Remember

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July 28, 2021

Now this is how you do a study abroad program.

If the summer between her first and second year of medical school is indeed the last summer she’ll ever have off in her life Erica Ogwumike might have found the most interesting way to spend it.

She’s playing basketball in the Olympics.

Her hoop dreams on pause during the pandemic, Ogwumike decided to attend medical school at UT Southwestern in Dallas while continuing to train for the Olympics.

And Tuesday, she made it. Ogwumike played four minutes in an 81-72 loss to the U.S. women’s team before heading back to the Olympic Village for more flash card drills and medical research projects.

“The hardest thing is probably just, you know, making sure you know that school comes first regardless,” she said.

Even in the Olympics.

The moment is sweet, but it could’ve been sweeter for the youngest of one of America’s most prolific basketball families with four children of Nigerian-born parents finding success on and off the court.

Two of her older sisters, Nneka and Chiney, play for the Los Angeles Sparks. Another, Olivia, has an MBA and is chasing a doctorate in public policy. All four girls played Division 1 basketball.

The story could’ve been even better, but controversy kept Ogwumike from enjoying these Games with Nneka and Chiney.

After Nneka failed to make the U.S. women’s team — they cited a knee injury but whispers of politics within the organization persist — she attempted to join Erica on the Nigerian national team. FIBA, basketball’s governing body, denied the request citing Nneka’s experience on the American national team throughout her career. Chiney was allowed to play for Nigeria as a “naturalized” citizen but declined.

Following the U.S. women’s victory on Tuesday, American star Diana Taurasi said she wasn’t keen on seeing Nneka in a Nigerian jersey because “I’ve seen her wear the USA jersey a lot.”

Taurasi, who has an Argentine mother, then quipped that she would like to someday play soccer for her mother’s country.

Erica Ogwumike, left, and sister Chiney Ogwumike smile on the court after an exhibition game against the United States on July 18. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

U.S. coach Dawn Staley said the Olympics would be better with as many of the sport’s best players competing as possible. And Nneka Ogwumike, a former WNBA MVP and multi-time All-Star, would certainly qualify.

“How you accomplish that is the difficult part,” Staley said. “Would it have been fun to play against all the Ogwumikes? Absolutely. But that didn’t happen. We’re left with wondering. But I’m sure they’ll find a way on the court to represent Nigeria as they aspire to.”

The hope is all three Ogwumikes compete together in future international competitions pending Nneka’s appeal.

“I’m very confident that I’ll be able to play with them in the future. I definitely wanted to experience this with them,” Erica said. “Being first the Olympian in my family… it was supposed to be Nneka. We know that.

“But I’m very fortunate that I can be here and represent my whole family. And they’re really supportive of me.”

Erica, 23, was incredibly close to joining her older sisters in the WNBA, selected in the third round of the 2020 draft and traded to Minnesota. But with no training camps due to the pandemic, she was eventually waived.

Overseas play was an option, but so was her future career. And she picked medical school.

She chronicled her journey, balancing the pre-sunrise workouts with the course load on her YouTube vlog. After studying, she’d get to a gym for a basketball specific workout before diving back into her studying.

Even in Japan, she’s spending time with “Anki” — a software flash card program popular among medical students. She’s unsure which field she’ll ultimately pursue, though dermatology is a strong candidate.

She’s kept her word to herself, not letting basketball get in the way of school. She left one training camp practice earlier this year because of a cardiology lecture. She missed an entire day of training because of commitments to a hematology class.

The flash cards, the lectures, the notes, the Zoom calls, the tired eyes and the sisters back home — it all has hit her throughout these Games. That’s her foundation.

It comes everywhere with her.

“It’s hard not to think retrospectively, like everything that I’ve gone through, everything that I missed, just to get those moments, you know, all the work that I love,” Erica Ogwumike said. “And so whenever you have these amazing moments, the opening ceremony, different big events and things you can sit back like, ‘Wow, you know, I did that.’

“I’m really proud of myself to get to this moment.”

Pastor Orders Churchgoers To Ditch Their Masks: ‘Don’t Believe This Delta Variant Nonsense’

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Emenike Agu

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July 28, 2021

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Since the early months of coronavirus pandemic . Greg Locke, the pastor at a Nashville-area Global Vision Bible Church, has repeatedly called covid a hoax, undermined emergency mandates and refused to comply with guidance from public health officials.

If “you start showing up [with] all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave,” Locke, 45, told scores of Global Vision Bible Church parishioners during his sermon on Sunday. His statement was followed by cheers and applause.

“I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church,” he added.

Locke’s fiery five-minute diatribe, in which he also denied the existence of the delta variant, comes as claims of vaccination rates in his home state slow and infection rates climb. So far, about 44 percent of Tennesseans in the United States have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to The Post’s vaccine tracker, making it among the states with the lowest rate. The state recently claimed that 98 percent of people who died of covid and 97 percent of covid hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated.

The vaccine rollout in Tennessee made national headlines after the controversial firing of the state’s top immunization official, Michelle Fiscus, on July 12. Fiscus’s firing was the casualty of the Tennessee Department of Health’s campaign to encourage teenagers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The effort attracted ire from Republican state lawmakers.

“I feel like the [health] department was gagged,” she said.

Locke’s evangelical church in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., about 20 miles east of downtown Nashville, has grown during the pandemic, US media reported. The pastor’s controversial commentary on covid and the 2020 presidential election has attracted far-right churchgoers.

During a sermon last month, Locke called President Biden a fraud and “a sex trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel,” a reference to QAnon, an extremist ideology.

He has also claimed that the pandemic is “fake,” that the death count is “manipulated” and that the vaccine is a “dangerous scam.”

And the pastor has preached about the vaccine, including claiming that it’s made of “aborted fetal tissue.”

During a sermon in May, Locke told churchgoers that he wasn’t getting the vaccine and would refuse to promote it.

“I discourage everybody under this tent to get it,” he said.

Locke has also openly defied the state’s emergency mandates. In July 2020, he posted on Facebook that the church was remaining open and that people did not have to wear masks or social distance.

“I don’t care if they send the military, they roll up in there with tanks . . . ladies and gentleman, we are staying open,” he said, according to Newsweek. “We are packed to capacity. You ain’t gotta wear a mask.”

Strutting back and forth on a stage beneath a sprawling red-and-white striped circus tent on Sunday, Locke launched into yet another impassioned monologue. This time, he warned churchgoers to not wear masks and railed against the possibility of more shutdowns.

“They will be serving Frostys in hell before we shut this place down, just because a buck wild, demon-possessed government tells us to,” Locke said, referencing the frozen dessert from Wendy’s.

“Don’t believe this delta variant nonsense,” he continued. “Stop it!”

He advised parishioners who are looking for services with social distancing “don’t come to this one” and chastised other churches for following public health advisories and abstaining from certain rituals as cases rise.

“A bunch of pastors talking about how much they want to see people heal, and they’re afraid to baptize people because of a delta variant – I’m sick of it,” Locke said. “I ain’t playing these stupid games.”

Toward the end of his rant, Locke made one final warning.

“I’m going to be a problem moving forward,” he said. “I’m not giving in to this mess.”

Nigeria’s Central Bank Ends Dollar Sales To Exchange Bureaus

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Emenike Agu

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July 28, 2021

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Nigeria’s central bank is halting dollar sales to exchange bureaus, saying they have become conduits for graft and illicit flows of money.

“It is a huge haemorrhage on our scarce foreign exchange reserves and it cannot continue,” the bank’s governor, Godwin Emefiele, said on Tuesday.

The decision by the central bank, which held the benchmark lending rate at 11.5% for the fifth time in succession, follows World Bank pressure on Nigeria to provide a clearer foreign exchange management system – and converge its multiple exchange rates.

Nigeria has several exchange rates operating in parallel, a system put in place during a 2016 oil price crash because the government was seeking to avoid a large official devaluation of the naira as a matter of national pride.

Inflation has moderated after hitting multi-year highs this year because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and falling oil prices, but foreign currency reserves remain under pressure.

Nigeria relies on oil for 90% of foreign exchange and another price crash last year severely limited its access to dollars.

The central bank has devalued the naira’s official rate three times since the pandemic took hold early last year, and has limited dollar access for imports, but a wide gap between the official naira exchange rate and the parallel market has persisted.

An exchange bureau official who declined to be named said it had yet to receive a formal notification from the central bank.

Emefiele said the bank would channel more foreign exchange to commercial banks for consumers who had legitimate needs, and that it would no longer process or issue new licences for bureau de change operators.

“We will deal ruthlessly with the Nigerian banks who have collaborated with these illegal foreign exchange operators,” he said.

Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered, said supplying more foreign exchange via other avenues would help, but would not necessarily solve the central bank’s problems.

“The challenge in the interim will be to stop the emergence of a new parallel market,” Khan said in an email. “Unless the supply of FX improves meaningfully, this is likely to remain a risk.”

Emefiele also accused some international organisations and embassies of utilising illegal foreign exchange dealers to fund their local operations in “flagrant contravention of our foreign exchange laws and regulations in Nigeria.”

The World Bank has said economic growth has resumed in Nigeria after the COVID-19 shock but is lagging the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, with food inflation, heightened insecurity and stalled reforms increasing poverty.

WHO raise alarm over ‘harmful’ Electronic-cigarettes

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Cleopatra Okohai

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July 27, 2021

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The World Health Organisation has Tuesday warned that Electronic cigarettes and similar devices are dangerous to health and must be regulated to curb the tobacco industry’s tactics to get young people hooked on nicotine.

“Nicotine is highly addictive. Electronic nicotine delivery systems are harmful, and must be better regulated,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2021, which focused on new and emerging products, was published on Tuesday and said ENDS should be tightly regulated for maximum public health protection.

“Where they are not banned, governments should adopt appropriate policies to protect their populations from the harms of ENDS, and to prevent their uptake by children, adolescents and other vulnerable groups,” Tedros said.

The UN health agency’s eighth annual report said ENDS manufacturers often target youths with thousands of tantalising flavours – the document listed 16,000 — and reassuring statements.

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the WHO’s global ambassador for non-communicable diseases, said there were still more than a billion smokers around the world.

“As cigarette sales have fallen, tobacco companies have been aggressively marketing new products – like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products — and lobbied governments to limit their regulation,” he said.

“Their goal is simple: to hook another generation on nicotine. We can’t let that happen.”

Concern for Youngsters

The UN health agency is particularly concerned by people under 20 using e-cigarettes due to the harmful effects of nicotine on brain development.

The WHO also believes that children who use these devices are more likely to smoke later in life.

However, regulating such products is not necessarily straightforward because the product range is very diverse and rapidly evolving, said Ruediger Krech, director of the WHO’s health promotion department.

“Distinguishing the nicotine-containing products from the non-nicotine, or even from some tobacco-containing products, can be almost impossible. This is just one way the industry subverts and undermines tobacco control measures,” he said.

The WHO recommends that governments do whatever they can to prevent non-smokers from taking up electronic cigarettes, for fear of “renormalising smoking in society”.

The report found that 32 countries have banned the sale of ENDS.

A further 79 have adopted at least one partial measure to either prohibit the use of such products in public places, prohibit their advertising, promotion and sponsorship or require the display of health warnings on packaging.

“This still leaves 84 countries where they are not regulated or restricted in any way,” the WHO said.

The Geneva-based organisation stressed that efforts to regulate electronic cigarettes should not distract from the fight against smoking.

Though the proportion of smokers has fallen in many countries, population growth means that the total number of smokers remains “stubbornly high,” the WHO said.

“Tobacco is responsible for the death of eight million people a year, including one million from second-hand smoke,” it stressed.

Ousted Tunisian PM Says He Won’t Cling On

By

Angel Gimalo

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July 27, 2021

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Tunisia’s dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi says he will not cling on to his position, to avoid complicating matters further.

He was dismissed by President Kais Saied on Sunday, and the parliament was temporarily suspended in a controversial move described by the speaker as a “constitutional coup” – which the president denied.

In a statement released on his Facebook page, Mechichi acknowledges the political failures of recent years.

He says his year-long position as head of government came at a difficult period in Tunisia’s history, with a “strangling economic and social crisis due to successive political elites… failing to meet people’s expectations”.

Mechichi said he understood the despair of Tunisians and the lack of confidence in the political class, adding that there were “great disparities” between what the people wanted and the priorities of political parties.

His statement appears conciliatory, and could serve to slightly temper the political tension plaguing the country in this uncertain period.

It also appears to break away from a nominal alliance he had formed with the speaker of parliament in recent months, which was part of the ongoing power struggle with the presidency.

Haiti Arrests Security Coordinator For Assassinated President Moïse

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Zoe Maven

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July 27, 2021

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Authorities in Haiti have arrested a top official who served as general security coordinator when President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, according to his attorney.

Jean Laguel Civil joins more than two dozen suspects arrested by Haiti National Police as the investigation continues into the July 7 attack at Moïse’s private home.

Civil’s attorney, Reynold Georges, called his client’s arrest politically motivated. It wasn’t immediately clear if Civil had been charged with anything.

The arrest comes as over 1,000 demonstrators gathered around one of Haiti’s most notorious gang leaders to commemorate Moïse.

The crowd was mostly dressed in white as they cheered on Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer who now leads “G9,” a federation of nine gangs that officials have blamed for a spike in violence and kidnappings in recent months.

Earlier, the crowd sang as they made a circle around a bonfire and threw salt into it as part of a ceremony to honor Moïse. Many had their faces covered so as not to be identified.

Moïse was shot several times during a July 7 attack in which his wife was seriously injured. At least 26 people have been arrested, including 18 former Colombian soldiers.

Police are still looking for various suspects, including a former rebel leader and an ex-Haitian senator. On Monday, they identified another suspect: Haiti Superior Court Judge Windelle Coq Thelot.

Algeria Scraps Quarantine Rule Concerning Returning Citizens

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Angel Gimalo

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July 27, 2021

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The Algerian authorities have scrapped the quarantine period for people arriving in the country despite an alleged surge in coronavirus infections.

All arrivals are now only required to present a negative PCR test taken in the last 36 hours, and take a new one on arrival.

Since 1 June all those arriving to Algeria were being requested to self-isolate for five days in a hotel, which they would have to pay for.

Many Algerians returning to the country from abroad were angered by the measures and criticised the services offered at some of the hotels designated for quarantine.

The new measures are designed to ease the return of thousands of Algerians stranded abroad.

Dutch Court Rules Against Dos Santos In Oil Asset Case – Lawyers

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Zoe Maven

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July 27, 2021

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A Dutch court has ruled a half-billion-dollar stake in the Portuguese oil company Galp linked to Angolan ex-first daughter Isabel Dos Santos must be handed over to Angola.

Dos Santos – a business tycoon who became Africa’s richest woman – ran oil giant Sonangol from 2016 until 2017, when her father’s four-decade rule ended.

According to the Netherlands International Arbitration Tribunal, the acquisition of the stake was tainted by illegality, enabling Ms. Isabel dos Santos to reap an extraordinary financial gain to the detriment of Sonangol and, consequently the State of Angola.

But Dos Santos denied any connection to the holding company at the centre of the case – Exem – which she says was owned by her late husband.

She denies any wrongdoing and says she is the subject of a political witch-hunt by Angola’s new leadership.

Sweden Prosecutes Iranian Man For 1980s War Crimes At Prison

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Zoe Maven

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July 27, 2021

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Swedish public prosecutors said Tuesday they have charged an Iranian citizen with committing grave war crimes during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the suspect worked in July-August 1988 as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor in the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj and allegedly took part in severe atrocities there.

During the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict, Iran was subjected to attacks by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a political-militant organization, which advocated overthrowing the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and installing its own government.

The Swedish prosecutors said Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued an order for the execution of all prisoners in Iranian prisons who sympathized and remained loyal with the Mujahedin organization.

Due to that order, a large number of prisoners were executed in the Gohardasht prison between July 30 and August 16, 1988, the prosecutors said.

According to a Swedish indictment, the suspect “along with other perpetrators in the prison, participated in mass executions and is suspected of having intentionally deprived the lives of a very large number of prisoners who sympathized with the Mujahedin.”

Swedish prosecutors didn’t name the suspect but he has widely been identified as Hamid Nouri, a 60-year-old former Iranian prosecutor. Swedish public broadcaster SVT said the man was arrested in November 2019 when he arrived to the Swedish capital, Stockholm, and has been held in custody since.

Blast In German Industrial Park Kills Two, Several Missing

By

Zoe Maven

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July 27, 2021

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An explosion in a German industrial park on Tuesday killed at least two people and injured 31, setting off a fierce blaze that sent a pall of smoke over the western city of Leverkusen. Several people were still missing.

Emergency services took three hours to extinguish the fire at the Chempark site, home to chemicals companies Bayer and Lanxess, that flared up after the blast at 9:40 a.m. local time according to park operator Currenta.

The area and surrounding roads were sealed off for much of the day.

Police told residents living nearby to stay indoors and shut doors and windows in case there were toxic fumes. Currenta said locals should also turn off air conditioning systems while it measured the air around the site for possible toxic gases.

Chempark’s Friedrich said it was not clear what had caused the explosion, which led to a fire starting in a tank containing solvents.

Sirens and emergency alerts on the German civil protection agency’s mobile phone app warned citizens of “extreme danger”.

Leverkusen is less than 50 km from a region hit last week by catastrophic floods that killed at least 180 people.

More than 30 companies operate at the Chempark site in Leverkusen, including Covestro, Bayer, Lanxess and Arlanxeo, according to its website.

Bayer and Lanxess in 2019 sold Chempark operator Currenta to Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets for an enterprise value of 3.5 billion euros.