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Facebook Suspends Former U.S. President Trump’s Account Until 2023

By
Angel Gimalo
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Facebook Inc (FB.O) on Friday suspended former U.S. President Donald Trump from its platform until at least January 2023 and announced changes to how it will treat rule-breaking world leaders in the future.

Facebook said the suspension, which will last at least two years from Jan. 7 when he was initially blocked after the Capitol riot, will only be lifted if the risk to public safety has receded.

Trump called the Facebook suspension “an insult” to Americans who voted for him.

This new timeline denies Trump a major social media megaphone ahead of the November 2022 national midterm elections, when his party will be competing for Congressional seats.

However, it means he may be able to return to Facebook well before the next presidential election in late 2024.

Trump has been permanently banned by Twitter (TWTR.N) and remains suspended by Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube after the riot. The former president, who this week shut down his recently-launched blog, has teased plans to launch his own platform but his team has given little detail.

“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols,” Facebook’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg said in the post.

Facebook’s independent oversight board in May upheld the company’s unprecedented block on Trump, which was enforced because the company said his posts were inciting violence. However, the board ruled it was wrong to make the ban indefinite and called for a “proportionate response.”

Trump said in a statement Friday, “Facebook’s ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!”

Facebook said it would work with experts to decide when the public safety risk had subsided for Trump to be restored to its platforms. It said it would evaluate factors including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.

It also said there would be a set of escalating sanctions that would be triggered if Trump broke further rules that could lead to his permanent removal.

Thousands Rally In Sudan For Justice Over 2019 Killings

By
Zoe Maven
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Thousands of Sudanese have taken to the streets of Khartoum, stepping up their demands for justice for protesters killed during a crackdown on anti-government demonstrations two years ago.

The rally came on the second anniversary of the violent dispersal of a protest camp outside the army headquarters in Khartoum which resulted in the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

Carrying the Sudanese flag and banners demanding justice, the protesters marched to the cabinet building and the public prosecutor’s office, some singing the national anthem.

Ahead of Thursday’s protests, Sudanese authorities had closed off the main roads leading to the army headquarters in Khartoum and urged demonstrators to stay away from the site.

In a statement, the cabinet said it was holding talks with security apparatuses to speed up the delivery of justice to the victims.

Meanwhile, the interior ministry said police had taken all necessary measures to secure safety of protesters as well as strategic and vital facilities.

In May, a similar rally was held in Khartoum to mark the sit-in dispersal anniversary during the holy month of Ramadan.

Security forces dispersed that demonstration, leaving two people dead and dozens wounded.

Sudan’s army said later it had handed prosecutors a list of army personnel suspected of involvement in the latest killings.

The 2019 protest camp in Khartoum initially called for an end to Bashir’s rule but remained for weeks after his ouster, demanding a transition to civilian rule.

UN Warns Of Worsening Humanitarian Situation In DRC

By
Zoe Maven
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The United Nations says the humanitarian crisis in the DR Congo has been worsened by the eruption of a volcano in the country’s east, with the largest number of people in urgent need of assistance.

David William McLachlan-Karr, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Democratic Republic of Congo says the humanitarian response plan, which targets nearly 10 million people, is grossly underfunded.

He said 27.3 million people in the nation of 86 million were acutely food insecure and that only 12% of the funding needed to help them has been received as yet

About five million people have been displaced, are fleeing insecurity, violence and natural disasters when Mount Nyiragongo spewed torrents of lava into villages last month.

Thousands of residents were forced to flee Goma and seek refuge in other regions of the country and in its neighbouring country Rwanda,.

President Moon Visits NIS For Briefing On Reform Progress

By
Angel Gimalo
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Chung Eui-yong, front left, head of the presidential National Security Office, Suh Hoon, front right, the chief of the South's National Intelligence Service, and other delegators walk to board an aircraft as they leave for Pyongyang, North Korea, at a military airport in Seongnam, south of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. The high-level South Korean delegation left for North Korea to discuss arrangements for an inter-Korean summit there this month, as relations grow cooler between Washington and Pyongyang. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)

President Moon Jae-in paid a visit the National Intelligence Service to check on the reforms at the agency, long criticized for meddling in politics.

He was briefed on progress by the nation’s top intel Chief Park Jie-won.

When the South Korean leader visited the NIS in 2018, he pledged to ensure political neutrality and to never use the organization for political purposes.

He said the agency kept that promise under a law passed last year, which bans it from engaging in domestic surveillance operations and requires it to focus on conventional missions like cybersecurity and gathering intel on North Korea.

Moon asked the NIS to develop a full range of intel-gathering capabilities in new areas like cyber and outer space.

To mark the agency’s 60th anniversary, the President attended the unveiling of a stone with a new motto “Serving our nation and people with unwavering loyalty and devotion.”

NASA Announces Two Missions To Explore Venus

By
Angel Gimalo
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NASA will launch two missions to Venus between 2028 and 2030 – for the first time in 30 years.

NASA said Wednesday that the missions – VERITAS and DAVINCI+ – will have budgets of around 500 million dollars each.

VERITAS will map Venus’ surface to discover how it developed so differently from Earth.

DAVINCI+ will measure the composition of the Venus’ dense atmosphere to understand how it evolved.

Just In – FG Suspends Twitter Activities In the Country

By
faith Jegede
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The federal government of Nigeria has announced the indefinite suspension of operations of microblogging app Twitter in the country.

This comes after the application deleted a tweet made by the president, Muhammadu Buhari for being in violation of the apps rules, a move described by the minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed as being capable of undermining the countries corporate existence.

The announcement was made via twitter through the verified account of the Federal ministry of Information and Culture @FMICNigeria . The account said that the minister had made the announcement in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, June 4.

Romeo and Juliet Find New Stage In Factory In Ukraine

By
faith Jegede
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The story of Romeo and Juliet came to life in a Soviet factory in Ukraine.

A theatre in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk reinvented William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, staging it in the industrial halls of an old Soviet factory.

Before the play begins, interested spectators are given hard hats and a map to navigate through the factory’s workshops and on to the theatre’s basement.The map also helps the audience follow the actors through different locations as the performance unfolds, watching from different angles.

Head of Ivano-Frankivsk drama theatre, Rostyslav Derzhypilsky thought to give the play a twist and script the first scene at a club instead of the a ball at the Capulet’s house.

“This location is extremely difficult. But it perfectly fits to illustrate the collision of spirituality, faith and the love of Romeo and Juliet and the world that surrounds them,” Derzhypilsky said

The actor who plays Romeo, Oleh Panas, said he was daunted when he saw the improvised factory stage for the first time. He expressed how the stage swallows the actor but adds value to the performance concept and to the actor’s emotions.




Ivorian Designer Pathe’O Celebrates 50 years In Fashion

By
faith Jegede
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Pathe Ouedraogo the Ivorian Fashion Icon and native of Burkina Faso recently celebrated 50 successful years in the industry.

Pathe’O as he’s referred to said he left his home in Burkina Faso to neighbouring Ivory Coast in 1969, in search of greener pastures. At the time, “The most accessible job at the time was to be an apprentice tailor.”

He caught his big break in 1994 when former South African president Nelson Mandela wore one of the four shirts gifted to him by singer Miriam Makeba. Mandela mentioned Pathe’O’s name during a trip to Paris, publicity that sparked a rush of orders and propelled him to the forefront of the fashion scene.

He marked his five decades with a glitzy show and the launch of a new boutique in an upmarket Abidjan neighbourhood, whose walls are adorned with pictures of him with famous people including Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.

pathe’o – 23 , image by – Brahilm Taougar

Ouedraogo says he now sees his mission as doing more to promote African fashion. “Africans themselves are still adverse to wearing what is made in Africa. That’s the real problem … This is the real fight today”.

Ugandans Demand Probe After Hundreds Fail State Bar Course

By
Precious Obazee
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Only 9% of students studying to become advocates passed exams for the 2019/2020 academic year in Uganda, prompting calls to scrap the bar course.

1474 students wrote the exam but only 145 passed while 1329 students or 90.1% failed.

It is not the first time that the relevance of the bar course and the competence of the Law Development Centre (LDC), the sole provider of the postgraduate diploma in legal practice have been questioned.

Ugandan law requires those who graduate with a degree in law to enroll for an 8-month training at the LDC if they wish to work as advocates.

A lawyer cannot practice as an advocate of the High Court in Uganda without the diploma.

Uganda has more than 10 universities accredited to teach law and churn out hundreds of graduates every year.

However, only a small fraction of those end up at the centre due to equally restrictive pre-entry examinations. An even smaller portion manages to graduate.

The pre-entry tests have since been scrapped.

The LDC director, Frank Nigel Othembi said this is the first group of bar course students admitted without undergoing pre-entry examination adding that a number of them were unable to cope with the academic demands of the course. He said they did not give it due focus.

But his defence was swiftly dismissed by people on social media. Some called for an investigation into the high failure rates at the centre, while others called for an end to the centre’s monopoly.

Opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) also weighed in, saying it would ‘continue standing with students affected’.

National Youth Service Corps Refutes Reports On Mobilization Of Corps Members For War

By
Precious Obazee
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The Management of the National Youth Service Corps has refuted media reports currently trending on the social media on the mobilization of Corps Members for war in the country.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Deputy Director (Publications) for Director, Press and Public Relations of the NYSC, Emeka Mgbemena and made available to Journalists in Abuja Nigeria’s capital.

He said the Director-General of the NYSC, General Shuaibu Ibrahim, had stated that in line with the National Defence Policy, Corps Members are like soldiers on reserve, because their education, exposure and sophistication, can make them easily adaptable to military training.

Mgbemena said the Director General in his statement also advised corps members to remain focused and patriotic; for the spirit of NYSC to live in all Nigerians.

According to Mbenemene, General Ibrahim never at any point said that Corps Members are being mobilised to fight war.

He added that the Scheme shall continue to safeguard the interest of Corps Members at all times.

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