Ghanaian President Nana Akufo- Addo on Thursday visited President Muhammadu Buhari at the statehouse in Abuja.
The President of Ghana and the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African states is the third visiting African President received by President Muhammadu Buhari this week.
President of the Libyan Presidential Council, Mohammed Younis Menfi, and that of the Central African Republic earlier in the week entered into bilateral talks with the President.
President Muhammadu Buhari celebrated Children’s Day with children in the State House on Thursday, May 27th.
May 27th is celebrated as Children’s Day in Nigeria.
President Buhari commemorated the day with some kids in the Aso Rock Villa with cake and waving flags.
According to the Presidency’s official Twitter handle, “The President spent the morning with a group of visiting children, at the State House. A giant card, a cake, and lots of flags and fun!”
On this day, pre-coronavirus era, children were usually given a relatively free rein and it is considered a public holiday.
Schools and educational institutes used to celebrate this day by organizing fun days, and arranging for kids to go for match passes in stadia across the country.
Boeing agreed to pay a $17 million fine and enhance its supply chain and production practices after installing unapproved equipment on hundreds of planes, US regulators said Thursday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the manufacturer installed unapproved sensors on 759 Boeing 737 MAX and NG aircraft.
The company also submitted about 178 Boeing 737 MAX planes for airworthiness certification despite having equipment installed that may not have been approved for use.
Besides the $17 million fine, Boeing agreed to a number of corrective actions “within specific timeframes,” the FAA said. If Boeing fails to meet these conditions, the FAA will levy up to $10.1 million in additional penalties, the agency said.
The “corrective actions” include strengthening procedures to ensure that unapproved parts are not installed and reviewing supply chain processes connected to production rate decisions. The company also must take steps to allow closer FAA oversight of its production rate assessments.
“Keeping the flying public safe is our primary responsibility. That is not negotiable, and the FAA will hold Boeing and the aviation industry accountable to keep our skies safe,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson.
Boeing said it has enhanced its processes since the problems were raised by regulators two years ago.
“We take our responsibility to meet all regulatory requirements very seriously. These penalties stem from issues that were raised in 2019 and which we fully resolved in our production system and supply chain,” Boeing said.
“We continue to devote time and resources to improving safety and quality performance across our operations.”
The fines come on the heels of the 20-month grounding of the 737 MAX following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. The FAA cleared the MAX to fly late last year following upgrades to the plane and new pilot training requirements.
In January, the Justice Department announced that Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion in fines and settle a criminal charge over claims the company defrauded regulators overseeing the 737 MAX.
Hong Kong mountaineer Tsang Yin-hung has recorded the world’s fastest ascent of Everest by a woman with a time of just under 26 hours, a Nepal official said Thursday.
Tsang, 44, scaled the 8,848.86-metre (29,031 feet) mountain in a record time of 25 hours and 50 minutes on Sunday, Everest base camp’s government liaison officer Gyanendra Shrestha said.
“She left the base camp at 1:20 pm on Saturday and reached (the top at) 3:10 pm the next day,” Shrestha told AFP.
But Tsang still needs to present her claim to officials from Guinness World Records to receive certification of her feat, he added.
The Nepal government certifies that climbers have reached the summit but does not issue certifications for records.
Tsang and her expedition organisers, who are now en route to Kathmandu, have yet to comment.
The fastest woman to conquer Everest had been Nepali Phunjo Jhangmu Lama when she completed the climb in 39 hours 6 minutes.
In 2017, Tsang became the first Hong Kong woman to reach the top. It was her third attempt at scaling the Himalayan peak.
Nepal has issued a record 408 Everest permits for this climbing season after last year’s season was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Up to 350 people have summited the mountain so far this spring, the tourism department said, even as the country battles a spike in coronavirus cases.
But at least two teams have said they scrapped expedition plans after some team members tested positive at base camp.
Nepal’s weather forecaster has warned of deteriorating conditions in the area after Cyclone Yaas slammed into eastern India on Wednesday.
Sheffield United have appointed Slavisa Jokanovic as their new manager following their relegation from the Premier League.
The former Watford and Fulham boss has signed a three-year contract with the Blades, succeeding Chris Wilder, who left the club in March after nearly five years in charge.
Blades’ Under-23 coach Paul Heckingbottom oversaw the club’s final 10 matches of the season but was unable to prevent United from making the drop.
Jokanovic won promotion from the second-tier Championship at both Watford and Fulham and the Blades hierarchy will be hoping he can repeat the feat at Bramall Lane.
“I’m excited to work in English football again and I’m looking forward to getting started with the players and staff, as well as meeting our passionate, loyal supporters as we prepare for the challenge in the Championship,” said the Serbian.
“I want to assure our amazing fans that we’re fully committed to helping the team achieve its goals and make you feel proud.”
The club’s Saudi owner, Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz al Saud, said: “Once we held discussions with Slavisa, it was also abundantly clear that his ambitions were aligned with those of the club. It goes without saying, we are thrilled to have someone in charge with a CV which boasts a proven track record of success in England and abroad.”
Somalia’s government announced on Thursday that delayed elections would be held within 60 days, following months of deadlock over the vote that erupted into violence in the troubled country.
“About the schedule of elections, the national consultative forum agreed that elections will be held within 60 days” with the exact dates to be determined by the electoral board, deputy information minister Abdirahman Yusuf announced at the conclusion of talks.
The central government and leaders of Somalia’s five states had been unable to agree on the terms of a vote before the president’s term lapsed in February.
When the last round of UN-backed talks collapsed in April, the lower house of parliament passed a special bill extending by two years the mandate of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo.
The upper house rejected the move and anger at Farmajo spilled onto the streets of Mogadishu.
Rival militias traded gunfire and civilians fled, in the country’s worst political violence in years.
The crisis ruptured Somalia’s fragile security forces and stoked fears of outright civil war, with soldiers deserting their posts in the countryside to fight for their political allegiances in the capital.
Under domestic and international pressure, Farmajo reversed the mandate extension and ordered his prime minister to convene state leaders for a fresh round of talks, easing tensions as soldiers left the capital.
“It is a historic day today,” Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble said following five days of negotiations with state leaders.
“After days of discussions involving respect, patience and compromise, we have succeeded in reaching consensus over the disputed issues of the elections.”
The election will follow a complex indirect model used in the past, whereby special delegates chosen by Somalia’s myriad clan elders pick lawmakers, who in turn choose the president.
World number one Novak Djokovic said on Thursday that he would reconsider taking part in the Tokyo Olympics if spectators were not banned from attending.
The world number one’s reaction came after calls grew in Japan for the Games to take place behind closed doors, with one doctors’ association saying the event should be cancelled altogether.
“I plan on playing in the Olympics, as long as fans are allowed,” Djokovic said in a press conference.
“If not, I’d think twice about participating.”
Djokovic is not the first tennis star to express doubts over the rescheduled Olympics — Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams recently said they were unsure whether they would compete.
Roger Federer said athletes needed a firm decision on whether the event is going ahead, adding he was still in two minds.
Japanese stars Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori have both raised concerns about whether Tokyo should be hosting the Games at all.
Medical groups have warned the massive event could introduce new variants to Japan even as parts of Japan, including capital Tokyo, are still under states of emergency.
Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, said on Thursday that holding the Games without spectators “is the bare minimum given the current situation”.
“This is the Olympics in a time of emergency,” he said at a press conference.
Organisers have already barred overseas fans, while a decision on domestic spectators is expected in late June.
Tokyo’s current virus restrictions allow venues to have up to 5,000 fans or 50 percent capacity, whichever is fewer.
Djokovic was speaking after he booked his place in the semi-finals in the Belgrade tournament with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Federico Coria, a victory that puts him fifth on the list of Open era wins.
The 56-minute demolition of the 96th ranked Argentine took Djokovic to 952 wins, putting him one ahead of Guillermo Vilas.
“It was a great performance,” said Djokovic, who is tuning up for the French Open which begins in Paris on Sunday.
“And probably one of the best matches, if not the best match, I played this year. I felt fantastic on the court from the first point.”
Djokovic will face either fellow Serb Dusan Lajovic or qualifier Andrej Martin in the semi-finals.
He improved to 18-3 for the season and is attempting to reach his third final of the year.
Djokovic won the Australian Open for a ninth time but lost the Italian Open final on clay to Nadal.
Vilas, also an Argentine, played professionally between 1969 and 1992, reaching eight major finals, winning four.
He was a four-time French Open finalist, winning in 1977 with a straight sets demolition of the American Brian Gottfried.
Cuban baseball talent Cesar Prieto abandoned his team several hours after arriving in the United States for an Olympic qualifier, sports officials in Havana said, in the latest defection to hit the communist island.
Prieto, who turned 22 this month, vanished just hours after arriving in Florida, where Cuba is to play for a spot in the Tokyo Olympic games.
Baseball is Cuba’s national sport and the team is now weakened by the loss of one of its top players, an infielder and powerful hitter.
The 41-member Cuban delegation had gone through a long and complicated process to obtain visas for the United States, which maintains sanctions against Havana.
Cuba’s baseball federation said in a statement that Prieto’s disappearance had generated “repudiation” among his teammates, and that it had been the victim of “traffickers”.
Prieto, who is likely to be courted by Major League teams, is by no means the first Cuban athlete to take flight during a sporting event.
Baseball players Aroldis Chapman, Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, Livan Hernandez and Jose Contreras are among the players who left Cuba. All went on to the Major Leagues and were named to All-Star teams.
In 2008, seven footballers deserted Cuba’s under-23 team at a qualifying tournament in Florida in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Striker Maykel Galindo defected a year earlier.
Major League Baseball and the Cuban baseball federation had reached a deal in late 2018 that would have allowed Cubans to play in the United States without having to first defect, but former president Donald Trump quickly scrapped it.
Since then, there have been several cases of Cuban players abandoning their teams in order to play in the United States.
In its statement, the Baseball Federation of Cuba said it was the “victim of the actions of merchants and traffickers favored by the decision of the government of the United States to disable the agreement aimed at normalizing the insertion of our players in the circuits of the MLB.”
Alberto Bettiol of EF Education won the 18th stage of the Giro d’Italia, the longest of the race at 231 kilometres, on Thursday in Stradella.
Bettiol hunted down Frenchman Remi Cavagna of Deceuninck who had escaped from a big breakaway group with 26 kilometres to go and finished 15 seconds ahead of fellow Italian Simone Consonni.
The main peloton, including the overall leader, Colombian Egan Bernal of Ineos, finished 23 minutes and 30 seconds after Bettiol.
The breakaway of 23 riders took shape in the first hour of the race on a large flat stage from Rovareta to Stradella which gave the main contenders a chance to recover before the Giro heads back into the mountains.
Cavagna, a time trial specialist, burst clear with 26 kilometres to go.
But Bettiol chased the Frenchman down through the vineyards of Oltrepo, and Cavagna cracked on final short climb.
Bettiol rode the last seven kilometres alone for the third victory of his career and his first in Italy. It was also his team’s first in this year’s Giro.
The Tuscan also gave the host nation its fifth victory since the start in Turin.
On Friday, the 166km 19th stage from Abbiategrasso finishes with a tough climb up Alpe Merra but has been rerouted to avoid the climb of the Mount Mottarone, out of respect for the victims of the cable car accident there last Sunday.
The boy who survived last weekend’s deadly cable car crash in the Italian mountains is awake and will soon be moved out of intensive care, the hospital said Thursday.
The five-year-old has been in critical condition since the cabin plunged to the ground on the Mottarone mountain, killing the other 14 people inside, including his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents.
“Eitan is now awake and conscious in the intensive care unit, speaking with his aunt and looking around,” said a spokesman for Turin’s Regina Margherita hospital.
“From a clinical point of view, he is still in a critical condition due to his thoracic and abdominal trauma and the fractures to his limbs.
“In the next few days he will be taken out of intensive care and transferred to a hospital ward.”
Italian police on Wednesday arrested three senior managers from the cable car operating company over Sunday’s tragedy.
They are accused of deliberately deactivating the emergency brake that should have prevented the cable car from falling backwards when the cable snapped.
– ‘In good hands’ –
Eitan’s school friends sent him an art project covered with colourful handprints and designs, to help cheer him up.
“It’s an enormous tragedy,” artist Stefano Bressani, father of one of his schoolmates, told Il Messaggero newspaper.
Marcella Severino, the mayor of the town of Stresa where the cable car started out, told the paper the boy’s aunt — his father’s sister — was looking after him.
“She has great strength, which will serve her well by her nephew’s side. She’s a constant presence in the life of the child, he’s in good hands,” she said.
Updating parliament on the incident earlier Thursday, Transport Minister Enrico Giovannini outlined how the cable car hit a support pillar before plunging to the ground.
Thirteen passengers died on the spot, while Eitan and another child were taken to hospital. The other child later died.
Giovannini named the three arrested men as Luigi Nerini, director of the Ferrovie del Mottarone company that manages the cable car, and two service managers, Gabriele Tadini and Enrico Perocchio.
They disabled the emergency braking system “to avoid the continuous blocking of the system caused by the repeated operation — apparently unjustified — of the braking device, which had been showing anomalies for about a month”, he told lawmakers.
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