Former Angolan minister Manuel Rabelais has been sentenced to 14 years in prison on corruption charges, becoming the second ex-minister put behind bars since Joao Lourenço took power in 2017.
Manuel Rabelais, a former communications minister under the previous regime, was arrested in October 2020 and convicted by the Luanda Supreme Court of money laundering and misappropriation of public funds.
Using a marketing company he ran, he was found guilty of embezzling 98 million euros between 2016 and 2017.
Angolan president Joao Lourenço, shortly after his election, launched a massive anti-corruption campaign against those close to his predecessor Jose Eduardo dos Santos who had held onto power for 38 years.
Promising to root out widespread corruption and revamp the countrys economy, Joao Lourenço sacked several former government officials, including Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of President Dos Santos, who headed the national oil company Sonangol.
Former Transport Minister Augusto da Silva Tomas had been sentenced in 2019 to 14 years in prison for corruption.
In August, José Filomeno dos Santos, the former president’s son, was also sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling money from Angola’s sovereign wealth fund, which he oversaw from 2013 to 2018.
Hong Kong’s foremost democracy activist Joshua Wong was sentenced to four months in jail on Tuesday for unauthorized assembly and violating an anti-mask law.
Wong who is among 47 people charged under a national security law, has pleaded guilty to both charges, including taking part in and using a facial covering at an unauthorized assembly in October 2019 during the height of anti-government protests.
He is currently serving a 13-and-a-half-month sentence for organising and inciting an unlawful assembly near the city’s police headquarters in June 2019.
In October 2019, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years to enact a regulation banning face masks, which many pro-democracy protesters used to hide their identities from authorities.
Under the law, it was illegal to wear a mask at both lawful and unlawful assemblies and offenders faced a maximum one year in jail and a HK$25,000 fine.
Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the promise of wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms that pro-democracy activists say are being whittled away by Communist Party rulers in Beijing.
Nigeria’s external debt to total revenue increased from 8 per cent in 2011 to 400 per cent in 2020, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) , Sanusi Lamido, has said.
Mr Sanusi lamented the situation last Thursday while participating in an online roundtable discussion tagged: “Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery in Nigeria”, organised by Heinrich Böll Foundation.
The former CBN governor said Nigeria has a debt services ratio of up to 90-96 per cent but there are certain other elements of debts that analysts have not paid attention to.
Nigeria’s debt position has been a source of concern for development experts in recent years, especially in the midst of dwindling oil revenue.
Mr Sanusi, who was recently deposed as Emir of Kano, noted that in measuring debt sustainability, the debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is a useless metric.
A coalition of Lebanese civil society groups and parties on Tuesday made a joint appeal, calling for a unified electoral bloc to try to defeat traditional leaders in 2022 polls.
The alliance of these 16 groups, including the National Bloc, Beirut Madinati and Mintishreen, is the most concerted effort yet towards forming an opposition umbrella to challenge the ruling elite in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2022.
Spokesperson for the alliance, Nada Sehnaoui said together, they would develop a joint plan for participation in parliamentary polls through joint opposition lists.
Speaking to a Beirut press conference held at the National Bloc’s headquarters she called on all forces of change and the different revolutionary groups to unify their ranks and work together towards forming the widest possible opposition bloc.
The groups taking part so far have mostly coalesced around a 2019 protest movement demanding the wholesale removal of political leaders widely deemed inept and corrupt.
They will run against established parties, many of which have been in power since the 1975-1990 civil war.
But anger is still rife over an economic crisis that has left more than 50 percent of the population below the poverty line.
Federal health agencies will hold the use of the vaccine at federal sites Federal health agencies in the United States will pause their use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and are urging states across the country to follow suit while they investigate cases of blood clots, a report has said.
According to The New York Times, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will call on Tuesday for an immediate pause in the use of the single-dose shot.
The mover reportedly comes after six people who received the vaccine in the country developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination, the newspaper said, citing officials briefed on the decision.
No one knows how many people the experimental covid vaccines are killing – or how many they will kill. However mainstream media rarely mentions most of these deaths or people who have already died or been injured after being given the jab.
Recent report from national vaccine information center (VAERS) puts the deaths from covid-19 vaccines at 2,342.
The oil-rich state of Qatar is to invest a total of $5 billion in Nigeria’s economy, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Godfrey Onyeama, has disclosed.
Onyeama, who spoke Sunday at a send forth dinner in honour of Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to the State of Qatar, who is also the outgoing Director of Protocol (DOP) at the State House, Ambassador Yakubu Ahmed, also stated that recent career ambassadorial appointments made by the gederal government was based on merit, experience and professionalism.
The minister further said there had been discussions with Qatar on partnership with Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), for significant investments in the region of $5 billion in the Nigerian economy.
He recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had visited the State of Qatar in 2016 and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Bin Hammad Al-Thani, reciprocated with a State visit in 2019.
Onyeama also explained that only trusted hands with a track record of diligence, experience and professionalism in the Foreign Service were recently appointed career ambassadors by the federal government.
The minister said the appointment of Ahmed and other career ambassadors were predicated on posting dedicated and keen Foreign Service practitioners to serve as image makers of the country.
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has denied revoking 32 refinery licenses issued to private companies in Nigeria.
Mr Paul Osu, Head, Public Affairs, DPR, made the clarification in a statement on Tuesday in Lagos.
According to him, the DPR in line with the aspirations of the government initiated the refinery revolution programme of the country. He said it was aimed at boosting local refining capacity by enabling business and creating new opportunities for new investors with the granting of modular and conventional refinery licenses to investors .
He said it was aimed at boosting local refining capacity by enabling business and creating new opportunities for new investors with the granting of modular and conventional refinery licenses to investors .
Osu said the DPR would continue to provide support for investors in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria using its regulatory instruments of licences, permits and approvals to stimulate the economy and align with governments job creation initiatives. (NAN)
The chairman of Ado Local Government Area of Benue State, James Oche, has described as “hasty” comments credited to the Ebonyi State commissioner for internal security that the people of Agila were responsible for attacks on communities in the state.
The Ebonyi State commissioner, Stanley Okoro Emegha, in a statement on Monday accused Agila people of attacking the Ngbo community in Ebonyi.
In a statement at Igumale, the LG headquarters on Monday, the chairman said, “the victims themselves had said the attack was from herders and wondered why the Ebonyi State Government was bent on accusing his people even in the face of rumours making the rounds that the attack was a reprisal for the alleged killing of their cows”.
Oche explained that the people of Agila are peace loving and have since embraced the recommendations of the Otse Otokpa/Cyril Obazi Agila/Ngbo Intercommunity Peace and Security Committee formed by the governments of Ebonyi and Benue States and have been cooperating with the National Boundary Commission on the planned delimitation and rebeaconing exercise scheduled to hold within the axis.
Oche added that falsehood was not the solution to the problem as it would deteriorate the already tensed situation.
The United Nations’ health agency on Tuesday urged countries to suspend the sale of captured live wild animals in food markets as an emergency measure, saying wild animals are a leading source of emerging infectious diseases like the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization, backed by key partners, issued new guidance saying that animals — particularly wild animals — “are the source of more than 70 percent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, many of which are caused by novel viruses.”
The coronavirus’s origins more than a year ago have been the source of intense speculation, much of it centred around the likelihood that it was carried by bats and passed to humans through an intermediary species sold as food or medicine in traditional Chinese wet markets. The pandemic first appeared in the city of Wuhan, China.
WHO highlighted the risk of direct transmission of emerging infectious diseases to humans who come in contact with bodily fluids of an infected animal, and cited the “additional risk” of picking it up in places where such animals are housed or locations that could have been contaminated with such viruses.California lifts COVID-19 limits on indoor worship services
“Globally, traditional markets can play a central role in providing food and livelihoods for large populations,” WHO said in a statement. However, “Banning the sale of the animals can protect people’s health — both those working there and those shopping there.”
WHO joined with the World Organization for Animal Health and the U.N. environment program in its analysis leading to the new recommendations.
California has lifted its limits on indoor worship services in the face of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that struck down the coronavirus public health mandates.
However, the state Department of Public Health guidelines still said indoor gatherings were “strongly discouraged” and advised limiting the numbers to 25% of a building’s capacity for the two-highest levels of the state’s four-tier COVID-19 restrictions.
The recommended capacity for the two lower levels — those areas with moderate to minimum spread — is 50% capacity.
“Location and capacity limits on places of worship are not mandatory, but are strongly recommended,” the new guidance stated and said the changes were a response to recent court rulings.
The Center for American Liberty, which had filed a string of lawsuits against Gov. Gavin Newsom on behalf of churches, applauded the move.
“Governor Newsom should have done this a long time ago,” said a statement from Harmeet K. Dhillon, the center’s founder. “For over a year, the state of California has targeted the faith community for discriminatory treatment depriving them of their fundamental right to worship.”
State or local restrictions on indoor worship to prevent the spread of COVID-19 had been in place for most of the pandemic.
Most religious organizations had followed the restrictions but some churches fought them on grounds that they violated the constitutional freedom of religious expression.
Limits on indoor worship capacity were instituted in February to replace an all-out ban on indoor services that applied to most of the state because virus cases were high.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the outright ban in a case brought by California churches, although it left in place capacity limits and a ban on singing or chanting.
On Friday, however, the Supreme Court ruled that California can’t enforce virus-related limits on home-based religious worship, including Bible studies and prayer meetings.
The case involved two residents of Santa Clara County in the San Francisco Bay Area, who wanted to host small, in-person Bible study sessions.
California previously announced significant changes will go into effect Thursday that loosen restrictions on gatherings, including allowing indoor concerts and theater performances.
The changes come as infection rates have gone down in the state and vaccination numbers have surged.
The Supreme Court has dealt with a string of cases in which religious groups have challenged coronavirus restrictions impacting worship services.
While early in the pandemic the court sided with state officials over the objection of religious groups that changed following the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last September and her replacement by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
In November, the high court barred New York from enforcing certain limits on attendance at churches and synagogues in areas designated as hard hit by the virus.
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