UPDATE & PHOTOS: Buhari Sent Only 21 Names To Senate
UPDATE & PHOTOS: Buhari Sent Only 21 Names To Senate
Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Taliban's takeover of Kunduz
Kunduz, Afghanistan - Afghanistan has
mobilised military reinforcements to take back Kunduz, a day after
Taliban fighters overran the strategic northern city in their biggest
victory since being toppled from power in 2001.
The US carried out two air strikes near Kunduz city on Tuesday in support of the government, and continued the assault on Wednesday.
The Taliban attack began at dawn on Monday with the fighters capturing key buildings and freeing about 500 prisoners, including members of the Taliban.
The incursion came after two failed attempts this year to capture Kunduz city, which has been encircled by the fighters for about a year.
The US carried out two air strikes near Kunduz city on Tuesday in support of the government, and continued the assault on Wednesday.
The Taliban attack began at dawn on Monday with the fighters capturing key buildings and freeing about 500 prisoners, including members of the Taliban.
The incursion came after two failed attempts this year to capture Kunduz city, which has been encircled by the fighters for about a year.
US judge dismisses 9/11 case against Saudi Arabia
US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan, New York, said Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.
"The allegations in the complaint alone do not provide this court with a basis to assert jurisdiction over defendants," Daniels wrote.
Daniels said even if he allowed the plaintiffs to assert those new claims, doing so would be "futile, however, because the additional allegations do not strip defendants of sovereign immunity".
Classified evidence
Saudi Arabia was dropped as a defendant before as judges said it was protected by sovereign immunity, but a federal appeals court in December 2013 reinstated it, saying a legal exception existed and the circumstances were extraordinary.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they would appeal. Sean Carter, one the lawyers, said he believed the ruling was also the consequence of the US government's decision to keep classified evidence that could be favourable to their cause.
Report condemns child labour in Philippine gold mines
To reach underground, miners like Nel are lowered on a rope into a pit that could be as deep as 25 metres.
For several hours they work there digging rocks, taking only short breaks to eat. If the pits are deep, oxygen is pumped in with a blower, allowing workers to breathe. In shallower pits, miners work without a blower.
On a good day, Nel and labourers like him are paid a few dollars to find the precious metal currently valued at $1,127 an ounce in the world market. In 2014, 18 tonnes of gold worth $700m was produced in the Philippines, according to government records.
But Nel never got to collect his pay that day. The boy died of suffocation underground. His older brother Joven tried to rescue him. When both failed to surface, a third brother entered the mine and found them both dead.
When asked why a minor like Nel was allowed to work, his employer reportedly said that he accepts children as workers, because, "I don't meddle in what they do".
 |
| Emerita Pernicita shows a picture of her son, Nel, who died in an underground pit [Mark Z Saludes for Human Rights Watch] |
"Filipino children are working in absolutely terrifying conditions in small-scale gold mines," said Juliane Kippenberg, author of the Human Rights Watch report.
"The Philippine government prohibits dangerous child labour, but has done very little to enforce the law."
The Philippines is the world's 20th largest gold producer, employing 200,000 to 300,000 people in the country's small-scale gold mines alone. A 2009 study conducted by the International Labour Organization said 18,000 boys and girls work in mining.
Diving for gold
In the latest report released a month ahead of the Philippines' National Children's Month in November, Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of child labourers, who recounted their plight working as miners.
|
Child labour is a product of poverty. Therefore, the government
should provide poor vulnerable families with support to enable them to
send their children to school. |
In the coastal town of Panganiban in the island province of Catanduanes, the group found seven boys and three young adults, who started work as children, mining ore.
The children dive underwater for several hours in 10-metre-deep shafts dug into the bottom of the sea or river. They receive air from a tube attached to a diesel-run air compressor at the surface.
Dennis, 14, started diving at the age of 13.
"I felt scared because it's dark and deep, and it was my first time…. Now I'm used to it," he told Human Rights Watch.
Those who dive for gold also face the risk of drowning from lack of oxygen or mudslides. In some cases, the compressor tubes providing divers with oxygen stopped working and forced them to come up for air quickly.
However, coming up fast from diving deep in the water is also dangerous, according to Carlos Conde, the Human Rights Watch representative in the Philippines, who was involved in interviewing the children.
He said that aside from reported cases of drowning, underwater compressor mining has also been known to cause decompression sickness resulting in joint pain and brain disorders. The children are also vulnerable to skin disease from the bacteria underwater.
In March 2015, the Philippine government prohibited the underwater mining practice. But as the rights group said, it remains an important livelihood is some areas of the Philippines.
Mercury poisoning
One of the children working with mercury was 13-year-old Ruth from another village on the island of Catanduanes. She told Human Rights Watch that she processes gold to support her parents. She dropped out of school at nine and started working, processing gold.
Michelle, 15, from a town in Camarines Norte also worked part-time processing gold. When she is off from work, she attends an alternative school set up for children in mining villages. She earns $7 to $11 a day panning gold.
But there is an even more hidden danger of mining: mercury poisoning, according to Conde.
Mercury is a poisonous chemical element used by small-scale miners to separate gold from the ore. Prolonged exposure to mercury could cause lifelong disability and brain damage.
In the mining village of Malaya, in Camarines Norte, mercury tailings from gold processing flow directly to the river where children play, according to Conde.
Further downstream, mercury has also contaminated fishing areas.
Elmer Billedo, a top official at the Philippines Mines and Geosciences Bureau, said it is impossible to monitor all the small-scale gold mining activities in the country, especially those who are employing children.
"We have a very limited number of technical personnel, and of course we cannot afford to stay overnight or even monitor all the activities of one small area," Billedo told Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch has urged the Philippines to introduce mercury-free gold processing, to reduce the threat to all children.
It also urged the country's central bank, which is the official buying agent for gold from small-scale mining, to check conditions in which gold has been mined.
Misery, a woman dumped new born baby in the river in Modakeke, Osun state.
Wonders they say can never end and what faces someone definitely back another, it is no more a news that there are many couples praying for the fruit of the womb and waiting tirelessly and patiently upon the Lord, a woman who is identified as Abiola in Ife East area office of Modakeke in osun state allegedly dumped a baby inside a stream around Old Nepa arein Modakeke, Osun state. It was the people who leaves close to this river that noticed the incidence before making it known to the whole wide world.
The main reason of this her action remains unknown to naijatonic till the time of posting this news as the woman has flee the town. The dead baby was taken to Abiola's mother who sell bean cake in police vehicle and the woman taken to the police station for interrogation.
According to the people who knows this woman so well, we are made to realize that this woman has nursed up to four children before, this baffled our correspondence because he has initially thought that Abiola would be one of the lady that flaunt their asset around and who accidentally got pregnant but reverse was the case.
Naijatonic is relentlessly working on more fact about this issue, check back for more details later....................................
i will head the ministry of petroleum- Buhari
Buhari dropped the hint in one of the interviews he granted one of the foreign media in his hotel shortly before departing New York.
Confirming his resolve to block all avenues of looting in the nation's oil wealth, Buhari said: “I will serve as the Minister of Petroleum Resources myself.”
The nation’s petroleum sector has been said to be enmeshed in corruption with millions of dollars said to be missing in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
After assuming office, he sacked and replaced the management of the company. The new management had started a general reorganisation of the firm.
Buhari had on Monday said the trial of those who looted the NNPC would commence soon in courts.
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
UAE announces labour reforms to protect foreign workers
"We want to close the door on those who trick the simple worker," Emirati Labour Minister Saqr Ghobash told a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
|
|
The kafala system not only regulates entry and residence, but also requires that workers seek permission from employers to change jobs.
Ghobash said that from January 2016, the UAE would take steps which, when completed, would get rid of "all the practices that were associated with kafala".
He said that under a new system, in which workers' contracts would be lodged with the labour ministry rather than with employers, who currently hold the documents, "involuntary labour" would be prevented.
"The worker cannot, under any circumstances, be made to, or otherwise be compelled, to remain in an employment relation," a ministry statement said.
Substitution of contracts
A reorganisation of labour contracts would also stop so-called "substitution", under which foreign workers sign one contract before they leave their home country and are compelled to renegotiate lower wages when they arrive in the Gulf.
Foreign workers do many of the hard and sometimes dangerous jobs in the region, from construction to the oil industry, transport and services. They account for nearly half of the roughly 50 million population of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and about 4.5 million of the UAE's nine-million population.
Most blue-collar workers in Gulf states are hired on contracts from countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, and many travel to the Middle East to escape poverty in their home countries.
In some Gulf states, the passports of guest workers are held by the sponsor for the duration of their contracts. Although this is banned in the UAE, the practice survives.
Asked if reforms on wider issues of labour abuse were in the pipeline, Ghobash said there was no country that stopped improving its labour situation, but the process took time.
Nicholas McGeehan, a UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the move against contract substitution was "a huge improvement and something we would fully support and applaud" and it was "good to see" the UAE feeling the need to reform.
Tribunal upholds Ekiti PDP Senator’s victory
The
Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday affirmed
the victory of the senator representing Ekiti South, Senator Biodun
Olujimi, in the March 28 National Assembly election.
The Tribunal threw out the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress candidate, Chief Tony Adeniyi, for lacking merit.
Adeniyi
had claimed that Olujimi did not resign from office as a board member of
the Nigeria Communications Commission within the time allowed by law
before the conduct of the election.
But in the
judgment delivered by a member of the three-man panel, Justice P.A.
Obayi, the tribunal held that Olujimi was not a public officer in the
employ of the Federal Government as claimed by Adeniyi because
the evidence before it showed that Olujimi as a non-executive member of
the NCC board was on part-time basis.
It held
that the PDP senator was not a public servant as envisaged in the First
Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), adding that the evidence
before it was “iron cast and rock solid.”
Having
resolved the first issue in Olujimi’s favour, the tribunal said the
second question of whether the first respondent resigned her appointment
as a board member of NCC did not arise.
Justice
Obayi said the second question had become “academic, speculative and
theoretically serves no purpose. The petition lacks merit and it is
accordingly dismissed.”
Adeniyi has, however, signified his intent to file an appeal against the tribunal judgment.
Igbos, Reject Ministerial Appointment from Buhari — Ohanaeze
"We had a meeting of a select group with Ohanaeze NEC to discuss Igbo day celebration...
Pro-Saraki groups barricade National Assembly
Hundreds
of protesters on Tuesday barricaded the entrance of the National
Assembly in Abuja singing solidarity songs in support of the embattled
Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki. They also warned anti-graft
agencies to desist from being used against perceived “political
enemies.”
They carried placards with different inscriptions such as, “Enough is enough, we support Saraki and Ekweremadu.”
Saraki is
facing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal over alleged falsification
of documents in his assets declaration form when he was governor in
Kwara State.
Details Later…
Jack Warner, former vice president of FIFA, banned from football for life by FIFA.
![Blatter had disgraced FIFA by his actions, according to the now-banned Warner [AP]](http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2015/9/29/658e42f171b44cb99ebf4686d0d8595b_18.jpg "FIFA bans former vice-president Warner for life")
Warner, 72, was one of 14 football officials and sports marketing executives who were indicted in the United States on May 27 on bribery, money laundering and wire fraud charges involving more than $150m in payments.
In the latest twist in the corruption scandal, Swiss authorities said last week they were investigating FIFA President Sepp Blatter on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of funds.
|
|
Warner was found to have committed "many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential positions at FIFA and CONCACAF," the committee said
Warner is the former president of CONCACAF, the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football. He is currently in his native Trinidad and Tobago, where he is fighting extradition to the United States.
Warner resigned from his posts when he was placed under investigation by the ethics committee in 2011 over a cash-for-votes scandal in the run-up to that year's FIFA presidential election. The case was subsequently dropped by the ethics committee as he was no longer involved in football.
Kunduz City, Afghanistan -
The head of surgery at Azizullah Safar Regional Hospital scrolled
through his phone to the anonymous message sent threatening his life.
"Here," said Dr Ruhollah Niazi, turning the screen outward to this journalist.
"Dear Doctor and brother," the text message in Pashto language read. "You decided not to answer the Mujahideen phone call… As Aziz was killed, you will be killed in the same manner."
The sender was describing the assassination of Dr Azizullah Safar, also known as "Aziz". The mere mention of the physician's name conjures up fear among healthcare workers in Kunduz, a city about 250km north of the capital, Kabul.
In June 2010, Safar - then the director of the Kunduz regional hospital - was walking up the stairs to his private clinic when a bomb planted under the stairwell detonated. Safar was killed while a woman and child waiting to see him in his office were wounded.
An Afghan official at the time said arabaki, a Pashto term for a local militia, was behind the attack.
Niazi isn't the only one who has received threatening messages; many doctors, nurses, and administrators have had similar warnings.
Threats against healthcare professionals by armed groups were amplified on Monday after Taliban fighters raided a 200-bed hospital in the city following an early morning attack.
Heavy fighting has continued to consume the northern province, and hospitals have registered a significant increase of patients.
In May, the French NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) trauma centre in the heart of Kunduz City reported the number of war-wounded had more than doubled compared to the same period last year, from six percent to 14 percent.
The majority of victims suffered gunshot wounds or injuries from bomb blasts.
"Here," said Dr Ruhollah Niazi, turning the screen outward to this journalist.
"Dear Doctor and brother," the text message in Pashto language read. "You decided not to answer the Mujahideen phone call… As Aziz was killed, you will be killed in the same manner."
The sender was describing the assassination of Dr Azizullah Safar, also known as "Aziz". The mere mention of the physician's name conjures up fear among healthcare workers in Kunduz, a city about 250km north of the capital, Kabul.
In June 2010, Safar - then the director of the Kunduz regional hospital - was walking up the stairs to his private clinic when a bomb planted under the stairwell detonated. Safar was killed while a woman and child waiting to see him in his office were wounded.
|
|
| Afghanistan's Taliban close in on Kunduz |
An Afghan official at the time said arabaki, a Pashto term for a local militia, was behind the attack.
Niazi isn't the only one who has received threatening messages; many doctors, nurses, and administrators have had similar warnings.
Threats against healthcare professionals by armed groups were amplified on Monday after Taliban fighters raided a 200-bed hospital in the city following an early morning attack.
Heavy fighting has continued to consume the northern province, and hospitals have registered a significant increase of patients.
In May, the French NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) trauma centre in the heart of Kunduz City reported the number of war-wounded had more than doubled compared to the same period last year, from six percent to 14 percent.
The majority of victims suffered gunshot wounds or injuries from bomb blasts.
Putin and Obama trade barbs at Syria-focused UN meeting
They spoke at an opening session of the UN General Assembly that featured back-to-back speeches from so many leaders - including the presidents of Brazil, China, Iran and France - that it was dubbed "massive Monday".
Obama said Moscow's annexation of Crimea had left the country more isolated and poorer, with ever-greater numbers of Russians leaving the country.
"Imagine if instead, Russia had engaged in true diplomacy," the US president said.
For his part, Putin pointed to the US-led invasion of Iraq and the Western-backed rebellion in Libya that contributed to "violence, poverty and a social disaster" across the region and huge refugee flows into Europe.
They also clashed over Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is accused of barrel bombing civilians and other atrocities in a war that has claimed about 250,000 lives since it erupted in 2011.
Putin told delegates that there was no alternative to cooperating with Damascus.
"No one but Assad's forces are truly fighting IS and other terrorist groups in Syria," he told delegates, using an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group that controls swaths of Syria and Iraq.
'Managed transition'
During his speech, Obama did not explicitly call for Assad's ouster and he suggested there could be a "managed transition" away from his rule - a sign that the US may be willing to see Assad stay for some period of time.
It was
not all animosity. The two leaders clinked glasses containing sparkling
rose wine and dined on caramelised short ribs at a lunch hosted by UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Later, after the first face-to-face meeting between Putin and Obama
in two years, a senior US official said the two sides "fundamentally
disagreed" on the role that Assad will play in resolving the conflict."The Russians see Mr Assad as a bulwark against extremists; the Americans see Mr Assad as continuing to fan the flames of a sectarian conflict there," the official told reporters.
I wasn’t a journalist as Jonathan’s spokesperson –Abati
Reuben Abati
A
former Special Adviser on Media to the former President Goodluck
Jonathan, Dr. Reuben Abati, has said many journalists failed to
appreciate the delicate and sensitive nature of his job, as they
pestered him to react to some national issues while he held the post.
He said this on Monday in Abeokuta on
the sideline of the 2015 annual lecture of the Ogun State
Correspondents’ chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.
Abati, who had earlier spoken on the
theme, ‘Media and Economic Renaissance,’ said some journalists covering
the State House did complain that he would not pick their calls whenever
they wanted to get his reactions.
He noted that some of them failed to
realise that he was a government spokesman and not a ‘journalist’ at
that point in time, as they still expected his scathing criticisms and
personal conviction.
He said, “Once you are in government,
you are no more a journalist. It’s just like a royal court, the king
does not go out there, he sends someone to deliver his message to the
people. You are an agent to a principal.
“The job of a government spokesman is
delicate and sensitive. If you are a careless spokesperson, you will
blow up a country. It is not everything that a hunter sees in the bush
that he talks about.
“But my colleagues, the journalists,
still wanted me to talk as Abati, the columnist or Abati as a panelist
in Patito’s Gang. Loquacity is not an asset when you are a government
spokesman.”
Dwelling on the topic of the lecture,
Abati called on media owners and journalists to be abreast of the
economic policies of government, since such policies would affect them
and their organisations.
He said, “We must prioritise issues of
economic diversification. We must be interested in economic policies, we
must acquire the skills to interrogate and analyse economic policies
and we must interrogate people at the helm of affairs so that we can be
crusaders of good society.”
He urged journalists to put political
office holders on their toes to implement viable economic policies for
national development.
Abati, who was the former chairman, The Guardian Newspaper Editorial
Board, noted that most of the past economic policies put up by
successive governments failed due to lack of dedication and continuity
on the part of public office holders.
He bemoaned the idea of a new
administration wanting to start everything afresh even when the
immediate past government had some viable projects and programmes that
would put the country on the path of sustainable development.
He said former President Jonathan
introduced over 60 economic reforms which, he claimed, had been
discarded by the incumbent administration, noting such lack of
continuity in economic policies would breed socio-political instability.
He noted that the agricultural policy of the Jonathan administration dwelt on the entire value chain in that sector.
Earlier, the chairman of the occasion,
the CEO of Rock City FM and a former Commissioner for Information in
Ogun State, Mr. Niran Malaolu, advised journalists to stop ‘crucifying’
their colleagues when they were appointed as commissioners, advisers, or
senior special assistants.
Rather, he said, they should support them and make them succeed.
Pipeline protection: We won’t deploy drones now, says NNPC
Group Managing Director,
NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu
The deployment of drones to monitor petroleum products pipelines across the country is not going to take effect anytime soon, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has said.
About two months ago, the NNPC promised Nigerians that it would end oil theft and pipeline vandalism within eight months through the deployment of drones to monitor pipelines and movement of oil vessels in the nation’s territorial waters.
It was, however, learnt that based on the assurance from the office of the Chief of Defence Staff, men of the Nigerian Army Engineering Corps had been deployed to secure the country’s pipelines.
The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, told one of our correspondents that the deployment of drones would, however, not commence immediately, explaining that the process was highly technical.
Although Alegbe did not confirm if officers from the NAEC had started taking position in securing the facilities, he made it clear that the NNPC had received assurances from the country’s defence chief that the Army would secure the pipelines.
When asked if drones had been deployed to monitor the oil installations, he said, “No, nothing like that. Working out the whole thing is not one you can say will happen over the weekend or during the week. It is a lot more technical than that.
“You have to involve the Air Force. You have to involve some other partners who are outside of the country. It is a high security issue and is not something that can just take effect quickly like that. We are doing this thing in collaboration with the office of the CDS. Further updates shall be communicated to you on this matter.”
A senior official at the corporation, who was privy to the security measures being put in place by the oil firm with respect to pipelines protection, told our correspondents that the first intervention taken by the NNPC was the change of guard that used to man the facilities.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The first phase of intervention for the protection of pipelines took effect last weekend and the office of the Chief of Defence Staff has assured us that they are going to deploy the Army Engineering Corps over the weekend. This, therefore, implies that the Army is taking over the protection of pipelines and all other security agencies are going to work with them from the flanks.
“On the issue of drones, we should know that we cannot get these highly technical gadgets so cheaply. So, we may say that the deployment of drones will be a medium to long term plan and not an immediate action.
“For the immediate, it is the change in the guard of those who are securing the pipelines that has been effected. Now, the Army Engineering Corps is taking over. That is what has been achieved and is what has been done at this moment.”
The official also stated that drones exercise would have to go through the required public procurement process before the facilities would be used to monitor oil installations across the country.
The NNPC Group Managing Director, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, told journalists in Lagos last week that the corporation had devised some strategies that would check the menace of pipeline vandalism.
