Biden Calls For End To ‘Lawlessness’ In Protest-Hit US Cities

 

 

In this file photo taken on May 18, 2019, former US Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the kick-off of his presidential election campaign in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dominick Reuter / AFP

Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden on Monday called for an end to “lawlessness” and violence in protest-hit US cities while blaming Donald Trump’s “toxic” presidency for fueling unrest that has left several people dead.

“Looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted,” Biden said in a speech in Pittsburgh — at which he also charged that Trump was “part of the problem.”

“Our current president wants you to live in fear,” charged the 77-year-old Democrat. “He advertises himself as a figure of order. He isn’t. And he’s not been part of the solution thus far. He’s part of the problem.”

“Donald Trump has been a toxic presence in our nation for four years,” he added.

“The incumbent president is incapable of telling us the truth, incapable of facing the facts and incapable of healing,” Biden offered in a stinging rebuke.

But Biden’s remarks were also the strongest condemnation yet of the deadly violence that has gripped two US cities in particular — Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon — where protests against racial injustice have raged and three people have been killed in the past week of unrest.

 

File photo: Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks about the coronavirus outbreak, at the Hotel Du Pont March 12, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

Violence “makes things worse across the board, not better… and it must end,” he said, invoking the names of two American civil rights icons and champions of peaceful resistance: Martin Luther King Jr and the late congressman John Lewis.

With Trump trailing in election polling, he and his campaign have sought to paint Democrats as incapable or unwilling to crack down on the unrest, and the president warned voters that they “won’t be safe” if Biden wins.

Biden, who served for eight years as Barack Obama’s president, pushed back hard against Trump’s claims as a “law and order” leader, saying that violent crime fell by 15 per cent during the Obama-Biden administration while the murder rate has jumped by 26 per cent since 2017.

“Do you really feel safer under Donald Trump?” Biden countered.

“Mr Trump, you want to talk about fear? Do you know what people are afraid of in America?” Biden, staring into the camera in a hall left mostly empty due to coronavirus concerns, bluntly asked his rival.

“Afraid they’re going to get COVID, afraid they’re going to get sick and die. And that is in no small part because of you.”

AFP

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Nearly a dozen people killed as herdsmen, farmers clash in Chad

 

At least ten people have been killed in fresh fighting between nomadic herders and farmers in southern Chad, a local prosecutor said Sunday, with the most of the deaths happening during a funeral.

The herders claimed to have lost a cow and tracked it down to a farm, said Brahim Ali Kolla, prosecutor in Moundou, Chad’s second-largest city and capital of the southwest province.

The herders sent a representative to reclaim the animal on Thursday but he was killed and the farmers attacked the herdsmen at his funeral the same day, he added.

Clashes between settled farmers and the nomadic Arab herders, many of them armed, are a worsening problem in the arid Sahel, where tensions over access to land are frequent.

Much of the violence occurs when herders, sometimes crossing the border from Sudan, drive their stock onto the field of a so-called sedentary farmer, trampling crops and sparking a confrontation between the two communities.

On Thursday ten people were killed in all, including the man who was being buried, said the prosecutor, upon his return to Moundou on Sunday from the scene of the fighting some 60 kilometres away.

All the victims were nomadic Arab herders, he added.

Forty-three people involved in the violence were arrested, including six local canton and village chiefs.

On Monday, in another part of southern Chad, three herders and eight farmers were killed in fighting.

Southern Chad, with its milder climate, has long attracted pastoralists from the Sahel desert areas to the north.

AFP

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

China restaurant collapse claimed 17 lives, 28 injured

At least 17 people died on Saturday when a restaurant in northern China collapsed, state media said, with rescuers pulling dozens of survivors from the rubble and searching for others believed to be trapped.

 

The two-storey building used for banquets came down in the morning in Xiangfen county, in Shanxi province, according to broadcaster CGTN.

 

Xinhua news agency reported that "45 people have been brought out, of which 17 were dead, seven seriously injured and 21 slightly injured."

 

Rescuers in orange overalls and hard hats combed the crumbled ruin of the building, images on the CGTN website showed, with a decorative painting seen on one of the few walls still intact.

 

Seven hundred people were involved in the rescue operation, CGTN said.

 

While the cause of the disaster was not immediately clear, China is no stranger to building collapses and deadly construction accidents.

 

They are typically blamed on the country's rapid growth leading to corner-cutting by builders and the widespread flouting of safety rules.

 

[AFP]

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Burundi received almost 500 Burundian refugees from Rwanda

Since 2015, Rwanda has hosted close to 72,000 Burundian refugees

 

Some 493 Burundians refugees, who had been living at a refugee camp in Rwanda, returned to their home country on Thursday, officials and the UN said.

“The initial group of 493 men, women and children opted to voluntarily return to Burundi after living in exile for five years,” “the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Rwanda said on Twitter late Thursday.

According to The New Times local newspaper, Olivier Kayumba, an official at the Ministry in charge of Emergency Management, said: “These are some of Burundian refugees who requested to be repatriated and we acted accordingly. In accordance with national and international laws”.” 

In a statement, Rwandan Interior Minister Gervais Ndirakobuca said this is the first convoy, adding: “Rwanda will continue to facilitate any refugee willing to go back to his/her country of origin and protect those who wish to stay,” he added.

So far, UNHCR has registered 1,800 of nearly 72,000 Burundian refugees in Rwanda who wish to be repatriated, according to the newspaper.

Thousands of Burundians fled their country in 2015 to seek refuge in Rwanda and other neighboring countries due to political and security crises in the country.

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Thieves Seize 9 Million Euros In France Cash Heist

File photo: French gendarmes. PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP

Thieves made off with about nine million euros in cash in the southeastern French city of Lyon on Friday in an armed attack on an armoured security vehicle, prosecutors said.

The vehicle was attacked by several armed individuals as it came out of a branch of the Bank of France in Lyon.

No-one was wounded in the attack on the vehicle belonging to the Loomis security company “but the losses amount to nine million euros (about $10.7 million)”, prosecutors said in a statement to AFP.

“The perpetrators managed to immediately flee after committing the act.”

The theft is believed to be the biggest such cash heist in France since notorious robber Toni Musulin made off with 11.6 million euros in 2009.

AFP

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Lions kill owner in South Africa

 

 

A South African conservationist has been killed by lions he hand-reared, the family said on Thursday.

West Mathewson, 69, was walking two white lionesses on Wednesday when one of the animals attacked and killed him without warning.

The incident took place on the premises of the family-owned Lion Tree Top Lodge, in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province.

Known as “Uncle West”, he had raised the lions since they were cubs and was used to interacting with them.

Mathewson’s wife Gill, 65, was driving behind her husband when the lion attacked.

“She tried her best to rescue her husband, but was unable to do so,” said a statement by family attorney Marina Botha emailed to AFP.

The lions have be temporarily moved to a facility while a decision on their final destination is made.

The family assured they would be “released into the best environment available to them”.

Mathewson and his wife had four sons and six grand-children.

“The family is heart broken by the loss of their husband, father and grandfather,” the statement said.

“They find comfort and peace with the fact that he died while living his dream, being in nature and with his lions that were so close to his heart.”

AFP

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

COVID-19 vaccine will be accessible to all countries, says WHO

 

 

The World Health Organisation has said it is working to ensure that COVID-19 vaccine is available and accessible to all countries once a proven vaccine is available.

The WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said this during a live virtual session of the 70th WHO Regional Committee for Africa.

He said the organisation had been working round the clock since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, noting that African countries now have a preparedness and response plan in place.

“Our continent is facing a health crisis unlike any we have faced before. Yesterday, we crossed 1 million reported cases in the region, with more than 20,000 deaths. The number of cases has doubled just in the past 6 weeks.”

“Everyone has a role to play from cleaning hands to maintaining physical distance, staying at home and wearing of masks where physical distancing is not possible,” Ghebreyesus said.

The WHO DG called on countries to put measures in place for surveillance, testing and contact tracing while focusing on the most vulnerable groups.

He added that countries have experienced significant outbreaks linked to events with a large number of people including stadiums, night clubs, churches, adding that precautions must be taken at these places to minimise transmission.

Speaking further, the WHO boss said COVID-19 was not the only emergency to which the organisation is responding to.

“More than 100 people have now been infected and 43 people have died in a new outbreak of Ebola in the Equateur province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Today we are also celebrating another public health triumph: the eradication of wild poliovirus in Africa. This is an incredible achievement, & a much-needed cause for celebration,” he said.

The WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said countries in the Region have significant experience in dealing with numerous and sometimes widespread epidemics

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Nigeria, Africa Declared Polio-Free

A file photo of children with polio

 

The Africa Regional Certification Commission has declared Nigeria and the rest of Africa polio-free.

According to the World Health Organisation (W.H.O), this marks the eradication of a second virus from the face of the continent since smallpox 40 years ago.

In a statement on Tuesday, the organisation commended donors and health workers for saving the lives of children who have been suffering from the disease.

“Thanks to the relentless efforts by governments, donors, frontline health workers and communities, up to 1.8 million children have been saved from the crippling life-long paralysis,” the WHO said in a statement.

The official announcement is due at 1500 GMT in a videoconference with WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and key figures including philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

“Happiness is an understatement. We’ve been on this marathon for over 30 years,” said Tunji Funsho, a Nigerian doctor and local anti-polio coordinator for Rotary International.

He said it marked a crucial step in the total eradication of the illness at the global level.

“It’s a real achievement, I feel joy and relief at the same time,” he added.

Poliomyelitis, or “wild polio” is an acutely infectious and contagious disease that attacks the spinal cord and causes irreversible paralysis in children.

It was endemic around the world until a vaccine was found in the 1950s, though this remained out of reach for many poorer countries in Asia and Africa.

As late as 1988, the WHO counted 350,000 cases globally, and in 1996 said there were more than 70,000 cases in Africa alone.

Thanks to a rare instance of collective global effort and financial backing — some $19 billion over 30 years — only Afghanistan and Pakistan have recorded cases this year: 87 in total.

– Trust –

Nigeria, a country with 200 million inhabitants, was still among the trouble-spots in the early 2000s.

In its northern Muslim-majority areas, authorities were forced to stop vaccination campaigns in 2003 and 2004 by Islamic extremists who claimed it was a vast conspiracy to sterilise young Muslims.

It took a huge effort in tandem with traditional chiefs and religious leaders to convince populations that the vaccine was safe.

“People trust their local traditional leaders who live with them more than the political leaders,” said Grema Mundube, a community leader in the town of Monguno, in the far north of Nigeria.

“Once we spoke to them and they saw us immunising our children they gradually accepted the vaccine,” he told AFP.

However, the emergence of violent Islamist group Boko Haram in 2009 caused another rupture in the programme. In 2016, four new cases were discovered in Borno state in the northeast in the heart of the conflict.

“At the time, we couldn’t reach two-thirds of the children of Borno state — 400,000 children couldn’t access the vaccine,” said Dr. Funsho.

The security situation remains highly volatile in the region, with the members of Boko Haram and a local Islamic State affiliate controlling vast areas around Lake Chad and the border with Niger.

– Inaccessible children –

The security situation remains highly volatile in the region, with the members of Boko Haram and a local Islamic State affiliate controlling vast areas around Lake Chad and the border with Niger.

“International agencies, local governments, donors — all partners took the bull by the horns to find new strategies to manage to reach these children,” said Dr Musa Idowu Audu, coordinator for the WHO in Borno.

In these “partially accessible” areas, vaccination teams worked under the protection of the Nigerian army and local self-defence militias.

For areas fully controlled by the jihadists, the WHO and its partners sought to intercept people coming in and out along the market and transport routes in a bid to spread medical information and recruit “health informants” who could tell them about any polio cases.

“We built a pact of trust with these populations, for instance by giving them free medical supplies,” said Dr Audu.

Today, it is estimated that only 30,000 children are still “inaccessible”: a number considered too low by scientists to allow for an epidemic to break out.

Despite the “extreme happiness and pride” felt by Dr Audu, he never fails to remember the 20 or more medical staff and volunteers killed for the cause in northeast Nigeria in recent years.

The challenge now is to ensure that no new polio cases arrive from Afghanistan or Pakistan and that vaccinations continue to ensure that children across the continent are protected from this vicious disease.

“Before we couldn’t sleep at all. Now we will sleep with one eye open,” said Dr. Funsho.

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Sweden Uncovers 3,700 False Positives From COVID-19 Test Kit

 

Karin Hildebrand, a doctor in an intensive care unit (ICU) in Stockholm’s Sodersjukhuset hospital walks in a corridor before treating patients with COVID-19 on June 11, 2020, during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)

 

 

Sweden’s Public Health Agency said Tuesday a faulty test kit had returned some 3,700 false positive results, an error discovered by two laboratories during routine quality controls.

The agency said the PCR kits, which test for an ongoing COVID-19 infection, were made in China by the company BGI Genomics and had been distributed worldwide.

In Sweden, the kits were used by people conducting at-home tests between period March and August, the agency said.

Mostly, “people who had mild symptoms or who didn’t feel any symptoms at the time of the test received false positive results,” the agency said in a statement.

It added that it would contact those affected this week, as well as adjusting Sweden’s official number of cases.

“The faulty test kit has been reported to the Swedish Medical Products Agency. It has been exported by China to many other countries,” the agency said, adding that it has “informed relevant authorities in Europe and the WHO”.

Sweden on Tuesday said it had 86,891 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and 5,814 deaths.

AFP

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

US: Protest in Wisconsin after police shoot black man

 

Protests erupted in the US city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, after police shot a black man in the back several times from close range as he got into a car on Sunday evening, according to cellphone video of the incident.

The man, named as Jacob Blake by Wisconsin governor Tony Evers, was airlifted to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee and was in serious condition, Kenosha police said.

“Tonight, Jacob Blake was shot in the back multiple times, in broad daylight, in Kenosha, Wisconsin,” Evers said on Twitter.

“While we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first Black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country.

“We stand with all those who have and continue to demand justice, equity, and accountability for Black lives in our country.”

Police said the shooting occurred when they were responding to a domestic incident at about 5:11pm.

Cellphone footage of the incident shows a black man followed by two police officers with guns drawn as he goes around the front of a gray SUV.

As he opens the door and tries to get into the driver’s seat one of the officers pulls on his T-shirt and he appears to be shot repeatedly in the back.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said Blake’s three sons were in the car at the time and he had been trying to break up a fight between two women.

“They saw a cop shoot their father. They will be traumatized forever,” Crump said on Twitter.

Crump represents the family of George Floyd, a black man who died on May 25 when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

After nightfall in Kenosha, a crowd of protestors faced off against riot police, according to footage posted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Kenosha city later declared an overnight curfew.

Wisconsin Department of Justice said its criminal investigation division was investigating the shooting.

“The involved officers have been placed on administrative leave,” it said in a statement early Monday.

The death of Floyd ignited massive nationwide protests against racism and police brutality.

AFP

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Man Eating Excreta: Ritualists on rampant increase in Africa

Quite dramatic as police arrest a trader eating excreta with bread

 

NIGERIA: Oyo State

Oyo State Police Command has arrested a trader identified as Emmanuel Egbu, for allegedly eating human excreta with bread.

 

It was gathered that Egbu, who has a shop at the Sango area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital - NIGERIA, was caught by some persons around 12 noon on Saturday.

 

This caused traffic snarl as many people thronged the place to have a glimpse of the bizarre situation.

 

Eating human excreta is said to be the hallmark of Internet fraudsters, who also combine money rituals with cyber fraud.

 

Egbu, who has a thriving cosmetics shop where he sells Brazilian hair, was said to have been caught eating human excreta and bread.  Those who caught him with the weird food combination were said to have raised the alarm, which attracted a huge crowd.

 

The trader, who is said to have bought a house and rebuilt it around the same area, was however rescued before he could be lynched. He was taken to the Sango Police Station.

 

The Police Public Relations Officer in Oyo State, Mr Olugbenga Fadeyi, when contacted told our correspondent that Egbu was in police custody.

 

He said the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Sango Police Station had begun investigation into the incident.

 

The PPRO said, “The DPO told me that some people rescued the man from those who accused him of eating excreta and bread. They said they found some excreta which he packed inside a nylon bag. He was caught and taken to the police station.

 

“The DPO has taken over the case and the man is already in custody. He has begun investigation into the case and samples of what was found on him would be sent for laboratory analysis.

 

“He has taken the man’s statement also, and after the investigation at that level, the case will be sent to the State Criminal investigation Department at Iyaganku for further investigation. Investigation will reveal if he is involved in money ritual or not.”

 

[PUNCH]

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

More than a dozen civilians killed in eastern DRC attack

Suspected attack by ADF is the latest since the army launched a large-scale operation against the group last year.

 

Suspected fighters of a notorious armed group in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have killed 13 people during raids on two villages, according to local officials and the army.

 

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group, which was formed in 1986 by fighters based in neighbouring western Uganda, has long been active along the border and, in recent years, has been blamed for a wave of killings in the region. 

During the past 18 months, intensified ADF attacks have killed at least 800 civilians, according to the United Nations, which says the assaults may amount to crimes against humanity.

In the latest suspected attack, the rebels tied up the victims in the villages of Kinziki-Matiba and Wikeno, 10km (six miles) east of the city of Oicha, before killing them in the attack on Friday afternoon, according to Chui Mukalangirwa, a local village chief.

"We beg the authorities to put an end to this bloodbath," he was quoted as saying by Reuters News Agency  on Saturday

The army helped civilians bury the bodies and is looking at deploying more units in the area, spokesman Antony Mwalishayi told Reuters.

 

Local administrator Donat Kibwana told the AFP news agency the ADF fighters attacked the villagers as they worked in the fields in the Beni region.

Philippe Bonane, head of a civil society group in Oicha, said three women lost their lives in the attack, while another four were missing.

The ADF is one of the multiple armed groups operating in eastern DRC, a legacy of the two Congo wars in the 1990s and 2000s that pulled in neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda.

In 2019, the DRC's army launched a campaign against the group that led to an "intensification of deadly attacks" by the ADF, a UN report said last month.

Several attacks attributed to the ADF have also been claimed by the ISIL (ISIS) group, although researchers and analysts said there is a lack of hard evidence linking the two groups.

The insecurity has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.