Iran

Lagos govt begins construction of cultural village in Alimosho

admin — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 18:00:01 +0000

Lagos govt begins construction of cultural village in Alimosho

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admin Sat, 06/18/2022 - 18:00

Sunday, June 12, 2022

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Arts & Entertainment - Premium Times Nigeria

Original Article

Lagos govt begins construction of cultural village in Alimosho

The Lagos State Government has begun the construction of a cultural village in Iran, Alimosho Local Government Area of the state.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony of the cultural village on Saturday, Uzamat Akinbile-Yusuf, the commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, said the project would activate the rich, diverse culture and heritage resources in Alimosho.

Ms Akinbile-Yusuf noted that this would promote the sustainable development of tourism as a viable sector of the economy.

According to her, upon completion, the centre will position Lagos as the next tourism destination as it is expected to attract tourists to Lagos and increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the state.

Inspiration

“The idea of the cultural village is to replicate how the Yoruba people used to live in the past before the modern times and as a way of preserving our culture for the younger generation,” the official said.

“It is designed to attract tourists from the diaspora; the project will include a traditional Oba’s palace with a complete Yoruba cultural setting.

“There will be shrines for the celebrated Yoruba traditional gods like Ogun, Obatala and Sango, among others.

“The village will also feature a research centre, a museum for the display of cultural artefacts, and shops for adire makers where visitors can also have their adire materials sown into a boubou while waiting,” she said.

The commissioner noted that tourists could also visit salons to have their hair made in the traditional style or eat at restaurants that will serve local cuisines and palm wine, among others.

Accolades

The Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Commerce, Industries and Cooperatives, Bisi Yusuf, said the project had been in the pipeline and would be sustained by the community.

READ ALSO: Family oriki: Intangible cultural heritage and disappearing art form, By Bunmi Fatoye-Matory

He expressed gratitude to the Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture for seeing the larger picture and realising the project’s tourism potential for the state.

“The cultural village is a project that can transform the community, create jobs and boost commercial activities while engendering prosperity for the inhabitants of the area,” he said.

The Chairman of Ayobo-Ipaja Local Council Development Area, Bola Sobowale, commended Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for commencing the project.

Ms Sobowale said it would further develop the area and transform it into an important tourism site.

She assured the state government of the support and cooperation of all indigenes of the community, saying that everybody was looking forward to the speedy completion of the project.

(NAN)

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President Samia's speech among seven most important at UNGA 2021

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 08:30:01 +0000

President Samia's speech among seven most important at UNGA 2021

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admin Fri, 10/01/2021 - 08:30

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

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The Citizen

Original Article

President Samia's speech among seven most important at UNGA 2021

Dar es Salaam. President’s Samia Suluhu Hassan’s maiden speech at the United Nations General Assembly (Unga), has been mentioned among the seven most important during the session.
On September 23, President Samia Suluhu Hassan addressed Unga’s 76th session in New York, USA this week.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s speech has been selected by American website ‘Foreign Policy (FP)’ among the most important addresses at the assembly and the only one from a female head of state.
Samia becomes one of the few female heads of State from Africa to address the UN General Assembly.
Other head of the whose Unga speeches have been highlited as important includes: the U.S. President Joe Biden, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
In their publication, Foreign Policy asked several of their columnists and contributors to weigh in on the speeches they found most compelling or most concerning.
When President Samia finally took the stage to deliver her speech at the Unga, she presented a distinctive contrast to the endless stream of all-male speakers who had preceded her to the podium on the third day of the General Debate.
In her maiden speech, Samia repeatedly praised multilateralism and the United Nations system. She noted her nation’s dependency on technical and financial support from external sources and admonished that “multilateralism cannot and should not succumb to the virus.”
She decried the COVID-19 vaccine inequality, noting that high and middle-income countries were now giving booster vaccinations while developing countries such as Tanzania had barely inoculated even 2 percent of its population.
“The level of vaccine inequity that we see is appalling. It is truly disheartening to see that most of the countries have inoculated less than 2 per cent of the populace and thus need to seek more vaccines for our people,”
“With the current pace, it is less likely that we will meet the WHO threshold of vaccinating at least 40 percent of people in every country by end of 2021, and at least 70 percent by the first half of 2022,” she said.
President Samia also spoke at length on gender equality, a cause she avidly advocates.
“As the first female president in the history of my country, the burden of expectation to deliver gender equality is heavier on my shoulders. Being passionate about gender equality is not sufficient and as such, my government is reviewing policy and legal frameworks in order to come up with actionable and measurable plans to ensure economic empowerment of women and other aspects pertaining to gender equality and gender parity,” she noted.
President Samia pointedly noted that ‘COVID-19 is threatening to roll back the gains made’ in gender equity and said she plans to implement policies aimed at female economic development and political and social advancement.
She assured the Assembly of Tanzania's commitment to remain a formidable member of the United Nations and a dependable supporter of multilateralism.
Other female presidents
Although most African countries joined the UN in the 1960s soon after they attained independence, with a few joining earlier than that or later, it wasn’t until 2006 that the first African female Head of State, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, addressed the UN General Assembly.
Currently, the 54 African member states of the UN make up to 28 percent of its overall membership. Before 2006, only male heads of State and governments had addressed the General Assembly.
Other African female heads of State that followed were Joyce Hilda Banda of Malawi in 2012, Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic in 2014, and most recently, Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia in 2019.

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UPDATED: COVID-19: Nigerian agency approves more vaccine brands for emergency use

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 22:30:01 +0000

UPDATED: COVID-19: Nigerian agency approves more vaccine brands for emergency use

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admin Fri, 07/23/2021 - 22:30

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Original Publisher

Controversial Sputnik V

Although the Sputnik V was the first COVID-19 vaccine to be registered for use in any nation, it
is yet to receive approval for emergency use from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the WHO.

Approval by the WHO is crucial for widespread distribution through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative, which is providing vaccine doses for lower-income nations.

Mrs Adeyeye said despite the vaccine not getting approval from the health regulatory bodies, the agency had done a thorough assessment of the vaccine and found that the benefits outweigh the risks.

“Sputnik V is yet to receive the EUL approval and therefore was subjected to full six-months review by NAFDAC. The agency did a thorough assessment of each vaccine and were found to have the quality, safety and efficacy attributes, with the benefits far outweighing the risks,” she said.

Despite the absence of approval from the EMA or the WHO, several countries, including South Korea, Argentina and India, are already manufacturing Sputnik V. India also plans to pump out at least 850 million doses, to help speed up the vaccination of its embattled population.

Many other countries, such as Hungary and Iran, are importing Sputnik V, and it has become a key plank of their vaccination campaigns.

Expected Vaccines

Having exhausted the initial four million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines delivered in March 2021 through COVAX, Nigeria is expecting additional 41,282,770 doses by the end of September.

The expected dose is a combination of the AstraZeneca vaccines, Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines.

The Executive Director of Nigeria’s Immunisation agency, Faisal Shuaib, at a briefing on Tuesday said the vaccines are expected from COVAX while the Jassen vaccines are expected from the African Union Commission.

He said: “We have received communication for the delivery of the following vaccine shipments in the coming months. 3,924,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca/Moderna by end of July or early August 2021 from the COVAX facility.

READ ALSO: WHO insists COVID-19 vaccines outweigh risks

“3,930,910 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in August from the COVAX facility donated by the United States Government, 3,577,860 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in Q3 from the COVAX facility.

“29,850,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson (Jassen) COVID-19 vaccine by the end of September will arrive in batches from the African Union Commission.”

He also said 3,938,945 eligible persons across 36 states and FCT have so far been vaccinated.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is given in double doses. A person is required to come back for a second shot, some weeks after taking the first jab.

“2,534,205 people have been vaccinated for the first dose and 1,404,205 have received their second dose of the vaccine,” he said.

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‘Digital nomads’ bring millions to region through remote work

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 01:00:01 +0000

‘Digital nomads’ bring millions to region through remote work

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admin Fri, 07/23/2021 - 01:00

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

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Business – The BVI Beacon

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‘Digital nomads’ bring millions to region through remote work

In the 10 months after the One Year Barbados visa for remote work launched, it processed some 2,500 applications, earned $6 million for government coffers, and raked in at least $100 million worth of tourism revenue for the country, eclipsing the roughly $70 million intake from cruise ships in a typical year, according to one of the visa’s architects.

The One Year Barbados visa was among the first of six programmes targeting remote workers that sprang up in the Eastern Caribbean during the Covid-19 pandemic.

They are aimed at boosting tourism in countries where travel restrictions made traditional short-term holidays more difficult, according to the United Nations Development Programme, which hosted a web forum on the topic late last month.

Panellists said the “digital nomads” using the visas represent a new type of visitor that Caribbean economies must attract if they want to remain competitive.

“The remote work industry in Barbados was announced in July and operationalised in August, so in 10 months, less than a year, we have already outpaced an industry [cruise tourism] that we hreave spent countless years and countless public dollars developing,” said Peter Thompson, CEO of Remote Work Barbados, who helped develop the visa programme. According to Nikola Simpson, head of the UNDP accelerator for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, the estimates exclude school fees, food, entertainment and transport, “which could directly benefit [micro, small and medium-sized enterprises] and
women in particular, who tend to be overly represented in the services sector.”

Ms. Simpson added that the pandemic is shifting consumer demand.

“International visitors want not only to stay longer, but also to travel with their families and have safer and more personalised experiences with greater elements of environmental sustainability,” she explained.

Extended benefits

Mr. Thompson said the programme’s benefits extend beyond the $6 million brought into the Barbados government’s coffers.

“What I have realised is that the fundamental value that we are bringing to our shores is a human resource: that we are bringing people who understand the 21st Century economy, because they are on the digital leading edge,” he said.

Visa recipients are working virtually, but because they interact with residents daily, their influence inevitably rubs off on residents, he explained.

“The future beyond tourism, of our economies, depends on our acquisition of these exact same skills that these digital experts have already, and they’re going to be our neighbours,” Mr. Thompson added.

VI plan promised

Still more countries are jumping onboard as they watch how the new visas play out.

The Virgin Islands could be one of them. In April, Natural Resources, Labour and Immigration Minister Vincent Wheatley announced the upcoming launch of a “work in paradise” long-stay visa similar to the ones offered in Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda.

He didn’t specify a timeline or any specific requirements, other than that recipients would not be permitted to work for local employers.

“The introduction of new revenue streams are needed to propel the BVI into new arenas, thus resulting in more financial flexibility,” he stated
at the time. “Similar to other island nations across the Caribbean, the BVI has realised lower tourist arrivals as a result of Covid-19, and as such the introduction of a remote work programme will encourage more arrivals to our shores.”

Resources

Even though “digital nomads” live and work among residents, the programmes are designed to ensure that they don’t drain resources from the local economy, said Katrina Yearwood, chief immigration officer for Antigua and Barbuda, which introduced its two-year “Nomad Digital” long-stay visa in September.

Clientele

With costs between $1,500 and $3,000 and a minimum income of $50,000, the visa doesn’t target backpackers but “a certain calibre of clientele,” she explained.

“They have to rent homes, [and] … if they have children you have to be going into a private school,” she said. “This niche market is not depleting the government purse.”

Besides infusing money into the economy through rent, food and entertainment, many of the long-term visitors also employ residents as cleaners or nannies, she added.

“And because of the rapport that we have with them, they have no issue, no qualms with giving back to the community,” she said. “And that’s a very impressive and beneficial thing here in Antigua and Barbuda.”

‘Belonging’

Another panellist was Ava Nasiri, an Iranian-Canadian engineer and digital nomad who is currently living in Barbados on the new visa.

Ms. Nasiri told the panel that as a long-term visitor, she was working to increase her sense of “belonging,” which she broke down into two categories.

“One is contribution. And for me, that looks like making certain purchases direct from the farmer stands by the road, the vegetables, supporting small and micro businesses,” she said. “And community is part of this as well.”

Measuring tourism

The panellists agreed that the new visas, by helping visitors build connections with a place, will likely help to increase tourism long-term as well.

Mr. Thompson acknowledged that Covid-19 “basically destroyed what used to be our largest industry. But if we are savvy about this, we can build back better.”

He added, “There’s a big problem in the Caribbean, about how we count and calculate the benefits of tourism. We count bodies that arrive at the airport. That statistic is fundamentally irrelevant. It is more important to count the local spending.”

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FATF review set to get under way in July 2022

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 01:00:01 +0000

FATF review set to get under way in July 2022

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admin Tue, 07/20/2021 - 01:00

Saturday, May 15, 2021

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Business – The BVI Beacon

Original Article

FATF review set to get under way in July 2022

The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force’s long-delayed onsite visit to the the Virgin Islands is scheduled for July 2022, and Financial Services Commission officials said a flurry of activity is ongoing behind the scenes to ensure that the VI complies with the watchdog organisation’s recommendations.

The CFATF, a group of 25 Caribbean jurisdictions, is responsible for regionally implementing standards set by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force that are aimed at combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Its assessment is likely to affect the VI’s global reputation.

The purpose of the evaluation is to assess whether the territory has implemented a system that adequately prevents the facilitation of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing; to identify any deficiencies or gaps in implementing that system; and to make recommendations on addressing any such deficiencies, Alva McCall, FSC deputy director for anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism, said during a BVI Finance Breakfast Forum on March 31, according to a BVI Finance press release about the event.

The VI was deemed “largely compliant” during the Third Round Mutual Evaluation that it underwent in 2008. The upcoming site visit is the fourth round evaluation, on which the VI will be assessed on expanded and updated criteria, according to Ms. McCall.

The visit and final report had been scheduled for 2017, but Hurricane Irma postponed those plans, Ms. McCall explained.

In 2008, she added, the Mutual Evaluation team reviewed the VI’s legislative framework surrounding the FATF’s then-“40 plus nine” recommendations for combating financial crime, which originally were drawn up in 1990 and were revised most recently in 2012.

The 2008 review “was instrumental in identifying the existing deficiencies of the territory’s AFL/CFT framework at that time,” Ms. McCall told the Beacon. “The fourth round goes one step further in evaluating the current effectiveness of the territory’s AML/CFT measures.”

Consequences

The task force’s evaluation could have major consequences for the VI’s reputation on the world stage.

As a result of its mutual evaluation reports, the FATF keeps a blacklist of “high risk jurisdictions” — which currently includes only North Korea and Iran — and a grey list of “jurisdictions under increased monitoring,” which includes 19 countries and territories.

Several grey-listed jurisdictions are in the Caribbean, including Jamaica, Barbados and the Cayman Islands, which was added in 2019 after the completion of its mutual evaluation report due to two main shortcomings, FATF President Marcus Pleyer announced at the time.

As a result, Mr. Pleyer demanded that Cayman “place sanctions on financial institutions for AML breaches” and “show that they penalise those who do not provide accurate up-to-date beneficial ownership information.”

The FATF, however, stopped short of echoing the United Kingdom’s call for public registers of beneficial ownership, which the VI and other overseas territories have agreed to work toward implementing.

Although the FATF lists are separate from the European Union’s anti-money laundering blacklist, the two lists include 16 members in common, and last year the EU vowed to revise its blacklisting criteria to more closely align with the FATF.

Methodology

When the VI’s evaluation process starts in July 2022, Ms. McCall said, the CFATF secretariat will work with the territory to agree on a team of four to five assessors from other CFATF member jurisdictions.

The assessors will be trained in the FATF methodology before visiting the territory, she explained, adding that they will present a draft of a mutual evaluation report before they leave. At that point, the territory will be given an opportunity to respond to the findings.

In May 2023, the report will then go on to the CFATF Plenary, and if other jurisdictions have issues with the report, it can be subject to further review at the global FATF Plenary in October 2023 before being published.

VI financial regulators have had a lot to do in order to prepare, Ms. McCall said.

Besides self-assessing the territory’s success in meeting the FATF’s 40 recommendations and developing a national AML/CFT policy, she explained, the Financial Investigation Agency has increased its personnel to speed up its analysis of suspicious activity reports.

The FSC has also drafted and submitted various legislative amendments to the House of Assembly, and the Attorney General’s Chambers has hired staff dedicated to international cooperation, she said.

Pending legislation

Much of this legislation was introduced in the House of Assembly in recent weeks, with several bills focused on bringing the VI up to date with international conventions on AML/CFT and strengthening the FIA’s power to investigate suspicious activity and shut it down.

For example, an amendment to the 1997 Criminal Code Act prescribes a maximum 10 years imprisonment and $500,000 fine for giving false revenue information to the public service, among other offences.

Other bills would stiffen penalties for drug-related money laundering and terrorism.

Industry

Ms. McCall added that industry partners also have roles to play to prepare for the review, by reviewing their policies to bring them in line with the findings of the “sectoral money laundering risk assessments” the FSC performed on its financial institutions in 2020.

To that end, she said, they can conduct their own risk assessments; ensure they can provide timely and accurate returns; properly train personnel; and be sure they can verify beneficial ownership information, which she said can “make or break a jurisdiction.”

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Brent crude to reach $75 by September – Goldman Sachs

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 16:40:01 +0000

Brent crude to reach $75 by September – Goldman Sachs

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admin Mon, 02/22/2021 - 16:40

Monday, February 22, 2021

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Business – Premium Times Nigeria

Original Article

Brent crude to reach $75 by September – Goldman Sachs

Analysts at the US bank Goldman Sachs have raised the price forecast of crude oil by $10 per barrel for the second and third quarters of 2021.

They base the prediction on the fall in supply and rising costs.

Goldman Sachs said on Monday that Brent is likely to average $65/bl in the second quarter and $75/bl in the third quarter.

Its previous forecasts were $10/bl lower in each case.

According to the bank, the main catalysts for rising prices include low inventories, higher costs and speculative inflows.

“We now believe that oil prices will rally sooner and higher than our previous $65/bl summer forecast because of fundamentals, higher marginal costs — as least in the short run — as well as the ongoing reflationary asset rotation,” it said in a note, quoted by Argus Monday.

Goldman Sachs expects Brent to average $70/bl in both the fourth quarter and in 2022, up by $5/bl from previously.

Goldman Sachs has also said beyond expectations, demand and supplies have rebalanced faster than was expected during the winter and the deficit is likely to broaden the northern hemisphere spring because the rise in Opec+ production delays the recovery in demand.

Any rise in Iranian exports will most likely take months to materialise and this is accommodated within an aggressive increase in the amount of Opec+ output.

Iran: Another nuclear bungle?

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 11:30:01 +0000

Iran: Another nuclear bungle?

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admin Fri, 02/19/2021 - 11:30

Friday, February 19, 2021

Original Publisher

The Zimbabwe Independent

Original Article

Iran: Another nuclear bungle?

The self-esteem of two-year-olds and nation-states is too fragile for them to admit they were wrong, which makes it hard for them to move on from blunders. That’s why the toys don’t get picked up and the broken treaties don’t get fixed and why there may be a tantrum (in the case of two-year-olds) or a nuclear war (in the case of the United States and Iran).

The latter contingency is implausible, but there is a bipartisan effort in the US to make it more likely. Until a few weeks ago, it was widely believed that a Joe Biden administration would move fast to repair the damage former president Donald Trump did by withdrawing from the 2015 treaty in which Iran promised no work on nuclear weapons for 15 years, but not necessarily so.

Why did Trump pull out in the first place? Sheer spite, really.

All the world’s intelligence agencies, including the American ones, agreed that Iran was meticulously obeying the terms of the Obama-era treaty, but Trump was systematically destroying every achievement of the “black, foreign imposter” who preceded him in the White House. If Obama had granted Americans eternal life, Trump would have tried to undo it.

Iran isn’t even asking for an apology, although it certainly deserves one. It just wants the US to revoke the international sanctions that were ended by the treaty of 2015, but that Trump unilaterally re-imposed, against the wishes of all the other major powers (Britain, China, France, Germany, the European Union and Russia), in 2018.

That could be done in a day and as soon as it was, promised Iran’s President Hassan Rouhan, Iran would return to compliance within hours. “Return”, because to motivate all the other signatories to press the US to return to the treaty, Iran itself started a slow-paced series of departures from the treaty terms in mid-2019.

Iran didn’t rush into retaliation. It waited a year first, telling the European powers that it would go on observing the letter of the treaty if they allowed Iranian banks and oil companies to go on trading with them. The Europeans didn’t dare, knowing Trump would punish European banks and companies if they did that, so Iran was left holding the bag.

When Iran did start breaching the treaty terms, it did so slowly and with plenty of warning, one provision at a time, letting the inspectors watch what they were doing at every step: first raising the level of uranium enrichment from the treaty-agreed 3,67% to 4,5% in November 2019, then going to 5% a year later.

However, when the US and Israel resumed their campaign of assassinations against senior Iranian military and scientific personnel last year — General Qassem Soleimani in January and the country’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November — Iran’s parliament took a hand.

Iran is a partially democratic country and the parliament is currently dominated by conservatives who are fed up with Rouhani’s long patience on this issue. Three months ago, they legislated a series of deadlines by which Iran would have to breach more serious aspects of the treaty if the US does not rejoin it.

The first of those deadlines, when Rouhani’s government will be obliged to block short-notice inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, is only two days away: February 21. The Biden administration could head that off simply by declaring that it will return to the treaty without conditions, but it appears that the Trump stupidity is catching.

“Will the US lift sanctions first in order to get Iran back to the negotiating table?” CBS News asked Biden a fortnight ago. “No,” he replied, and US State Department spokesman Ned Price later elaborated: “We continue to urge Tehran to resume full compliance with the (nuclear deal) … because that, for us, would open up the pathway for diplomacy.”

Trump may be gone, but realism has not yet found its way back to Washington. When the US breaks a treaty for no good reason and plunges tens of millions of Iranians into poverty, it is not the victim’s duty to rescind all its countermeasures first in order to prove its good faith.

It would be easy to choreograph a dance in which Iran and the US undo this confrontation step by step in unison, thus saving America’s face by never mentioning who caused it. But insisting the Iranians move first, as if they were the guilty ones, is a non-starter: they may not be two-year-olds, but they have their pride. They aren’t fully grown-up either.

What Biden really must not do is demand that Iran make more concessions beyond the 2015 treaty before he agrees to end sanctions. That was Trump’s game and with all this talk about “opening up the pathway for diplomacy” Biden is edging dangerously close to that.

Dyer is a London-based independent journalist. His new book is titled Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).

The post Iran: Another nuclear bungle? appeared first on The Zimbabwe Independent.

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APC Won’t Implode After PMB’s Exit – Sen Adamu

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 07:30:01 +0000

APC Won’t Implode After PMB’s Exit – Sen Adamu

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admin Fri, 02/19/2021 - 07:30

Friday, February 19, 2021

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POLITICS – Leadership Newspaper

Original Article

APC Won’t Implode After PMB’s Exit – Sen Adamu

APC had been in the hands of the caretaker for a while now. Are you content with the way it is being managed?

Yes, I am most content with the way the party is being run. The structures were dissolved sometime in June last year and they were given six months to organise a convention but that was not to be. They were given more time to reorganise and one of this is the registration of members and revalidating their membership for people like me, who have been in the party for long. Their mandate also included reconciling members that have issues. The exercise is still ongoing until June this year before it will end. I am satisfied with what the caretaker committee is doing. There is nothing new if we express different opinions, no matter how highly placed they are because APC is a party driven by people and there is no way you can avoid issues from time to time. We disagree to agree and also agree to disagree. It’s not new in politics. People should not create the impression that our party is made up of angels, we are not. We are ordinary human beings. I have not seen anything that will cause me worry in the party. We respect ourselves and some of the discontent tunes we hear from time to time is nothing strange. It will get worse now that we are approaching the calendar in this country, where a party will spend two years on campaigns and two years on governance. We have just gone over the 2years of governance and we have started the two years of campaigns. During this period, we will have crises and the political atmosphere will be heated. By God’s grace, we will overcome our identifiable problems.

Most people believe the APC revolved around the president and that after his eight years, the party might implode or disintegrate once he leaves. Do you share this view?

President Buhari is the leader of the party and president of Nigeria. Nobody should doubt the fact that his exit at the end of his tenure is bound to give us some worry and food for thought. We will ensure that there is no instability as a result of his exit. We are working in earnest to ensure that there will be no implosion after his exit. There is nothing strange in anybody thinking that way because President Buhari is the leader of the party. He is well respected and accepted in the party. That is the extent of his acceptability in the party. Buhari does not interfere in the affairs of the party, he just waits until reports are given to him before he passes judgement or gives an opinion and allows the party leadership to implement. Buhari by nature is not a dictator and that is why he doesn’t interfere or exert his authority over the party. There is something mystical about Buhari. It is something that one can’t explain. In some places, his fellowship is mythical. Even when he ruled as a military man and some of the policies introduced by his government sounded harsh, yet the people still loved him. The president’s fight against corruption has also endeared him to so many people. The poor man is always behind anybody fighting corruption. Yes, he has made a public declaration that he does not intend to extend his tenure beyond the constitutional provision. He made that public pronouncement at the party’s national working committee meeting, stating that he is under oath to preserve, protect and defend the Nigerian constitution. The President said this to avoid the trouble of bootlickers, who will want to convince him on tenure extension. That is why the party is beginning to prepare so that another person will emerge in 2023. The President may also help us to be part of the decision to get whoever will be his successor.

Nigerians are worried that there might be war if the South and West insist on herdsmen vacating their forest. How would you react to this?

Every country has prophets of doom and Nigeria has its share of these prophets of doom. God will help us to see that we work so hard in order to shame these prophets of doom.

Most frightening is the way some people, who are in positions of authority and spit out words that threaten the unity of the country. Yes, there are problems with herdsmen and it has now been roped around an ethnic group in Nigeria yet, one of the leaders of this country made some statement about herdsmen that disappointed me. Herdsmen are Nigerians too and of course; the constitution says that anybody whose maternal and paternal grandparents were Nigerian’s from the year of amalgamation in 1914 are Nigerians. So, people are being mischievous by imputing that herdsmen are not indigenes. I dare ask, how many traders do business in their States of origin? How many people do we have in Kano, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Yola and Borno doing business or any other profession that are indigenes? They have huge investments in states that are not their own and we tolerate them. Why can’t they reciprocate?

What is the way out?

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Oscars: Nigeria’s ‘The Milkmaid’ fails to make official shortlist

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 17:10:01 +0000

Oscars: Nigeria’s ‘The Milkmaid’ fails to make official shortlist

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admin Fri, 02/12/2021 - 17:10

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

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Arts & Entertainment – Premium Times Nigeria

Original Article

Oscars: Nigeria’s ‘The Milkmaid’ fails to make official shortlist

Desmond Ovbiagele’s ‘The Milkmaid’ has lost out in the Oscar run.

15 foreign films have advanced in the Oscar race and Nigeria’s official entry failed to make the first shortlist in the International Feature Film category announced Tuesday.

“The Milkmaid” is a Hausa language-based thriller on insurgency, especially as it affects women and children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Inspired by the image on Nigeria’s 10 Naira note, the film tells the story of a Fulani milkmaid who confronts extremists in a rural African community, in a quest to locate her missing sister, and how efforts to recapture her disrupted past proved complicated

The selected films will advance to the next round of voting in the international feature film category.

Films from 93 countries were eligible in the International Feature Film category, the most in Oscars history.

Two African films, “Night of the Kings” (Ivory Coast) and “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (Tunisia) did make the shortlist.]

The other 13 films that advanced to the next round of voting from the category are, Bosnia and Herzegovina, ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’, Chile, ‘The Mole Agent’ Czech Republic, ‘Charlatan’, Denmark, ‘Another Round’, France, ‘Two of Us’ and Guatemala, ‘La Llorona’.

Others are Hong Kong, ‘Better Days’, Iran, ‘Sun Children’, Mexico, ‘I’m No Longer Here’, Norway, ‘Hope’ Romania, ‘Collective’, Russia, ‘Dear Comrades!’ and Taiwan, ‘A Sun’.

The Executive Committee for the International Feature Film (IFF) category of the Oscars had confirmed the eligibility of Nigeria’s official submission, “The Milkmaid”, among other contenders for the 93rd Academy Awards on January 30.

ALSO READ: Oscars confirms eligibility of Nigeria’s submission, ‘The Milkmaid’

The official acceptance of the film by the Academy is a first-time feat for Nigeria at the Oscars, having disqualified “Lionheart”, the country’s first submission in 2019 for not meeting the non-English dialogue criteria.

This led to the controversy of whether or not Nigerian pidgin should not be considered a local language.

Although the Oscars has since reviewed the rule, giving approval for dialogues in pidgin, ‘The Milkmaid’, shot with Hausa, Fulfulde, and Arabic dialogues appear to have been made with the original Academy rules in mind and had not left anything to chance.

Another shortlist is expected to be released in March, ahead of the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony on April 25, 2021.

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Biden: Iran sanctions will not be lifted for talks

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 19:30:01 +0000

Biden: Iran sanctions will not be lifted for talks admin Mon, 02/08/2021 - 19:30

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NationNews Barbados — nationnews.com

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Biden: Iran sanctions will not be lifted for talks

Washington – United States President Joe Biden says he will not lift economic sanctions against Iran until it complies with the terms agreed under a 2015 nuclear deal.

Biden was speaking in a CBS News interview aired on Sunday.

But Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran would only return to compliance if the US first lifted all economic sanctions.

The 2015 deal sought to limit Iran’s nuclear programme, with sanctions eased in return.

Former President Donald Trump, however, withdrew the US from the deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, leading Iran to roll back on a number of its commitments.

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is peaceful, has been increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium. Enriched uranium can be used to make reactor fuel, but also nuclear bombs. (BBC)

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Oscars: Nigeria’s ‘The Milkmaid’ fails to make official shortlist

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