Creating A Sustainable And Accountable Democratic System In Nigeria

Image via Vanguard

BY PATRICK DELE COLE

I am very worried about the state of Nigeria’s democracy. Not because I think that we have witnessed anything unusual in our 2019 elections, but because we think it is unusual. We seem to think that our democratic process took a step back during this political process.

It didn’t. It has always been this way. All we have seen is the exploitation of the same flaws that have existed for a very long time, and which ultimately have the potential to create such division, that our integrity as a nation is under threat.

For a young, and immature democracy, and that is what we remain, there is a certain expectation that the system will have flaws. That it will be imperfect. But the requirement for the population to continue to believe in that system is that it shows progress towards a better, more inclusive, more representative solution to our democratic needs.

To understand the trajectory of this problem, we just need to look at voter turnout in our presidential and then gubernatorial elections. In 2015, voter- turnout at the national level, as a percentage of registered voters, was around 40 per cent. I think 69 million registered voters resulted in approximately 30 million votes. In 2019, with registered voters up to over 80 million, we saw fewer votes.

As a simple metric, when more people have the ability to vote, and less do, there is something wrong with the system. Less people have belief in its integrity, less people believe that if they vote it will change anything; more people feel that voting puts them at risk and so we end up with a government that is elected by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. Continuing that journey only has one result: Government by the few over the many.

Despite the disappointing trajectory, I do not believe that all is lost. There are solutions to these problems, which with proper leadership can be implemented quickly. I want to talk about four key areas of intervention that can put us on the right track, and I hope that this triggers some debate. I am not taking a partisan position. These views are expressed with no agenda beyond the desire to see that some of the fundamental building blocks our nation needs to thrive, are built.

The starting point, and the focus of this article, is a clear understanding of the numbers, and that starts at the very basic question about our population, its size, its growth rate and its geographic diversity. We must know how many people live in Nigeria, where they live and some basic information about them. You cannot operate an independent, transparent and accountable political system without this. I will present some views on how to solve this later on.

The second intervention is the depth of political, and broader, education of our people. The manipulation of elections is only possible because the population allows it. Whether you are a hired thug, a vote seller, a compromised agent, a greedy INEC official or an intimidated activist, your complicity in a broken system starts from a lack of understanding, and is extenuated by a lack of belief in its integrity. Which brings me to the third intervention? We must take action to reform the structure, number and governance of our political parties. They must be accountable and the rules that govern them must be enforced.

Finally, we must make some changes to the voting system that we use. I don’t think it is possible for any truly independent commentator to look at how the elections were conducted and claim that the system works. It absolutely does not. It remains hugely susceptible to manipulation. By both sides. But some simple reforms, the more nuanced use of technology, and a voters database that reflects the actual population would dramatically enhance the integrity of the process.
I will interrogate each of these themes in individual articles over the coming weeks, and I want to reiterate that this process is one of reflection. It has no political bias. I have spent nearly five decades in pursuit of a system that can empower Nigeria to achieve its potential.

I have seen and understand many of our mistakes. I know the flaws that exist that politicians retain, in order to exploit, and I believe that failing to address them means that the ethnic, religious, demographic and kleptocratic drivers that seek to exploit division, will remain in the ascendancy, with dire consequences.

I believe that they can be countered. That investments in education, political institutions, data and technology are the solution and that with the appropriate political will can be achieved quickly.

SOURCE: VANGUARD

Antibiotic Resistance Is Not New – It Existed Long Before People Used Drugs To Kill Bacteria

Antibiotic resistance can spread between microbes within hours. Lightspring/Shutterstock.com

BY IVAN ERILL

THE CONVERSATION

Imagine a world where your odds of surviving minor surgery were one to three. A world in which a visit to the dentist could spell disaster. This is the world into which your great-grandmother was born. And if humanity loses the fight against antibiotic resistance, this is a world your grandchildren may well end up revisiting.

Antibiotics changed the world in more ways than one. They made surgery routine and childbirth safer. Intensive farming was born. For decades, antibiotics have effectively killed or stopped the growth of disease-causing bacteria. Yet it was always clear that this would be a rough fight. Bacteria breed fast, and that means that they adapt rapidly. The emergence of antibiotic resistance was predicted by none other than Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, less than a year after the first batch of penicillin was mass produced.

Yet, contrary to popular belief, antibiotic resistance did not evolve recently, or in response to our use and misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals. Antibiotic resistance first evolved millions of years ago, and in the most mundane of places.

I am a bioinformatician, and my lab studies the evolution of bacterial genomes. With antibiotic resistance becoming a major threat, I’m trying to figure out how resistance to antibiotics emerges and spreads among bacterial populations.
A billion-years-old arms race

Most antibiotics are naturally produced by bacteria living in soil. They produce these deadly chemical compounds to fend off competing species. Yet, in the long game that is evolution, competing species are unlikely to sit idly by. Any mutant capable of tolerating a minimal quantity of the antibiotic will have a survival advantage and will be selected for – over generations this will produce organisms that are highly resistant.

So it’s a foregone conclusion that antibiotic resistance, for any antibiotic researchers might ever discover, is likely already out there. Yet people keep talking about the evolution of antibiotic resistance as a recent phenomenon. Why?

Resistance can and does evolve when bacteria are persistently exposed to a new antibiotic they have never encountered. Let’s call this the old-fashioned evolutionary road. Second, when bacteria are exposed to a novel antibiotic and are in contact with bacteria already resistant to this antibiotic, it is just a matter of time before they get cozy and trade genes. And, importantly, once genes have been packaged for trading, they become easier and easier to share. Bacteria then meet other bacteria, which meet more bacteria, until one of them eventually meets you.
The rise and fall of sulfa drugs

For all their might, antibiotics are not the only substances capable of effectively killing bacteria (without killing us). A decade before the mass production of penicillin, sulfonamide drugs became the first commercial antibacterial agent. Sulfa drugs act by blocking an enzyme – called DHPS – that is essential for bacteria to grow and multiply.

Sulfa drugs are not antibiotics. No known organism produces them. They are chemotherapeutic agents synthesized by humans. No natural producer means no billion-year-old arms race and no pool of ancient resistance genes. We would expect bacteria to evolve resistance to sulfa drugs via the good old-fashioned way. And they did.

Just a few years after their commercial introduction, the first cases of resistance to sulfa drugs were reported. Mutations to the bacterial DHPS enzyme made sulfa drugs ineffective. Then penicillin and the antibiotic era came about. Sulfa drugs were relegated to a secondary role in medicine, but they gained popularity as cheap antimicrobials in animal husbandry. By the 1980s resistance to sulfa drugs was rampant and worldwide. What had happened?
At odds with resistance

To answer this question our research team took sequences of sulfa drug resistance genes from disease-causing bacteria and compared them to millions of “normal” versions of the DHPS enzyme in nonpathogenic bacteria.

The team identified two large groups of bacteria that had DHPS enzymes resistant to sulfa drugs. By studying their DNA sequences, we were able to show that these resistant DHPS enzymes had been present in these two groups of bacteria for at least 500 million years. Yet sulfa drugs were first synthesized in the 1910s. How could resistance be around 500 million years ago? And how did these resistance genes find their way into the disease-causing bacteria plaguing hospitals worldwide?

The clues left in gene sequences are too fuzzy to conclusively answer the latter, but we can certainly speculate. The bacteria we identified as harboring these ancient sulfa drug resistance genes are all soil and freshwater bacteria that thrive under the well-irrigated subsoil of farms. And farmers have been adding huge amounts of sulfa drugs to animal feedfor the past 50 years.

The sublethal concentrations of sulfa drugs in the soil are the perfect setting for resistance genes to be transferred from these ancient resistant bacterial populations to other bacteria. All it takes is for one lucky bacterium to meet one of these ancient resistant ones in the subsoil. They trade some genes, one bacterium to the next, and resistance spreads until a newly minted resistant bacterium eventually makes it to the groundwater supply you drink from. You do the math.
Nothing new under the sun

As for why sulfa drug resistance genes would be around 500 million years ago, there are two plausible explanations. On the one hand, it could be that 500 million years ago there was a bacterium that synthesized sulfa drugs, which would explain the evolution of resistance. However, the lack of remnants from such a biosynthetic pathway makes this unlikely.

On the other hand, resistant bacteria may have been around just by chance. The argument here is that there are so many bacteria, and such diversity, that chances are that some of them are going to be resistant to anything scientists come up with. This is a sobering thought.

Then again, this is already the baseline for antibiotics. Like climate change, antibiotic resistance is one of those problems that always seem to be a couple decades away. And it may well be. A turning point for me in the climate change debate was a decade-old opinion piece in New Scientist. It stated that we should make every possible effort to prevent climate change, especially in the unlikely case that it was not caused by man, because that would mean that all we can do is palliate a natural phenomenon.

Our research points in the same direction. If resistance is already out there, drug development can offer only temporary relief. The challenge then is not to quell resistance, but to avoid its spread. It is a big challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Not feeding wonder drugs to pigs would do nicely, for starters.

This Article Is Republished From The Conversation Under The Creative Commons.

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Sudan Protesters To Keep Up Campaign Until Military's Ouster

Smoke rises behind barricades laid by protesters to block a street in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to stop military vehicles from driving through the area on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. The death toll in Sudan amid a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and the dispersal of their peaceful sit-in earlier this week in the capital climbed on Wednesday, protest organizers said. (Mohammed Najib via AP)

BY BASSAM HATOUM, NOHA ELHENNAWY

KHARTOUM, SUDAN (AP) — Sudan’s pro-democracy leaders vowed Thursday to press their campaign of civil disobedience until the ruling military council is ousted and killers of protesters are brought to justice, but an overwhelming presence of security forces across the capital, Khartoum, appeared to thwart new demonstrations.

The African Union, meanwhile, suspended Sudan from all AU activities “with immediate effect” over the deadly military crackdown on protesters that left 108 dead this week. The suspension, it said, would last until Sudan’s military hands over power to a transitional civilian authority.

The Sudan Doctors’ Central Committee, one of the protest groups, reported Wednesday that troops were seen pulling 40 bodies of the victims, slain by the security forces, from the Nile River in Khartoum and taking them away.

The committee said it was not known where they were taken. It also said more than 500 protesters have been wounded in the crackdown.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s military-controlled health ministry disputed the death toll of 108 killed in the crackdown. The ministry’s undersecretary, Soliman Abdel Gaber, issued a statement insisting that only 46 people died in this week’s violence.

Since Monday’s violent dispersal of the protest sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, violent clashes have erupted in other parts of Sudan. The protest leaders said there were attacks, including killings and rape, in 13 cities and towns this week perpetrated by security forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella of union groups that has been behind months of rallies that forced the military to oust longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April, urged people to block main roads and bridges to “paralyze public life” across the country in retaliation for the military’s crackdown.

“Our success depends on our full adherence to peaceful protests, no matter how hard the criminal militias seek to drag us into violence,” the association said in a Facebook statement Thursday.

Hundreds of armored vehicles of the paramilitary RSF, which grew out of the Janjaweed militias used by al-Bashir’s government to suppress the Darfur insurgency in the 2000s, a campaign that prompted charges of genocide against its perpetrators, were seen across the capital. Barricades erected earlier this week by protesters near the site of the dispersed sit-in were removed and roads were opened. Most stores were closed and few people were seen on Khartoum streets.

Sudan’s ruling general Abdel Fattah Burhan had called for a resumption of negotiations with the protest leaders, which they promptly rejected, saying the generals cannot be serious about talks while troops keep killing protesters.

The protesters said that instead, they would continue their demonstrations and strikes seeking to pressure the military into handing over power to a civilian authority.

Amal al-Zein, an activist and a leader of Sudan’s Communist Party, said she believes only a division within the military could end the standoff — if young officers, for example, overthrow their superiors in the ruling military council.

“All members of the military council belong to the old regime, and that is why we are betting now on lower-rank officers,” she said. “We are hoping patriotic policemen and military officers will act to protect the Sudanese people.”

Before Monday’s crackdown began, the military and protest leaders had for weeks negotiated the makeup of a transitional council meant to run the country until elections. The protesters demanded civilians dominate the council, which the generals resisted.

After the crackdown, the military suspended the talks and canceled all agreed-on points. It also announced the military would form a government and hold elections within seven to nine months.

But the head of the military council, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, on Wednesday abruptly announced the generals were prepared to resume negotiations — an offer the protesters immediately turned down.

In Moscow, a top diplomat said Russia, which has largely stayed on the sidelines of the crisis in Sudan, opposes “any foreign intervention” and believes a compromise is needed.

Mikhail Bogdanov, chief of the foreign ministry’s Middle East desk, told local news agencies that Russian diplomats are in touch with all political players in Sudan, including the opposition. Bogdanov visited Khartoum earlier this year.

From Ethiopia, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council posted on Twitter that Sudan’s suspension will remain in effect until “the effective establishment” of a civilian-led transitional authority, “as the only way to allow the Sudan to exit from the current crisis.”

The decision came during an AU meeting on the Sudanese crisis. The AU’s Peace and Security Council is in charge of enforcing union decisions, somewhat similar to the U.N. Security Council.

The suspension deprives Sudan’s ruling military council of international legitimacy, according to Amani Africa, an independent think tank based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the AU is based. The United Nations, European Union and other bodies are expected to take their cues from the AU’s action.

In practical terms, Sudan now cannot participate in any AU meeting and any AU financial or other support will cease, the think tank said, though Sudan’s peacekeeping obligations are expected to continue.

The AU has suspended countries in the past over what were considered unconstitutional changes of government, including Egypt, Burkina Faso, Mali, Madagascar, Mauritania and Niger. In certain cases, a suspension can last for years. No other country of the 55-member continental body is currently suspended.

The AU could take further steps, imposing sanctions and calling on the U.N. to do the same, the think tank said.

The chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Fake Mahamat, earlier this week strongly condemned the violence in Sudan and urged the country’s ruling military council “to protect the civilians from further harm.”

ElHennawy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Cara Anna in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

German Nurse Who Murdered 87 Patients Given Life Sentence

Former nurse Niels Hoegel, 3rd left, accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, arrives for a session of the district court in Oldenburg, Germany, Wednesday, June 5, 2019. (Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/dpa via AP, Pool)

BY DAVID RISING

BERLIN (AP) — Niels Hoegel liked to bring about cardiac arrests in his patients by injecting them with overdoses of heart medication and other drugs because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. Sometimes he succeeded in bringing them back, but in at least 87 cases they died, making him what is believed to be modern Germany’s most prolific serial killer.

A court in the northwestern city of Oldenburg on Thursday found the 42-year-old nurse guilty of murdering 85 patients, aged 34 to 96, and sentenced him to life in prison. He had earlier been convicted of two other killings.

“Your guilt is incomprehensible,” presiding judge Sebastian Buerhmann said as he handed down the verdict. “I felt like an accountant of death.”

Hoegel worked at a hospital in Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005, and the killings took place between 2000 and 2005, the dpa news agency reported.

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders and is already currently serving a life sentence. There are no consecutive sentences in the German system, but Buerhmann noted in his verdict the “particular seriousness” of Hoegel’s crimes, a finding that all but ensures he will remain incarcerated after the standard 15-year term is up.

During his first trial, Hoegel said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

That prompted a wider investigation involving both hospitals, and police and prosecutors reviewed more than 500 patient files and hundreds more hospital records. They also exhumed 134 bodies from 67 cemeteries, and questioned Hoegel multiple times, concluding that he had used a variety of drugs to attempt resuscitation of his patients, and was fully aware they might die.

Prosecutors noted that many of Hoegel’s victims were not terminally ill patients, but were on the path to recovery.

“The fact is sometimes the worst fantasy is not enough to describe the truth,” Buehrmann said.

In all, Hoegel was tried in Oldenburg on 100 counts of murder, but the court found him not guilty on 15 counts for lack of evidence, which Buerhmann noted with regret to the family members present.

“We were not able to shine light through part of the fog that lay over this trial,” Buehrmann said. “That also fills with a certain sadness.”

Pleas are not entered in the German system but during the seven-month trial, Hoegel admitted to 43 of the killings, disputed five and said he couldn’t remember the other 52.

Hoegel testified that he had a “protected” childhood, free of violence. He said his grandmother and his father, who were both nurses, had been his role models for going into the profession.

“Now I sit here fully convinced that I want to give every relative an answer,” Hoegel said during the trial. “I am really sorry.”

An expert testified during the trial that while Hoegel suffered from personality disorders, he was psychologically competent to stand trial and serve his sentence.

In his closing statement to the court on Wednesday, Hoegel reiterated his earlier apology, expressing shame and remorse, and saying he realized how much pain and suffering he had caused with his “terrible deeds.”

“To each and every one of you I sincerely apologize for all that I have done,” he said.

D-Day 75: Nations Honor Veterans, Memory Of Fallen Troops

World War II reenactors walk down to Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France, at dawn on Thursday, June 6, 2019 during commemorations of the 75th anniversary of D-Day. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

BY RAF CASERT, JOHN LEICESTER

OMAHA BEACH, FRANCE (AP) — With the silence of remembrance and respect, nations honored the memory of the fallen and the singular bravery of all Allied troops who sloshed through bloodied water to the landing beaches of Normandy, a tribute of thanks 75 years after the massive D-Day assault that doomed the Nazi occupation of France and portended the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.

French President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump praised the soldiers and airmen, the survivors and those who lost their lives, in powerful speeches Thursday that credited the June 6, 1944 surprise air and sea operation that brought tens of thousands of men to Normandy, each not knowing whether he would survive the day.

“You are the pride of our nation, you are the glory of our republic and we thank you from the bottom of our heart,” Trump said, of the “warriors” of an “epic battle” engaged in the ultimate fight of good against evil.

In his speech, Macron praised the “unthinkable courage,” ″the generosity” of the soldiers and “the strength of spirit” that made them press on “to help men and women they didn’t know, to liberate a land most hadn’t seen before, for no other cause but freedom, democracy.”

He expressed France’s debt to the United States for freeing his country from the reign of the Nazis. Macron awarded five American veterans with the Chevalier of Legion of Honor, France’s highest award.

“We know what we owe to you vets, our freedom,” he said, switching from French to English. “On behalf of my nation I just want to say ‘thank you.’”

Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on D-Day. Of those 73,000 were from the United States, 83,000 from Britain and Canada.

The second day of ceremonies moved to France after spirited commemorations in Portsmouth, England, the main embarkation point for the transport boats.

Leaders, veterans, their families and the grateful from France, Europe and elsewhere were present for the solemn day that began under a radiant sun.

At dawn, hundreds of people, civilians and military alike, hailing from around the world, gathered at the water’s edge, remembering the troops who stormed the fortified Normandy beaches to help turn the tide of the war and give birth to a new Europe.

Dick Jansen, 60, from the Netherlands, drank Canadian whisky from an enamel cup on the water’s edge. Others scattered carnations into the waves. Randall Atanay, a medic’s son who tended the dying and injured, waded barefoot into the water near Omaha Beach — the first of five code-named beaches where the waters ran red the morning of June 6, 1944.

Up to 12,000 people gathered hours later at the ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery, where Macron and Trump spoke. U.S. veterans, their numbers fast diminishing as years pass, were the guests of honor.

Rows of white crosses and Stars of David where more than 9,380 of the fallen are buried stretched before the guests on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach.

Britain’s Prince Charles, his wife Camilla and Prime Minister Theresa May attended a service of remembrance at the medieval cathedral in Bayeux, the first Normandy town liberated by Allied troops after D-Day. Cardinal Marc Ouellet read a message from Pope Francis with a tribute for those who “gave their lives for freedom and peace.”

At daybreak, a lone piper played in Mulberry Harbor, exactly 75 years after British troops came ashore at Gold Beach.

“It is sobering, surreal to be able to stand here on this beach and admire the beautiful sunrise where they came ashore, being shot at, facing unspeakable atrocities,” said 44-year-old former U.S. paratrooper Richard Clapp, of Julian, North Carolina.

Gratitude was a powerful common theme.

Macron thanked those who did not survive the assault “so that France could become free again” at an earlier ceremony overlooking Gold Beach with British Prime Minister Theresa May and uniformed veterans to lay the cornerstone of a new memorial that will record the names of thousands of troops under British command who died on D-Day and ensuing Battle of Normandy.

“If one day can be said to have determined the fate of generations to come, in France, in Britain, in Europe and the world, that day was the 6th of June, 1944,” May said.

“As the sun rose that morning,” she said, not one of the thousands of men arriving in Normandy “knew whether they would still be alive when the sun set once again.”

Passing on memories is especially urgent, with hundreds of World War II veterans now dyingevery day.

A group of five Americans parachuted into Normandy on Wednesday as part of a commemorative jump, and showed up on the beach Thursday morning still wearing their jumpsuits, all World War II-era uniforms, and held an American flag. All five said they fear that the feats and sacrifices of D-Day are being forgotten.

“I have all kinds of friends buried,” said William Tymchuk, 98, who served with the 4th Canadian Armored Division during some of the deadliest fighting of the brutal campaign after the Normandy landings.

“They were young. They got killed. They couldn’t come home,” Tymchuk, who was back in Normandy, continued.

“Sorry,” he said, tearing up. “They couldn’t even know what life is all about.”

The biggest-ever air and seaborne invasion took place on D-Day, involving more than 150,000 troops that day itself and many more in the ensuing Battle of Normandy. Troops started landing overnight from the air, then were joined by a massive force by sea on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats.

In that defining moment of military strategy confounded by unpredictable weather and human chaos, soldiers from the U.S., Britain, Canada and other Allied nations applied relentless bravery to carve out a beachhead on ground that Nazi Germany had occupied for four years.

“The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory,” Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower predicted in his order of the day.

The Battle of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord, hastened Germany’s defeat less than a year later.

Still, that single day cost the lives of 4,414 Allied troops, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were injured. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.

From there, Allied troops would advance their fight, take Paris in late summer and march in a race against the Soviet Red Army to control as much German territory as possible by the time Adolf Hitler died in his Berlin bunker and Germany surrendered in May 1945.

The Soviet Union also fought valiantly against the Nazis — and lost more people than any other nation in World War II — but those final battles would divide Europe for decades between the West and the Soviet-controlled East, the face-off line of the Cold War.

Sylvie Corbet in Colleville-sur-Mer, France and Milos Krivokapic and Adam Pemble in Ver-sur-Mer and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.

Follow all of the AP’s coverage of D-Day at https://apnews.com/WorldWarII

Germany Invests €2m In Nigeria’s Rice Production

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Image: Frederic Stevens/Getty

BY DICKSON

ABUJA (LEADERSHIP) -- The German Government, with support from the Bill and Mellinda Gates Foundation, has provided two million Euros for implementation of the second phase of the Competitive African Rice Initiative (CARI) in the country The Programme Director of CARI, Mr Jean-Bernard Lalannehe, disclosed this to newsmen, in Abuja ,on Wednesday.

Lalannehe said the second phase of the project known as CARI-2, would be implemented in Kebbi, Kaduna and Jigawa states.

According to him, the aim is to help smallholder farmers to increase their income and provide their families and the country with high-quality rice.

It is a project of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development with financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lalannehe said the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was implementing CARI-2, which started in June 2018, and is expected to last till June 2021.

According to him, the project would be focused on business linkages in the rice sector to ensure that the producers were well connected with the markets, processors, rice millers, aggravators and input dealers.

“The first phase of the project ended in 2015, and CARI 2 is being implemented in the three Nigerian states to achieve its objective through the use of the Multi-Action Partnership (MAP).

“MAP is a concept that allows for regional initiative and polices to be harmonised, while enforcing coordination amongst other actors in the rice value chain in different countries, ”

“MAP, which is one of the strategies, will bring together active participants in the rice value chain to identify important cross-cutting issues to be addressed in the rice sector.

“This will result in possible solutions to problem areas, and what role the establishment of a MAP would play in achieving them,” he said.

SOURCE: LEADERSHIP

Figure Of Extremely Poor Nigerians Rises To 93.7 Million

BY THE GUARDIAN

An estimated 6.8 million Nigerians have slipped into extreme poverty in just 12 months, according to the World Poverty Clock. The body yesterday said that 93,720,530 people in Nigeria now live in extreme poverty. It was first revealed in June 2018 that Nigeria had overtaken India as the nation with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty across the world, with an estimated 86.9 million Nigerians measured to be living on less than $1.90 (N684) a day.

According to new data from the World Poverty Clock, a web tool produced by World Data Lab, that figure has increased to 93.7 million in June 2019. 4.5 Nigerians slip into extreme poverty every minute with 47.7 per cent of Nigeria’s estimated 196.5 million people affected. This figure has risen from the 44.2 per cent of the total population that was recorded in June 2018.

According to the World Bank, a person can be said to be living in extreme poverty if they live below the poverty line of $1.90 which translates to N693.5 per day. This means that more than half of Nigeria’s population live on less than a dollar a day.

In June 2018, the World Poverty Clock named Nigeria the poverty capital of the world. In its assessment last year, the World Data Lab noted that the outlook for poverty alleviation in Nigeria is weak, and that an estimated 120 million Nigerians are expected to slip into extreme poverty by 2030.

“If current economic trends persist, we forecast that between 2018 and 2030 real GDP growth (2.15 per cent per annum) will be unable to keep up with population growth, resulting in an average annual growth of GDP per capita of less than zero,” the organisation noted.

World Poverty Clock provides real-time poverty estimates until 2030 for almost every country in the world, monitoring progress against ending extreme poverty which is the United Nation’s first sustainable development goal. According to its methodology, the World Poverty Clock uses publicly available data on income distribution, production, and consumption, provided by various international organizations, most notably the UN, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

These organizations compile data provided to them by governments in each country. In the few cases when governments fail to provide data, the agency uses models to estimate poverty in affected countries. The agency’s data covers 99.7% of the world’s population.

For Nigeria, the general household survey (GHS) from 2012/2013 is used, rather than the harmonised Nigeria living standards survey, because it is more recent and believed to be of higher quality.with statistics showing 87 million people live in poverty.

The latest numbers indicate that since June 2018, four million Nigerians have joined the poverty club occasioned by factors such as unemployment, insecurity, among others.

English Classes, Legal Services Cut For Immigrant Kids

In this April 19, 2019 file photo, migrant children play soccer at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children on Good Friday in Homestead, Fla. The government has stopped reimbursing some contracted shelters for the cost of teaching immigrant children English-language courses and providing legal services and recreational activities. The Health and Human Services department notified shelters around the country recently that it was not going to reimburse them for teachers' pay or other costs. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

BY ASTRID GALVAN, ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

PHOENIX (AP) — Immigrant children in the care of the U.S. government may no longer have access to English-language courses and legal services, officials said Wednesday.

The Health and Human Services department notified shelters around the country last week that it was not going to reimburse them for teachers’ pay or other costs such as legal services or recreational equipment. The move appears to violate a legal settlement known as the Flores agreement that requires the government to provide education and recreational activities to immigrant children in its care.

But the agency says it doesn’t have the funding to provide those services as it deals with a soaring number of children coming to the U.S., largely from Central America.

It’s now up to the various nonprofit and private organizations that care for the children to cover the cost of teachers, supplies, legal services and even recreational activities and equipment — if they can, or choose to.

Health and Human Services says it currently has 13,200 children in its care, and more are coming. The Border Patrol said Wednesday that 11,500 children without a parent crossed the border just last month. The kids are transferred to the care of Health and Human Services after the Border Patrol processes them. Health and Human Services contracts out their care and housing to nonprofits and private companies.

“As we have said, we have a humanitarian crisis at the border brought on by a broken immigration system that is putting tremendous strain (on the agency),” Health and Human Services spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said. “Additional resources are urgently required to meet the humanitarian needs created by this influx - to both sustain critical child welfare and release operations and increase capacity.”

Health and Human Services is seeking nearly $3 million in emergency funding to cover more beds and provide basic care.

An official at one of the shelter providers said the government notified them on May 30 that they wouldn’t be reimbursing costs of providing education and other activities. The providers pay for things like teacher salary upfront and are then reimbursed by the government.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said his employer was scrambling to figure out how it would cover the cost of teachers. The provider hasn’t laid anyone off, but worries about children who desperately need to learn English and be intellectually stimulated.

Advocates are also worried about the ramifications of cutting recreational activities. Funding cuts may result in physical education coordinators from being let go and in a lack of adults who can supervise children playing outside.

“The kids are inside 23 hours, and the hour they spend outside is a real lifeline for them,” said J.J. Mulligan, an attorney at the Immigration Law Clinic at University of California, Davis, who has visited and spoken to many of the children at the facilities. “Most of them come from Latin American countries where soccer is king, so the ability to play with their friends really brings them joy in dark circumstances.”

In a memo to staff obtained by The Associated Press, Southwest Key interim CEO Joella Brooks said she was working with the government to figure out why the funding had ended and how it can continue to offer the services. Southwest Key is a nonprofit and the largest provider of shelters for immigrant children.

“In the meantime, remember the service, encouragement and compassion you provide to these youth every day matters a great deal. Please continue to stay focused on taking good care of them,” Brooks wrote.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, was critical of the cuts.

“By eliminating English classes and legal aid that are critical to ensuring children successfully navigate the asylum process, the Trump Administration is essentially condemning children to prison and throwing away the key until their imminent deportation,” Grijalva, who represents a district on the border, said in a statement.

Gomez Licon reported from Miami. Associated Press journalist John Mone contributed to this report.

Trump Halts Fetal Tissue Research By Government Scientists

In this Aug. 17, 2009 file photo, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md. The Trump administration is ending the medical research by government scientists using human fetal tissue. Officials said Wednesday government-funded research by universities will be allowed to continue, subject to additional scrutiny. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

BY RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, LAURAN NEERGAARD

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Wednesday that it is ending medical research by government scientists that uses human fetal tissue, overriding the advice of scientists who say it has led to lifesaving medical advances and handing abortion opponents a major victory.

The Health and Human Services Department said in a statement that government-funded research by universities that involves fetal tissue can continue for now, subject to additional scrutiny — although it also ended one major university project that used the tissue to test HIV treatments. That school — University of California, San Francisco — called the decision “politically motivated.”

Administration officials said the federal policy changes will not affect privately funded research.

Ending the use of fetal tissue by the National Institutes of Health has been a priority for anti-abortion activists, a core element of President Donald Trump’s political base. A senior administration official said it was the president’s call. The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

But research using fetal tissue has led to lifesaving advances , including development of vaccines for rubella and rabies and drugs to treat HIV. Scientists around the country denounced the decision, saying that fetal tissue was critically needed for research on HIV vaccines, treatments that harness the body’s immune system to battle cancer, and other health threats, including some to fetuses themselves.

“Prohibiting valuable research that uses fetal tissue that is otherwise going to be discarded doesn’t make any sense,” said Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, a regenerative medicine specialist at the University of California, San Diego. “It blocks important future research vital to the development of new therapies.”

The government’s own top medical scientist, NIH Director Francis Collins, said as recently as last December that he believes “there’s strong evidence that scientific benefits come from fetal tissue research ,” and that fetal tissue, rather than any alternatives, would “continue to be the mainstay” for certain types of research for the foreseeable future.

“Today, fetal tissue is still making an impact, with clinical trials underway using cells from fetal tissue to treat conditions including Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and spinal cord injury,” said Doug Melton, co-director of Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Last year, the administration announced a review of whether taxpayer dollars were being properly spent on fetal tissue research. As a result, NIH froze procurement of new tissue. On Wednesday, the administration also said it is not renewing an expiring contract with the University of California, San Francisco, that used fetal tissue to create a human-like immune system in mice for HIV research.

University Chancellor Sam Hawgood said in a statement that the Trump administration action ended a 30-year partnership with NIH. “UCSF exercised appropriate oversight and complied with all state and federal laws,” said Hawgood. “We believe this decision to be politically motivated, shortsighted and not based on sound science.”

HHS says it is trying to balance “pro-life” and “pro-science” imperatives.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement that the Trump administration has “once again done the right thing in restoring a culture of life to our government.”

The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect lawmakers opposed to abortion, said in a statement that taxpayer funding ought to go to promoting alternatives to using fetal tissue in medical research. The NIH is funding a $20 million program to “develop, demonstrate, and validate experimental models that do not rely on human fetal tissue from elective abortions.”

That idea got strong support from a Republican senator who oversees NIH funding.

“Today’s action is a significant pro-life victory,” Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said in a statement. NIH “has directed funding toward the development of alternative research methods that do not rely on human fetal tissue from elective abortions and I remain supportive of that effort.”

But the scientific consensus is there is no adequate substitute for fetal tissues in some research areas. For example, to learn how the mosquito-borne Zika virus moves from a pregnant woman’s bloodstream into her fetus and attacks the developing brain — and how to prevent that — requires studying fetal brain cells, neuroscientist Sally Temple of the Neural Stem Cell Institute in New York wrote in the journal Science this year.

“Despite the president’s pledge to ‘end the HIV epidemic,’ today’s announcement poses a direct threat to crucial research to find treatments for HIV and other health threats,” Megan Donovan of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. “Ideologues should not be allowed to stand in for real doctors and scientists when the government is making decisions about lifesaving medicine.”

The government has funded research using fetal tissue for decades, under administrations of both political parties.

Officials said there are currently at least three active federal research projects that involve human fetal tissue, and possibly as many as 12. Among university research projects funded by the government, officials said, fewer than 200 of 50,000 rely on human fetal tissue.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research questioned whether the new scrutiny that university projects will face will follow long-accepted ethical guidelines or instead block the research for ideological reasons.

Aside from the canceled UCSF contract, no university-led programs will be affected for the time being, the administration said. New projects that propose to use fetal tissue and current projects up for renewal will be subject to additional reviews.

Former NBA Legend Mutombo Fosters Young African Talent

Dikembe Mutombo. Image via Google.

BY ELIZABETE CASIMIRO

LUANDA, ANGOLA (VOA)  —  Africa's professional basketball league, due to be launched in 2020, is expected to be a showcase for new talent. With the support of Africa-born former professional stars like Dikembe Mutombo, young talent already have the incentive to step up their game.

Sitting on the benches at Kilamba Arena, former NBA star and Hall of Famer Dikembo Mutombo was helping set up a National Basketball Association-supported clinic, to train and observe new talent in Luanda, the capital of Angola, where he made a visit in May and spoke to the young players.

Mutombo is following his roots, as he was born in and grew up in Kinshasa, a 45-minute flight from Angola, before he became an NBA all-star.

"I think my presence means a lot to these young people who are playing the game here, that I am still caring about them. We are following them and we want them to succeed and we want the game of basketball to continue to grow in the continent,” Mutombo said.

The clinic was organized by Will Voigt, an American basketball coach, who is now coaching the Angola national basketball team. After training Nigeria's team, he is helping Angola to build the next generation of players. He instructs and gives guidance to local coaches and young players.

"We are trying the best as we can to give them a fair opportunity to learn and grow. We already have seen what players from the continent can do when given them,” Voigt said.

Olumide Oyedeji, one of the former NBA players who came with Mutombo, believes that African basketball is growing and that it has overcome the times when the game was dominated by a few countries, like Angola and Egypt.

He hopes one day an Africa national team might reach the FIBA world top 10.

"We have a chance; we just need to keep playing and getting better, beside the fact that it must start with each step. I believe we are taking the right steps,” Oyedeji said.

As the search for new talent takes place, Angola hosted the final of the FIBA-Africa Basketball League 2019. Local home team Primeiro de Agosto won the competition, beating Association Sportive de Sale 83-71 to get a record ninth African title. The team was given awards by NBA Africa Vice President Amadou Gallo Fall, Mutombo, Oyedeji, Jean Jacques Conceicao and Minnesota Timberwolves forward Luol Deng.

Now FIBA-Africa is getting ready to launch the first Pan-African professional basketball league with support from the NBA. Anibal Manave is the newly appointed president of the board for the Basketball Africa League, or BAL.

"The concept for this is African. It is not a national, but African awards. That is why we give the opportunity for the countries to have, apart from foreign players, African players as well,” Manave said.

The new BAL is scheduled to begin play in January with 12 club teams from across Africa.

The teams will be chosen through regional competitions and the top teams will advance to the BAL.

Oakland Becomes 2nd US City To Legalize Magic Mushrooms

In this Friday, May 24, 2019 photo a vendor bags psilocybin mushrooms at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles. Oakland City Council will vote Tuesday, June 4, 2019, to decriminalize the possession and use of entheogenic, or psychoactive, plants and fungi. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

BY SAMANTHA MALDONADO

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Oakland on Tuesday became the second U.S. city to decriminalize magic mushrooms after a string of speakers testified that psychedelics helped them overcome depression, drug addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The City Council voted unanimously to decriminalize the adult use and possession of magic mushrooms and other entheogenic, or psychoactive, plants and fungi. Denver voters in May approved a similar measure for people 21 and older.

Speakers overwhelmingly supported the move, describing substances such as ayahuasca and peyote as traditional plant-based medicines.

Use of the plants “saved my life,” said one man who described himself as a former heroin addict. “I don’t how to describe it other than miraculous.”

Some offered mystical descriptions of the hallucinogens as providing spiritual healing.

The vote makes the investigation and arrest of adults who grow, possess, use or distribute entheogenic plants one of the lowest priorities for police. No city funds could be used to enforce laws criminalizing the substances, and the Alameda County District Attorney would stop prosecuting people who have been apprehended for use or possession.

Councilmember Noel Gallo, who introduced the resolution, had said decriminalizing such plants would enable Oakland police to focus on serious crime.

Amendments offered by Councilmember Loren Taylor added caveats that the substances “are not for everyone,” recommending that people with PTSD or major depression seek professional help before using them and that people “don’t go solo” but seek expert guidance and have a trusted friend present during the use.

The ordinance also directs the city administrator to come back within a year to provide the council with an assessment of the law’s community impact.

“Entheogenic plants and fungi are tremendous for helping to enable healing, particularly for folks who have experienced trauma in their lives,” Carlos Plazola, chair of the advocacy group Decriminalize Nature Oakland, said before the council meeting. “These plants are being recommended pretty extensively undercover, underground, by doctors and therapists.”

The Oakland Police Department did not respond to emailed messages from the Associated Press seeking comment before the meeting. Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick declined to comment.

Magic mushrooms would remain illegal under both federal and state laws. Entheogenic substances are considered Schedule 1 drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which categorizes drugs that have potential for abuse and no medical value.

Skeptics had raised concerns about unsafe use, especially in schools.

To address such concerns, Gallo said earlier, lawmakers would have to establish rules and regulations about the use of such substances, including what exactly can be used, how to use them and what associated risks are.

Entheogenic plants have long been used in religious and cultural contexts. Gallo remembers his grandmother treating his family members with plants, including entheogenic ones, for a variety of ailments.

“Growing up in the Mexican community, this was our cure,” Gallo said. Hemp oils, mushrooms and yerba buenas — an aromatic plant known for its medicinal properties — “that was our Walgreens. We didn’t have a Walgreens. We didn’t have a way to pay for any drugs. These are plants we have known for thousands of years in our community and that we continue to use.”