UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has spoken out against Russia’s “bullying” and “atrocities” in Ukraine during a visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday.
Truss used an address to the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to speak out against Russian maneuvering in the Balkan nation, and urged partners to continue to rally behind Ukraine.
“As Russia meddles here, Putin’s troops are committing atrocities just 700 miles away in Ukraine. The people of Ukraine need our support,” said Truss.
“They need that support from the whole of Europe, from the whole of the free world. We need to back the people in their brave fight for their country,” she added, urging allies not to compromise with or appease Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We have seen Russia’s bullying tactics – just this week flagrantly saying they will let Ukrainian grain flow only if sanctions on them are lifted,” said Truss.
“That is trying to hold the world to ransom, and it must not succeed. So now it is about digging deep, not backsliding,” she added.
“Democracy and freedom must prevail over autocratic aggression,” said Truss. “Putin must lose in Ukraine. Putin’s aggression must never succeed in Europe.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov has said that if the United States decides to get back to cybersecurity talks, “Russia will not keep it waiting.”
“To be frank, we have no illusions about the readiness of the American side to negotiate and develop international cybersecurity agreements. For this, Washington is to clearly express its political will. As soon as this happens, it will not find us waiting. I hope that the US administration is aware of the risks of a further escalation of tensions in the cyberspace space and the fact that there are no alternatives to negotiated solutions,” he told TASS in an interview.
Syromolotov said Russia had to acknowledge that no dialogue was in progress with the United States on the international information security agenda at the moment. He recalled that in March 2022, without providing any explanations, Washington unilaterally terminated the dialogue between the Kremlin and the White House, launched in 2021 in pursuance of the Geneva agreements between the presidents of the two countries.
“Instead of looking for political and diplomatic solutions, the US administration, in tandem with its allies, began to rubberstamp vocal statements about Russia’s allegedly illegal actions in the global cyberspace. Naturally, without any evidence to rely on. It is trying to make us look as the main instigator of cyberattacks against ‘democracies’,” he said.
“The United States indulges in Russophobic propaganda on international platforms, too. By replicating no end of unfounded accusations, it is trying to oust our country from the key negotiating mechanisms. Its aim is to snatch intellectual leadership in the field of information security away from Russia, to remove us from the process of coordinating universal agreements. This is well seen in the refusal to issue visas to the leadership of Russia’s delegation to the second session of the UN Open-Ended Working Group on IIS (in New York on March 28 – April 1, 2022 – TASS),” Syromolotov said.
The United States must stop passing its national interests off as international legal norms, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman told a news conference Thursday.
“The US must stop palming off its home-grown concepts as international rules,” Senior Colonel Wu Qian said. “Pursuing American hegemony is also a mistake.”
“We are calling on the US to look at China’s peaceful development in an unbiased way and accept it. This would benefit Chinese-American relations, as well as global peace and stability,” he said. “As for the rule-based international order, the US is the world’s most notorious offender of those rules,” he pointed out.
Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has raised an alarm about threatening situation on Nigeria’s democracy, with regards to money politics ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Yakubu said that money politics is becoming more present, adding that the risk is that Nigeria’s democracy may soon become a plutocracy for the rich rather than a democracy for the people.
He spoke at an event organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in collaboration with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) in Abuja on Wednesday.
The INEC boss said that some of the challenges the commission is facing ahead of the 2023 general election are insecurity, fake news and money politics.
Yakubu said, “My third area of concern is the influence of money on politics and is becoming more present and the risk is that ours may soon become a plutocracy for the rich rather than a democracy for the people.
“The way money is exchanging hands is a source of concern, yes, we’ve collaborated with ICPC and the EFCC and only recently, we renewed our collaboration with the EFCC, saying that we’re going to do something together.
“However, there are two dimensions to it, when you’ve willing connectors it becomes a bit more difficult to contain the situation.
“On the one hand, you’ve brilliant examples, we all saw this on the social media in Anambra when there was an attempt to bribe voters and the women refused to accept the money and voted their conscience.”
Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, has arrived at Maiduguri, the Borno State capital for a condolence visit over the massacre of over 50 farmers earlier this week.
The Senate President accompanied by the Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and others arrived Maiduguri at about 10:45am on Wednesday morning.
He also rescheduled his meeting with Borno APC delegates to a later date to pay respect to the departed souls.
Armed members of Boko Haram terrorists suspected to be ISWAP group last Sunday invaded farmlands on the outskirts of Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno state and massacred over 50 farmers.
This is even as local hunters ambushed hideouts of terrorists in Wanori village of Konduga Local Government Area of the state and killed two terrorists, while several others sustained various degrees of injuries, after recovering 11 wheelbarrows used in looting foodstuff by the terrorists.
The National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, has sympathised with university students over the prolonged strike.
Osodeke made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday in Ota.
He was reacting to the N34 billion released by the Federal Government for payment of minimum wage consequential adjustment.
NAN reports that ASUU has been on strike since February 14 over improved welfare package, better working conditions and the implementation of various labour agreements signed with the federal government between 2009 and 2020.
He said the students were suffering for Nigeria’s future and education system.
The ASUU president said the students were not being punished but paying the price to ensure that Nigeria had a good education system.
“ASUU sympathises with them, and we believe that with what is going on, if we continue with the struggle, we will have an education system where Nigerian students will have the same lecture rooms with their foreign counterparts,” Osodeke said.
The ASUU president said there was no need to call off the strike when the federal government had not attended to their demands.
He, therefore, called on the federal government to do the needful as the N34 billion released was not part of their demands.
NAN reports that the federal government had on Tuesday released N34 billion for the payment of consequential adjustment for minimum wage of workers in the education system.
A leading governorship aspirant of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in Abia State, Professor Greg Ibe, has described as mischievous and ridiculous, the votes allocated to him during the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP primaries Wednesday in Umuahia, when he did not participate in the said primaries.
Professor Ibe said he had since 30th March, resigned his membership of the PDP before joining APGA, and wondered why the party delegates would be so magnanimous to “donate votes to him during their charade in Umuahia”.
Ibe explained that although a group obtained the PDP expression interest and nomination forms for him, he never filed nor returned both forms before dumping the ‘big umbrella’.
The industrialist in a statement by his Campaign Organisation threatened legal action against the PDP if the party failed to correct the deliberate misinformation.
“For the purpose of emphasis, Prof Gregory Ibe ceased to be a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on 30th March 2022 and subsequently couldn’t have participated in the party’s governorship primaries of 25th May 2022.
“The leaders of PDP in Abia state are therefore enjoined to take steps to correct this misinformation failure of which will compel Prof Gregory Ibe Campaign Organization (GICO) to seek other legal means of redress”, the statement signed by his Director of Media, Sleek Ogwo said.
It further read: “We have observed with distaste the disdainful antics of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to attempt to accord credibility and authenticity to their recently held governorship primaries in Abia State by sneaking in the name of Prof Gregory Ibe among the list of contestants in the election.
“For avoidance of doubt, Prof Gregory Ibe formally resigned his membership of the PDP through a letter dated 30th March 2022 addressed to the Abia State Chairman of the Party, which was appropriately delivered and acknowledged by the Chairman of Achara Mbaugwu Ward 7 in Isuikwuato Local Government Area. He subsequently took up membership with the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and thereafter joined the governorship race under the banner of the Party.
“It is important to point out that apart from receiving the PDP expression of interest form collected by a group of friends for him, and subsequent public declaration on 9th March 2022, Prof Ibe didn’t fill or return any nomination form to the party, and neither did he participate in the governorship screening exercise, which from all intents and purposes remain a sine qua nun for all contestants.
“One therefore wonders how the name of Prof Ibe, who since making the widely publicized declaration titled “Message of Hope and Direction” on Easter Sunday 17 April 2022, has since moved on with his bid to realize ‘A New Abia’ under the APGA platform would resurface in the result sheet of PDP governorship primaries but for the handiwork of mischief makers whose chief aim is to accord legitimacy and acceptability to a failed exercise through the ingenuity of name dropping also known in the Abia political lexicon as ‘gamjism’.
“Otherwise what would make a highly monetized delegate who immensely benefitted from the now popular special financial allocation appropriated exclusively for that purpose forget so soon the person he had been ‘purchased’ to vote for and mistakenly freely donate votes to a non participant in the contest who did not ‘see’ him?Haba!”
The Portuguese government has authorized the sale of Chelsea FC, the London football team owned by Roman Abramovich, a Russian businessman and Kremlin ally.
Abramovich is subject to sanctions by the UK government and has seen his assets frozen.
He put the club up for sale in early March following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying at the time that it was “in the best interest of the club.”
Abramovich has Portuguese citizenship and, due to sanctions, the government in Lisbon was required to approve the sale.
“Portuguese authorization is a result of the guarantee given by British authorities that proceeds from the sale will be used for humanitarian ends, without benefiting directly or indirectly the club owner, which is on the European Union sanctions list,” the government said in a statement Wednesday evening.
“The national position has the assent of the European Union,” the Portuguese executive added.
The UK government has already permitted the sale, which will end Abramovich’s almost two decades as owner of the club.
And on Tuesday the English Premier League announced that its board had approved the sale of the club.
The deal, worth more than $5 billion, will see an ownership group led by Todd Boehly take control.
Boehly has invested in a portfolio of sporting franchises, including stakes in the MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks.
A governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, Senator Shehu Sani, on Thursday disclosed that though he got two votes during the governorship primary in the state, over 300 delegates have called, claiming that they voted for him.
Senator Sani, it would be recalled, had said he would not give money to any delegate during the primary and when the primary was held, while Honourable Isa Ashiru, who won the election, polled 4i4 votes, Senator Sani however polled two votes.
According to the announced result, Ashiru had 414 votes, Sani Sidi polled 260 votes, Ramalan Yero had 28 votes, Sani Abass got 15 votes, Haruna Kajuru had 11 votes, while Shehu Sani had two votes.
However, reacting to the development on his Twitter handle on Thursday, Sani did not only admit he had two votes from the delegates, but he also congratulated the winner while also wondering how over 300 delegates have called him to claim that they voted for him despite having two votes.
According to his tweets on his Twitter handle: “The Kaduna PDP governorship primary has been concluded. I lost and Honourable Isah Ashiru won. I wish to congratulate him. Two delegates voted for me without giving them a dime. Unfortunately, I don’t know who they are so I can appreciate these clean votes. We look forward.
“Two delegates voted for me without paying them kobo. But I have received over 300 calls from different delegates claiming that they are the two that voted for me and want to come and see me. See me se wahala abeg.”
Popular Nigerian musician, Peter Okoye of PSquare, has reacted as a presidential aspirant, Peter Obi dumps the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The former PDP presidential aspirant on Wednesday announced that his decision to leave PDP was due to the recent developments within the opposition party.
Obi mentioned that it was practically impossible to continue participating and making constructive contributions within the PDP.
Reacting via his Twitter handle, Peter said his support for Peter Obi remains no matter the party he belongs to.
His tweet read: “Anywhere he (Peter Obi) goes, we move with him. No time!
“We are following him as an individual not because of a party! We move!”
Meanwhile, a poster showing Peter Obi running for president while former Kano State lawmaker, Rabiu Kwankwaso is his running mate surfaced online after he announced his resignation from PDP.
The poster titled: “For Equity and Fairness 2023” shows that Obi may be running on the platform of the New Nigerian People’s Party, NNPP, for the presidency.
However, the former Anambra Governor is yet to announce his next move.
Abia State governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Mascot Uzor Kalu, has expressed concern over what he described...
