Troops of Operation Fire Ball have eliminated five Boko Haram
(BHT)/ISWAP terrorists and recovered a cache of arms and ammunition as
well as bags of assorted grains in recent attacks on their hideouts in
Borno. The Acting Director, Defence Media Operations, Brig.-Gen. Benard
Onyeuko, disclosed this in statement on Sunday. He said that Operation
Fire Ball, a subsidiary of Operation Lafiya Dole, had continued to clear
terrorists from their identified enclaves in the North East.
He
said the troops of Army Super Camp 11 Gamboru-Ngala, on Nov. 27, overran
the terrorists’ hideout at Garal and Bulankesa Villages. He said that
the troops eliminated two terrorists in the encounter while others fled
in disarray with fatal injuries.
He added that troops
deployed in Pulka, also raided a terrorists’ logistics base at
Ashigashiya on Friday, killing two terrorists while others escaped with
debilitating gunshot wounds. According to him, bags of assorted grains
and other food items were recovered and the logistics warehouse was
destroyed.
Five members of a six-dare-devil armed robbery gang, who held members of
a church in Ogun State spellbound, robbed them of their valuables and
thereafter seized a woman, have been arrested. The suspects are; Abubakar Ibrahim, 38, Sulaiman Yusuf, 32, Ismail
Yusuf, 20, Umar Aliu, 26 and Yinusa Musa. According to the State PPPRO,
DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, the hoodlums armed with cudgels, breezed into
Christ Apostle Church (CAC) at Gudugbe Alagbon area of Ewekoro, during a
vigil, and forcefully brought the service to an abrupt end on
Wednesday, November 26,2020.
It is reported that some of the
congregants were beaten to a pulp before they were dispossessed of their
valuables. The suspects while leaving, abducted one Mrs Mojisola
Atolagbe.
Following a distress call, the police swiftly moved to
the scene, combed the forest through which the hoodlums escaped and
successfully apprehended five of them, while one escaped for which a
manhunt has been launched.
Recovered items from the suspects include; a cutlass, two sharp pointed cudgels and assorted dangerous charms.
The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare has
revealed that it will cost the ministry N81m to cut the grass and clear
the weed that have taken over the MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja. He stated this recently while speaking during the one-day seminar
organised by the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) FCT
chapter.
According to him, the ministry approached the Abuja
Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) for assessment in the stadium,
which was built in 2003 with N53 billion on a 29 hectares (72 acres) of
land. The stadium is divided into Package A which houses the Main
Bowl and Package B which houses other facilities like basketball courts,
NFF office, volleyball courts, tennis courts, squash courts.
“We
approached AEPB to come see what can be done to clear the grass and
weed in the stadium and they told us it will cost us N81m. If we tell
Nigerians we used N81m which is not even available, there will be an
outcry. The funds are not really there for us and that is why we are
partnering with private investors to bring back the key components of
our infrastructures,” he said.
He was pronounced dead in Paris after battling a long illness. The
ex-Senegal international, had several stints across England, France,
Greece and Switzerland.
He was one of the standout players for
Senegal at the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and Korea, scoring the only
goal of the game against then defending champions France.
Diop,
who made 63 appearances for the Teranga Lions, died at the age of 42. He
also played for Fulham, West Ham, Portsmouth among other clubs PremierLeague
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has denied media
reports that it has agreed to call off the ongoing nationwide strike.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday morning, ASUU President, Prof.
Biodun Ogunyemi, also refuted claims that the union reached an agreement
with the Government negotiation team led by the Minister of Labour and
Employment, Senator Chris Ngige after a meeting on Friday.
Ogunyemi stressed that it was only agreed that the union should
convey the government’s message to their organs about the agreement
before it can communicate their decision to the government after which a
date would be announced to end the strike. He added that the suspension
of the strike cannot be determined by him alone.
A news report had emerged that ASUU gave an indication at the meeting
that the strike which started in March would soon be called off after a
meeting with the leadership of the union and its organs.
According to the report, ASUU agreed to call off the strike after the
government pledged to pay N40 billion for Earned Allowances and N30
billion for the revitalization of the university system bringing the
total payment to N70 billion. It was further reported that the
Government agreed to settle the arrears of salaries of the lecturers
before December 31
One Ibrahim Abubakar, a shop owner along Zoo Road in Kano metropolis, committed suicide on Thursday evening.
According to Vanguard News, his body was discovered hanging from
a rope in his shop. His son, Abdussalam Ibrahim, told newsmen that his
father was battling with psychological trauma further worsened by
domestic responsibilities he could not handle, including the wedding of
his daughter that was approaching soon.
“ Our father was
battling with psychological trauma and he is also poverty-stricken. More
so, my sister is due to be given out in marriage soon. We performed the
evening prayer with him, after which he went back to the shop and hung
himself. He gave up the ghost despite attempts to save him when he was
discovered,” he said
igeria has taken delivery of an ancient Ife Terracotta head from the
Kingdom of Netherlands. Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information
and Culture, received the artefact from the Mohammed said the return of the terracotta head after hundreds of
years was a milestone in seeking the return of other antiquities taken
away from the country.
“It gives me profound joy to receive this
very important antiquity, an Ife Terracotta, which is dated to be at
least 600 years old. I am even more delighted that our efforts at
pursuing the return of Nigerian antiquities, which we launched last
November, have started yielding fruits,” he said.Ambassador of the Kingdom of
the Netherlands to Nigeria, Harry van Dijk, on Thursday
Iran's
most senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has been assassinated
near the capital Tehran, the country's defence ministry has confirmed.
Fakhrizadeh died in hospital after an attack in Absard, in Damavand county.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, has condemned the killing "as an act of state terror".
Western intelligence agencies believe Fakhrizadeh was behind a covert Iranian nuclear weapons programme.
"If
Iran ever chose to weaponise (enrichment), Fakhrizadeh would be known
as the father of the Iranian bomb," one Western diplomat told Reuters
news agency in 2014.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
But
news of the killing comes amid fresh concern about the increased amount
of enriched uranium that the country is producing. Enriched uranium is a
vital component for both civil nuclear power generation and military
nuclear weapons.
A
2015 deal with six world powers had placed limits on its production,
but since President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, Iran has
been deliberately reneging on its agreements.
Joe
Biden has pledged to reengage with Iran when he takes over the US
presidency in January, despite longstanding opposition from Israel .
Between
2010 and 2012, four Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated and
Iran has accused Israel of complicity in the killings.
Fakhrizadeh's
name was specifically mentioned in Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's
presentation about Iran's nuclear programme in May 2018.
There
has been no comment from Israel on the news of the assassination. The
Pentagon has also declined to comment, according to Reuters.
What happened to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh?
In
a statement on Friday, Iran's defence ministry said: "Armed terrorists
targeted a vehicle carrying Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of the ministry's
research and innovation organisation.
"After a clash between the terrorists and his bodyguards, Mr Fakhrizadeh was severely injured and rushed to hospital.
"Unfortunately, the medical team's efforts to save him were unsuccessful and minutes ago he passed away."
Iranian media reports said the attackers opened fire on the scientist in his car.
Fars
news agency earlier reported there was a car explosion in Absard town,
with witnesses reporting that "three to four individuals, who are said
to have been terrorists, were killed".
Why was he targeted?
As
head of the ministry of defence's research and innovation organisation,
Fakhrizadeh was clearly still a key player. Hence Benjamin Netanyahu's
warning, two years ago, to "remember his name".
Since
Iran started breaching its commitments under the terms of the 2015 Iran
nuclear deal, the country has moved ahead rapidly, building stockpiles
of low-enriched uranium and enriching to a purity above the level
permitted under the deal.
Iranian
officials have always said such moves are reversible, but developments
in research and development are harder to eradicate.
"We
cannot go backwards," Iran's former ambassador to the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said recently.
If
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the key player Israel alleges, then his death
could represent someone's effort to put the brakes on Iran's forward
momentum.
With
the US president-elect, Joe Biden, talking about taking Washington back
into the deal with Iran, the assassination could also be aimed at
complicating any future negotiations.
"This cowardice - with serious indications of Israeli role - shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators."
Mr Zarif called on the international community to "condemn this act of state terror".
The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said that Iran will avenge the killing of the scientist.
"Assassination
of nuclear scientists is the most obvious violation of the global
hegemony to prevent our access to modern sciences," said Maj Gen Hossein
Salami
Who was Mohsen Fakhrizadeh?
Fakhrizadeh is the most renowned Iranian nuclear scientist and a senior officer of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He has long been spoken about by Western security sources as extremely powerful and instrumental in Iran's nuclear programme.
According to secret documents obtained by Israel in 2018, he led a programme to create nuclear weapons.
A
professor of physics, Fakhrizadeh is said to have led Project Amad, the
alleged covert programme that was established in 1989 to research the
potential for building a nuclear bomb. It was shut down in 2003,
according to the IAEA.
The IAEA has long wanted to speak to him as part of its investigations into Iran's nuclear programme.
Suspicions
that Iran was using the programme as a cover to develop a nuclear bomb
prompted the EU, US and UN to impose crippling sanctions in 2010.
The
2015 deal that Iran reached with the US, UK, France, China, Russia and
Germany saw it limit its nuclear activities in return for sanctions
relief.
Since
President Trump abandoned the deal, it has floundered. Earlier this
month, the IAEA said Iran had more than 12 times the amount of enriched
uranium than permitted under the deal.
Meanwhile,
tensions between the US and Iran have escalated, peaking in January
with America's assassination of Gen Qasem Soleimani, commander of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds force.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on
Friday charged local broadcast stations to always take the lead in
presenting authentic narrative on national issues.
The minister
made the call during a stakeholders’ meeting with members of the
Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) in Abuja.
Speaking on
the Cable News Network (CNN) report on the #EndSARS campaign and alleged
killing of the protesters at Lekki tollgate in Lagos, Mohammed said
local stations would have dictated the pace by reporting the incident
objectively.
He said: “The lesson to draw from CNN’s faux pas on
its report of the #EndSARS protest is that it magnifies the failure or
inadequacy of our own broadcast organisations.
“In the wake of our
spat with CNN, people are asking: Why didn’t our own broadcast stations
take the lead in reporting the incident at Lekki?
“Why didn’t they take the lead in presenting an authentic narrative?
“Why
must we allow the foreign broadcast stations, some of which didn’t even
have correspondents on ground, to dictate the pace, thus misleading the
world?
“These are questions begging for answers and I think for
BON, this must form part of their review of the coverage of the whole
crisis.”
The minister also cautioned local broadcast stations against the use of unverified videos for their reports.
He said the non-adherence to the basic tenets of journalism had combined to land CNN in trouble.
“This station has been caught in the web of fake news
and disinformation, after it relied heavily on videos it took from
social media for a supposed exclusive investigation on the incident at
the Lekki tollgate on October 20.
“The station was also found to
be inconsistent. After tweeting, without a shred of evidence, from its
verified handle on October 23 that soldiers killed 38 peaceful
protesters at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, the same station now
said only one person was killed.
“It is baffling that an organisation like CNN will rely on unauthenticated videos to carry out an investigation.
“More worrisome is that an international broadcaster like CNN will
switch casualty figures so casually without a credible source.
“This is why we have written a letter to CNN asking it to use its own internal mechanism to probe its investigation.”
Mohammed said the Federal Government had received the CNN acknowledgment on the petition and awaiting the outcome of its probe.
He
said the government would not sit by and allow any news organisation to
set Nigeria on fire with irresponsible and unprofessional reporting.
A 19-year-old Indonesian man, collapsed and begged for mercy as he
was flogged nearly 150 times on Thursday, November 26, for raping a
child in a province where public whipping is a common punishment for
violating Islamic law.
