Following the death of Queen Elizabeth on Thursday, there are Caribbean calls to remove her successor, King Charles their head of state and for Britain to pay slavery reparations. Charles succeeds his mother, Queen Elizabeth, who ruled for 70 years and died on Thursday afternoon. The prime minister of Jamaica said his country would mourn Elizabeth, and his counterpart in Antigua and Barbuda ordered flags to half-staff until the day of her burial. But in some quarters there are doubts about the role a distant monarch should play in the 21st century. Earlier this year, some Commonwealth leaders expressed unease at a summit in Kigali,…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
Britain’s new King has described the death of the Queen, who he called his “beloved Mother”, as the “greatest sadness” for his family. One of the first acts of the new monarch – whose title has been confirmed by the Prime Minister as King Charles III – was to speak of his grief and highlight the “respect and deep affection” in which the Queen was “so widely held”. His words came soon after Buckingham Palace confirmed Elizabeth II, 96, the nation’s longest-reigning monarch who served as head of state for more than 70 years, died “peacefully” on Thursday afternoon. Charles…
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says Nigeria’s total merchandise trade stands at N12,841.54 billion, in the second quarter of 2022. This is according to the NBS Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics Report for Q2 2022 released in Abuja on Thursday. The report said the figure was lower than the value recorded in the first quarter of 2022 which stood at N13,001.28 billion indicating a marginal decrease of 1.23 per cent. ”However, it was higher than the value recorded in the corresponding period of 2021 which stood at N9,712.02 billion.” The report said Nigeria’s merchandise trade slightly fell in Q2…
The Police Command in Jigawa has confirmed the death of three children in a building collapse that occurred in Dutse local government area of the state. The command’s spokesperson, DSP Lawan Shiisu, confirmed this in a statement in Dutse on Thursday. Shiisu said the incident occurred on Wednesday morning in Yakasai area of Jigawa Tsada village due to heavy rain recorded in the area. “Today, at about 9.50am, information was received from Jigawar Tsada village of Dutse LGA, that on the same date, one building has collapsed in the area due to the heavy rain which lasted for an hour…
Tributes and expressions of sympathy have poured in from world leaders and fellow monarchs around the globe following the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest-reigning head of state. UN Secretary General António Guterres said he was “deeply saddened” by the news. “Queen Elizabeth II was widely admired for her grace, dignity, and dedication around the world. She was a reassuring presence throughout decades of sweeping change, including the decolonisation of Africa and Asia and the evolution of the Commonwealth,” he said. U.S. President Joe Biden called Elizabeth a “stateswoman of unmatched dignity and constancy” who deepened the…
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) says it has achieved 90 per cent completion on the ongoing repair of 18L/36R runway at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja. The Managing Director of FAAN, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu, made this known during an inspection tour of the runway in Lagos on Thursday. FAAN, on July 7, closed the Muritala Muhammed Airport (MMA) runway for 90 days, for installation of Airfield Lighting (AFL). FAAN said it would also install the approach lights, runway lights, (threshold, centerline, edge lights) for runway 18L/ 36R so as to return to 24/7 operations. Yadudu told newsmen that…
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has adopted a grassroots structure for its electioneering campaign for the 2023 general election. The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Debo Ologunagba said this at the end of the meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party in Abuja. Ologunagba said that the party also approved a unified campaign structure for its campaign across the country, for the general election. He said that the NWC at its 97th meeting deliberated on issues of urgent national importance as well as the preparations for the 2023 general election. “NEC also approved the structure for campaign councils at the…
Newly confirmed British Prime Minister Liz Truss revealed Thursday how Queen Elizabeth II’s successor, Charles, the former prince of Wales, will be known as king – one of the more scrutinized questions in anticipation of the prior sovereign’s death and one that has carried great symbolism in past royal transitions. “Today the crown passes, as it has done for more than a thousand years, to our new monarch, our new head of state: his majesty, King Charles III,” Truss, who met with the queen at her estate in Scotland on Tuesday to request permission to form a new government, said…
North Korea has officially enshrined the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself in a new law that leader Kim Jong Un said makes its nuclear status “irreversible” and bars denuclearisation talks, state media reported on Friday. The move comes as observers say North Korea appears to be preparing to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017, after historic summits with then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders in 2018 failed to persuade Kim to abandon his weapons development. The North’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, passed the legislation on Thursday as a replacement…
This week, I was in Dakar for a conference on the framework and tools for sustaining democratic governance in West Africa organised by the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel in conjunction with the Open Society, Kofi Anan and the National Democratic Institutes. The context is dramatic. West Africa has taken the African leadership position in developing the tools and dynamics for democratisation since the 1990 Benin National Sovereign Conference and ECOWAS has played a very active role in the process, developing and operationalising the normative framework for democratic sustenance. The Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good…