TECNO, a globally renowned smartphone brand, has once again emphasized its dedication to revolutionizing the smartphone technology landscape with the recent introduction of the TECNO PHANTOM V Fold. As the world’s pioneer in left-right foldable design, featuring a remarkable 6.42-inch AMOLED cover display, it comes as no surprise that the TECNO PHANTOM V Fold has garnered immense attention from both consumers and prominent Ghanaian figures, including Stonebwoy, Adjetey Anang, Gloria Sarfo, Gifty Anti, and Abeiku Santana, all of whom have enthusiastically endorsed this exciting new addition to the expanding TECNO family.
Expressing their perspectives on the newly released phone, these notable individuals unanimously acknowledged TECNO‘s unwavering commitment to providing extraordinary user experiences.
Abeiku Santana, a highly regarded media personality, shared his thoughts on the device, affirming that the TECNO PHANTOM V Fold represents a groundbreaking leap forward for the smartphone industry.
Award-winning actress Gloria Sarfo, on the other hand, expressed great enthusiasm for the phone’s distinct folding design, premium specifications, enhanced camera features, impressive battery longevity, and innovative user interface, all of which contribute to the overall appeal of the TECNO PHANTOM V Fold.
“The processing power of the TECNO’s PHANTOM V Fold is impressive. As someone who is always on the go, I need a smartphone that can keep up with my demanding lifestyle. The speed and responsiveness of this device is truly impressive. TECNO has created a real smartphone powerhouse.”
Oheneyere Gifty Anti, another respected media personality on her part revealed that the Phantom V Fold has set an amazing standard for mobile devices, creating new opportunities for customers and driving innovation in the industry. It is truly the ultimate smartphone for those who love innovation, creativity, and functionality.
Persons who want to share in the experience of their favourite personalities can now purchase the new TECNO PHANTOM V Fold at a RRP price of GHS 11,329 for 256+12GB and GHS 12,720 for 512+12GB storage capacity. Customer will enjoy free 2.5GB of data monthly for the first six months of use and 365 Days Screen Warranty Protection. Additionally, every purchase also comes with an exclusive PHANTOM V Fold gift.
It is reported that a BBC TV director pushed a retired grammar school teacher to death in the street following an altercation over Welsh independence.
After arguing with grandpa Peter Ormerod, 75, in the bar in Burry Port, Wales, on September 24, 2022, Hywel Williams, 40, is accused of pushing him.
The two men were captured on camera inside the bar having a lively conversation before they departed together.
Swansea Crown Court heard Williams left the pub to go and check his phone with Mr Ormerod ‘at around the same time’ when he walked out with the defendant’s mum.
Prosecutor Ian Wright KC said there is CCTV of the two men coming together outside a coffee shop a short distance from the pub before Williams allegedly pushed the older man to the floor.
Williams called the retired teacher a ‘fat little c***’ after he hit Mr Ormerod’s head to the ground, the court also heard.
Mr Wright said: ‘That push caused Peter Ormerod to fall backwards on the back of his head.
‘Having hit the ground, having hit his head on the ground, Peter Ormerod did not move again.’
Mr Ormerod suffered severe head injuries and brain injuries (Picture: Wales News Service)
Mr Ormerod died in hospital four days later from severe head injuries and brain injuries on September 28 2022 after the alleged attack.
Williams works as a director for Britain’s longest-running TV soap opera made by the BBC, the Welsh language show Pobol Y Cwm – People of the Valley.
Williams said he was fed up with the row over Welsh politics which angered Mr Ormerod.
He said he told Mr Ormerod: ‘I don’t have time for this mate* I don’t want any of this.’
Williams said Mr Ormerod replied: ‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again. How dare you speak to me like that.’
Williams said they swore at each other before he pushed Mr Ormerod to the floor in self-defence.
He said: ‘I felt scared and pushed him.’
He said he hadn’t meant to hurt Mr Ormerod, but just to push him away.
‘I thought he was going to get back up,’ he said.
Williams admitted pushing Mr Ormerod when he contacted the police and the ambulance service.
‘I did everything I could to help him,’ he told the court.
When asked whether he used the words ‘fat little c***’, Williams said he didn’t remember using those words but accepted that he had.
Williams, of Grangetown, Cardiff, denies manslaughter saying he acted in self-defence.
Mr Ormerod’s family said in a tribute: ‘Peter was a well-respected teacher and member of the community a very loved and loving father, grandfather, brother and friend.’
The trial which is expected to last two weeks continues.
In response to the Majority caucus’s allegations of sabotage against the Minority in Parliament, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, the MP for South Dayi, has strongly retaliated.
During an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story on Friday, the NDC MP expressed his views and urged the Majority Caucus to refrain from engaging in hypocrisy.
This development occurred following the third instance where Parliament was compelled to suspend its sessions without addressing vital matters outlined in the order paper, including significant government affairs.
The forced adjournments have been due to the Minority’s boycott of the House to attend court in solidarity with the Assin North MP, James Gyakye Quayson who’s facing a criminal trial.
The Majority on the back of this accused the Minority side of trying to sabotage the House.
But Mr Dafeamekpor says that is not the case. He explained that members of the opposite side were equally not present in the House to transact government business.
“Please cut the hypocrisy, you have over two-thirds of your members following the Vice President in touring the Ashanti region, that is why they are not in the chamber, but you are rather concerned about Minority members who are solidarising with our colleague, Quayson in court, Minority Leader in court, Collins Dauda in court. That is what bothers you; but your people following the Vice President around campaigning doesn’t bother you?” he asked.
According to him, article 97(1) is very clear as to the grounds upon which a member can leave parliament, and that they are simply exercising that right.
“Is it not the government that is persecuting our members in court? So, nobody in government should be crying for us withdrawing consensus in Parliament,” he added.
Additionally, he reiterated that the Minority will persist in their decision to boycott parliamentary proceedings whenever a member of their party is scheduled to appear before a court.
By concealing the narcotics in puzzles and artwork, a woman sent drugs to her partner who was incarcerated.
After the guidelines for loved ones sending gifts to inmates were loosened during Covid, Charmaine Orange delivered Dean Wright various substances by hiding them in jigsaw and matchstick puzzles and blending them with paint.
In addition, according to evidence presented at Newcastle Crown Court, $17,000 went through her bank accounts after she chose to ignore the fact that her ex-boyfriend Wright was using her information to receive money from his drug trafficking business within HMP Northumberland.
However, after a judge was told mum-of-two Orange was in a controlling relationship with Wright, he spared her an immediate spell behind bars.
Liam O’Brien, prosecuting, said the drugs supply offences happened in April and May 2020. He told the court: ‘She did so in a couple of different ways.
‘During lockdown, the prison changed the rules so family members could send things like puzzles and jigsaws.
‘On one occasion the defendant sent a matchbox puzzle containing drugs and another time a jigsaw had drugs hidden in it.
‘There was also a painting with paint which had drugs mixed with it. Another time, blue powder was put in a bag and hidden between two pieces of paper. It leaked and went all over the post and the whole of the prison post had to be binned as it was contaminated.’
Orange, 35, of Walling Road, Blakelaw, Newcastle, was traced as the sender as her bank card had been used to pay for postage.
The 34-year-old, who has two previous convictions for an environmental and a driving matter, pleaded guilty to supplying buprenorphine, diazepam and a psychoactive substance – flualprazolam.
She was sentenced to nine months suspended for 12 months with a one-month curfew between 8pm and 6pm. She faces proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Jamie Adams, defending, said: ‘This woman was leading a very hard-working lifestyle and had two children to look after. She met Dean Wright and he was not physically abusive but intensely emotionally abusive.
‘That’s what brought her to this offending.’
Mr Adams said when Orange sought to break up with Wright, he wrote what appeared to be a suicide note blaming her and branding her a ‘murderer’ for what he was threatening to do to himself.
Mr Adams added: ‘She accepts there are monies that have gone into her account which had emanated from drugs she sent in to him when he was in custody. He was clearly making some profit out of what was sent in.
‘He was giving people her bank details. She was not profiting from it at all.’
The court heard her bank details were found in at least five prison cells occupied by inmates other than Wright.
Yaw Tog, the talented Ghanaian drill rapper, has surprised everyone with the unexpected revelation that he has entered the world of pig farming.
According to a report on 3news.com, Yaw Tog responded to critics who raised concerns about his decision to temporarily pause his education. The popular ‘Sore’ hitmaker clarified that he took the break in order to concentrate on increasing his income and participating in lucrative ventures.
During the conversation, Yaw Tog unveiled his latest interest, which involves animal farming. He proudly disclosed that he is now the owner of a pig farm located in Kumasi.
“Right now, I’m trying to build a farm: a big pig farm. I’m working on it. It is in Kumasi,” he revealed.
Acknowledging his newfound role as a farmer, Yaw Tog emphasized that his mother manages the operations within the farming space.
“I am a farmer, and my mum is my manager,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Yaw Tog has also released a new song titled ‘Obra’ featuring Roiii.
The track is available on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, showcasing his ongoing dedication to his musical career alongside his newfound venture in pig farming.
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is anticipated to deliver the Mid-Year Review of the Government’s Budget Statement and Economic Policy for the 2023 Financial Year to Parliament on Tuesday, July 25, 2023.
Mr. Ofori-Atta’s presentation will be in accordance with the provisions of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).
Deputy Majority Whip Lydia Seyram Alhassan announced the scheduled presentation on the Floor of Parliament, on Friday, in Accra, when she presented the Business Statement for the Seventh Week Ending Friday, July 21, 2023.
Presenting the Business Statement to the House, Madam Alhassan, also Member of Parliament (MP), for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, entreated her colleague MPs to take note of the day and avail themselves for the presentation.
She told the House that pursuant to a directive of Speaker Alban Bagbin to the Business Committee to programme the Finance, Education and Food and Agriculture Ministers to appraise the House on the challenges confronting the National Food Company, the Committee had accordingly programmed the Ministers to attend upon the House on Tuesday July 18, 2023 to brief the MPs on the matter.
“Mr Speaker, a joint Caucus meeting is proposed to be held on Wednesday July 19, 2023, after adjournment to discuss pertinent matters. In this regard, all Members of Parliament are encouraged to avail themselves at the meeting,” she said.
Madam Alhassan further recommended that the House commenced sitting each day at 1000 hours with extended sittings that would ensure that business scheduled for the seventh week, particularly the Bills programmed were considered by the House and same passed expeditiously.
“Mr Speaker, it is hoped that this recommendation, if adopted, will also facilitate the consideration of other parliamentary business that will require the attention of the House,” she said.
Madam Alhassan reiterated earlier calls on the Committees with referrals to expedite work on same for the attention of the House.
She urged the Committees with pending Bills, including the Grains Development Authority Bill, 2022; Ghana Industrial Property Office Bill, 2023; ill, 2022; Ghana Industrial Property Office Bill, 2023; Rent Bill, 2023 and National Petroleum Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2023 to expedite work on same for the consideration of the House.
In the seventh week, seven Ministers are scheduled to attend upon the House in the ensuing week, to respond to 50 questions, of which 48 would be oral and two urgent.
The Ayawaso West Wuogon MP said the Minister for Education, Minister for Health, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources and Minister for Communications and Digitalisation would be some of the Ministers to attend upon the House.
The others would be the Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Minister for Trade and Industry and the Minister for Roads and Highways.
The National House of Chiefs has voiced their discontent regarding the conduct of individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) within the nation.
As per their statement, the National House of Chiefs considers such activities as unacceptable and incompatible with the traditional norms and values of Ghanaian culture.
President of the National House of Chiefs, Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyebi who spoke on behalf of the chiefs called on members of parliament to fiercely resist any attempt to stop them from passing the LGBTQ+ bill.
Addressing the chiefs during their Annual General Meeting, Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyebi said Ghanaian customs and traditions frown on LGBTQ+ activities and deem it as an abomination.
“Nananom, LGBTQ+ is evil, we the Chiefs of Ghana have been inundated by calls from our people to make an open declaration concerning the threat by LGBTQ. We the chiefs, as the custodians of culture, the customs and traditions of our people, wish to state categorically that our traditions and customs recognise that our creator, God or Allah and called variously by different religions, created man and woman to occupy the earth and procreate.
“There is, therefore, only male and female gender and no other agenda. The Christians Holy Book, the Bible, Muslims, Quran, and our traditions and customs affirm these facts. It is, therefore, an abomination and against all our cultural values as Ghanaians to allow others to import into our country anything contrary to the above values that we have cherished over the centuries,” he said.
The Chiefs said they will not allow any group to propagate LGBTQ+ in any other form in Ghana.
Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyebi called on the police and other relevant institutions not to allow the practice of LGBTQ in the country.
“We are not calling only on the police, we are calling on ourselves too,” Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyebi said.
The Promotion of Proper Sexual Human Rights and the Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 is currently before Parliament.
The controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill is a private member’s bill that was presented to the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin. It seeks to among other things criminalize the promotion, advocacy, funding, and acts of homosexuality in the country.
However, the bill has been hit with a number of legal actions seeking to stop its passage.
Seth Nayo, a 23-year-old Senior High School (SHS) Form Two student, has been sentenced to seven years of hard labor in prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old Class Six pupil.
Seth Nayo admitted his guilt during his appearance before the Jasikan Circuit Court, where Judge Alfred Kwabena Asiedu presided over the case and delivered the conviction.
Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Seth Vincent Kpodo, Prosecutor, said the complainant was the victim’s guardian while the victim was in Class 6.
He said the victim was fast asleep in her room alone when suddenly she felt someone covering her mouth, holding her neck, and having sexual intercourse with her on July 10, 2023, at about 1200 hours.
He said the convict then stood up from the victim and escaped leaving the victim to her fate.
ASP Kpodo said the victim went and informed a co-tenant, who was a witness in the case about the incident.
He said the witness also immediately informed the complainant about how the victim had earlier informed her about the incident.
ASP Kpodo said the complainant reported the case to the Jasikan Police, while a medical form was issued for the complainant to send the victim to the hospital for examination.
He said the report on the victim corroborated her story.
Asiedu, in sentencing the accused, said the student was a first-time offender and therefore attracted the minimum punishment in terms of defilement and to serve as a deterrent to other young people, who would want to engage in such acts.
For the third consecutive time, Parliament was compelled to suspend its proceedings without addressing essential matters on the order paper, including crucial government business.
The forced adjournment follows another Minority caucus boycott of the House on Friday, July 14 to follow the Assin North MP-elect, James Gyakye Quayson to court.
The Minority says their boycott is to show solidarity with their colleague Mr Quayson who’s facing a criminal trial.
But a member of the Majority side has accused the NDC MPs of sabotaging Parliament.
According to the MP for Kwadaso Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Kingsley Nyarko, he does not believe that all the Minority MPs who boycott the House actually followed Mr Quayson to court.
“I don’t even believe that all of them are at the court as we speak. Some might be in their offices. This is a complete sabotage of the House. A delegation can be sent to be with their colleague over there,” he stressed.
He said the Minority MPs’ boycott is unacceptable, saying they are just trying to disrupt the government business of the House.
He, however, urged the Speaker to continue with parliamentary proceedings.
The Kwadaso MP’s comment followed that of his colleague NPP MP for Okaikwei Central Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Patrick Yaw Boamah, who argued that the House should adjourn sitting.
But Prof Nyarko contended and said “I vehemently, respectfully disagree with him on the adjournment of the House. Because if we do that, it is going to give our friends on the other side the catalyst, the oxygen to breathe, and they will hide under that, to perpetuate their own decided action that, in my respective opinion, does not inure to the benefit of their constituents.”
He continued that “Our colleagues are supposed to be here to pursue the agenda and the interest of their constituents. Nobody bars them or prevents them from solidarising with their colleagues. But I think that in this instance, a delegation could do,” Prof Nyarko said.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) implemented a power supply cut at the Treasure Island Hotel in Ada On Thursday, July 13, 2023. This action was taken due to the hotel’s non-payment of a debt totaling GH¢379,775.95. The power cut was part of ECG’s strategy to address its financial challenges through a revenue mobilization drive. The company has initiated a two-month campaign with the objective of ensuring that all customers promptly settle their outstanding debts.
The ECG spokesperson for the Tema Region, Sakyiwaa Mensah, emphasized the importance of customers paying for the electricity they consume in order to prevent accumulating debts. The Operation Zero campaign involves ECG staff visiting customers, monitoring meters for accuracy, inspecting ECG installations, and educating customers about the company’s cashless system and the use of the Power App.
In addition to Treasure Island Hotel, Musahamat Banana Farm in Aveyime was also disconnected from the power grid due to an outstanding debt of GH¢219,184.42. The Aveyime Irrigation Project faced disconnection over a debt of GH¢63,801.22, and the Ada Technical Institute was disconnected due to an outstanding debt of GH¢71,102.11.
ECG advises customers and the public to cooperate with its staff and provide access to all meters on their premises. They also encourage customers to make payments through mobile money or debit cards, as the company is transitioning to cashless transactions.
The deaths of two people off the coast of Bournemouth in May were not the result of any criminal offences, according to police.
On May 31, Sunnah Khan, 12, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and Joseph Abbess, 17, of Southampton, encountered trouble in the water off the coast of Dorset.
From the water, eight further victims were saved.
There will be no further action against a 40-year-old man who was first detained on suspicion of manslaughter, the Dorset Police announced tonight.
A spokesperson from the force said: ‘Following a full and detailed investigation, officers have reached a position to make the evidence-based decision that no criminal offences were committed.
‘No further action will be taken in respect of a man who was arrested in connection with this incident. He has been fully released from the investigation.
‘When the criminal investigation was ongoing only a limited amount of information could be released into the public domain. This was due to the requirement to protect the integrity of the investigation.’
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council banned all boat operations while awaiting the outcome of the police investigation.
The Dorset Belle, a 78ft passenger vessel, was impounded following the tragedy.
Island Cruises Ltd, the owners of the Dorset Belle, has vowed never to return to Bournemouth, The Mirror reports.
Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Corrigan said tonight: ‘During the emergency response that followed [the incident on May 31], information was given to police, which indicated that the movement of a boat – the Dorset Belle – immediately before the incident occurred could have contributed toward creating dangerous sea conditions.
‘Witnesses suggested that there had been similar issues with the vessel having created such problems previously.’
He added: ‘Based upon this information an investigation was initiated. It was important that all relevant evidence was captured.
‘Therefore, it was appropriate to examine the boat and determine the actions of the operator. Following the examination, the boat was released.
‘In order to properly understand whether the boat could have been a contributing factor, it was necessary to instruct an expert to review the material gathered by police.
‘It was simply not possible to make a decision in this case without expert advice. The instructed expert needed time to review the evidential material and also to consider the prevailing tide and meteorological conditions at the time alongside the topography of the shoreline at the location.
‘Also, a large number of witnesses have been spoken to and several sources of CCTV and mobile phone footage were examined.
‘As a result of all of the evidence available, we are now able to confirm that we do not believe that the movement of the Dorset Belle contributed to the incident.’
Sunnah’s mother, Stephanie Williams, told Good Morning Britain (GMB) how her late daughter thought she was in a calm spot out at sea where it was safe.
‘They [Sunnah and her brother] were in between the flags on the beach. They then ended up where they couldn’t touch the bottom,’ the A&E nurse said.
‘They said a wave came over. They started to shout help. A lifeguard pulled my son from the water but they weren’t able to locate Sunnah.
‘She was washed out. They had started to try and make their way back but they couldn’t.’
Even though she has never been to Wales, an English woman claims she woke up with a Welsh accent.
Zoe Coles, 36, experienced the new twang over the course of six weeks, but she assumed it would ultimately go away.
But it hasn’t vanished yet.
Even though the mother of two lives in Stamford, Lincolnshire, she is frequently asked if she is from Cardiff.
Zoe has also claimed that, up until now, she has never been able to roll her Rs or speak with a Welsh accent.
She has said she now gets ‘anxious’ when leaving the house as she feels like she ‘doesn’t fit in anymore’ because of her new voice.
She is now appealing for medical help to try and ‘cure’ her baffling conditiont.
Zoe said: ‘I’ll be about to go into the shops and I get anxious because I don’t fit in around here anymore – we’re not in Wales.
‘I got stopped in Tesco a couple of weeks ago and a man told me he could fall asleep listening to my accent.
Zoe Coles has faced issues at work over her unwanted accent (Picture: Zoe Coles/SWNS)
‘I had to tell him that I woke up with it and it wasn’t my accent and he laughed it off.’
Before her voice, changed, Zoe worked as a bartender at a Wetherspoons pub but because of her accent, she’s had to quit her job.
Zoe, who is mum to Zak, 16, and Brooke, 11, said: ‘I didn’t want to go in with my new accent because the regulars would be saying I’m having them on.
‘And when people would get drunk, I knew I would be a target.
‘I tried to drive to work one day and I just had a massive anxiety attack and I just couldn’t go in.
‘I thought it was best to leave and then I can always go back when I’m ready.’
Zoe was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a condition where there is a problem with how the brain sends and receives signals in January 2022.
Because of this, Zoe often has ticks, memory problems, slurred speech and chronic pain in her legs.
But now she thinks she has Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) – a rare condition where people develop speech patterns that are perceived as a foreign accent.
Less than 107 people in the world are believed to have had FAS since 1907 and Zoe has been struggling to find any information on the condition.
Zoe went to the doctors about her new accent and was referred to a specialist at the St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London.
But because she doesn’t live in the catchment area, her referral has been declined and she’s not been given any help by the NHS.
Now she is appealing for an expert or neurologist to come forward and help her find an answer, as she feels like ‘nobody is concerned’ about what has happened.
Zoe said: ‘Why is nobody concerned that I’ve woken up with a Welsh accent?
‘Surely someone should be concerned – this is not normal.
‘A lot of people think it could me a mental health problem but because nobody knows anything about it, people are just guessing.
‘I want a definite answer – I can’t be the only person that would come forward for testing.’
Zoe has said that now she’s been speaking with a Welsh accent for six weeks, she’s picked up certain Welsh phrases such as putting ‘so it is’ after every sentence.
People are shocked when they find out what has happened to her voice, and often ask her to do an impression of Nessa Jenkins from the TV show Gavin and Stacey.
But Zoe has also said that now she’s ‘nicer to be around’ and ‘jolly’ because of her new voice.
She said that when she first woke up and her accent had changed, it actually sounded German.
Zoe said: ‘I don’t know it was a German accent but it sorta sounded like that at first.
‘I thought “God help me”, I knew I didn’t want to be stuck with that accent.
‘Then overnight, I got a really strong Welsh accent and it’s stuck since.’
A St George’s spokesperson said: ‘Our specialist neurology team has replied to Ms Coles’ referring doctor and we await their response on the future of her care.’
While still serving as an MP, Liz Truss made an average of £15,770 per hour working side jobs, according to an inquiry.
Apparently, MPs are being paid an average of £233 per hour to work second jobs rather than represent their people, which is roughly 17 times the average national pay, according to a new report by Sky News that was released on Friday.
The investigation discovered that Ms. Truss, who served as Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister when she quit after only 49 days, has since become Westminster’s top hourly earner, with the majority of her income coming from making a single speech in Taiwan, which brought in more than £90,000.
Even higher than Ms Truss is her predecessor as PM Boris Johnson, who resigned as an MPin disgrace last month and earned over £6.4 million while in parliament, averaging an hourly rate of £21,822.
Boris Johnson earned even more before he resigned as an MP last month, earning over £6.4 million while in parliment (Picture: Getty)
Of the 10 MPs with the highest hourly rate, nine are Conservatives and one, Ian Blackford, is an SNP politician.
Also high up the list is Labour leader Keir Starmer, who despite calling for a ban on MPs holding second jobs has received over £800,000 in extra-parliamentary income since joining parliament in 2015, averaging an hourly rate of around £360.
The Westminster Accounts project, produced in collaboration between Sky News and Tortoise Media, has examined the data that MPs provide on the amount of time they have worked on second jobs in this parliament.
The MP registering the most hours in the private sector is former attorney general and MP for West Devon Sir Geoffrey Cox, who put the tally at 2,565.
Dr Dan Poulter, a Conservative MP and NHS hospital doctor, has worked the most hours in a non-political job since the 2019 election. He has worked 3,508 hours in mental health services.
Sinn Fein MP John Finucane, who runs a toner company, is the highest non-conservative on the list, while Labour MPs Dan Jarvis and Tahir Ali have the most hours logged from their respective party, with around 1750 hours each.
Asked about Rishi Sunak’s views on the findings at a briefing today, a No10 spokesman said: ‘He has said previously that it is right that constituents expect MPs’ focus should be on serving their constituencies.
‘It is their constituents who will decide if they are doing a good job.’
But Tory MP and chair of the health select committee, Steve Brine, accused Westminster Accounts of ‘smearing’ politicians.
Mr Brine, who has worked 497 hours in second jobs this parliament on an average of £200 per hour, told Sky News: ‘I’m focused on my constituents, I focus on chairing my select committee and I always have [been].
‘I think you should be very careful about smearing MPs and making out that MPs are not focusing on their jobs – 99.9% of MPs I’ve met in Westminster are focused on doing their job and doing the right thing.
‘Be very careful before you run our profession into the ground.’
Former SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford- who earned over £38,000 for 31 hours work in this parliament – told the channel there was a ‘legitimate debate’ to be had about MPs’ outside earnings.
‘I think it is important the public can have trust in those they send to parliament’ said Mr Blackford, who admitted to holding two two non-executive jobs but said he left the roles ‘very, very early in this parliament.’
‘You have obviously seen the likes of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss earn eye watering sums of money on the speaking circuit, benefiting from the position that they had as prime minister, and I think rightly people are appalled at that kind of behaviour.
‘I think it is important that we can trust our politicians and I think people have to look very carefully at what they do.’
Martin A. B. K. Amidu, the former Special Prosecutor, has made a bold claim regarding a leaked tape. According to Amidu, the tape, which discussed persuading the President to terminate the appointment of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) on grounds of disloyalty to the government, was staged.
He suggests that this was a deliberate ploy to divert the attention of opposition political parties, especially the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and potentially make them hesitant to complain if the Ghana Police Service fails to ensure fair and impartial security during the 2024 elections.
Amidu asserts that he knows for a fact that Dr. George Akuffo Dampare was handpicked for the role of IGP based on his proven loyalty to the current government. He reveals that discussions for the replacement of Dampare’s predecessor began well in advance of the latter’s departure from office. Amidu discloses that he was privy to discussions held by three key individuals who were part of the Police Council, and they were his friends. As the succession plans gained momentum, the President’s support and agreement were sought and obtained.
“The leakage of the tape recording has achieved its objective because the NDC in particular, other opposition political parties, and security and intelligence operatives have diverted their attention to defending and extolling the virtues and perceived neutrality of the IGP. IGPs do not win elections and can scarcely influence the polls. What an IGP can and might do is to position Regional, Divisional, District, and Station Commanders who will control his men at the polls and relax their security alertness and surveillance on election day. Even such a move in a national election is not without hazards for the IGP as some Commanders may give him out to the other side. The Assin North constituency by-election cannot be used as a yardstick for measuring the neutrality of the Ghana Police Service in the coming national elections in 2024.”
Furthermore, Amidu states that he is aware that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who chairs the Police Council and presided over the council meeting that officially recommended Dr. Dampare’s appointment to the President, was a staunch supporter of Dampare long before the position of IGP became vacant.
Amidu’s claims shed light on the behind-the-scenes maneuvers and discussions that took place prior to Dr. Dampare assuming the role of IGP. It appears that his appointment was not a sudden decision but rather the result of a carefully orchestrated process involving influential figures within the government.
These revelations raise questions about the transparency and fairness of the selection process for high-ranking positions within the Ghana Police Service. The alleged premeditated appointment of Dr. Dampare based on loyalty rather than merit may undermine public trust and confidence in the institution.
Amidu’s assertions also draw attention to the potential manipulation of political narratives and the use of diversionary tactics. If the leaked tape was indeed staged, it suggests a calculated effort to divert attention away from pressing issues and shift the focus onto internal political strife. This tactic could serve to undermine the credibility of opposition parties and limit their ability to raise legitimate concerns regarding election security.
As Ghana approaches the 2024 elections, it is crucial for all stakeholders, including the government, opposition parties, and the general public, to maintain vigilance and demand transparency, fairness, and impartiality in the conduct of electoral processes and security arrangements. The revelations brought forward by Amidu should serve as a call for a thorough examination of the appointment processes for key positions and a reminder of the importance of safeguarding the integrity of democratic institutions.
A representative for the elite troops has stated that Ukraine’s special forces will be “heavily involved” in finding Russians responsible for atrocities.
After winning the conflict on the battlefield, the operators will work to hold individuals liable for war crimes and other cruel deeds, according to Lieutenant Colonel Oleksandr Kindratenko, who spoke to Metro.co.uk.
The representative of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) claimed that the ‘warriors’ are prepared to work with Kyiv’s intelligence and security services to find the criminals anywhere in the globe.
Last week, Metro.co.uk told how the civilian-led Tribunal 4 Putin coalition is recording Russian war crimes on a daily basis, with the figure currently standing at more than 45,000 since the start of the full-scale invasion.
A war crimes warrant has been issued for Vladimir Putin by the International Crime Court and work involving a number of international civilian and government agencies and organisations is underway to document and record new cases on a daily basis.
Ukraine’s special forces have undertaken wide-ranging operations since the start of the full-scale invasion (Picture: Special Operations Forces of Ukraine)
‘The main motivation for Ukraine’s SOF warriors is to free our land and bring the victory,’ Lt Col Kindratenko said.
‘But after the victory our motivation will be to make sure all those responsible for crimes are held accountable and to do everything possible to stop Russia starting aggression against any other nation in the region.
‘We spill our blood and sweat for other countries not to know what it is like.’
An insight into how the Russian atrocities committed in places like Bucha and Mariupol has fed into the mindset of Ukrainian soldiers was given earlier this week when a SOF sniper told how he channelled his ‘cold rage’ into his work on the battlefield in the eastern Donbas region.
In some cases, the operators haven’t had to look far, with Moscow’s troops recording their acts of brutality and sharing them on social media.
One gruesome example came in April 2023 when a video emerged appearing to show Russian soldiers beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war.
‘Regarding holding Russia accountable for all those horrific atrocities, for the Ukrainian SOF it is a matter of principle and honour,’ the senior officer said.
‘I am convinced that Ukrainian SOF, in concert with other Intelligence and Security agencies, will be heavily involved in a process of holding all those war criminals accountable. The SOF are ready to conduct any operations and missions which are directed by higher military and political command.
‘Moreover, we are looking closely at and tracing all those atrocities which the occupiers film and publish online. I am more than sure that all those criminals will be punished and the SOF will play their role in this process.
‘Regardless of where in the world they might be, we will definitely find them.
‘The aggressor’s accountability for the crimes must be inevitable.’
Lt Col Kindratenko’s stern warning raises the prospect of Russians and their proxies who carried out or facilitated war crimes being hunted down in covert, integrated operations far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
The SOF units currently active on the battlefield include the 8th Separate Regiment, which is active in the Donbas and the Navy Seals-style 73rd Naval Centre, which spearheaded the liberation of Snake Island.
The use of special forces in hunting targets responsible for mass murder was famously deployed by Israel against Nazi war criminals and members of the Palestinian terror group who murdered 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Parallels have already been drawn between the Mossad’s operations and the brief that might combine Kyiv’s SOF and intelligence services.
Ukraine’s ability to pinpoint Russian generals on occupied territory has already been demonstrated. On Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Oleg Tsokov, who knew Putin personally, was said by Ukrainian and Russian sources to have been killed in a strike with a UK-supplied Storm Shadow missile.
A series of mystery explosions and assassinations have also taken place on Russian soil since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, although no party has claimed responsible for these. On Monday, Russian army officer Stanislav Rzhitsky, said to have commanded a submarine responsible for deadly missile attacks on Ukraine, was gunned down while jogging in his home city of Krasnodar. Drone strikes have also taken the war to Moscow, including through the double attack on the Kremlin citadel in May.
Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for any of the incidents, although some have drawn wry and cryptic remarks from officials.
Lt Col Kindratenko also delivered an uncompromising message about restoring Ukraine’s lawful borders as they were as of 1991, when the nation gained independence from the former Soviet Union.
‘One more reason why we are fighting is that no one should be above the law, especially international law,’ he said. ‘Our Supreme Commander in Chief, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has stated many times that Ukrainian territorial integrity is not a matter for discussion.
‘And this includes the Crimean Peninsula and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and all territories which were illegally captured by Russia.
‘Our goal is to return our territories as of 1991 when Ukrainian independence was proclaimed. Of course, there are different developments and timeframes, but we will do everything possible to make that happen.’
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are reportedly making hard-fought advances on at least three fronts in the east of the country.
While the fighting has been intense and costly for both sides, Ukraine is developing its training for the elite operators.
Lessons learned on the battlefield have been integrated into the ‘Q’ or qualification course, with three held since the beginning of the full-scale invasion so far. A milestone was reached this week when the first woman, known only as ‘Number 68’, passed the gruelling selection.
Lt Col Kindratenko gave Metro.co.uk a rare insight into the work taking place to produce Ukraine’s next generation of special operators.
‘All of the instructors who are in the training have their own combat experience which they transfer to the candidates,’ he said.
‘This course is unique among all such courses within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It comprises the experience we have gained from our Western partners, as well as our own experiences from the very beginning of the Russian aggression against our country.
‘We have enough service members from all branches and services of the Armed Forces who are willing to become a part of the SOF family.
‘In their units, in their positions, they have reached a certain level of mastery, but they feel the potential and ability to be better and perform tasks as part of the Special Operations Forces.’
Those graduating from the Q course include military personnel who are already battle-hardened and under no illusions about the dangers they face after 17 months of all-out war.
‘Given that candidates are making this decision during a full-scale war, they understand all the challenges and risks that SOF operators face while conducting special operations,’ Lt Col Kindratenko said.
‘Most of them see with their own eyes the work of the SOF in combat conditions, its effectiveness and efficiency, and understand its importance and want to join it themselves.
‘But disregarding the fact that we are currently fighting a war, the selection and training process is even harder than it was before.
‘Our motto says that “Quality Prevails Quantity” and we stick to it. Well-trained and equipped operators are a priority for us.’
Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, which advises Mr Zelenskyy, raised the prospect of a clandestine form of justice taking place in parallel to work by international courts aimed at bringing Putin and others in front of The Hague.
‘I hope that the covert operations will continue after Ukraine wins the victory, as the system of international justice is a slow and ineffective instrument,’ he said. ‘The issue of establishing justice to make war criminals accountable is very important so I hope it will be done.
‘Striking at war criminals and applying all the different types of measures available would be an important option to complement the work of the international courts, such as the International Criminal Court.’
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces were said to have made gains ‘in some areas’ as they conducted counter-offensive areas in at least three sectors of the front, the US Institute for the Study of War said.
The main thrusts of attack were reported by the UK Ministry of Defence as being likely targeted at the area around Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region to the south and Vuhledar and Bakhmut further north.
Who said old men can can’t experience youthful love?
80-year-old former Member of Parliament and Minister of Education in Ghana, Professor Dominic Fobih, has gained attention on social media, particularly on TikTok.
The video in question shows Professor Fobih and his 31-year-old wife enjoying a moment together on a sofa, with his wife recording the scene. The background song playing in the video is Banzy Banero’s “Hosanna,” adding to the atmosphere of their intimate encounter. In the footage, the couple engages in dancing, hand gestures, and affectionate touching.
Professor Dominic Fobih, born on July 16, 1942, had previously made headlines for his marriage to a younger bride in May 2023.
He served as a legislator from January 2001 to January 2017 on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party and held the position of Minister of Lands, Forestry, and Mines during the administration of former President John Agyekum Kufour.
It appears that this particular video has gained popularity on social media, drawing attention to the former minister’s personal life and showcasing a joyful moment between him and his wife.
80-year-old Prof Dominic Fobih and wife, 31, chilling well well.
Following the foiled Wagner group mutiny, experts have advised that the financial edifices of Russia’s private army be rigorously examined.
Private military contractors (PMCs) have been sanctioned by the UK, but one researcher called the approach ‘uneven’ because Western countries have been focusing on the organisations piecemeal over the past three years.
Wagner refused to sign contracts that would have tied the PMCs more closely to Vladimir Putin‘s Ministry of Defence in the days leading up to and following the uprising.
Calls had been growing before the mutiny, where leader Yevgeny Prigozhin led his troops to within 124 miles of Moscow, for the ‘criminal organisation’ to be classified as a terror group by the UK.
But Moscow’s apparent attempt to assimilate the soldiers and commanders — together with other PMCs who are said to have committed atrocities in Ukraine — poses new questions about the groups’ aims and financial links.
The Molfar open source intelligence community has been monitoring developments involving the PMCs, also known as non-state security actors. Around 25 are thought by the organisation to have been active in Ukraine since the outset of Russian military aggression in 2014.
They include Rusich, regarded as a neo-Nazi organisation, which is estimated by Molfar to currently have a couple dozen fighters.
Others have been identified by the investigative community as Redut, which has up to 7,000 mercenaries, Achmat, with around 3,500, Veterans, with around 2,000, the Russian Imperial Movement, with around 200, and the Russian Legion and Tiger, with around 500 each.
Fighters of the Wagner private mercenary group in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on June 24 (Picture: Reuters)
The UK sanctioned Wagner and a handful of facilitators in March 2023 but the details may already be out of date through the Kremlin’s attempts to absorb or possibly eliminate its leadership.
The tool is meant to freeze assets by preventing any UK business or citizen from dealing with funds held by the designated person and ban the individual from entering or remaining in the UK.
Molfar’s head of research (IT) Maksym Zrazhevskiy told Metro.co.uk: ‘Up to this date, Western countries have imposed sanctions against designated PMCs, with Wagner and the Russian Imperial Movement proscribed as terror groups by France and the US respectively.
‘According to information circulated in the Russian media, some PMCs have already signed contracts with the Russian armed forces. Wagner has only handed over its equipment to the Ministry of Defense.
‘The funding of this criminal organisation remains unknown, so there is plenty of work to be done in simply keeping an eye on the formations and individuals, both on the battlefield and in the business and financial sphere.
‘Media awareness also has a crucial role to play.’
Metro.co.uk told last month how an opaque nexus of formations is now positioned to play a shadowy role in the Kremlin’s power games.
The Wagner mutiny between June 23 and 24 ended with Prigohzin standing his fighters down. They were then given an ultimatum by Putin to sign over to Russia’s regular military, join their leader, then said to be in Belarus, or return to their families.
Uncertainty remains over Prigohzin’s whereabouts, with the Kremlin claiming that he met Putin five days after abandoning his march on Moscow. He has reportedly been in Russia, although he has not made any public appearances via his usual means of social media since the mutiny.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has said the group has handed thousands of tonnes of weaponry and ammunition to the country’s regular forces.
The evidence points to Moscow attempting to clamp down on the private armies, possibly to prevent another element going rogue.
‘We assume that these groups will be absorbed by the Russian Ministry of Defense as with Veterans or Akhmat, who have signed contracts with the regular army,’ Zrazhevskiy explained.
‘This follows Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s resolution on February 15, where it was stated that after July 1 all the PMCs or “voluntary formations” must sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense. After the mutiny they were reminded to do this again, but this time by Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press attaché.
‘Apparently, the Russian government was aware that a mutiny could happen, so to check unrestrained growth or at least be able to control it, they sought to make PMC soldiers sign contracts as leverage.’
The PMCs have been sanctioned by various Western governments, although the UK has been accused of being slow to tackle Wagner’s ‘Londongrad’ links and has been called upon to proscribe it as a terror group.
Australia, Canada, Japan, the EU, and the US have also sanctioned the profits-driven militia, which is responsible for atrocities and criminal acts across Ukraine and Africa, according to the US Treasury.
Rusich, said to have ties to Wagner, is led by fighters with neo-Nazi views and has left behind ‘serious evidence’ of war crimes in Ukraine, according to the Kharkiv Human RIghts Protection Group.
Patriot, another formation, was sanctioned by the US in April 23, 2023, with the Department of the Treasury’s listing stating that the entity was established in 2018 and is engaged in ‘defence activities’.
The group is said to have been formed as a counter-balance to Wagner under the auspices of defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who was the target of angry video tirades by Prigozhin before the Wagner insurrection.
‘There are instances where peace organisations and Ukrainians have not needed to go into the field to collect evidence of war crimes,’ Zrazhevskiy said. ‘The fighters themselves have proudly shared their “achievements” on Telegram or other social media channels.
‘They include videos of Ukrainian soldiers being beheaded in cold blood. In other violations of the Geneva Convention there are instances of ex-Wagner soldiers admitting that they were executing dozens of civilians, including children, in Bakhmut.
‘Another instance is an ex-Wagner soldier admitting to executing hostages. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Wagner was responsible for a powerful explosion which killed Ukrainian prisoners of war in the temporarily occupied town of Olenivka.
‘Outside Ukraine, they are notorious for war crimes in the Central African Republic where they executed more than 100 civilians in the city of Bambari. The authorities of the CAR state have that it was an “operation to eradicate the rebels”.’
Stephen Reimer, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, told Metro.co.uk that the sanctions are being applied in an ‘uneven’ manner.
‘The supposed absorption of the Wagner group into the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) might be a cosmetic change,’ he said.
‘I suspect the group will continue with at least some of its operations across Africa, which are self-resourcing and self-financing. I would postulate that the contracts that they have signed with governments around the world, such as Mozambique, to do counter-terrorist operations will continue to go into their accounts, and not into the MoD’s accounts.
‘From a UK point of view, the announcement of sanctions seems to have a performative element that follows the identification of the individuals and organisations concerned. Unfortunately, the implementation piece does not always attract the same care and attention as the announcement piece.’
Prigozhin generated a quarter of a billion dollars from his global natural resources empire in the four years before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to corporate records examined by the Financial Times.
Existing sanctions aimed at the chef-turned-warlord failed to stop his operations reaping in cash amid a trail of alleged human rights abuses across the Middle East and Africa, according to the report.
After the mutiny, Putin said Wagner had been paid more than 86 billion rubles (£726,447) between May 2022 and May 2023.
Sanctions name those giving Russia ‘deniability’
The 2023 UK sanctions against Wagner group members state:
‘There are multiple, credible sources which corroborate and support the conclusion that the existence of the organisation known as the Wagner Group is kept purposefully vague and opaque in order to provide a deniable military capability for the Russian State. The Wagner Group is therefore responsible for, engages in, and provides support for actions which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine.’
While off-radar leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was sanctioned in 2020, the latest sanctions list other individuals associated with the group including commander Andrei Nikolaevich Troshe and Dmitry Valeryevich Utkin, who is said to have founded the group.
The amounts generated by other PMCs are even more opaque.
‘What needs to be done is to look into Wagner’s companies and complex corporate structures, which allow the group to raise, move and ultimately benefit from their funds,’ Reimer said.
‘There has been some research done by people trying to track down those shell companies but it’s very complicated, the structures are meant to obfuscate, they are the same means used by others, like many Russian oligarchs, to hide their funds. Investigating Wagner’s funds will mean going down many of these rabbit holes.’
Prigozhin himself was sanctioned by the UK in December 2020 but the group itself was not listed until five months later.
‘The sanctioning of Wagner by the UK marks a shift from targeting terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda,’ Reimer said. ‘But while targeting terror groups like these tends to be uncontroversial, the PMCs are really non-state proxies and there are questions around how we expand sanctions to meet the threat they pose and what our allies are doing.
‘Sanctions are most effective when they are done in concert. So if the UK, US, Canada and the EU designate different entities at different times, it leaves an uneven landscape for the PMCs to exploit.
‘It’s something that needs to looked at almost on a day-by-day basis; you sanction one company and another company or enabler can be established in its place. The network will reform around the pieces that have been targeted by sanctions. Sanctions are not a “one and done” tool.
‘I have no idea how much the Wagner group is worth, but you get an idea from looking at photographs of their offices in St Petersburg, which is a Bond-villain type of building, that they are not short of money.’
In a joint statement issued by G7 leaders in February 2023, the UK government reaffirmed its intention to target those profiting from the war in Ukraine. The relevant passage stated: ‘We continue to impose targeted sanctions, including on those responsible for war crimes or human rights violations and abuses, exercising illegitimate authority in Ukraine, or who otherwise are profiting from the war.’
The following month the government announced the £1 billion UK Integrated Security Fund, intended to keep the country ‘safe and address global sources of volatility and insecurity’.
Part of its remit is to tackle evasion ‘across the UK’s trade, transport and financial sanctions’, including through work with the private sector to ‘maximise’ the reach of the financial measure.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it does not comment on individual cases.
It is indeed unfortunate to see the state of Nkrumah’s official home in Half Assini, Ghana. The building, which was once a significant historical site, has been neglected and left to deteriorate over the years. The walls have fallen, metals have rusted, doors and window panes are missing, and the paint is peeling off.
This one-story building held importance as it served as a countryside retreat for Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. It was constructed by the government through the Public Works Department (PWD) during his time in office. The house welcomed Nkrumah’s guests, providing them with a serene and scenic environment away from the hustle and bustle of the capital.
The current state of the house reflects a lack of care for preserving Ghana’s history and heritage. It is disheartening that such a significant site is being allowed to decay without any efforts towards restoration or maintenance. Preserving historical landmarks is essential for future generations to understand and appreciate the legacy of their country’s leaders.
It is my hope that awareness of the condition of Nkrumah’s official home will lead to action and initiatives aimed at preserving this important part of Ghana’s history.
The Abandoned Villa Of Ghana’s First President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah in Half Assine😩 pic.twitter.com/AybW4vnzyn
If the world misses its crucial goal to limit global warming by 1.5C, the number of days Brits suffer in uncomfortable heat would rise by over a third.
According to recent University of Oxford research, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Norway will experience the world’s most pronounced relative increase in days that call for cooling interventions like window shutters, ventilation, fans, or air conditioning.
Northern Europe is anticipated to host eight of the top ten nations with the biggest relative increase in uncomfortable temperatures, with Canada and New Zealand rounding out the group.
Switzerland and the UK will see a 30% increase in days with uncomfortably hot temperatures if the world heats to 2ºC, while Norway will see an increase of 28%.
This is a conservative estimate and does not consider extreme events like heatwaves, which would come on top of this average increase.
The researchers believe these countries are dangerously underprepared for this change.
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‘Right now, for example, sustainable cooling barely has a mention in the UK’s net zero strategy,’ said the study’s co-author Dr Radhika Khosla.
‘Without adequate interventions to promote sustainable cooling we are likely to see a sharp increase in the use of energy guzzling systems like air conditioning, which could further increase emissions and lock us into a vicious cycle of burning fossil fuels to make us feel cooler while making the world outside hotter.’
‘If we adapt the built environment in which we live, we won’t need to increase air conditioning. But right now, in countries like the UK, our buildings act like greenhouses – no external protection from the sun in buildings, windows locked, no natural ventilation and no ceiling fans. Our buildings are exclusively prepared for the cold seasons.’ explained co-lead author Dr Jesus Lizana.
Some of the solutions proposed for retrofitting buildings were to introduce ventilation measures that could also be closed off to keep in heat during winter and extendable shading covers such as awnings or more trees next to buildings to reflect the suns rays.
The researchers also suggested having personal fans that cool only the space occupied by people and not entire rooms that are empty, or for buildings where air condition is necessary, installing a heat pump that can cool in summer and warm in winter.
The top ten countries that will experience the highest needs for cooling overall in a 2.0ºC scenario are all in Africa, with central Africa most affected.
‘These conditions will pose further stress to the continent’s socio-economic development and energy networks… issues that require much additional research given the limited studies of this rising threat in the African context,’ said Dr Khosla.
‘It is also a clear indication that Africa is bearing the brunt of a problem they did not create, which should further strengthen calls for climate justice and equity.’
As the deadly Cerberus heatwave grips Europe, another is expected, and temperatures in Italy are expected to be at their highest ever.
The scorching heatwave, which was called after the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell in Greek mythology, has already claimed the life of one man in the country’s north.
The European Space Agency warned that Italy is experiencing “a major heatwave” and that temperatures on Sicily and Sardinia could reach 48°C, which would be among the warmest readings ever recorded in Europe.
A second blistering heatwave, named Charon, is expected to follow on Cerberus’s tail, bringing yet more unbearable conditions.
Health authorities have issued a red alert warning for 10 Italian cities for the next two days, including Rome, Florence and Bologna.
‘Heat is a silent killer. So this is the main concern that people’s lives are at risk,’ said climate scientist Hannah Cloke.
Emergency measures have also been introduced for workers in Greece and devastating wildfires have spread across Croatia.
British tourists going on holiday in the Mediterranean have been urged to take extreme care.
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The second wave of the Cerberus heatwave is set to strike Italy in a few days time.
Sicily and Sardinia are expected to endure temperatures of up to 48°C over the coming days, edging closer to the continent’s record high of 48.8°C set in 2019.
Meteorologist Luca Lombroso, affiliated with Italy’s AMPRO group, warns, ‘Next week, we will experience an even more intense heatwave than the current one. Some areas in the central south will witness truly extraordinary temperatures.’
Lombroso also predicts that Rome and Florence will likely exceed 40 degrees Celsius between Tuesday and Wednesday, with similar conditions approaching the northern regions.
Meanwhile, in Greece, the government has taken swift action to combat the scorching temperatures. Work has been suspended between midday and 5 pm in areas facing a high risk of heat-related issues. Additionally, private sector employees with health conditions have been advised to work remotely.
To mitigate the risk of wildfires, access to nature reserves and forests has been strictly prohibited by authorities. These measures aim to safeguard the environment and ensure public safety in the face of the impending heatwave.
Spain has experienced two blistering heatwaves so far this summer, with highs of up to 60C reported in some parts of the country.
But forecasters say yet another heatwave is still on the horizon, with the hottest weather still yet to come.
The Aemet state weather agency expects the next prolonged period of hot weather is set to begin on Sunday.
A British family on holiday in Murcia have spoken to Metro about what it’s like to experience the heatwve first-hand. Read our exclusive here:
Greece has witnessed a staggering 52 forest fires in the past 24 hours, averaging more than two fires per hour.
These incidents occurred between 6pm yesterday and 6pm today, local time (4pm to 4pm, UK time).
The country’s fire department promptly tackled most of the blazes at their initial stage, as stated on their website.
As temperatures rise across Greece, courtesy of the Cerberus weather system sweeping through southern Europe, the situation becomes more critical.
This surge of fires serves as a stark reminder of the devastating wildfires that struck Greece last year, causing significant damage and necessitating evacuations in certain areas.
The risk of forest fires in Spain caused by the heatwave is considered to be ‘extreme’, Sky News reports.
Data from the Copernicus Emergency Management Service suggests that a number of wooded areas in mainland Spain and throughout the Canary Islands are at ‘High Extreme Risk’ of catching ablaze, with most of the country considered to be in moderate or very high danger of falling victim to forest fires.
In the Canary Islands, Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, is the area most at risk of forest fires, with Tenerife and Fuerteventura also displaying extreme levels of heat.
On the mainland, the northern coast has offered some respite from the beating heat, with some tourists cancelling their day trips to take respite from the sun in the cooling sea.
Just one day after four additional tornadoes tore through Chicago, Illinois, the Canadian capital of Ottawa was pummelling by one.
Both cities had significant property and tree damage as a result of the extreme weather, but fortunately no serious injuries to local residents.
Yesterday about 12.45 p.m. local time, a tornado landed in Barrhaven, a suburb located 17 kilometres southwest of downtown Ottawa, damaging 125 homes and knocking out electricity in 1,600 more.
Broken windows, downed trees, and roof shingles were among the reported damages.
The previous day fierce winds from suspected tornadoes ripped off roofs and took down trees across Illinois, including in Chicago.
Sirens also sent residents scrambling for safety.
On Wednesday, the US National Weather service warned a tornado was on the ground near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Thunderstorms in Montreal, Canada (Picture: via Reuters)
Passengers took shelter and the storm grounded hundreds of flights, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
The storm then moved on to Michigan, before reaching Canada.
Ty Carr, a resident of the Skyline Motel in McCook, Illinois, said a tornado tore off the roof.
‘Just chaos,’ Carr said, cradling a toddler as he spoke to reporters in the region. ‘It was really fast, and the noises and the crackling and the wind – it was just something I’ve never seen or been through, you know?’
Rajan Patel, whose family owns the motel, said his family came to the Chicago area in the 1990s with nothing, and now their motel has been seriously damaged.
‘The entire place is ruined,’ Patel said. ‘I don’t know, man. I don’t know how to recover anything. I don’t know.’
The weather service posted a map on social media showing several areas where tornadoes are believed to have touched down, noting that they were spawned by rotating thunderstorms known as supercells.
A car submerged in water in central Mississippi (Picture: Susan Yates via AP)Water surrounds a house in central Mississippi (Picture: Susan Yates via AP)
Hillary Timpe, a resident of a suburb southwest of Chicago called Countryside, said homes and trees in the area were damaged by the tornado, but thankfully no one was hurt.
She added: ‘When the winds kicked up really hard, really fast, and I’m like, ‘Basement — now! Grab the dog, let’s go!’ And it wasn’t more than a couple seconds after that, that got really crazy.’
The storm moved through fast, her husband Greg said.
‘It really left as quick as it came,’ he said. ‘It was maybe 10, 20 seconds, and it was out of here, and all this.’
The tornadoes hit the same week as devastating storms left other parts of the US severely flooded.
There were several flash-floods in Mississippi yesterday with reports of people being rescued from their homes.
Photos show water reaching the windows of homes and cars and flooding businesses.
Earlier in the week severe flooding also hit Hudson Valley in New York state, where a women drowned trying to rescue her dog, as well as Vermont.
No casualties or injuries were reported in Vermont, but at least 117 people were rescued by boat as rising floodwaters overwhelmed city streets.
Gurulyov is a former military commander and frequent commentator on state TV.
‘It was necessary either to keep quiet and be a coward or to say it the way it is,’ Popov said.
‘I had no right to lie in the name of you, in the name of my fallen comrades in arms, so I outlined all the problems which exist.’
He also highlighted issues like lack of proper counter battery systems to help repel Ukrainian artillery attacks and lack of military intelligence.
Popov headed up an army in the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine (Picture: AP)
Popov said his dismissal was demanded by senior commanders – who he accused of treason – and approved by the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Russian bloggers reported that the order to dismiss Popov came from the head of Russia’s armed forces, General Valery Gerasimov.
They said General Gerasimov accused Popov of ‘alarmism and blackmailing senior management’ after he highlighted the need to rotate soldiers who had been in the front line for a sustained period of time and had suffered significant losses.
‘The senior chiefs apparently sensed some kind of danger from me and quickly concocted an order from the defence minister in just one day and got rid of me,’ Popov said.
‘The Ukrainian army could not break through our ranks at the front but our senior chief hit us from the rear, viciously beheading the army at the most difficult and intense moment.’
The Russian defence ministry has not yet commented on the dismissal.
In a sign that many in Russia share Popov’s criticism, Andrei Turchak, the first deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament who heads the main Kremlin party United Russia, strongly backed the general.
The news comes a day after General Oleg Tsokov, was killed by a Ukrainian missile strike.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, noted Popov’s statement echoed criticism of the top brass by Prigozhin.
However, he added Popov’s statement was not a rebellion, but instead a call for Vladimir Putin’s help.
‘Such public disputes at the top of the Russian army isn’t a show of force,’ he said.
Speaking in Helsinki on Thursday after a Nato summit, Joe Biden said he is not certain about what fate awaits Prigozhin.
‘I’m not even sure where he is,’ Mr Biden said. ‘If I were he, I’d be careful what I ate, I’d be keeping an eye on my menu. But all kidding aside … I don’t know. I don’t think any of us know for certain what the future of Prigozhin is in Russia.’
The beautiful Russian daughter of a Putin ally was discovered dead in her flat after apparently complaining of feeling ill.
The concierge of Natalia Bochkareva’s building in Moscow’s Presnensky District sounded the alarm, leading to her discovery.
Before discovering her dead on Tuesday, police officers pounded on the door.
The 44-year-old had complained of feeling ill the day before, according to the concierge.
According to preliminary reports, there were no signs of a violent death.
Her death is the latest in a long line of high-profile Russian figures to suddenly die in mysterious circumstances.
Ms Bochkareva was the daughter of the late Vasily Bochkarev, who governed Penza Oblast from 1998 to 2015.
A year after leaving office, the 67-year-old, who belonged to Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, died from lung cancer.
Ms Bochkareva managed the family’s lumber-processing and bakery businesses after her father’s death.
Two years ago she hit headlines for falling for scam. It’s reported she sent a self-styled fortune teller 16 million rubles (£136,000) to remove a curse.
But after receiving the money, the fortune teller broke off all contact with Natalia and, according to Ms Bochkareva, failed to fulfil her part of the agreement.
The police ended up getting involved.
According to some reports, Natalia suffered from heart problems.
Other recent deaths of Russia’s elite include that of 28-year-old Kristina Baikova in June.
Ms Baikova, a vice-president at Loko-Bank, allegedly fell from her 11th floor apartment in Moscow.
In February Russian defence official Marina Yankina, 58,also fell from an apartment window and died.
As head of the financial support department of the Ministry of Defence, Ms Yankina was a key figure in the funding of the war.
Her death was reported as a suspected suicide – although this is common in Russia before any investigation is carried out or when facts are unclear.
In May meanwhile, Russia’s deputy science minister, Pyotr Kucherenko, thought to be a critic of the war, died suddenly after falling ill on a flight back to Moscow after a work trip in Cuba, the Mail Online reports.
In April, Igor Shkurko, the deputy general director of Russian energy company Yakutskenergo, was found dead in his prison cell
The 49-year-old was a member of the pro-Putin United Russia political party but his membership was suspended following the bribe accusation.
Two months earlier,Russian oil boss Viatcheslav Rovneiko, 59, was ‘found unconscious’ late at night at his home.
Doctors were unable to save him, a report in Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper claimed.
On December 26, Pavel Antonov – a wealthy sausage tycoon, local politician and a Putin critic – died in India after falling out of a hotel window.
His friend Vladimir Bidenov was found dead in the same hotel four days earlier.
After clashes over tax increases reportedly turned deadly, the United Nations stated that it was “very concerned” about the widespread use of violence by Kenyan police against demonstrators.
On Wednesday, protests broke out all around the nation, including in the nation’s capital, Nairobi, where Opiyo Wandayi, the head of the opposition in Kenya’s parliament, told CNN that police had to use force to disperse the crowds.
In a news statement on Friday, Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, stated that “reports say up to 23 people have been killed and dozens have been injured in the demonstrations in the past week.”
Laurence called for “prompt, thorough, independent and transparent investigations into the deaths and injuries. Those responsible must be held to account. Effective measures to prevent further deaths and injuries must be adopted.”
“In light of calls for further protests next week, we call on the authorities to ensure the right to peaceful assembly as guaranteed by the Kenyan Constitution and international human rights law.
The policing of protests must seek to facilitate peaceful assemblies, and any use of force must be guided by the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality and non-discrimination. Firearms should never be used to disperse protests,” Laurence said.
Laurence also appealed “for calm and encourage open dialogue to address social, economic and political grievances, with the aim of identifying lasting solutions in the interests of all Kenyans.”
Demonstrations have flared in Kenya over a raft of unpopular tax hikes proposed by the national government.
Kenyan opposition leader and former prime minister Raila Odinga has led calls for protests over the increases.
Odinga lost the election in August last year and believes the results were manipulated and has since led civil disobedience protests against his political rival.
A Kenyan court temporarily halted the implementation of the Finance Act 2023 touted by President William Ruto as a measure to shore up public finances and increase domestic revenue.
However, the Ruto administration defied the court order and increased tax on fuel prices, which has led to a rise in cost of transport and staple goods.
The NATO meeting held this week in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, served as an essential reminder that the struggle for communications during a war is just as crucial as anything taking place on the ground.
The meeting met its objectives and was a success.
The major objectives in Vilnius were to bolster support for Ukraine and come to an agreement that would allow Sweden to join the security alliance, which Turkey had previously rejected.
Both of those objectives were accomplished, and the agreement on Sweden’s membership was a key step in that direction. Officials at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, however, have voiced some displeasure about the media’s heavy emphasis on the particular and contentious topic of Ukraine’s membership in the alliance.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing for a clear path to join NATO for some time. He wanted more than just a restatement of the existing, vague expression of support for Kyiv’s membership of the bloc, arguing instead for a clear timetable to accession.
Western officials and diplomats, however, hoped that the issue would not be the focus of this week’s summit. Zelensky’s maximalist position was understood to be a way to ratchet up the pressure, but they say he would have known that the summit would not have been the moment he got his way.
That hope turned out to be misplaced.
On Sunday, US President Joe Biden gave a newsmaking interview to CNN in which he said Ukraine could not be admitted to NATO while war was raging on its territory.
Nothing he said was particularly controversial, nor did it depart from the prevailing view in NATO. Most allies agree that Ukraine is not in a position to join while it is under invasion.
There are many reasons for this, but the most important is that membership would immediately give Ukraine the right to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty – which would force the rest of the alliance to join Ukraine in the war against Russia.
But the timing of Biden’s comments, on the eve of the summit, and his position as leader of the most powerful NATO state, meant that the question of Ukrainian membership was front and center as the alliance convened.
It didn’t help matters that Zelensky sent a blistering tweet criticizing NATO as “absurd” for not offering a clearer path to membership in its joint communique on Tuesday.
Nor did it help when British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace commented that Ukraine should be more grateful for the support it has already received.
All of which created room for speculation about NATO’s unity, and allowed its adversaries to call the summit a failure.
One example: Sputnik, the Russian state-owned news agency, was able to publish a story headlined “NATO Summit Exposes Fractures in Alliance Over Support for Ukraine.” The article contains a quote from an analyst stating that “the decision by the USA to quietly pull the plug on the Ukrainians is only natural and certainly not ‘absurd.’ The game is up.”
Given the millions of dollars the US and its allies have provided to Ukraine since the start of the war and the commitment to send even more money and arms, this is a dubious claim. But Biden’s comments, combined with Zelensky’s public anger, provided space for the claim to be made.
“There were two major communications missteps ahead of Vilnius,” Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat who worked for the Obama administration, told CNN. “The first was the announcement of the US sending cluster munitions when other allies won’t. It created an unnecessary delineation between America and the others. The second was even raising the question of Ukraine’s immediate membership, which was never on the cards, but came to dominate the meeting.”
Officials at NATO HQ were frustrated at how the narrative played out. “In short, the summit was a success,” a senior NATO official told CNN. But the official said that Biden’s comments were “not helpful” at a time when the bloc is in a “comms war” with Russia.
A Western diplomat told CNN that NATO desperately needs to “fix and double down on a communication strategy to explain all the good things we are doing.”
The fear of this diplomat, and of others who spoke with CNN, is that NATO “cannot win the communication war on membership that Russia wants to turn this into. There isn’t anything feasibly more we could have done on Ukraine’s membership at this time.”
This might feel like nitpicking over things that are trivial while a nation is under invasion. But Russia has historically been better than the West at spinning events to fit a narrative. These information wars are not just for the benefit of Russian audiences at home, but for people who live in NATO territories who might be susceptible to misinformation.
“There’s definitely a percentage of our population that falls for this kind of disinformation,” David van Weel, NATO’s assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, told CNN in an interview last month.
Western leaders are keenly aware of the power of messaging during a war. NATO officials privately wished that the key delegations in Vilnius – whether they had traveled from Washington or Kyiv – had remembered that lesson this week.
Benjamin Mendy, a former player for Manchester City, has requested seclusion in order to start “rebuilding his life” after being cleared of both a rape and an attempted rape conviction.
Following his acquittal in his second trial coming from two allegations left unresolved from an earlier court session, the 28-year-old former French international exited Chester Crown Court in northwest England on Friday.
In January, the same court returned not guilty verdicts for Mendy on six counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. However, the original jury was unable to reach a verdict on two charges, leading to a new trial.
Outside court, Mendy said, “Alhamdulillah,” meaning “praise be to God” in Arabic.
His lawyer Jenny Wiltshire said her client was “delighted that both juries reached the correct verdict”.
“Benjamin Mendy would like to thank the members of the jury for focusing on the evidence in this trial, rather than on the rumor and innuendo that have followed this case from the outset,” she said.
“In the three years since the police started investigating this matter, Mr. Mendy has tried to remain strong, but the process has inevitably had a serious impact on him,” she continued, adding that the footballer would now “ask for privacy so he can begin rebuilding his life.”
In a statement to CNN, the Crown Prosecution Service(CPS), which brought the charges against Mendy, said it respects the decision of the jury.
“We remain steadfast in our commitment to prosecute rape cases wherever our legal test is met, no matter how challenging the case, and encourage anyone who is a victim to report to the police,” a spokesperson said.
“It is not the function of the CPS to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offense, but to make fair, independent, and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for the criminal court to consider,” it said.
Mendy, who plays as a left-back, was suspended by Manchester City in August 2021 when the original charges against him were announced. His contract with the club expired at the end of the 2022-23 season.
He began his career playing professional leagues in France for Le Havre, Olympique de Marseille, and Monaco before moving to Britain to play for Manchester City.
Authorities in Colombia report that the four young children who were discovered last month after spending 40 days in the Amazon rainforest after an aeroplane crash have been released from the hospital and are doing well.
The four youngsters, who range in age from one to thirteen, have been receiving care at Colombia’s Military Hospital in Bogota since they were discovered on June 9.
They are now residing at a shelter home, according to Astrid Garces, director of the Colombian Children Welfare Agency ICBF, who spoke at a press conference on Friday. They were discharged from the medical facility on Friday.
“Considering everything they went through, they are actually well,” Garces said.
“Their physical health is perfect, and in the hospital, they started receiving care from a team of psychologists and anthropologists,” he added.
Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy were stranded in the Amazon jungle on May 1 following a deadly plane crash that killed their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia alongside other passengers and the pilot on the aircraft.
Traces pointing to their survival sparked a massive military-led search involving more than hundred Colombian special forces troops and 70 indigenous scouts combing the area.
For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle, until they were found last month, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro calling them “children of the jungle”.
The children ate three kilograms (six pounds) of farina, a coarse cassava flour commonly used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon region, to stay alive, according to a Colombian military special forces official.
On Friday, the ICBF said it is expected to make a case in front of a family court to determine who will get legal custody over the four children, through a process known as “reinstatement of right.”
Their grandparents previously made an appeal to the children to be returned to them.
Both the father of the two youngest children, Manuel Ranoque, and the maternal grandparents have requested legal custody over them, and a family court will have to rule over their fate.
The ICBF did not comment further on the legal matter saying it is a private matter
The Swedish national radio channel announced on Friday that the demonstration, which involves the burning of Torahs and Bibles outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, had received approval from the government of Sweden.
According to Sveriges Radio, a request to arrange a public meeting to burn the holy books on Saturday has been approved.
In a press release on Friday, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) stated that they “strongly” denounced the Swedish government‘s decision.
“Provocative, racist, antisemitic and sickening acts such as these have no place in any civilised society,” EJC president Ariel Muzicant said in the statement.
“Stamping on the deepest religious and cultural sensibilities of people is the clearest expression possible to send a message that minorities are unwelcome and unrespected,” Muzicant added.
“These actions, based on contorted and specious free speech arguments, are a disgrace to Sweden and any democratic government worthy of the name should prevent it.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also condemned the Swedish authorities’ decision.
“I unequivocally condemn the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books. As the President of Israel, I condemned the burning of the Quran, sacred to Muslims world over, and I am now heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people,” Herzog tweeted.
At the end of June, a man burned a copy of Islam’s holy book outside a mosque in the Swedish capital, triggering violent protests at the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.
The decision to permit that protest was made in accordance with the right of freedom of speech, Swedish police said at the time.
A police permit obtained by CNN last month stated that the “security risks and consequences connected to a Quran burning are not of such a nature that, according to current law, they can be the basis for a decision to reject an application for a general meeting.”
The permit for the June demonstration said that Quran burnings “mean an increased risk of a terrorist attack” and “can also have foreign policy consequences.”
However, it added that for “security problems to be the basis for a decision to refuse a general assembly, these must have a clear connection to the planned gathering or its immediate surroundings.”
A 6-year-old girl in Kyiv underwent a successful heart transplant on Monday, according to officials from the Heart Institute of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health, despite the ongoing conflict and persistent fear of Russian missiles.
After a three-hour procedure on Sunday night, the girl was given the 4-year-old boy’s heart who had been declared brain dead after suffering an aneurysm.
According to the institute, it was the first time a heart transplant had been carried out on a child of this age in Ukraine.
“The operation was also unique in that both the donor and the recipient were very young children, and the transplant required more effort from the doctors,” it added.
The transplant was performed by a team of doctors led by Dr. Boris Todurov, the chief scientist of the department of surgical and minimally invasive treatment.
“The operation went smoothly, the girl was extubated two hours after the operation,” Todurov said in a post on his official Facebook page.
The Heart Institute released images from the operation showing Ekaterina Sotnikova, the mother of the boy whose heart was donated, standing by the girl’s bedside.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, Sotnikova said her loss was “irreparable,” but that she had deeply wanted to make the donation.
“I waited for the result of the operation until late at night. When I was told that the heart was already beating in another child, I smiled sincerely for the first time. My son’s heart was beating!” she said.
Oksana Dmytrieva, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s subcommittee on modern medical technologies and transplantation development, said she was moved by the scene.
“It is extremely touching that the mother of the deceased boy came to listen to her child’s heart beating in the other chest … I have tears in my eyes from this photo,” she said.
Three more of the boy’s organs – two kidneys and a liver – were transplanted to two other children at another hospital in Kyiv, the National Children’s Hospital “Ohmatdyt.”
The two kidneys were transplanted to a 12-year-old boy from the occupied part of Kherson region. “He had been waiting for a transplant for more than 3 years and lived at the Ohmatdyt,” the hospital said in a Facebook post. A liver was also transplanted to a 15-year-old boy from Kirovohrad region.
“Many thanks to the parents of the little angel, who made an extremely noble act in this extremely difficult time for the family! You are people with a big and kind heart!” Dmytrieva said. “May the little angel rest in peace. And a speedy recovery to the patients who got a chance for a full life!”
Transplants would not be possible without the relatives of donors making the decision “to save the lives of people they do not know after losing a loved one,” Dmytrieva said. “This is the noblest manifestation of humanity. Especially when it comes to the loss of a child.”
So far this year, 23 heart transplants have been performed in Ukraine amid the war, the Heart Institute said.
If an operation is already underway and air raid systems are activated, the operation cannot be interrupted and will continue even if there is an attack on the city, the institute told CNN on Monday.
If the operation hasn’t started, the team of doctors and the patient wait for the air raid sirens to stop before beginning the operation.
Earlier this year, when Kyiv was less protected by air defenses, all patients were brought down to a specially equipped bomb shelter.
Those who could move around went on their own, while those who could not were helped by staff, the Heart Institute said.
The only exception was patients in the intensive care unit, who could not be moved, so the doctor on duty and other medical staff would stay with them.
The Heart Institute has purchased special generators so operations can continue during blackouts, and it has an autonomous water supply.
During the war, the institute said it had seen more patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases and worsening chronic diseases due to stress.
In Europe’s hottest summer on record, about 62,000 people died from heat-related causes last year, according to a new study. This is devastating proof that heat is a silent killer and that its victims are massively underreported.
According to the study, which was released on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, between May 30 and September 4 of last year, 61,672 people in Europe died from heat-related illnesses. With roughly 18,000 fatalities, Italy suffered the most, followed by Spain with little more than 11,000 and Germany with about 8,000.
Researchers also found the extreme heat disproportionately harmed the elderly and women. Of the nearly 62,000 deaths analyzed, heat-related mortality rate was 63% higher in women than in men. Age was also an important factor, with thedeath toll increasing significantly for people aged 65 and over.
“It’s a very big number,” Joan Ballester, an epidemiologist at ISGlobal and the lead author of the study, told CNN.
Eurostat, which is Europe’s statistical office, attempted to quantify the heat wave’s death toll last year by tallying excess deaths — or how many people died more than a typical summer. But Ballester, who lives in Spain and sweated through last year’s heat wave, said the study published Monday was the first to analyze how many deaths last summer were specifically caused by heat.
Researchers analyzed temperature and mortality data between 2015 and 2022 for 35 European countries — representing a total population of 543 million people — and used it to create epidemiological models to calculate heat-related deaths.
“For me, I’m an epidemiologist, so I know what to expect and (the number of deaths) is not surprising, but for the general population, it’s very likely that this is astonishing,” he said.
The region has seen this script before — an unprecedented heat wave resulted in more than 70,000 excess deaths in the summer of 2003. That heat wave was an “exceptionally rare event,” the study’s scientists said, even when accounting for the human-caused climate crisis.
The 2003 heat wave was a wake-up call, researchers said. It showed Europe at the time lacked the kind of preparedness to prevent a mass casualty event from heat, and it exposed the fragile nature of the region’s health system, Ballester said, particularly as weather extremes become more frequent and intense.
But the study’s findings show that even Europe’s current prevention plans are still not enough to keep up with the breakneck pace at which dangerous heat waves are occurring and putting even more lives at risk.
“The fact that more than 61,600 people in Europe died of heat stress in the summer of 2022, even though, unlike in 2003, many countries already had active prevention plans in place, suggests that adaptation strategies currently available may still be insufficient,” said Hicham Achebak, a co-author of the study and researcher at ISGlobal.
While the numbers may have been worse without the region’s current heat prevention plans, the authors warn that the world is only going to get hotter — and that without effective adaptation plans in place, Europe could face more than 68,000 premature deaths each summer by 2030, and over 94,000 by 2040.
“The acceleration of warming observed over the last 10 years underlines the urgent need to reassess and substantially strengthen prevention plans,” Achebak said.
Monday’s study shows how serious a health risk extreme heat can be. In the US, heat kills more Americans than any other weather-related disaster, and the climate crisis has been making these extreme events more deadly. Heat deaths have outpaced hurricane deaths in the country by more than 8-to-1 over the past decade, according to data tracked by the National Weather Service.
Yet the United States’ heat mortality numbers would suggest that far fewer people are dying from heat than in Europe. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 700 people die heat-related deaths each year.
David S. Jones, a physician and historian at Harvard University, said there are a couple explanations as to why US statistics seem low: the US could be underreporting its numbers, or heat is more lethal in Europe due to the lack of air conditioning — or it could be a combination of the two.
Jones, who is not involved with Monday’s study, said just 5% of households in France have air conditioning, for example, compared to nearly 90% in the US.
“There’s also reason to believe that places that are more often exposed to heat, like the American South, are actually less vulnerable to heat than in places like the Northeast US or in Chicago or Europe,” Jones said.
“But it comes back to this question of, well, is Europe just reporting more accurately than the US is?” he said. “There’s been people who have been frustrated with the quality of US health data across the board, not just heat, but everything else, for decades.”
John Balbus, the acting director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said the number is lower because the CDC estimates heat-related deaths based on death certificates which list heat as the primary or contributing cause of death, whereas academic institutions, such as ISGlobal, use statistical models for their estimates.
A 2020 study found that heat-related deaths were being underestimated in 297 of the country’s most populous counties. Researchers said mortality records tend to neglect other potentially heat-related causes of death, like heart attacks.
But there are other ways of getting at how many people in the US are being harmed by increasingly frequent heat waves. Balbus noted the CDC does track the number of people who show up to emergency rooms for heat-related illnesses.
The Biden administration is working on short-term solutions for heat, Balbus said, like more effective advisories and getting air conditioners into the hands of low-income families.
But they also have an eye on the longterm through recent legislation: planting more trees and green space in urban areas, which cools the surrounding air; offering communities support for reflective streets and roofs; and working to modernize building codes so they trap less heat.
Still, Balbus said, as temperatures continue to climb, more funding should be dedicated to studying and tracking the health impacts of the climate crisis.
“We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have,” Balbus said. “And we could do more with more capacity, but it’s something that has scientific challenges, and it requires support.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the way CDC calculates heat-related deaths. The agency’s estimate includes death certificates that list heat as a primary or contributing factor of death.
In a significant collaboration, the National Film Authority (NFA) of Ghana has joined forces with the International Writers Lab (IWL) to showcase the Ghanaian film industry to renowned Hollywood studios and streaming platforms. This partnership aims to highlight the immense potential and talent within the Ghanaian film sector, creating opportunities for collaboration and exposure on an international scale.
The IWL was launched in 2021 to increase the opportunity for Hollywood production of stories from film and television writers in Africa, beginning in Kenya.
Created by PMF Media Group, VentureLift Africa and The Blackhouse Foundation, the IWL is a unique accelerator and fellowship program that combines a writers lab — facilitated by the award-winning American filmmaker, Matty Rich (Straight Out Of Brooklyn and Inkwell), mentorship from writers with Hollywood credits, career and business advice from Hollywood agents, studio executives, international sales agents, and talent management companies, and a pitch-fest to receive feedback and advice from distributors to refine the Fellows’ projects.
Ghana’s film industry has continued to play a significant role in African filmmaking. Despite its huge commercial and financial potential, the Ghanaian creative sector has long been a sleeping giant for economic development and job creation in Africa.
When compared to Africa’s top entertainment hubs, Nigeria and South Africa, resources supporting outstanding film and television writers have had less visibility than other sectors of the Ghanaian economy. The NFA seeks to change this dynamic and broaden the global networks of talented African writers.
The Executive Secretary of NFA, Ms. Juliet Asante, views the partnership as “an opportunity that opens an important door for scriptwriters in Ghana. Writers are the backbone and skeleton of the film industry and its related disciplines. A good story is the beginning of any successful project. Without a well-told story and script, no amount of magic on set will be magical.
It is for this reason that the National Film Authority of Ghana places a premium on building the craft as a key pillar in Ghana’s strategy to position itself as a film and content hub in the region.
Authentic, well-researched, well told and well-written stories that make impact, are the outcomes we expect from this partnership and magic always happens in films and real life when these come together”
According to Laure de Peretti of the StoryBoard Collective, a Swiss-based philanthropy which also supports African episodic writers through the AuthenticA Series Lab in partnership with the Realness Institute and a continuing partner of IWL, “engaging the Ghanaian creative ecosystem is exciting and has a huge potential with a dynamic local film industry.
IWL will benefit from very motivated talents who have the ambition to develop high quality productions. We are eager to see these authentic storylines developed into on-screen feature films by these three talented writers.”
Three fellows were selected for the Ghana Cohort to refine their scripts for film, including Ms. Anna Segbefia-Hanson, Mr. Elorm Adjaho and Mr. Fidaus Sulemana. The Fellows are experienced writers and emerging changemakers in the African and global creative ecosystems.
Pauline Fischer, Founder of PMF Media Group and visionary for the program, hopes that these “experienced and talented writers will emerge from the Lab with enhanced skills and broader networks to more successfully build their careers and expand their opportunities in Ghana, across the continent, and in the global entertainment industry”.
The 16-week programme aims to culminate in a trip to an international film festival, where the Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in additional programs and further expand their professional network.
For Wilmot Allen, Founder of VentureLift Africa, the IWL serves as a catalyst for leaving a stronger African imprint on the world.
“We are hopeful to facilitate a deeper ecosystem of talented writers across the continent so that the world will come to understand Africa better in all of its diversity, creativity and originality.”
The IWL intends to expand its programming to include animation and gaming across the continent in the coming months.
The year 2023 has proven to be a successful one for Afrobeats artist King Promise, as he emerged victorious at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs), receiving two prestigious awards.
And while still basking in the glory that comes with it, the reigning VGMA Album of the Year winner is getting huge applause for his latest, banger, Terminator.
But just as music followers will relish the moments served by the single, Terminator, King Promise is out with a remix of the song featuring Nigerian singer and producer, Young Jonn.
Since its release in May, Terminator has recorded 20 million streams with impressive positions on music charts.
It has recorded a hat-trick of Top 5 Shazam in Ghana. Shazam is an application that can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device.
It is expected that the remix which was released on Thursday, July, 6, 2023, will boost the song and give it a huge presence beyond Ghana.
According to King Promise, real name, Gregory Bortey Newman, Terminator is a story of his life.
“This song is the story of my life, it talks about how I’ve survived, and speaks on how I’ve thrived, this song is special to me,” he noted in a statement.
Last year, King Promise shot up his prominence when he dropped his 5 Star album under the management of 5K Records. The project earned him Album of the Year at this year’s Ghana Music Awards in May.
The latest album comes after his debut, As Promised dropped in 2019 which features artistes including Wizkid and Raye.
Since the release of 5 Star, it has garnered over 36M streams across Spotify and Apple Music alone and seen King Promise embark on a tour in the US with some incredible guest appearances by Chance The Rapper and Vic Mensa.
King Promise who is known for songs such as CCTV, Choplife, Ginger, Tokyo and Commando told Graphic Showbiz apart from his fans, he has a higher calling to be consistent with his music.
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has introduced a Debt Securities Exchange Program, encouraging voluntary exchange of Cocoa Bills.
This represents an aggregate principal of approximately GHC 7.93 billion for longer-term debt securities with averagely lower coupon rates to be issued by COCOBOD.
The bonds, it stated, will be issued pursuant to the terms of the programme documents.
This include an exchange memorandum dated July 14, 2023 (the Exchange Memorandum); a trust deed dated July 14, 2023 and entered into between COCOBOD as issuer and Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG) as trustee for the holders of the Bonds) as well as an agency agreement dated July 14, 2023 and entered into by COCOBOD as issuer, CBG as bond trustee and paying bank, and the Central Securities Depository as transfer agent, calculation agent and registrar in respect of the Bond.
Holders of the Cocoa Bills whose offers are accepted by COCOBOD will receive five different Bonds with an aggregate principal amount rounded down to the nearest ¢1.00 equal to the principal amount of Cocoa Bills tendered in addition to any accrued and unpaid interest due on such Cocoa Bills.
The five bonds will mature on a one-per-year basis consecutively from and including 2024 to and including 2028.
The reasons for undertaking the Exchange Programme have been explained by the chief executive of COCOBOD in a letter dated July 11, 2023 from the chief executive to all holders of the Cocoa Bills.
All holders of the Cocoa Bills are advised to read the contents of the Programme Documents carefully and consult a dealer, investment adviser or other professional for appropriate advice before making an investment decision.
Again, offers may be submitted from today July 14, 2023, until 4pm on July 31, 2023, unless otherwise extended by COCOBOD in its sole discretion and with the prior approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It said an offer once made cannot be revoked or withdrawn at any time except in the limited circumstances described in the Exchange Memorandum.
This announcement is for informational purposes only and is not an invitation to exchange to any holders of the Cocoa Bills. The invitation to exchange the Cocoa Bills is only being made pursuant to the Exchange Memorandum.
Meanwhile, CalBank has been appointed as arrangers for the Exchange Programme.
The Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) is urging media outlets to engage the expertise of professionals when reviewing books, particularly those authored by celebrities. GAW advises against relying on entertainment panelists who may lack the necessary knowledge and experience in book critique.
This is because the unprofessional way of reviewing books, which largely focused on the negativity, hampers the growing interest among people, especially celebrities, to tell their stories.
Speaking with Graphic Showbiz on Tuesday, July 11, the Organising Secretary of GAW, Oswald Okaitei, pointed out that until pubic figures such as Asamoah Gyan, Nathaniel Adisi aka Bola Ray, Juliet Ibrahim, Celestine Donkor and recently, actors, Yvonne Nelson and Adjetey Anang had sparked conversations in a book and thereby reviving the reading culture, various projects initiated by government and organisations, including GAW, didn’t make such huge impact.
He, however, expressed worry about the renewed reading culture possibly being cut short or undermined when entertainment panellists were empowered to lead conversations on such books which largely dwelt on sensationalism.
“For a very long time, GAW has been campaigning for players in the creative industry to give attention to writing/creative writing as part of the arts since it is fine arts.
“The outcome has, however, not been too meaningful and so it came as great relief and hope to see that ‘I Am Not Yvonne Nelson’ and subsequently, Adjetey Anang’s book were stoking conversations and highlighting the art of writing.
“But here we are with people, who don’t know and understand anything about book reviews, leading the conversations and reviewing books. Reviewing a book involves the style, content and even those behind the scenes such as graphic designers.
“But from some of the submissions, they tell that the said reviewers have not even read the book but making commentaries based on what they have heard.
“This is a recipe for disaster and could discourage people from telling their story and that is what GAW wants to prevent, particularly at a time when we realised that Ghanaians love to read and celebrities have influence on the minds of their followers,” he said.
The popular cliché that when one wants to hide something from the Blackman, he should put it in a book seems to affirm the poor reading culture among Africans.
Mr Okaiitei, who is also the Executive Director for Read Ghana, Read Consult, told Graphic Showbiz that the long held perception could be attributed to oral tradition as part of the African culture.
“We have been made to believe that writing isn’t African and that we are known for oral tradition and that ours is not literature. For instance, during the enstoolment of chiefs, they are kept in doors for days and taught customs through oral tradition.
“The tongue is also said to rot but the ink of the pen lasts forever. It’s the more reason why Shakespeare is mentioned today but the musicians of his time are not known. That comes to elaborate the fact that writing should be revered and it is quite unfortunate that aspect of the creative arts has been orphaned,” he said.
Mr Okaitei commended the likes of Yvonne Nelson, Bola Ray, Asamoah Gyan, Adjetey Anang and added that, “they have been able to stimulate conversations for writing. It gives us a lot of hope. People are discussing it. People are reading. It changes the narrative and we salute them for that”.
Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Yaw Frimpong Addo, has expressed the immense challenge of simultaneously fulfilling the responsibilities of both a Member of Parliament (MP) and a minister.
The deputy minister, Frimpong Addo, who is in charge of crops at the Ministry of Agriculture explained that it is hard running around the ministry, parliament and the constituency as a person who belongs to both the legislative and executive arms of government.
The deputy minister and the MP for Manso Adubia was speaking to Daniel Oduro, the host of The Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV.
“It’s quite hectic combining parliamentary work and executive… because running around and you know, going to parliament, coming to the ministry, going to the constituency; that is the biggest of all the troubles,” Frimpong Addo said.
The minister, however, added that despite the odds that come with the job, as a minister who is also an MP, he gets access to things needed for his work easily.
“But it’s fun too at the same time. You get to know a lot of people, you get to know a lot of institutions that make Ghana move around that if you are just only an MP, it’s a bit difficult knowing them So, it has its pros and cons,” he added.
Several leaders in Ghana including former Speaker of Parliament, Prof Aaron Mike Oquaye and a former rector of GIMPA, Prof. Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson have advocated for Ghanaian MPs to be left as MPs but rather choose competent and independent individuals for ministerial positions.
In a significant call to action, the National House of Chiefs has urged the government of Ghana to implement resolute measures to combat the issue of illegal mining in the country.
The activities of illegal miners, according to House President Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II, pose a threat to the country, and the government must take decisive action to address the issue.
Speaking at the General Meeting of the National House Chiefs on Thursday, 13 July 2023, in Kumasi, he said the chiefs are prepared to support the government towards this fight.
“The government must be decisive in dealing with galamsey, and we as chiefs must support the government in this fight. There is always a surge in galamsey activities during election years. During election years, both the government in power and the opposition party look unconcerned. During election years, our government; both current and past, do not demonstrate enough political will to deal decisively with the menace”.
The traditional ruler lamented that there is always a surge of galamsey in election years.
Ogyeahoho, who doubles as the Paramount Chief of the Sefwi Anhwiaso traditional area, added that the fight against galamsey must be inclusive and intensified.
According to him, it is the sacred duty of chiefs to preserve the land because it is our heritage, and failing to do so constitutes a breach of duty.
He asserted that the chiefs’ failure to fulfil this sacred duty would not be forgiven by future generations.
A female Chinese citizen, detained in 2022 alongside a Chinese male and a Ghanaian for engaging in illegal mining, has made a suicide attempt while in prison due to her declining health condition.
According to a Daily Guide Newspaper Report dated July 14, 2023, she is currently under close monitoring.
The three who were arrested in 2022 appeared before the High Court (Criminal Division) in 2022.
The two Chinese nationals have been detained since their arrest and subsequent arraignment, while the Ghanaian has been granted bail.
The trial gained significant attention from the public because of their alleged involvement in a complex criminal operation in the mining sector.
However, the focus shifted to the female Chinese suspect’s well-being following a recent medical report indicating a significant deterioration in her health.
According to the report, she has been experiencing rapid heartbeats and nearly collapsed while in the Nsawam Female Prison.
Shortly after the incident, she attempted suicide using a cloth, leading the prison authorities to place her under constant suicide watch.
The defense legal team representing the Chinese nationals have repeatedly applied to the court for bail, citing the deterioration of her health conditions and potential human rights violations resulting from prolonged detention.
However, the prosecution, on the other hand, argued against granting bail, highlighting the severity of the charges and the risk of flight to justify their continued detention.
As the case progresses, all attention turns to the High Courts (Criminal Division) to address these concerns and take the necessary actions to safeguard the rights and well-being of these foreign nationals.
Suspected “wee” smokers have transformed the multi-million Kumasi Krofrom market in the Ashanti Region’s Kumasi Metropolis into a makeshift public toilet.
The facility which was projected to house traders for business activities is currently the safe haven for criminals and smokers who use the area as a place of convenience.
OTEC News reporter, Jacob Agyenim Boateng, who visited the facility on Thursday, July 13, 2023, revealed that weeds had grown on the land and work had been halted.
The situation according to residents in the region is a serious source of worry for the residents and traders and they are calling for the project to be completed as early as possible.
Assembly Member for the area, Kwaku Appiah in an interview with OTEC News confirmed the facility has been turned into a place of convenience for some people in the area.
He noted criminals are also using part of the facility as their hiding place due to the bushy nature of the site.
Kwaku Appiah who expressed worry over the situation appealed to the ruling government to complete the project.
“As we speak now the market has become a haven for reptiles, weeds, and other animals, as well as notorious criminals, who are terrorizing the residents,” he said.
The market which was initiated in 2007 by former president, John Kufuor as part of his jubilee projects, was abandoned in 2008 due to lack of funds.
The market which is ultramodern by design, when completed will accommodate 500 stores and shelves and will enhance business activities in the metropolis.
Mpraeso MP, Davis Ansah Opoku, has highlighted concerns over inoperative parliament elevators impacting MPs’ mobility during Friday’s session.
During the session, the MP stated, “I rise to speak on matters of welfare, which I think are likely affecting members of parliament upon attending to matters of this house. Mr. Speaker, truth be told, all the elevators in this house…”
The Speaker, Andrew Amoako, interjected, questioning whether the welfare matter was appropriate for discussion in that forum.
However, the MP responded, highlighting the issue’s relevance to attendance and the smooth operation of the chamber.
He stated, “Mr. Speaker, we cannot live in a house where facilities that are supposed to facilitate our smooth operation in this house are not working. It’s a problem, and I feel that I need to raise it specifically on this floor so we can address it properly. All the elevators are not working.”
The Speaker said the attention of the house has been drawn to the issue and efforts are being made to ensure the problem is fixed.
President Akufo-Addo, the, made a grand entrance at the 30th anniversary celebration of his late wife, Eleanor Akosua Akufo-Addo, adding a touch of glamour to the event.
The family of the late Madam Eleanor Akosua Akufo-Addo, formerly known as Saa Nkansah-Gyamenah organised the commemorative ceremony to mark three decades since her passing.
The President was mobbed by the cheering crowd who were there to also honour the memory of his late wife.
The highlight of the occasion was the unveiling and dedication of the Eleanor Akufo-Addo Memorial Social Centre, established in her honour. This centre stands as a testament to her legacy and the impact she made during her lifetime.
Background
Following tradition, a 30th-anniversary event was held to honour her memory.
Madam Eleanor Akufo-Addo sadly departed on July 13, 1993, under undisclosed circumstances.
She shared a cherished bond with Akufo-Addo for many years, and together, they had a daughter; Edwina Nana Dokua Akufo-Addo.
The late Eleanor Akufo-Addo was a distinguished lawyer and held the esteemed position of being the first Ashanti Regional Manager of DHL. She hailed from the Botase Royal Family of Asante Mampong and was known for her beauty, elegance, gentleness, and courteous nature.
To commemorate her 30th anniversary, a special event took place at Asante Mampong, her final resting place.
The ceremony began with a wreath-laying ceremony at her grave site, followed by a brief anniversary service.
The highlight of the occasion was the unveiling and dedication of the Eleanor Akufo-Addo Memorial Social Centre, established in her honor. This centre stands as a testament to her legacy and the impact she made during her lifetime.
The commemoration of Madam Eleanor Akufo-Addo’s 30th anniversary serves as a poignant reminder of her significant contributions and the enduring love she shared with President Nana Akufo-Addo.
One of the supporters of the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill, Sam Nartey George, has provided clarification regarding his characterization of homosexuality as a form of mental disorder, emphasizing that it is based on scientific evidence supporting its classification as such.
The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam George, explained that the American Psychologist Association identified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Sam George further explained that homosexuality as a mental disorder was only taken out of the Manual of Psychiatric Conditions in 1974 through persuasion and not because it was scientifically wrong.
“I regard it (homosexuality) an insanity and for your information, it was considered by the American Psychologist Association as a mental disorder until 1974. It was in I974 that homosexuality was taken out of the manual, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which is the manual for psychiatric conditions. It was only in 1974 that homosexuality was taken out and it wasn’t on the basis of science. It was taken out on the basis of lobbying so the Science that determined that it was a mental condition has not been refuted.
“So, if I call it insanity, it is scientifically proven because the only reason why the American Psychologist Association took it off the manual was not on the basis of science . It being on the basis of science was that it was a mental condition like schizophrenia but in 1974, they took out of that manual on the basis of lobbying and social pressure not on the basis of science. I’m speaking to the science and so, when I call it insanity, it’s not derogatory; I’m speaking facts,” Sam George said on Legal Agenda with Matilda Boateng Nartey on GhanaWeb TV.
Eight MPs are sponsoring the Promotion of Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Cultural Values. These individuals include; Sam Nartey George (MP, Ningo Prampram), Emmanuel Bedzrah (MP, Ho West) Della Adjoa Sowah (MP, Kpando), John Ntim Fordjour (MP, Assin South) – the sole NPP MP sponsoring the Bill.
The remaining sponsors are Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini (MP, Tamale North), Helen Adjoa Ntoso (MP, Krachi West), Rita Naa Odoley Sowah (MP, La Dadekotopon) and Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor (MP, South Dayi).
Member of Parliament representing Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has expressed firm endorsement for the substitution of death penalties with life imprisonment.
The report of the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee on the Criminal Offences Amendment Act, which seeks to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment, has divided parliamentarians.
The Human Rights lawyer believes that although the death penalty was inherited from the colonial administration as a punishment for murder, attempted murder, genocide, piracy, and smuggling of gold or diamonds, Ghana has not signed a death warrant for the execution of offenders since 1993.
The MP stated that “since Ghana gained independence in 1957, 49 people have been executed either by firing squad or by hanging, and the majority of those executions primarily occurred during military regimes” in an interview with Kwabena Agyapong on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm.
“Ghana’s current stance is that we actively oppose slavery. This is the case because, commendably, Ghana has not signed a death warrant since 1993 to execute anyone.
He explained that we should understand how the death penalty was introduced, the circumstances surrounding it, and whether it was still relevant in our books as society progressed.
“Today, the death penalty is irrelevant. We must remove it from our records and replace it with a life sentence. In practice, we have people sentenced to death, but after 38 years, we release them, so why have the law if you don’t use it again? That is the first question. Second, families of victims of crimes carrying the death penalty have no closure when the people sentenced to death are not executed. Because how does a person get closure if they are sentenced to death and you do not execute them?”
He stated that there are currently about 176 people on the death roll in Ghana’s condemned cells.
The conditions in the cells, he lamented, were deplorable and unfit for human habitation.
“As a human rights lawyer, I have visited the condemned cells and witnessed the conditions in which those who reside there live. It’s terrible, and I urge anyone who is listening to go see for themselves. If you keep people in such a state, the best option is to execute them or change the law to a life sentence.”
He claims that it is widely acknowledged that the death penalty should be abolished and that the work of the constitutional review commission under the late Atta Mills reflected this.
He noted that recently when he took part in a UN event, President Akufo-Addo supported the call for repeal as well and even voted in favour of it.
He came to the conclusion that there is a political and judicial agreement to abolish the death penalty, and as Ghanaians, we must accept that it is time to deal with it.
The issue of brain drain within Ghana’s medical community has sparked discussions and raised questions about the motivations behind the increasing number of healthcare professionals seeking opportunities abroad.
Recent reports highlight the dissatisfaction among doctors and nurses in Ghana with regards to their salaries, leading them to pursue better prospects overseas.
Head of the Department of Surgery at KBTH, Professor J.E. Mensah, in an interview with the media, disclosed that each month, at least three doctors from his department alone leave for “brighter prospects” overseas.
This trend, he said, is not limited to a single department but is prevalent across various hospitals and healthcare facilities nationwide.
The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) reported that in 2022 alone, over 3,000 nurses and midwives left the country in search of better opportunities elsewhere, a worrisome trend.
To better understand this unfortunate development, The Independent Ghana delved into the salaries that healthcare professionals are leaving behind and those they are pursuing.
According to a report by the Business and Financial Times (B&FT), the average monthly salary for a medical doctor in Ghana ranges from $400 to approximately $1,500, even for senior doctors with decades of experience and those serving as medical school lecturers.
In stark contrast, Forbes reports that doctors employed in the United States earn an average annual salary of $165,347 or more, equivalent to approximately $13,779 per month.
This vast disparity demonstrates the significant difference in income between Ghanaian doctors and their foreign counterparts. The salary gap is equally pronounced among nurses. Quartz Africa states that a nurse in Ghana earns an average of $3,600 per year, while their counterparts in the United States earn an average of $73,550 per year.
Professor Mensah highlighted that several Western countries aggressively recruit bonded nurses and doctors from Ghana, enticing them with irresistible salaries.
This substantial wage disparity not only remains unfair but also severely impacts Ghana’s healthcare system. It contributes to brain drain, staff shortages, compromised service quality, low morale, and frequent strikes.
To improve Ghana’s doctor-to-patient ratio and enhance healthcare services both locally and globally, urgent and drastic measures must be taken to incentivize healthcare practitioners to stay and contribute to the country’s medical sector.
Being a doctor in Ghana is a noble profession where lives are saved, and essential healthcare is provided to millions. These dedicated professionals have invested years of study and training, often at great personal sacrifice. It is understandable that would they desire fair compensation for their unwavering dedication.
In response to the ongoing boycott by Minority Members, the Speaker of Parliament has expressed uncertainty about the remaining matters for the house to deliberate on.
This comes after the Majority deputy whip, Habib Iddrisu, proposed for adjournment just as the Deputy Whip Lydia Alhassan presented the business statement for the upcoming week as scheduled by the Business Committee.
Deputy Speaker Andrew Asiamah Amoako responded, “So there is nothing we can do?” However, Member of Parliament for Okaikwei Central Constituency, Patrick Yaw Boamah, seconded the motion, leading to the ultimate decision to adjourn parliament until Tuesday, July 17.
The boycott by the minority members has resulted from their solidarity with Assin North MP James Gyakye Quayson, who is currently involved in a criminal case related to allegations of dual citizenship, which is prohibited for Members of Parliament under Ghana’s constitution. Following the Supreme Court’s annulment of his 2020 parliamentary victory, a subsequent by-election was held, resulting in his even larger margin of victory.
During the parliamentary session, Boamah emphasized the significance of having sufficient members present for debates on new house rules and other important matters.
The Deputy Whip Lydia Alhassan proceeded to present the business statement for the upcoming week, following the adjournment as scheduled by the Business Committee.
The house ultimately decided to adjourn after Deputy Whip Lydia Alhassan presented the business statement for the week ending Friday, July 21, 2023.
In solidarity with Assin North MP James Gyakye Quayson‘s ongoing criminal case, the minority members’ absence during parliamentary proceedings on July 14 compelled the adjournment of the session.
The case revolves around allegations of dual citizenship against James Gyakye Quayson, which is prohibited for Members of Parliament under Ghana’s constitution.
Following the Supreme Court’s annulment of his 2020 parliamentary victory, a by-election was held in which he secured an even larger margin of victory.
In today’s parliamentary session, Member of Parliament for Okaikwei Central Constituency, Patrick Yaw Boamah, proposed adjourning the sitting due to insufficient MPs present in the chamber.
Boamah highlighted the importance of members being present to participate in debates on new house rules and address various issues.
“…Mr Speaker if we are to take the Vote and Proceedings as provided for under standing order 34, there are lot of issues that members will want to comment on and make corrections especially with regards to debate on the new house rules and few other things, I have the vote of proceedings especially with members being present and members who have been marked absent. So, looking at the composition today, I beg you alter the business of the day to allow the deputy whip to present the business statement.” he said
Deputy Whip Lydia Alhassan presented the business statement for the upcoming week, as scheduled by the Business Committee.
The statement included plans for ministers responsible for Finance, Education, and Food and Agriculture to address the challenges faced by the National Food Company Limited.
While the Speaker suggested proceeding with the Votes and Proceedings and the Business before adjourning, the house ultimately decided to adjourn after Deputy Whip Lydia Alhassan presented the business statement for the week ending Friday, July 21, 2023.
Member of Parliament representing the Assin-North constituency, James Gyakye Quayson, has lodged a new petition with the Supreme Court, contesting the Accra High Court’s ruling to hold his criminal trial on a daily basis.
Quayson is also requesting the apex court to prohibit further proceedings until the Attorney-General provides him with the complete set of documents related to the case.
During the High Court session on July 14, where Quayson pleaded not guilty to charges of forgery and perjury, his lead counsel, Tsatsu Tsikata, informed the court about the recent application filed at the Supreme Court.
Tsikata further mentioned that his client had also lodged an application at the Court of Appeal, seeking a stay of proceedings pending an appeal before the court.
Consequently, Tsikata urged the court to adjourn the trial until the higher courts make their determinations.
However, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, countered the request, stating that there was no legal basis to halt the proceedings while awaiting the outcome of the two processes.
Justice Mary Maame Ekue Yanzuh, presiding over the court, adjourned the matter to July 18, 2023, to rule on the application.
The charges against James Gyakye Quayson include forgery and perjury, stemming from alleged offenses during the the 2020 Assin North parliamentary election.
Quayson has pleaded not guilty to five counts, including forgery of passport or travel certificate, making a false statutory declaration, perjury, and false declaration for office. The prosecution asserts that Quayson provided false information to the Passport Office, stating that he did not possess a passport from another country when applying for a Ghanaian Passport.
Additionally, he is accused of making a false declaration to the Electoral Commission, denying allegiance to a foreign country when registering as a candidate for the Assin North seat.
Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo Prampram, Sam Nartey George, has criticised supporters of the LGBTQ+ community who argue for the right of individuals to choose their own gender, expressing disagreement with their stance.
The MP intimates that the LGBTQ+ people are trying to play God by assigning different sex to themselves order than the ones they were born with. He said this in an interview on Ghanaweb.
The MP posited that God is now showing the LGBTQI community his power because people who were born male but have through operations to become females (female transgenders) are now getting prostate cancer which is a known disease for adult males.
“You see this is at the base of everything, there is a difference between sex and gender. The LGBTQ group try to make them one and the same to confuse the world but you can confuse Sam George and his people.
“Because we know what the difference is. Sex is a binary contrast that is biological and determined by God, you can’t change it. Sex is male and female, that is it. There is nothing beyond male and female.
“… and that is why those of them who claim that they have transgendered from male to female and they are unlucky and they get prostate cancer. You would see the person dressed as a woman with makeup and then she is treating prostate cancer. Transgender women are now having to deal with prostate cancer, you can’t cheat God,” he said.
Member of Parliament for the Zibilla East Constituency in the Upper East Region, Cletus Avoka, has expressed the belief that abolishing the death penalty in Ghana would encourage criminals to engage in more severe and atrocious acts.
He believes that handing death sentences to offenders who deserve it as prescribed in Ghana’s laws will appeal more to the families of the victims.
There is a private member Bill in Parliament seeking to amend Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act to replace or substitute the death penalty sentence with life imprisonment.
In a radio interview monitored by Graphic Online on Accra-based 3Fm on Friday afternoon, July 14, 2023, Mr. Avoka said “the death penalty appeals more to the emotions of the victim’s family than the life imprisonment.”
Ghana has not carried any execution of those on death penalty since 1992 although there are a number of people on the list in the country’s prisons.
The Zebilla East MP is of the view that slapping offenders who deserve death sentences will aggravate the pains and trauma of families that lose members to such offenders.
He said the death sentence also serves as a major deterrent to offenders although those on such punishment list had not been executed in the country for a very long time.
For him, the sponsors of the bill “have not adequately addressed the side of the victim”, stressing that “If you are a victim of murder and you leave behind your family” the pain it leaves them cannot be equated with the life imprisonment.
Mr. Avoka further expressed concern that the country’s political system will make it easier for people on the life imprisonment to find escape route.
For him, once somebody is given life sentence instead of death sentence and spends a few years in prison and there is a change of government or that person has well-to-do family, they can push an agenda to get the person freed.
That, he added, will upset the families of the victims and therefore before such an amendment to the Criminal Offences Act, there should be more education on that to the entire populace than just “smuggling in the bill.”
Emerging Kumawood actor, Frederick Amankwah has revealed that he draws inspiration from the works of his senior colleague Ras Nene, who has ingeniously utilized skits to maintain relevance within the industry.
Frederick Amankwah also acknowledges the creative approach adopted by Ras Nene and recognizes it as a source of motivation for his own career.
He mentioned that he had come into acting at a time when things were not rosy but is finding relevance in the space following the increasing popularity of skit-making which has provided roles for young actors like himself.
Amankwah pointed out that, while frantic measures are being worked on to bring back the once vibrant Kumawood industry on its feet, the likes of Ras Nene, Oboy Siki among other Kumawodd skit makers should be encouraged with skit making.
“There’s this ongoing debate that Kumawood skit makers are contributing to the decline of the industry but I beg to differ from that assertion.
“As a beneficiary, I think it is rather helping the industry especially young ones like me who are looking for the opportunity to showcase their talent.
“What I will rather recommend is that they should streamline their activities or provide a professional guidance because we are in the digital era and demand for skits is on the rise,” he said.
Amankwah said he was quite hopeful for the ‘resurrection” of Kumawood and appealed to movie producers to make that a reality.
“A number of movie producers blame Covid-19 for the current state of industry but I’m quite positive that things will get back to normal when we work to revive it. The huge interest and patronage of skits by Kumawood actors show that the audience misses them on their screens,” he stated.
In a significant development, the World Bank has concluded an agreement to provide Ghana with $900 million in support of the country’s ongoing reforms. This substantial financial commitment highlights the bank’s commitment to assist Ghana in its pursuit of comprehensive reforms aimed at fostering sustainable development and economic growth.
The support, which is under the Development Policy Operations (DPO) for the period 2023 to 2025, is expected to front-load the first tranche to the country by November if Ghana is able to meet prior actions and present the final document to the World Bank Executive Board by the end of October this year.
At a meeting with the World Bank Managing Director for Operations, Anna Bjerde, in Accra yesterday, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, stated that the government was committed to completing all prior actions by October this year.
“I would like to personally assure you that the government has prioritised the completion of all prior actions by end of August, 2023, to ensure the first DPO in the series is presented to the World Bank Board in early October,” the Finance Minister said, adding, “we count on your support for this to happen”.
During discussions in his office and at a banquet held in her honour, Mr Ofori-Atta appealed to the World Bank to front-load the DPO amount for 2023 to $500 million.
A World Bank Mission which visited the country between June 19-23 reached the agreement on the reforms to be presented to the board in October this year.
Critical
“This is critical for the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-Supported PC-PEG, for the continuous stability of the cedi and broader macroeconomic stability,” Mr Ofori-Atta said.
He added that it was the belief of the government that with the requisite resources, the country could become “the poster child for a robust, sustainable and green post-COVID economic build-back on the continent.”
The Finance Minister stressed that given the DPO’s strong emphasis on fostering resilience to economic and climate shocks, the government was being intentional about building a low carbon and climate resilient economy.
Again, he said, the focus was to protect the poor and vulnerable against the impact of “the front-loaded fiscal consolidation under the IMF-supported PC-PEG.”
The minister said the government had also developed a strategy to strengthen the financial sector and rebuild financial institutions’ buffers as one of the policy actions under the DPO.
Improvements
Mr Ofori-Atta said the World Bank had played a critical role in Ghana’s journey to achieve macroeconomic and financial stability as well as setting the economy on a path of strong sustainable growth.
Given the significant sacrifices and strong commitment demonstrated by the government and people of Ghana to ensuring macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, the minister said the World Bank should leverage Ghana’s example and use it as a demonstration effect by scaling up its support and interventions in the country.
For its part, the government was implementing various revenue reforms and measures targeted at increasing domestic revenue from the current tax to GDP ratio of 13 per cent to between 18 per cent and 20 per cent over the medium term.
Mr Ofori-Atta cited the completion of the domestic debt restructuring three months after the launch of the programme in December 2022; securing financing assurances from the Paris Club Official Creditor Committee (OCC) on May 12, 2022 under the G20 Common Framework and securing the approval of the three-year $3 billion PC-PEG-backed IMF Programme.
Rebound
He observed that there were clear indications that the country was coming out of its economic woes as the economic indicators were beginning to improve.
For instance, Mr Ofori-Atta said the first quarter 2023 growth rebounded to 4.2 per cent, up from three per cent in quarter one of 2022, mainly on the back of 10.1 per cent growth in services and 4.8 per cent growth in agriculture.
Again, he said, inflation had declined to 42.5 per cent in June 2023 after peaking at 54.1 per cent in December 2022.
Mr Ofori-Atta said the cedi had remained relatively stable, depreciating cumulatively by about 22 per cent year-to-date compared to a depreciation of 50 per cent in November 2022. He also said the 91-day treasury bill rate had declined to around 20 per cent, down from 35.5 per cent at the end of 2022.
Climate finance
He stated that the country was focused on taking advantage of the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) to accelerate its transition to a low carbon economy.
“This would require non-debt financing support to decommission some of our legacy fossil fueled energy installations to make room for more investments in renewable energy,” he said.
He said in terms of enhancing social protection, the 2023 budget had already made specific provisions for doubling the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) payment per beneficiary household from GH¢45 per month to GH¢90, with a progressive increase in the number of beneficiary households from the current 344,185 households.
“Coverage will be expanded to all 2.5 million extremely poor individuals by 2024.
We plan that by end September 2023, an indexation mechanism will be introduced in the LEAP Programme to prevent erosion of value over time,” he added.
He also said there had been increases in the budgetary allocation for the School Feeding Programme (SFP) to compensate for higher cost of meals and to ensure efficient management of the programme.
The Finance Minister also said more would be done to increase the school capitation grants and further expand the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Achieving stability commendable
For her part, Ms Bjerde commended Ghana’s effort to restore macroeconomic stability, comparing the gloom on Ghana’s outlook a year ago and the progress thecountry had made since to get an IMF Board approval for the $3 billion facility.
The performance is seen in the indicators recorded in recent publications and the efforts towards the IMF Board’s review in November.
Ms Bjerde also acknowledged Mr Ofori-Atta’s strong voice in shaping the World Bank evolution, which she said, would continue to be significant to help the course of Ghana and Africa in general.
