Singer Archipalago has lashed out at TikTok star Hajia Bintu over her decision to advertise a product believed to charm men.
Hajia Bintu attracted the wrath of popular social media sensation and singer, Archipalago, over her decision to advertise the Kayamata product.
Testifying to the goodness of the so-called powerful Kayamata product, she explained that any woman who purchases them will automatically be gifted large sums of money by any man she comes into contact with, whether through sexual intercourse or just a handshake.
Palago, who has expressed his disappointment in the TikTok influencer, wondered about the motivation behind the advertisement. Together with others, he believes that the move was in bad taste.
“I am upset by that viral video. Hajia Bintu, you must be ashamed of yourself for advertising a product that women can use to charm men. These products help women to command and attract men,” he announced in a self-recorded video shared on Twitter.
The self-acclaimed youth president added that love potions used by women to attract men should not be endorsed by personalities with huge social media followings, considering the influence they have on young men and women in the country.
“What are you teaching these young ladies, are you really okay?…Hajia Bintu you are not in a position to advertise those drugs. You are not living by example and how do you expect us to have prominent future ladies in Ghana? You better behave,” he cautioned.
Meanwhile, Hajia Bintu has topped Twitter trends, with many questioning her wealth. Some concerned Ghanaians have encouraged authorities to ban such advertisements by celebrities.
A man has been accused with trying to kill two elderly men who were set on fire after leaving mosques in the English cities of Birmingham and London.
In separate occurrences in Birmingham on Monday and Ealing, west London, on February 27, Mohammed Abbkar, 28, is said to have sprayed a liquid on the men before setting it ablaze.
Abbkr, a resident of Edgbaston in Birmingham, central England, made an appearance in court on Thursday morning, according to a statement from the West Midlands police. According to PA Media, he made no attempt to enter a plea to any charge and was therefore remanded in detention.
The man who was attacked in Birmingham on Monday was taken to hospital with serious injuries, which are not thought to be life-threatening.
“It’s believed the man, who was walking home from Dudley Road mosque, was approached by a man who spoke to him briefly before spraying him with an unknown substance and then his jacket was set alight, causing burns to his face,” West Midlands police said.
Locals in the area are being asked by police to hand over CCTV, doorbell footage or other video that could help the investigation.
Last month, an 82-year-old man suffered severe burns to his face and arms after he was attacked near an Islamic center in Ealing.
According to local authorities, a significant avalanche in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim resulted in the deaths of seven tourists and the injuries of thirteen more.
The incident happened around 11.10 a.m. local time, according to a statement from the army to CNN.
The army reported that at least 20 people were saved alive after snow struck multiple cars headed for the Nathu La mountain crossing.
According to senior police official Tenzing Loden Lepcha, several of the survivors are in severe condition, and rescue efforts are still going on.
The avalanche took place near the Nathu La mountain pass and struck a road connecting Nathu La and the state capital Gangtok.
Lepcha told CNN that avalanches were unusual at this time of year, and blamed unseasonal rain and snow in the area.
Another 350 tourists and 80 vehicles were rescued after roads were cleared of snow, said the army.
Kavita Agarwal, a traveler from Delhi, told Reuters that police warned tourists against visiting a lake on the way to the Nathu La pass due to inclement weather.
“Distressed by the avalanche in Sikkim. Condolences to those who have lost their loved ones,” wrote Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter.
“I hope the injured recover soon. Rescue ops are underway and all possible assistance is being provided to those affected.”
Japan announced its intention to provide friendly nations with financial aid to strengthen their defenses on Wednesday, marking Tokyo’s first clear break from the laws that prohibit using overseas aid for military objectives.
According to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the Overseas Security Assistance (OSA) program of Japan will be run independently from the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) program, which has been funding civil infrastructure projects including roads, dams, and other infrastructure for decades.
According to the three principles that regulate arms exports, the aid will not be used to purchase deadly weapons that the recipient countries could employ in wars with other countries, Matsuno noted.
The decision to expand the scope of international aid to military-related projects follows Japan’s announcement in December of a military build up that will double defense spending within five years as it looks to counter China’s growing military might in Asia.
The first recipients of that security aid will likely be the Philippines, which wants radars to monitor Chinese activity in the contested South China Sea, along with Malaysia, Bangladesh and Fiji, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Monday.
Former President and NDC flag bearer hopeful John Dramani Mahama is charging the media to fact check his comment about poor feeding of Senior High School students.
The former President faced heavy backlash from the governing New Patriotic Party when he said even dogs will reject food being served students under the Free SHS program.
Speaking to delegates in New Juaben North and South as part of his three- day tour of Eastern region which ends on Thursday he explained that “recently I spoke about poor quality of meals for students in Senior high schools. But the NPP insulted me. I want Journalists to fact check. This is a challenge to you (Journalists).
Go to the SHS students to ask them about the quality of food being served. And as I said with apology that the food being served the children in school not even a dog will eat that food in the house. Journalists go to the schools to interview the children and see for yourself if these are the kind of food Senior High School students deserve to eat”.
He said the poor implementation of Free Senior High School has impaired quality education at the secondary level however government is reluctant to listen to stakeholders for review of the policy.
According to Mr. Mahama, the constitution envisaged these challenges reason it prescribed a progressively free education which the NDC started.
However for populist agenda to win election, Akufo Addo decided to implement the policy wholesale hence the serious challenges affecting the policy.
“When you came everything Free SHS. Now the children can’t go to school to learn. They go to school three weeks and come home. Their meals are bad. I have seen videos where food were being shared to students, the quality can’t be compared to what we feed them at home”.
“Parents are spending more on children now than when they were paying fees. That is why we have called for consultation with stakeholders to review .But they went round to say I sad I will cancel it .That is the propaganda they did in 2016. But we started Free SHS with day students .At our time, day students were not paying schools fees in secondary school. We announced we were going to start with boarding students so in the first year September we selected 140,000 boarding students for Free SHS so how can I cancel it “. Mr.Mahama said.
It was a Chinese dream propelled by the same kind of desire that saw this nation emerge from poverty to become the second-largest economy in the world within a relatively short period of time.
A year or so before taking office, in 2011, Xi Jinping unveiled a plan to transform China from a soccer underdog to a superpower. He devised a three-stage strategy for the men’s national team that included qualifying for another World Cup, hosting a World Cup, and winning a World Cup as his ultimate goal.
For a country who at the time ranked outside the top 70 in the world and had qualified for soccer’s biggest competition only once since its first attempt in 1957, the scale of that task was immense.
Yet few could have doubted Xi’s determination when the Chinese Football Association in 2016 unveiled a plan to make the country a “world football superpower” by 2050.
Backing up those words was a surge in spending that turned the heads of players and fans around the world. State-affiliated conglomerates and developers flush from a property boom flooded the country’s premier domestic competition with cash.
The Chinese Super League (CSL) became a hotbed for foreign superstars seeking lucrative pay days, every big-name signing more eyecatching than the last.Brazilian Alex Teixeira signed to Jiangsu Suning for $54 million; his compatriot Hulk to Shanghai SIPG for $60 million; Oscar, also to Shanghai, for $65 million.
Soon the CSL was rivaling the biggest leagues of Europe in terms of money spent. In the boom year of 2015-16, US$451 million was spent on transfers, taking it into the top five spending leagues in the world.
But more than a decade on from when Xi first outlined his dream, China’s soccer fortunes have fallen as quickly as they once rose. Poor financial decisions and alleged high-level corruption coupled with a three-year pandemic have left the sport in tatters.
When Covid hit the economy and the property market stalled, the funds from state-affiliated firms and developers dried up. Strict pandemic rules meant fewer fans watching live games, and in turn fewer sponsors. Clubs struggled to pay wages; many of the foreign players and coaches brought in to raise the standard of the domestic game upped sticks and quit, many of them citing the government’s onerous zero-Covid stance that had made seeing their families all but impossible.
With the CSL’s 2023-24 season kicking off on April 15 (in a sign of the chaos, the official start date was announced just one week in advance), most teams are still frantically finding replacements.
Many believe that, in truth, the rot had set in long before Covid arrived on the scene, and that the virus “exacerbated the Chinese Super League’s whole financial scenario, accelerating its downfall and making it almost impossible to gain revenue from league sponsors and broadcasters,” according to William Bi, a Beijing-based sports consultant.
But while, like any good game of soccer, the reasons behind the apparent demise of Xi’s dream remain a matter for debate, few could argue with a scoreline that shows the vast majority of the foreign talent brought in to build that vision have voted with their feet.
Here, the stats say it all: Of the league’s all-time top 100 transfer deals, according to the Transfermarkt database, at least 75 were foreigners. Only three of them remain in China.
Few things illustrate Chinese soccer’s trials and tribulations as neatly as the influx of star players, born and raised overseas, who came to the CSL and acquired Chinese citizenship to become eligible for the men’s national team.
The fast-track naturalization of overseas players with family ties to China was seen as a quick way of elevating standards. The ex-Arsenal prospect Nico Yennaris (now known as Li Ke) and ex-Everton player Tyias Browning (Jiang Guangtai), both of whom have Chinese heritage, were among the first to take the step.
More controversial were the naturalizations of five Brazilians – Fernando (who became Fei Nanduo), Aloisio (Luo Guofu), Elkeson (Ai Kesen), Ricardo Goulart (Gao Late) and Alan Carvalho (A Lan) – none of whom had Chinese heritage.
But skeptics will point out that all these naturalizations came during the boom years, when times were good and the money was flowing. During the pandemic every one of those five Brazilians left China – only two have returned. Goulart, who left in 2021 after claiming his team Guangzhou had failed to pay his wages, has even renounced his Chinese nationality.
He is not alone in doing so. Roberto Siucho, who was born and raised in Peru, is another who has had second thoughts. Siucho renounced his Peruvian citizenship to pursue naturalization through his late Chinese grandfather after he transferred to CSL giants Guangzhou Evergrande in 2019.
“It was a really difficult decision, because I knew that once I became a Chinese national, I would lose my chance to be called up for the Peru senior team,” said Siucho, who formally changed his name to Xiao Taotao.
“But I felt it was a good option. I think if my grandfather was alive, he’d have been overjoyed.”
Fast forward a few years and Siucho has renaturalized as a Peruvian and is back with his old club Universitario. He has ambitions of playing for the Peruvian national team.
No one thing led to the decision, he says, rather “a bit of everything.” Even so, there was a clear turning point.
“2019 was a marvelous year in China. My family was able to visit and experience it. Then Covid happened,” Siucho said. “(At one point) I hadn’t seen my family for a year and the rules were you couldn’t bring them in while the borders were closed. A lot of footballers left because of that.”
World Cup winner Fabio Cannavarro – Siucho’s first coach at Guangzhou – expressed a similar sentiment when he gave up $28 million in salary and bonuses to leave his role in 2021, telling state media that “Covid changed everything.”
Other foreign names synonymous with the CSL’s golden years, such as the Brazilian trio of Hulk, Paulinho and Alex Teixeira – who together cost more than $150 million to bring in – also left via free transfers or mutual termination. Texeira gave up his naturalization application and Paulinho, widely seen as one of the greatest ever CSL players, explicitly cited Covid in his decision to leave.
China’s strict “zero-Covid” policy had meant clubs were required to train and compete in “bio-secure” venues that players were unable to leave for months at a time.
“It was difficult mentally, not being able to leave or do anything. But it was the only way we could continue,” Siucho said.
Amid all the outbreaks and lockdowns, fixtures were often postponed, leading to further frustration. When games were played, they took place in front of empty stadiums devoid of atmosphere. Homesickness set in for many players.
“For three years, I hadn’t enjoyed being a husband or father. I got to see my family after nine, 10 months sometimes. That’s not the life I want,” said John Mary Honi Uzuegbunam, a Cameroonian international who played for the CSL team Shenzhen FC and second tier Meizhou Hakka from 2018 to 2022. He missed the birth of his first child, his twins, and their first two birthdays.
“That feeling was so awful, coming back home from training all alone. You look at pictures of your family on your phone and think, ‘goddamn, I’m a married man, I have kids, what the hell is going on?’”
Mary now plays for Caykur Rizespor in Turkey.
While Covid restrictions were making life a misery for many of the players, the pandemic was creating havoc for the firms bankrolling their salaries.
The Evergrande Group, whose collapse in 2021 sparked the country’s worst property market crisis on record, spiraled from the Chinese government’s crackdown on the sector. Its affiliated men’s soccer team, Guangzhou Evergrande, was unable to fully pay player wages and in 2022, the two-time Asian champions were relegated from the Chinese Super League.
“Chinese football changed, a lot of the teams were in financial crises. Even Guangzhou, one of the best teams in China, was encountering difficult situations. It was complicated,” Siucho said.
Empty stadiums not only hit gate receipts, but sponsorship deals too. And with the country’s economy having taken a hammering, conglomerates and property developers simply had less cash to splash around.
Not all the problems were down to Covid; some were simply bad business decisions. In a bid to foster local talent, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) in 2017 raised taxation on overseas signings – any club that spent more than US$7 million would have to pay an equal amount to the CFA. Clubs responded by drastically tightening their wallets, which in turn hit fan turn-out and sponsorship interest.
The consequences of all these forces combined are hard to overstate. Club after club was forced to shut down as they struggled to balance the books or keep up with their superstar wages.
Among the most high profile failures was Jiangsu Suning, which folded in 2021, citing financial problems just months after being crowned league champions. The following year Chongqing Liangjiang head coach Chang Woe-ryong made an emotional apology that the club was unable to pay staff. In January, Wuhan Yangtze became the first team in 2023 to withdraw from the league, the sixth since the beginning of the pandemic and one of more than 35 across all divisions. In February, seven ex-Shenzhen players and coaches filed appeals to FIFA regarding unpaid wages.
And in March, Guangzhou City failed to meet the financial requirements to play in the new CSL season. Hebei FC, meanwhile, has even conceded itstruggled to pay water and electricity bills, let alone wages.
Bringing foreign talent into the CSL wasn’t just about naturalizing foreign born stars, but raising the level of soccer local players were exposed to in the hope this would in turn filter through to the national team.
The slide through the rankings of the men’s national team shows that hasn’t happened, even if a new head coach in Serbian Aleksandar Jankovic has been appointed in an effort to turn things round.
Meanwhile, the comparatively underfunded women’s team is perhaps Chinese soccer’s only silver lining; the world No. 14 team won last year’s Asian Cup and is considered a dark horse for the Women’s World Cup in July.
Likewise, China’s chances of hosting the World Cup seem similarly far-fetched for the moment, given the various alleged corruption scandals to have emerged in Chinese soccer.
The Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog is currently investigating a host of CFA figures, including former president Chen Xuyuan, former vice-president Yu Hongchen, former head coach Li Tie, former secretary-general Liu Yi, former CSL general manager Dong Zheng, former CFA disciplinary committee head Wang Xiaoping,and others.
As if that weren’t enough to give FIFA pause for thought when considering any future bid by China, the country’s sole FIFA representative Du Zhaocai recently lost his seat. In April, Du became the latest to be pulled up for investigation for “suspected violations of discipline and law”, with the government assigning a seven-member taskforce to lead the CFA in the meantime.
In a sign that even the fans may have made up their minds, a segment featuring a popular actor lambasting the men’s team on the Chinese social media platform Weibo last year received hundreds of millions of views.
The footage followed a string of losses by the men’s team, including a 3-1 defeat to Vietnam that ended their hopes of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, and featured Gong Hanlin railing against overpaid entertainers in a rant directed toward China’s rubber stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress.
“A football team with an annual income of 3 million, 5 million or even tens of millions, and they barely see a goal on the pitch,” Gong rants in the clip. “This is a complete embarrassment for Chinese people.”
A mission to investigate Jupiter and three of its largest and most intriguing moons is ready to be launched by the European Space Agency.
The Ariane 5 rocket will carry the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, also known as Juice, into space on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. ET from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. On the ESA website or YouTube channel, you may watch the launch live.
About 28 minutes after liftoff, the spacecraft will detach from the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Juice will install its solar arrays, antennas, and other instruments over the period of 17 days. Then, the equipment will undergo three months of testing and preparation.
Juice will take eight years to reach Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. During its lengthy cruise, the spacecraft will utilize some gravitational slingshots as it flies by Earth, our moon and Venus to help with the journey.
INTERACTIVE: The search for life in our solar system
Once Juice arrives at Jupiter in July 2031, the spacecraft will spend about three and a half years orbiting the gas giant and conducting flybys of three of its moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Toward the end of the mission, Juice will focus solely on orbiting Ganymede, making it the first spacecraft to ever orbit a moon in the outer solar system.
Ganymede, Callisto and Europa are ice-covered worlds that may contain subsurface oceans that are potentially habitable for life.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, launching in 2024, is expected to reach Jupiter in April 2030 and conduct nearly 50 flybys of Europa, eventually reaching just 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the moon’s surface.
Together, the two missions could unlock some of the biggest mysteries about Jupiter and its moons.
Exploration of Jupiter began with NASA’s Pioneer and Voyager missions in the 1970s, followed by dedicated Jupiter missions like Galileo and the Juno probe. Juno has been orbiting Jupiter and flying by some of its moons since 2016.
The Juice mission has five main objectives, including using its powerful suite of 10 instruments to characterize the three icy moons and determine if they harbor oceans, uncover what makes Ganymede so unique and determine if the moons are potentially habitable for life.
Planetary scientists want to know how deep the oceans are, if they contain salty or fresh water and how that water interacts with the ice shell of each moon. Ganymede, Callisto and Europa also have different surfaces. Juice could reveal what kind of activity has caused some of them to look dark and cratered or paler and grooved.
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, larger than Pluto and Mercury, and it’s the only one that has a magnetic field similar to Earth. Juice’s instruments can reveal the moon’s rotation, gravity, shape, interior structure, composition and peer through its icy crust using radar.
Juice will also conduct a detailed analysis of Jupiter to determine how the complex magnetic and radiation environment around this massive planet shaped its moons, as well as how Jupiter formed in the first place. Understanding more of Jupiter’s origin story can help scientists apply those findings to Jupiter-like planets found outside of our solar system.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is 20 times stronger than Earth’s and it has a harsh radiation environment, both of which impact its moons. The Juice mission was designed to unravel what takes place as Jupiter interacts with its moons, including auroras, hot spots, radio emissions and waves of charged particles.
Although the three moons are encased in thick ice shells, interior heating could be taking place at each moon’s core — and that warmth could make the interior oceans possible habitats for past or existing life.
Juice can search the moons for evidence of the building blocks of life, including elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron and magnesium.
Previous missions like Galileo and Cassini, which visited Saturn and its moons, confirmed that liquid water can be found on planets and moons far away from the sun — and that water is likely to exist under the surface.
“I think Juice is a confirmation that our understanding of where to search for potential habitability has changed in the last 20 years,” said Michele Dougherty, Royal Society research professor at Imperial College London and principal investigator of Juice’s magnetometer.
Life as we understand it on Earth requires liquid water, a heat source and organic material — “and then you need those first three ingredients to be stable enough over a long enough period of time that something can actually happen,” Dougherty said.
“With Juice, we want to confirm there’s liquid water in these moons, confirm their heat sources. Other instruments will be able to remotely sense whether there’s organic material on the surface as well. And so it’s putting all of those ingredients together,” she said.
Juice’s truck-size spacecraft has been designed to survive a long journey to Jupiter — and it has to survive the extremes of the gas giant’s environment once it arrives. Two cross-shaped solar arrays will provide the spacecraft with power and lead-lined vaults protect its most sensitive electronics.
The ESA-led mission includes contributions from NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Testing and modeling of Jupiter’s radiation belts allowed engineers to prepare for what Juice will encounter.
“A key achievement of this model for us was to show that what at first seemed to be a dangerous place was not completely out of reach,” said Christian Erd, Juice spacecraft and system manager, in a statement. “Around three and a half years at Jupiter will involve the equivalent radiation exposure of a telecommunications satellite in geostationary Earth orbit for 20 years – which we have plenty of experience in managing.”
In order to help Juice survive, its trajectory was designed to fly past Callisto 21 times but only swing by Europa twice. Europa is the closest to Jupiter and sits well within its radiation halo. Just two orbits of the moon will cause the spacecraft to experience a third of its overall radiation exposure.
Some of Juice’s instruments are shielded, while others will be exposed to the elements to probe the atmospheres of Jupiter and its moons. Multiple imagers and sensors will capture and send back data across different wavelengths of light.
Given the eventual distance between the spacecraft and Earth, it will take 45 minutes to send a one-way signal to Juice. But that’s nothing compared to the years-long wait for Juice to arrive at Jupiter.
Scientists are already anticipating the unique data Juice will return.
“I think the most critical time is the first flyby we have of Ganymede,” Dougherty said. “The first one or two flybys is when we are going to confirm the existence of an ocean.”
The managing editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jr., has called out the government for comments that suggest the IMF deal, when started, is going to reduce the high cost of living currently in the country.
He said the government is only interested in making all kinds of promises that have a temporary impact on the current economic challenges in the country.
Kwesi Pratt was speaking on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana and was monitored by GhanaWeb.
According to him, the coming in of the IMF deal will only manage the economic challenge for a few weeks, then revert to what it was before.
“For example, we are being told that if we cringe this IMF deal that is being suggested in May, the high cost of living is likely to come down. How is that possible…the price of kenkey will come down, the price of fish will come down?… How is this IMF deal going to change that situation? So false hopes all the time?” he asked.
“The false hopes will give you respite for a few weeks then you come to face the reality. The reality is gravy,” he added.
Kwesi Pratt added that lots of activities on the global scene are affecting the cost of living here in the country, and it requires that the government focus its attention instead of raining all kinds of promises on Ghanaians.
“If you are looking at the value of currencies and so on, now the most important thing that is happening in the global scene is the de-dollarisation program which is being pursued vigorously by Russia, China, Brazil, the BRICS… Saudi Arabia is also now pursuing a de-dollarisation programme. What will be the impact of this de-dollarisation programme on our currency, who has done any analysis,” he said.
He bemoaned the government’s haste in announcing currency stability when it has done little to merit that credit.
“A few days after Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have substantially cut production, government is telling us to expect petroleum prices to dip. Why is that coming from?” he questioned.
In a case that has sparked international outrage over the communist nation’s treatment of dissidents, a Hanoi court on Wednesday sentenced a well-known Vietnamese political activist to six years in prison for engaging in anti-state activities, according to his lawyer.
According to his social media accounts, Nguyen Lan Thang, 48, took part in anti-China and environmental protests, expressed his sympathy for other jailed activists, and posted blogs about Vietnam’s sociopolitical difficulties.
The police claimed Thang was arrested last year on suspicion of “making, storing or distributing information, materials, or documents to oppose the state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” without providing any other information.
Thang will also be placed under house arrest for two years after he serves his sentence, said his lawyer Le Van Luan after the closed-door trial session at the People’s Court of Hanoi.
Calls to the court went unanswered on Wednesday.
Authorities have convicted at least 163 people since 2018 for exercising their rights to freedom of expression or association under “vague or overbroad laws that criminalize protesting or criticizing the government,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“Vietnam’s authorities systematically trample on human rights by punishing brave bloggers like Nguyen Lan Thang for expressing their views about the government,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW, which called for Thang’s release and for charges against him to be dropped.
A delegation of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee of Human Rights during a visit to Hanoi last week expressed its “great concern at the worsening human rights situation in the country.”
“The delegation called for immediate and unconditional release of all the political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, including NGO leaders, journalists and environmental activists,” it said in a statement.
Former President John Mahama says the ruling New Patriotic Party’s fight against illegal mining is only targeted at persons deemed to be members and supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Speaking at Akyem-Mosease in the Eastern Region on his three-day tour, Mr Mahama said during the NDC’s tenure in office, the government allowed every licensed miner, regardless of their background, the opportunity to work on concessions, without discrimination.
According to the former president, the most disturbing aspect of the galamsey fight is the situation where seized mining equipment is handed over to NPP party faithful.
“When NDC was in power, we didn’t discriminate. We didn’t say this person was NDC, NPP, CPP or PNC. Anybody who was licensed was allowed to work. But when these people took over, they have taken over people’s concessions, seized their excavators and given to NPP members to work, sidelining the rest of us but everything has an end. There will certainly be a change,” Mr Mahama said.
Also clarifying his ‘do or die’ comment, which he claims has been twisted, John Mahama explained it to mean a determination to succeed in every venture.
“The 2024 election is not going to be a joke. That is why I said it will be ‘do or die’. But when I said do or die some people have twisted it to mean that we are going to cut people with cutlasses and bow and arrows. No, that is not ‘do or die’. ‘Do or die’ means a determination to succeed in a very important venture,” Mr Mahama noted.
The former president’s tour to the Eastern Region is expected to end on Thursday, April 13.
It may sound like a plot from a Hollywood action movie to escape police custody by changing names, but police in Hong Kong are looking for a man who allegedly did just that.
It’s believed that a 37-year-old man who had been imprisoned on drug-related charges managed to escape a city courtroom on Monday by swapping wristbands with a suspect in another case who had been given temporary parole.
The escaped suspect, who was only given the surname Chan by Hong Kong police, reportedly vanished shortly after a magistrate at the West Kowloon Court denied him bail.
Officers believe Chan swapped his wristband with another man, surnamed Lam, who had been granted bail in an assault case, and simply walked out of court. They believe Chan offered Lam, 24, money in exchange for the wristband and have arrested Lam on a charge of misleading police. They have also arrested Chan’s wife, 31, saying they suspect her of helping her husband to abscond by giving him money.
The police said they are pursuing Chan on suspicion of absconding, a charge which carries a potential prison sentence of one year.
Cases of absconding are rare in Hong Kong, a city of around 7 million people that is about six times the size of Washington, DC, but they are not completely unheard of.
In 2018, a fugitive managed to escape police custody through loose tiles in the ceiling of a hospital bathroom, after being re-arrested following three years on the run.
Leon Li, then a Chinese passport holder, was arrested in 2015 on suspicion of possessing a fake Hong Kong identity card. He left the city after being granted bail but was rearrested three years later when he re-entered on a Dominican Republic passport.
Following his re-arrest, he convinced police to take him to hospital for abdominal pain, then disappeared through the ceiling. He was apprehended 36 hours later at an upscale hotel in the busy district of Wan Chai.
The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has urged its members to adapt prices to reflect the exchange rate and positively respond to the changing trend in inflation.
This comes after the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on April 12 announced a sharp drop in the national inflation from 52.8 percent in February to 45.0 percent in March 2023.
On the back on this and some relative stability in the exchange rate, GUTA has encouraged traders to react by adjusting the prices of goods towards a downward trend.
“In light of this, GUTA entreats all members of the business community to respond positively to the changing trend and adjust prices to reflect the exchange rate”
“Indeed, we are very appreciative of the government’s efforts and hope that it will bring relief to businesses and lead to the economic transformation we all cherish and desire as a nation,” President of GUTA, Dr Joseph Obeng said in a statement issued on April 12, 2023.
GUTA further acknowledged the efforts of the government and the Bank of Ghana which has resulted in the recent developments.
The Association however urged government to work towards further strengthening the local currency against other major trading currencies.
Popular Ghanaian businessman, Dr. Kofi Amoa-Abban, has unveiled another huge property, which saw countless celebrities in attendance.
Pictures from the Rigworld Group CEO’s housewarming event flooded social media during the Easter holidays and netizens were intrigued.
We take a look at the 2016 EMY Award winner’s mansion situated in Ada, the hub of tourism in the Ada East District.
A large pool, breathtaking waterfront view with beach tents, and state-of-the-art décor, among others, cannot be overlooked at the first glance of the property.
The exterior parts of the edifice exude class and sophistry with its modern architecture, glass design, LED lightning among others.
In what looked like a chain of buildings sitting on a large stretch of large, it appears that the establishment is intended for commercial purposes.
The Electricity Company of Ghana Ltd (ECG), Accra West Region, has uncovered the activities of 52 customers engaged in various forms of illegal connections.
The Company has also succeeded in retrieving GHS 750,000.00 worth of 550,000kWh of electricity illegally used by the customers.
Dr Mark Owusu Ansah, the Revenue Protection Manager, ECG, Accra West Region, said through their illegal activities, the customers did not pay for the electricity they used denying the Company much needed revenue.
Examples of illegalities identified included meter bypass, meter tampering and direct connections.
He said the identification and arrest of the customers was made in the first ten days of the Company’s ongoing exercise to retrieve all debts owed it, and to monitor the health of its meter installations.
Dr Ansah said per the Company’s records, the customers illegally used about 550,000kWh of electricity translating to about GHc750,000 (plus taxes and administrative charges).
He praised the vigilance of the field team in uncovering the illegalities, adding that, the sophistication of the illegalities identified shows a resolve by some customers to deny the Company of revenue from the electricity they use.
“Power to these customers has been disconnected, they have been surcharged for the electricity they used without paying and charged a penalty fee for engaging in the illegalities. Also, depending on the gravity of the offense, we will hand some cases over to the police for prosecution, ” he said.
Dr Ansah said staff of the ECG had since March 20, 2023, been on an exercise to visit all customers to demand the payment of debts owed the Company and audit the health of its meter installations.
Mr Emmanuel Akinie, the ECG Accra West General Manager, said the Company was investing heavily in technology to help identify customers who had engaged in illegalities.
“We have introduced some smart meter solutions on pilot basis, which give us real-time updates of what is happening on a customer premises. It signals our office once the meter-case is opened, bypassed or tampered with,” he said.
Mr Akinie said plans were underway to roll out more of such smart meters to aid in the fight against illegalities.
The Accra West region has eight operational districts. These are Ablekuma, Achimota, Amasaman, Bortianor, Dansoman, Kaneshie, Korlebu and Nsawam.
A space rock that shot across the sky last week before crashing close to the Canadian border is being offered for sale by a museum in Maine for $25,000.
Radar picked up the fireball, which was visible in broad daylight and produced a sonic boom, and this allowed NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science(ARES) Lab to determine the location of the “strewn field”—a potential location for meteor fragments—near Calais, Maine.
Darryl Pitt, head of the meteorite division at the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, said he was keen to study any fragments of the meteorite, which could contain valuable information about the solar system. The $25,000 reward is for the first meteorite piece found that weighs 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) or more. However, he said the museum would be willing to pay for any specimen “irrespective of its size.”
“Finding meteorites in woods of Maine. It’s not the simplest of the environments,” Pitt said.
“It’s a sparsely populated area but not as sparsely populated as where most meteorites fall — the ocean,” he added.
Worldwide, only eight to 10 meteorites are recovered each year out of hundreds seen falling to Earth, Pitt said.
A meteorite that fell on a driveway in the United Kingdom in 2021 turned out to be an extremely rare type of space rock and is now part of the Natural History Museum in London.
Video: Meteor, meteorite, asteroid, comet: What’s the difference?
The Maine meteorite was visible for more than four minutes from around 11.57 a.m. ET on Saturday, April 8, according to NASA. Winds might have carried smaller meteorites across the border into Canada, the agency noted.
“For the light (of the fireball) to overwhelm the brightness of the day, it was a significant event,” Pitt said.
Pitt said a meteorite would look different from the surrounding rocks. The outside would likely be blackened — after being toasted by the heat as it plummeted through Earth’s atmosphere — while the inside would likely be a different color. It may also contain iron and therefore be attracted to a magnet.
The museum offered a reward for a meteorite once before. However, the search for fragments of a meteor that lit up the sky in the region in 2016 wasn’t fruitful, Pitt said.
This time, Pitt said he was “guardedly optimistic” becausethere is more detailed information available from radar data, and he expects a “robust response” from meteorite hunters.
Ghanaian music star Black Sherif has revealed that his music is paying him very well.
Appearing on Accra-based TV3 for a Road to the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs) interview, he was asked if the music work is paying off.
“Yes,” he responded without hesitation. “Yes, that’s how we’re able to shoot [my music videos].”
“If you study my videos from back then, they don’t look like the videos [and] the pictures we [shoot now],” he added.
His host mentioned that he and his team used to shoot with a phone.
“Yeah,” Sherif reacted, pointing in the direction of his team member Farouk.
“Farouk has been taking shots and videos of me for the longest time,” he said. “Now though, he has a bad [sophisticated] camera. Yeah, it’s like that.”
According to the ‘Kwaku the Traveller’ hitmaker, whatever competencies his team has “right now, yeah, we learned from scratch.”
The team is made up of risk-takers, he said, “because [we had] zero” and thus “we had nothing to lose.”
“So everything we did, we were trying something,” he added. “And we’ve built up from there.”
Take a look at how the Konongo-born star’s music videos have improved in picture quality since his ‘First Sermon’ hit in 2021.
According to government data issued on Wednesday, Japan’s population has decreased for the 12th straight year as deaths have increased and the birth rate has continued to decline.
According to statistics, there were 124.49 million people in the country in 2022, down 556,000 from the year before.
That number reflects both the flow of people entering and leaving the country as well as the natural change in population brought on by deaths and births.
According to Cabinet Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the natural change last year was the largest on record, with a decline of 731,000 people, softened by the surge of individuals entering Japan, which gave an increase of 175,000.
“It is essential to take firm measures to address the declining birthrate, which is a major factor in the decline in population, as one of the top priority issues to be addressed,” said Matsuno.
Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, as well as one of the highest life expectancies; in 2020, nearly one in 1,500 people in Japan were age 100 or older, according to government data.
That means a swelling elderly population, shrinking workforce, and not enough young people to fill in the gaps – posing a demographic crisis decades in the making.
The trend is seen across the country, with all of Japan’s 47 prefectures except Tokyo reporting a decline in residents last year, according to the data released Wednesday. One village in central Japan recorded just one newborn child in 25 years – a birth that was heralded as a miracle for the town’selderly residents.
The situation is so dire that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned lawmakers in January that the country is “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions” due to the falling birth rate.
He added that child-rearing support was the government’s “most important policy,” and solving the issue “simply cannot wait any longer.”
Some researchers and climate scientists argue that population decline could benefit our battered ecosystems and lower emissions as the climate crisis worsens. But it also spells trouble for countries like Japan, with fewer workers to fund pensions and healthcare, and fewer people to look after the elderly.
In April, Japan launched its new Children and Families Agency, which focuses on measures to support parents such as establishing more daycare centers, and provides youth services such as counseling.
Previous similar initiatives, often carried out by local authorities, have so far failed to turn things around.
Busy urban lifestyles and long working hours leave little time for some Japanese to start families, and the rising costs of living that mean having a baby is simply too expensive for many young people.
In 2022, Japan was ranked one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a child, according to research from financial institution Jefferies. And yet, the country’s economy has stalled since the early 1990s, meaning frustratingly low wages and little upward mobility.
The drop in the number of Japanese nationals in the past year also highlights the government’s deeply conservative views on immigration. Foreigners accounted for just 2.2% of the population in 2021, according to the Japanese government, compared to 13.6% in the United States.
These attitudes are widespread among the public, too; a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center found that about half of Japanese adults say having a diverse society makes their country a worse place to live – though this percentage is lower than in previous years.
For the 24th edition of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs), George Mensah Britton has stated his artiste Camidoh‘s only competition when it comes to lifting the ultimate trophy, Artiste of the Year, is Black Sherif.
The music executive was in conversation with Nana Kwesi Asare on Class 91.3 FM’s Saturday afternoon programme ‘The Big Show’, April 1, 2023.
“We’re expecting nothing but success on the night” of the VGMAs, he said.
“For him to be nominated in that [Artiste of the Year] category means it’s a possible win,” he also said.
However, even if the ‘Sugarcane’ hitmaker does not win, Mr Britton sees the nomination as “a big leap.”
He highlighted how the singer-songwriter Camidoh, was “two years ago an underground artiste but has over the period,” worked his way to the top, with “a lot invested in him.”
For the 2023 VGMAs Artiste of the Year category, “If I’ll actually be honest,” he said, “I think the only competition there [for Camidoh] will probably be Black Sherif.”
Apart from the ‘Kwaku the Traveller’ hitmaker, George Britton does not see “anybody like that [in the category]” being trouble for his artiste.
That said, he repeated that: “Everyone there [in the category] deserves to win,” especially since they have “been counted as the top guys in the country within a period…”
The ultimate brag at the VGMAs this year, Camidoh is going up against Black Sherif, Sarkodie, Piesie Esther, Joe Mettle, Stonebwoy, King Promise and the incumbent KiDi.
The Grind Dont Stop and GB Recordz artiste also stands the chance to win 5 other awards come Saturday, May 13, 2023, at the Accra International Conference Centre’s Grand Arena: ‘Vodafone Most Popular Song of the Year’, ‘International Collaboration of the Year’, ‘Best Afrobeats/Afropop Artiste of the Year’, ‘Best Male Vocal Performance of the Year’, and ‘Best Afrobeats Song of the Year’.
For the second year in a row, sea levels along China’s coastline have reached record highs, increasing faster than the worldwide average and posing a major threat to coastal cities like Shanghai, the world’s financial center.
China’s coastline sea levels in 2022 were the highest since records began in 1980, measuring 94 millimeters (3.7 inches) above “normal,” which is the average for the years 1993 to 2011, a Ministry of Natural Resources official said during a news briefing on Wednesday.
In comparison to 2021, when the previous record was attained, the swell was 10 mm higher.
The temperature of China’s coastal waters has increased significantly due to global warming, and the rise in sea levels has accelerated, said Wang Hua, head of the marine forecasting and monitoring department at the ministry.
China’s sea levels have increased by an average of 3.5 mm per year since 1980, and an average of 4.0 mm per year since 1993 – higher than the global rate over the same periods, Wang said.
The global mean sea level has risen 3.4 mm over the past three decades, according to NASA.
“In the last 11 years, from 2012 to 2022, China’s coastal sea levels were the highest since observations were first recorded,” Wang said at the news conference, which released the latest annual report on China’s sea levels.
About 45% of China’s population of around 1.4 billion and more than half of the country’s economic output comes from coastal regions.
The Chinese coast is home to important metropolises including Shanghai, the country’s most developed and richest city, as well as the port city of Tianjin and the tech hub of Shenzhen.
Over the past four decades, rising sea levels along the Chinese coast have caused long-term effects, including the erosion of coastal ecosystems and the loss of tidal flats. They have also affected groundwater supply and increased the damage caused by storms, floods and salt tide intrusion, Wang said.
While the sea swelled, land in coastal regions had sunk, exacerbating the problem, he added.
In 2022, high sea levels along the Chinese coast aggravated the impact of storms, dealing a severe blow to the provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang and Shandong. The rises also contributed to heavy coastal flooding in Zhejiang and Hainan province, causing great economic loss, according to Wang.
Comedian Funny Face, whose real name is Benson Nana Yaw Oduro Boateng, has announced that he no longer wants to be referred to as ‘Kasoa Van Damme’.
The decision, according to him, comes after he lost a recent fight and felt that the name no longer held the same significance.
Speaking in an interview with Zion Felix on April 08, 2023, Funny Face stated that he wants to be known simply as ‘Papa Dano’ from now on.
He explained that the name ‘Kasoa Van Damme’ was associated with a time in his life when he was more aggressive and confrontational, and he no longer wants to be defined by those characteristics because he has recently lost three consecutive fights with the latest being against some officers of the Ghana Police Service.
“I don’t like Kasoa Van Damme again because Kasoa Van Damme has caused me more pain. I lost a fight, so I don’t want Kasoa Van Damme again. They have beaten me.
“Now I like Papa Dano because Kasoa Van Damme has caused me more pain. Kasoa police, I love them but I don’t like that name because the children, were cheering me up (when I was been beaten), saying Van Damme do something, that is why I was beaten more,” he said.
Funny Face is also quoted to have said in an interview with Hitz FM that: “I’m no more called Kasoa Van damme because I have lost a fight…I don’t want that name again, now call me Papa Dano because I lost three fights, with the major one having to do with the police. It has disgraced the name because the children felt I was strong, so when the police people were sending a message (beating him) that was when I realized that I was not strong but they were still cheering me up, do something, do something, and I was like who should do something I’m been beaten and you are saying do something.”
Funny Face gained the nickname Kasoa Van Damme during his early days in the entertainment industry, as he was known for his fearless nature and ability to win fights. However, the comedian has recently been in the news for losing a physical altercation, which seems to have affected his confidence.
A 21-year-old driver’s mate has been slapped with an eight-year jail sentence by an Accra Circuit Court for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in two different guest houses in Accra.
Absalon Toboase, charged with two counts of defilement, pleaded not guilty.
The court presided over by Christina Cann at the end of the trial found him guilty.
The court said in sentencing Toboase, it considered the intrinsic seriousness and the gravity of the offence.
According to the court, it also considered the fact that the accused person had had no brush with the law.
The prosecution led by Superintendent of Police Agnes Boafo said the complainant is a trader residing at Mamprobi in Accra.
She told the Court that the victim stays with the complainant. Toboase was also residing at Lapaz in Accra.
The prosecution said Toboase and the victim who met on Facebook, had been friends for some time.
It said about a month ago, Toboase lured the victim with a love proposal on the social media site and arranged to meet her at Lapaz.
The prosecution said on January 7, 2023, Toboase met the victim, took her to a guest house, had sex with her and promised to marry her.
It said on the night of February 3, 2023, the victim packed some of her belongings, sneaked out of the complainant’s house and went to stay with Toboase.
The prosecution said the following the day, the victim arrived at Lapaz and met Toboase who took her to another guest house and had sex with her for the second time.
It said the complainant reported the absence of the victim from her house to the Police.
At the Police Station, the prosecution said the complainant received a call from the victim who informed her that she was at Mamprobi with Toboase.
It said the Police accompanied the complainant to Mamprobi and Toboase was arrested.
The prosecution said a Police medical report form was given to the complainant to seek medical care for the victim.
Russian Pacific Fleet warships are engaging in anti-submarine drills near the nation’s far eastern coast, the fleet’s press department announced on Thursday morning.
In the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, three corvette warships are entrusted with identifying and destroying a fake enemy submarine with the help of helicopters.
The Pacific Fleet press department stated that “before the corvettes left port, the siren was activated on board, prompting the crews to practice for emergency measures to put the ships in a state of combat-readiness and for the [military] campaign.”
The fleet also engaged in other anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defense drills. The final stage of the exercises will involve “ship-based counter-sabotage support units with practical counter-sabotage grenade-launching,” it said.
The exercises were at least the second in less than three weeks that the Russia navy has performed in the same waters.
In late March, Russian missile boats fired cruise missiles at a mock target in the Sea of Japan, the Defense Ministry said.
“A team of two missile boats carried out a joint missile strike against a sea shield simulating a simulated enemy warship,” the ministry said in a Telegram post at the time.
“The target was successfully engaged at a distance of 100 kilometers (62 miles) by a direct hit from two Moskit cruise missiles,” the ministry said.
Tensions between Japan and Russia have been increasing in recent months, fueled by Japan’s support of Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
Thursday’s exercise comes less than a month after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a surprise visit to Ukraine. That same day, two Russian strategic bomber planes, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, flew over waters off the Japanese coast for more than seven hours in what Moscow said was a “planned flight,” Reuters reported.
Kishida has previously spoken out forcefully against Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, warning last year that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.”
And last month, after pledging additional aid to Ukraine on the eve of the invasion’s first anniversary, Kishida said, “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is not just a European matter, but a challenge to the rules and principles of the entire international community.”
Japan and Russia are also embroiled in a decades-long territorial dispute.
Japan lays claim to the Russian-held southern Kuril islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories, a dispute that dates to the end of World War II, when Soviet troops seized them from Japan.
Ghana has become the first country to approve a malaria vaccine from the Oxford University.
The keenly-watched malaria vaccine from Oxford University secured its first approval, in Ghana, as the African country ramps up efforts to combat the mosquito-borne disease that kills a child every minute.
The effort is one of several focused on addressing the disease that kills over 600,000 each year, most of them children in Africa.
The complicated structure and lifecycle of the malaria parasite has long stymied efforts to develop vaccines.
After decades of work, the first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix from British drugmaker GSK, was last year endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), but a lack of funding and commercial potential has thwarted the company’s capacity to produce as many doses as needed.
The Oxford vaccine, which has secured regulatory approval in the age group at highest risk of death from malaria – children aged 5 months to 36 months – has a manufacturing advantage thanks to a deal with Serum Institute of India to produce up to 200 million doses annually.
In contrast, GSK has committed to produce up to 15 million doses of Mosquirix every year through 2028, well under the roughly 100 million doses a year of the four-dose vaccine the WHO says is needed long-term to cover around 25 million children.
Mid-stage data from the Oxford vaccine trial involving more than 400 young children was published in a medical journal in September.
Vaccine effectiveness was 80% in the group that received a higher dose of the immune-boosting adjuvant component of the vaccine, and 70% in the lower-dose adjuvant group, at 12 months following the fourth dose. The doses were administered ahead of the peak malaria season in Burkina Faso.
Data from an ongoing phase III clinical trial in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania that has enrolled 4,800 children is expected to be published in a medical journal in the coming months.
However, late-stage data – which suggests a similar vaccine performance as in the phase II trial – has been shared with regulatory authorities over the last six months, Oxford scientist Adrian Hill said.
Childhood vaccines in Africa are typically paid for by international organisations such as Gavi and UNICEF after they have been backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This is the first time a major vaccine has been approved first in an African country, before rich nations, Hill added, noting that it was unusual that a regulatory authority in Africa had reviewed the data quicker than the WHO.
“Particularly since COVID, African regulators have been taking a much more proactive stance, they’ve been saying…we don’t want to be last in the queue.”
Donald Trump, a former president, is suing Michael Cohen for $500 million in damages after Cohen allegedly broke his agreement to serve as Trump’s personal attorney.
In the lawsuit, which was submitted on Wednesday to a federal court in Florida, Cohen is charged with spreading untrue information about Trump and breaking his agreement with the former president through his public pronouncements, books that have been published, podcasts, and other media appearances.
After Trump filed a not guilty plea to 34 charges of falsifying business records last week as a result of an investigation into hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, Cohen, Trump’s former “fixer,” has recently returned to the national spotlight. The payments were organized by Cohen in the days leading up to the 2016 election, and the former president is upset with Cohen because of his cooperation with prosecutors.
“Mr. Trump is once again using and abusing the judicial system as a form of harassment and intimidation against Michael Cohen,” Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, said in a statement.
“Mr. Cohen will not be deterred and is confident that the suit will fail based on the facts and the law,” he added.
Trump’s legal team said in the suit that the former president has “no alternative but to seek legal redress” to combat an emboldened Cohen, who they allege has recently ramped up false statements about his former boss.
According to the lawsuit, Cohen revealed confidential information in talking about his prior-attorney-client relationship with Trump during media interviews about the Manhattan District Attorney’s grand jury investigation that led to the former president’s indictment.
“During one such appearance, for example, Defendant discussed that he testified in front of the Manhattan District Attorney’s grand jury, and suggested that Plaintiff was, by virtue of Defendant’s knowledge of confidential information, criminally exposed,” the lawsuit states.
Cohen also violated an employee confidentiality agreement he signed with The Trump Organization when he published his two books that discuss Trump, the lawsuit claims.
Cohen “chose to capitalize on his confidential relationship with (Trump) to pursue financial gain and repair a reputation shattered by his repeated misrepresentations and deceptive acts, fueled by his animus toward the Plaintiff and his family members,” the lawsuit states.
Cohen never asked for permission from Trump to disclose any confidential information that should’ve been protected by that agreement and his attorney-client obligations before publishing the books, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint also alleges that, like his books, Cohen has put out “inflammatory, misleading, or outright false” information in his podcast “Mea Culpa.”
Asantewaa has denied rumours that her husband is opposing her partnership with Cassious and has warned his manager to stay away from her.
The bond between actress Asantewaa and Cassious seems unbreakable. Despite the “fake” dating rumours, they have continued to work together all these years closely.
On account of the popular TikTok influencer, Cassious spends more time with her. This has raised some eyebrows, especially with a viral video that captured them in a pool.
Cassious’ dedication to the growth of Asantewaa’s brand is unmatched, the actress has said – a mark that has contributed to her popularity on social media.
“I still work with my manager. I had to travel and I think I had a few things doing but aside from that, we are still together…it is never true that my husband warned him to stay away. I hear a lot of rumours,” she disclosed in an interview with Kwaku Manu on the ‘Aggressive Show’.
“…I have a YouTube Channel, Asantewaa TV. There’s been a break but we are coming back strongly…technically, he (Cassious) has always been with me 24/7…we will give you what you want,” she laughed.
Both parties who are happily married have always maintained that their relationship is strictly based on work and nothing else.
On Thursday, North Korea fired what is thought to be a brand-new ballistic missile, prompting an evacuation order in Japan and the warning to seek cover for people.
The order on an island in the north was later withdrawn, but it demonstrates the neighboring neighbors’ caution regarding Pyongyang’s escalating missile threats.
South Korean military officials described the launch as a “grave provocation” and claimed that the missile traveled around 1,000 kilometers before coming to rest in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Tokyo and Seoul do not typically issue evacuation orders for North Korean launches unless they determine weapons are aimed in the direction of their territories.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeard on screen during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station (Picture: AP)
Residents on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido were urged to seek shelter, while train, bus and subway services were also temporarily halted there.
Warning sirens also blared signalling for people to evacuate.
It was later rescinded when it became apparent the missile would not hit the island.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters the government’s step was ‘appropriate’.
Thursday’s launch was the North’s first long-range missile test since the country tested its longest-range Hwasong-17 ICBM on March 16.
It comes days after Kim Jong-un reviewed his country’s attack plans and vowed to enhance his nuclear arsenal in more ‘practical and offensive’ ways.
North Korea has launched around 100 missiles since the start of 2022, many of them nuclear weapons capable of striking the US mainland, South Korea and Japan.
A South Korean military official said the latest test apparently involved a new weapons system displayed at a recent parades.
They are analysing the projectile’s trajectory and range, and the defence ministry said it could have been a solid-fuel missile.
If the launch involved a solid-fuel ICBM, it would be the North’s first test of such a weapon.
North Korea’s known ICBMs all use liquid propellant systems that require them to be fueled before launches.
But the fuel in a solid propellant weapon is already loaded inside, allowing them to be moved more easily and fired more quickly.
A solid-propellant ICBM is one of the key high-tech weapons that Kim has vowed to build to better cope with what he calls US military threats.
The dictator has also spoken of his desire to develop multi-warhead missiles, a nuclear-powered submarine, a hypersonic missile and a spy satellite.
Unregistered herbal and orthodox medical products worth GHS700,000, have been seized by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in Kumasi.
In a market surveillance exercise in the Ashanti Region, the Authority grabbed illegal pharmaceuticals, including body enhancement products from a retail market.
The products were seized from a single retail shop at the Alabar Market, an identified hotbed for the sale of unwholesome herbal products and drugs.
The items included a variety of aphrodisiacs, unregistered herbal products, orthodox pain relievers, and cosmetics.
Some of the seized products had engraved on them unknown languages, while others were conspicuously sourced from the US.
Ashanti Regional Head of the Food and Drugs Authority John Laryea Oddai Tettey indicated the products were a mixture of indigenous and exotic consumables.
“These products will never be approved by the FDA. How these products get into our market remains unknown. But we want to assure that when these smugglers beat entry points we will always fish them out when they come on the market,” he said.
According to the FDA, the seized products will be destroyed through incineration.
The Authority observed with worry the perpetual penetration of illicit medicinal products on the market.
However, the Authority says it is mapping the entire region to smoke out perpetrators and bring them to book.
“We do a lot of scouting and surveillance and we are mapping the entire region so that wherever we have these products sold, we will move to those areas and get rid of them. But we have some spots that perpetually display these products and we are starting with them and we will get to them. Those in these illegal trades must rethink their activities because we are coming after them,” he said.
A growing trend on social media is the sale of these unwholesome products.
The FDA is collaborating with the appropriate quarters to rid the internet of the advertisement and sale of such unwholesome products.
John Laryea Tettey cautions the public against patronage of unregistered products.
“Visit the hospital and get the prescription. We are not supposed to buy medicines like we buy toffees. Get to a licensed chemical shop or pharmacy to have your prescribed medication. Communication Directorate of the authority is collaborating with the relevant agencies to ensure that the appropriate thing is done to rid these marketers,” he said.
Already, three persons arrested for similar offences have been arraigned.
Veteran comedian, Bright Okpocha, popularly known as Basketmouth, has finally opened up about his beef with his colleague, AY Makun.
In an interview earlier this year, AY claimed that their longstanding beef was over N30,000 owed to him by Basketmouth.
However, Basketmouth has now debunked AY’s claims, stating that they were never friends, and that the working relationship they had was a one-off deal.
Speaking on The Honest Bunch podcast hosted by media personality Nedu, Basketmouth explained that he had heard some things about AY that he was not supposed to know and, as a result, kept his distance.
He said, “The reason I used style mind my business, na because of when there was that coming together [between AY and I], I heard something that threw me off. I heard some things wey I no supposed to hear or know. As I hear am, I was like ‘What the f*ck! Really?’ I no supposed know. And I no fit tell am [AY] so I kept quiet.”
He also clarified that the issue of the N30,000 was not about a client owing him money, as AY had claimed, but about a single job for which he had instructed the client to pay AY.
Basketmouth stated that AY had omitted this information and that he believed AY needed to sell tickets for his shows.
Basketmouth concluded by saying that he had tried to ignore the matter for a long time, but felt the need to set the record straight.
He expressed his disappointment that the issue was still being discussed in 2023, saying, “Ukraine dey fight war, we dey talk of 30 thousand [naira].”
The UK economy saw no growth in February after being hit by the effects of strikes by public sector workers, official figures show.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that a rise in construction activity had been offset by walkouts by teachers and civil servants.
It follows a surprise 0.4% jump in economic growth in January.
Despite February’s flat performance, the chancellor said the UK’s economic outlook was “brighter than expected”.
Jeremy Hunt noted that GDP – the measure of economic growth – had grown by 0.1% in the three months to February and the UK was “set to avoid recession”.
But Labour said the UK was “lagging behind on the global stage with growth on the floor”.
“The reality of growth inching along is families worse off, high streets in decline and a weaker economy that leaves us vulnerable to shocks,” said shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Darren Morgan, ONS director of economic statistics, said the UK construction sector had grown strongly in February after a poor January, with increased repair work taking place.
There was also a boost from retailing, with many shops having “a buoyant month”.
But he added: “These were offset by the effects of Civil Service and teachers’ strike action, which impacted the public sector, and unseasonably mild weather led to falls in the use of electricity and gas.”
Walkouts by teachers nationwide on 1 February and in some regions of England on 28 February had been the biggest drag on UK growth, the ONS said.
Strikes by many civil servants on 1 February also held back growth.
High energy prices, rising interest rates and weak trade flows have been dragging on the UK economy for some time.
However, many economists expect inflation – the rate at which prices rise – to ease later this year as energy and food prices fall.
The UK’s inflation rate was 10.4% in the year to February, the highest for nearly 40 years.
Former President John Dramani Mahama says his ‘do-or-die’ comments have been twisted by his political opponents.
Mr Mahama said his comments were not intended to incite violence in the 2024 general elections.
According to him, he only meant that the 2024 polls is crucial for the NDC and the party will not joke with it.
Mr Mahama, addressing NDC faithful in the Eastern Region on April 12, said his political opponents have twisted his words to court disaffection for him.
“We are not going to joke in the upcoming 2024 general elections. That’s why I said it’s a do-or-die affair. I made these comments and some people have twisted my words saying I meant we will be butchering and killing people with cutlasses and guns.
No, that’s not the ‘do or I die’ I meant. Do or die means the election is very crucial one for NDC to win, so we will not joke with it. It doesn’t mean that we will beat people with sticks and kill them,” Mr Mahama clarified.
Already, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has petitioned the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Police Service to arrest him for allegedly making treasonable remarks.
The National Organiser of the party Henry Nana Boakye popularly known as ‘Nana B’ said the NPP wants the CID to arrest the National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia.
According to him, Mr Asiedu Nketia has also made comments that portend great danger to the peace and stability of the country.
He said the two personalities wield influential positions in the country and as such any dangerous comments from them could jeopardize the country’s security.
Nana B thus wants the CID to work on the petition with alacrity as any further delay could cause a “great danger” to the country.
About 70% of suicides recorded in the country are committed by men, a community psychiatry nurse at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has disclosed.
The total number of people in the country who take their lives annually is 1,500, according to Francis Yeboah.
As a result, healthcare experts are stressing a worrying trend stemming from depression.
The healthcare practitioner was speaking on Joy Prime on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
“I think men are twice the number of females that commit suicide every year,” he said on Prime Morning.
He blamed this development on the Ghanaian societal demands on men and the lack of emotional support.
Mr Yeboah explained that many communities “assume men are supposed to behave in a certain way in our lives… you know in the journey of life a lot of things come together and emotion is no respecter of gender.”
“So when a man is facing a crisis, it’s assumed by the community that you don’t need to cry, you need to be hard on yourself, so when he’s trying to exhibit his emotions, you hear other men questioning his manhood”.
“Some of these things make men suppress their emotions and we don’t create an outlet for these emotions to exit which creates a built-up tension in the man leading to suicidal thoughts,” he disclosed.
Speaking on the same show, a psychiatrist at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Abigail Harding says among the numerous reasons people commit suicide, divorce and relationship issues are the leading causes.
“Divorce and break up are some of the top reasons why we get a lot of people thinking of carrying out suicide”.
“There is a lot of emotional investment that goes into relationships and some would even say financial investment that goes into it, when you look at the different factors, someone attached so closely to someone possibly for many years, they’ve invested so much of their lives into them”.
“It can a toll on their mental well-being and that makes them more likely to have these thoughts and when you combine it with the mental vulnerability they may have, because about 95 percent of people who commit suicide have a mental health condition so when you compound it, it makes it more likely that they will carry out suicide,” she explained.
Parliament has amended sections of the Criminal Offenses Act of 1960, which makes attempting to take one’s own life a crime.
Following the amendment in Parliament on March 28, persons who attempt suicide will be considered as having mental health issues requiring assistance by law rather than imprisonment.
The Chairman of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (CSPOG), Dr. Steve Manteaw, has criticised the country’s Energy Transition (ET) plan for failing to outline practical steps to take hold of opportunities that come along with achieving the net zero goal.
Ghana is aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2070, which is projected to cost an estimated US$561.8billion according to the National Energy Transition Framework.
But Dr. Manteaw, who is also the co-chair of the Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), says while the country’s approach to transition “portrays a business-as-usual attitude”, the 2070 target is not ambitious enough to keep up the country’s race into the future of energy.
To him, a much bigger reason to worry is that the fossil fuel industry in Ghana is not thinking of transition, but rather net zero.
“Without a clear cross-sectorial strategy and action plan, Ghana’s 2070 target will miss a lot of opportunities the transition affords, such as developing our silica sand to become a solar panel hub in Africa.”
He cited the European Union’s taxonomy programme, which discourages investments in fossil fuels but encourages investments in renewable energy technologies, as an example that the country could take advantage of.
Explaining further, he said: “If you are going to move slowly and not position yourself to take advantage of these investments, then by 2070 they will not be available to the country”.
Against this backdrop, he opined that the country needs to hasten moderately; in a way that “we don’t find ourselves in the tail-end of the race”.
On the other hand, Dr. Manteaw – who was speaking in an interview behind a two-day workshop on ET, reckoned that a brisk transition also risks disrupting the national economy – and thus advocated for a moderate or pragmatic approach to the energy transition goal.
The training programme, which was organised by the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), was on the topic ‘Impact of energy transition on domestic resources mobilisation in Ghana’.
Meanwhile, the deputy Director of Renewable and Nuclear Energy at the Ministry of Energy, Dr. Robert Bright Mawuko Sogbadji, argues against the assertion that the estimated US$561.8billion cost for net zero emissions is on the high end.
He maintained that other countries within the sub-region, like Nigeria, aim to spend some US$1trillion to achieve their net zero target, making Ghana’s investment relatively lower.
Moreover, he said, the country’s gross domestic product – projected by the International Monetary Fund to grow to some US$88billion by 2027 and US$880billion by 2070 – makes the estimated cost of transition realistic and moderate.
Also, Dr. Sogbadji noted that the current economic challenges are temporary, considering to the time required for the country to realise its energy transition goal; and he’s therefore optimistic about meeting the ET target.
On investments in renewables, he said the last four years have seen some remarkable progress. For instance, the Bui Power Authority has added 50 megawatts of renewable energy sources – which is being expanded to 250 megawatts.
This is in addition to building a 1-megawatt floating solar project that is also being upgraded to 5 megawatts, while the Volta River Authority (VRA) has built solar plants in the Upper West and Upper East Regions.
Explaining the rationale behind the workshop, Senior Economic Analyst at NRGI Dr. Alex Ampaabeng said the media and civil social organisations represent a significant segment of Ghanaian society and are key stakeholders whose views and input are vital in the ET process.
Given the transition has gender and equity dimensions, transparency and corruption risks, he noted that getting the media and CSOs to understand the energy transition and how the country intends to finance it will enable them to play active roles in a just and transparent transition process.
American Singer Ariana Grande has called on fans to be “gentler and less comfortable” about remarking on her and other peoples’ bodies after recent scrutiny of her appearance on social media.
In a TikTok video, Ariana Grande said she had a body that is “paid such close attention to”, so “wanted to address” concerns.
It comes after some users commented on her apparent recent weight loss.
Grande said they were “comparing my current body” to “the unhealthiest version of my body”.
The 29-year-old US star explained: “I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them and eating poorly and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy, but that in fact wasn’t my healthy.
“I know I shouldn’t have to explain that, but I do feel like maybe having an openness and some sort of vulnerability here will [mean] something good might come from it. I don’t know but that’s the first thing. Healthy can look different.”
‘Many different kinds of beautiful’
She continued: “The second thing is, you never know what someone is going through. Even if you are coming from a loving place and a caring place, that person probably is working on it or has a support system that they are working on it with.
“You never know. So be gentle with each other and with yourselves.”
Stressing that “there are many different kinds of beautiful,” Ariana Grande suggested fans should avoid making even “well-intentioned” remarks about how “healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, non-sexy” people may look.
“There are ways to compliment someone or to ignore something that you see that you don’t like, that I think we should help each other work towards,” she said. “We should aim toward being safer, and keeping each other safer.”
The Interbank forex rates from the Bank of Ghana today, April 13, 2023, have shown that the Ghana Cedi is trading against the dollar at a buying price of 10.9263 and a selling price of 10.9373.
At a forex bureau in Accra, the dollar is being bought at a rate of 11.00 and sold at a rate of 12.00.
Against the Pound Sterling, the Cedi is trading at a buying price of 13.6383 and a selling price of 13.6530.
At a forex bureau in Accra, the pound sterling is being bought at a rate of 13.40 and sold at a rate of 14.40.
The Euro is trading at a buying price of 12.0140 and a selling price of 12.0248.
At a forex bureau in Accra, Euro is being bought at a rate of 11.70 and sold at a rate of 12.70.
The South African Rand is trading at a buying price of 0.5981 and a selling price of 0.5986.
At a forex bureau in Accra, South African Rand is being bought at a rate of 0.30 and sold at a rate of 0.90.
The Nigerian Naira is trading at a buying price of 42.2520 and a selling price of 42.2977.
At a forex bureau in Accra, Nigerian Naira is being bought at a rate of 13.50 Naira for every 1 Cedi and sold at a rate of 18.50.
For the CFA, it is trading at a buying price of 54.5503 and a selling price of 54.5994.
At a forex bureau in Accra, CFA is being bought at a rate of 17.00 CFA for every 1 Cedi and sold at a rate of 21.00 CFA for every 1 Cedi.
Our forex bureau rates are provided by Afriswap Bureau De Change in Osu, Accra.
Pratt asserts that no civilized country in the world engages in such appointments since they compromise the EC’s neutrality and the democratic nature of the country.
He added that the role of the electoral commission is to oversee the conduct of free and fair elections, and it is crucial for the commission to remain impartial and independent of any political affiliations.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme on April 12, 2023, he lamented: “From a low of 49%, we have now arrived at 10% public confidence in the EC.
“We should be worried…from 49% to 10% public confidence in the EC and this 10% public confidence in the EC was recorded before the appointment of Appiahene and co…everybody who is honest and sincere will have a problem with this appointment.
“…I am frightened, I’m really frightened. At a time when public confidence in the EC has dropped to 10%, this is the appointment we have made.
“This guy (Dr. Peter Appiahene) I don’t see how in any civilized country which is trying to practice democracy in any part of the world, a man like this will be appointed to the electoral commission, I don’t see how.
“But this one, we have gone a step further, …a card-bearing professor, swearing in as a member of the electoral commission. So, it gives more meaning to the threats of not handing over under any circumstance.
“Just imagine that Koku Anyidohu was appointed under former president Mills as an electoral commission member, or just imagine that under John Mahama, Allotey Jacobs was appointed unto the EC, just imagine. What do you think would have happened? How can we do this?” he lamented.
Kwesi Pratt added that the appointment of Dr. Peter Appiahene to the commission can lead to conflicts of interest and compromise the integrity of the electoral process.
He further argued that such appointments are a clear violation of democratic principles and can damage the credibility of the election results.
“If there is an election dispute and this gentleman is sitting on the electoral commission, how are we going to resolve it?
“So, when you listen to this gentleman who has just been appointed unto the electoral commission and you get a leading Member of the government, in fact, a cabinet minister says that we would never hand over power to the NDC, what conclusion comes to mind after listening to this gentleman?”
The veteran journalist’s remarks come amidst growing concerns over the appointment of a pro-NPP member, Dr. Peter Appiahene to the electoral commission.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo recently swore in three new members of the Electoral Commission (EC).
The three are Dr. Peter Appiahene, Madam Salima Ahmed Tijani, and Reverend Akua Ofori Boateng.
They took office at a short Jubilee House ceremony on Monday, March 20, 2023.
The appointments have, however, seen some criticisms by some factions in the public with members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) accusing President Akufo-Addo of packing the commission with members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, criticized recent remarks deemed controversial by the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong.
Addressing party faithful after a health walk through the principal streets of Mpraeso over the weekend, Bryan Acheampong stated that the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) will not hand power over to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
This statement has sparked outrage among opposition parties and civil society groups, who see it as a threat to Ghana’s democracy.
Speaking in an interview with Peace FM’s Midday News on April 12, 2023, Dr. Akwetey stated that Bryan Acheampong’s comment is unacceptable and can potentially cause violence in the country, calling it a “coup d’état in the making.”
He called on the police to immediately invite the minister and investigate the matter.
“What they reported that he has said that ‘we won’t hand over’ is tantamount to a coup, okay, because in our constitution, if you claim you won’t hand over after losing an election, it is a very serious matter.
“Or anybody who wants to use force to take power is criminal behaviour, it can cause conflict and it can affect the whole country, especially the presidency.
“For me, the reason why I think they need to go to the police is that such a statement can cause conflict in the country,” he said.
Dr. Akwetey added that it is important that the police take the matter seriously and investigate it thoroughly because Ghana’s democracy must be protected at all costs.
The opposition NDC has also condemned Bryan Acheampong’s statement, the party has called on the government to take swift action to address the matter and ensure that the upcoming elections are free and fair.
Bryan Acheampong is on record as saying the governing New Patriotic Party will do everything within its means to win the 2024 general elections.
According to him, the NPP is not ready to hand over power to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), therefore, his party will go to the election fully prepared.
He stated that the NPP has the men to match the opposition boot for boot during the 2024 polls.
Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood has been questioned twice under police caution over five alleged sex offences.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they are now investigating five accusations of offenses alleged to have happened between 1982 and 2016.
Detectives say they interviewed a 65-year-old man under caution on 15 March and 4 April. There has been no arrest.
It comes after BBC News and the Guardian uncovered allegations from 18 women. He denied those allegations.
In April last year, a number of women accused the former Radio 1 DJ of predatory and unwanted sexual behaviour and touching, in incidents between 1992 and 2017.
They also accused him of abusing his position in the music industry. Some of the women told us they encountered Mr Westwood when they were under 18. One says that she was only 14 when Mr Westwood first had sex with her.
The DJ stepped down from his Capital Xtra radio show after the allegations emerged.
Last August the BBC launched an external inquiry into what the corporation did and did not know about Tim Westwood’s conduct during his nearly 20 years working there. That inquiry is still ongoing.
Multiple award-winning gospel singer, songwriter, philanthropist, producer, TV presenter, and author Sonnie Badu has performed a shocking miracle as he has turned anointing oil into blood during church service.
The miracle happened after the Ghanaian Gospel minister poured anointing oil into the hands of one of his church members. In a video shared on social media, the red liquid, said to be blood, was captured in a woman’s hand whilst Sonnie Badu was praying.
According to the founder of the RockHill Church based Atlanta, Georgia, the miracle which happened last night is an evidence the blood of Jesus still carries power.
“I have been asking God to show up mightily in our services and last nights God truly did. The anointing oil turned into BLOOD .. Of course, it’s Holy Week and I have been teaching on the blood,” he said.
Sharing the video on his social media pages, he added that “this was not a coincidence it’s was an affirmation that his blood still carries power .. Today, I command the blood to heal you and all your family members – of any generational sicknesses in the name of Jesus“.
Singer Ariana Grande after recent criticism of her appearance on social media, has urged fans to be “gentler and less comfortable” about making comments about her and other people’s bodies.
In a TikTok video, she said she had a body that is “paid such close attention to”, so “wanted to address” concerns.
It comes after some users commented on her apparent recent weight loss.
Grande said they were “comparing my current body” to “the unhealthiest version of my body”.
The 29-year-old US star explained: “I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them and eating poorly and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy, but that in fact wasn’t my healthy.
“I know I shouldn’t have to explain that, but I do feel like maybe having an openness and some sort of vulnerability here will [mean] something good might come from it. I don’t know but that’s the first thing. Healthy can look different.”
She continued: “The second thing is, you never know what someone is going through. Even if you are coming from a loving place and a caring place, that person probably is working on it or has a support system that they are working on it with.
“You never know. So be gentle with each other and with yourselves.”
‘Many different kinds of beautiful’
Grande, known for pop hits such as One Last Time and Thank U, Next, is also an actress and is set to star as Glinda Upland in the forthcoming Wicked film, based on the musical of the same name.
Stressing that “there are many different kinds of beautiful,” she suggested fans should avoid making even “well-intentioned” remarks about how “healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, non-sexy” people may look.
“There are ways to compliment someone or to ignore something that you see that you don’t like, that I think we should help each other work towards,” she said. “We should aim toward being safer, and keeping each other safer.”
She has has previously opened up about her “anxiety” and mental health issues, especially following the Manchester Arena attack, when a suicide bomber killed 22 people after her concert in May 2017.
And she is not the only star to find her weight being widely discussed. Last month, Selena Gomez said there were reasons why someone’s body size and shape might change. In her case, lupus medication causes her to retain water.
Image caption, Singer and actress Selena Gomez has also spoken out about body shaming comments
“I just want people to know that you’re beautiful and you’re wonderful,” the 30-year-old singer and actress told her TikTok followers.
“And yeah we have days where maybe we feel like [rubbish] but I would much rather be healthy and take care of myself, and my medications are important and I believe they are what helps me. So, yeah, [I’m] not a model, never will be.”
On Tuesday, some social media users criticised the body-shaming culture that prompted the videos from Gomez and Grande.
“Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande shouldn’t have to go on a public platform to explain their weight gain/loss because of abhorrent criticism,” posted one, adding: “It’s nasty, cruel and unfair especially today.”
In 2021, singer Adele told Vogue she was “disappointed” with the “brutal conversations” about her weight loss.
Around the same time, a similarly slimmed-down Jonah Hill urged his followers to refrain from commenting about his appearance.
“I know you mean well but I kindly ask that you do not comment on my body good or bad,” wrote the actor. “I want to politely let you know it’s not helpful and doesn’t feel good.”
A gay, whose identity has been withheld, has disclosed the main reason for his lack of preference for women.
Speaking exclusively to Etsey Atisu on ‘Say it Loud’, he averred that he finds women physically attractive yet emotionally retarded.
He said although he has been with a few women in the past, his taste still tilts toward men.
“I have been with a few women. I once told my father that I find women physically attractive but emotionally retarded. That is the reason why I am gay. I prefer and love the company of men to women. That is a reason to tell you that being with a woman is too much for me.
“To me, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s like forcing me to do something against my will. It’s like you not hating men but you just can’t have sex with them,” he established.
The young man stated that if ever he is forced to settle down with a woman, it will be as a result of societal pressures, owing to the part of the world he hails from.
He said should that happen; he will definitely cheat on the ‘unlucky wife’ with a male partner.
“If I am ever to marry a woman, it will be due to the pressure of society. If I am to marry in Africa, It will mean marrying a woman but that wouldn’t stop me from sleeping with other men which I don’t think is fair to anyone’s daughter.
“To be honest, I have been with a lot of married men, whose wives think they are in a happy marriage but their husbands come to me before even going home to them,” he added.
When asked if his father has accepted his new LGBTQ status, he answered:
“When it comes to being gay, my dad has been very loving, caring, and supportive. He is the one that gave birth to me and blood is thicker than water.”
Meanwhile, Parliament is expected to debate and pass the anti-gay bill.
This comes after the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament presented the final draft of the bill, which was sponsored by a group of bi-partisan Members of Parliament, to the plenary.
Ghanaian musician and radio show host, Blakk Rasta, has called Bryan Acheampong, the Member of Parliament for Abetifi Constituency, a coward who hides behind foolishness to misbehave after the politician said his political party will never hand over to the opposition party.
Blakk Rasta, who hosts the show “Taxi Driver,” expressed his disappointment saying Acheampong’s remark was promoting violence and was demonic.
He stated, “These cowards hide behind this foolishness and misbehave every time, and I am hurt. How can a whole party come out and support this demonic talk? You have an equal measure of violence, and people are happy about it.”
He added, “If they are violent, we are also violent. Oh, let us send you to Somalia, where there is violence, so we can check your level of violence. Can we take you to Ukraine because that is where we need violence? Go there!”
Blakk Rasta further accused Acheampong of behaving like a coward and living in a fool’s paradise, saying, “Maybe he is politically drunk and his senses are not working.”
He also mocked Acheampong’s two-week course with the American Air Force, stating that just because America is considered almighty, any training from them does not guarantee success in all situations.
Blakk Rasta reminded Acheampong and others who support violence that it is not the solution to any problem and that violence only leads to more violence and destruction.
He concluded, “I remember the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I remember the bombing at Pearl Harbour. I remember Vietnam, where America lost right from the top to the bottom. I remember, and I know as a historian, that America does not always win. America is not God.”
Background
on April 8, 2023, former Member of Parliament for Abetifi Constituency, Bryan Acheampong, stated categorically that the governing New Patriotic Party would do everything within its means to win the 2024 general elections.
He emphasized that the NPP was not ready to hand over power to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and his party would go to the election fully prepared.
Speaking to party faithful after a health walk through the principal streets of Mpraeso on Saturday, April 8, 2023, Acheampong stressed that “We would have shown NDC that we had the men if they had wanted to intimidate, harass us or do anything foolish during the 2024 elections…It would not have happened that we would have handed over power to NDC. We would have used any means for NPP to stay in power.”
On April 24, President Akufo-Addo will perform the grand opening of the Accra World Book Capital, 2023 at the Accra Conference Centre.
In attendance at the event would be will be a wide array of important international personalities including Members of the Diplomatic Community in Ghana, UNESCO Representatives in the Africa Region and its Paris headquarters, and Directors as well as Representatives of the United Nations Agencies home and abroad.
The others include Development Partners, City Mayors from the World Book Capital Network, and personalities from the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), as well as the International Authors Forum (IAF).
Briefing the Press on Tuesday in Accra, the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum mentioned the rationale of Accra World Book Capital and stated that in September 2021, the City of Accra was selected by UNESCO as the 2023 World Book Capital, following evaluation by the World Book Capital Advisory Committee.
He explained that Accra was selected ahead of other cities because the Education Ministry’s programmatic focus was on young people and their ability to contribute to the culture and wealth of Ghana through the power of reading.
Dr Adutwum stated that Accra, thus, became the fourth city in Africa to receive this title, making Accra part of the prestigious World Book Capital Cities Network and it is no doubt it is an acknowledgement of the giant strides Ghana and Africa are making to develop its books and creative arts industries.
The Education Minister used the occasion to congratulate the Inter-Ministerial Agency Committee led by the Ghana Book Development Council who put together the convincing dossier that won the nation the enviable title of hosting the World Book Capital 2023.
He appealed to the media to take a keen interest in the event with the necessary information about the year-long program of activities for sustainable communication, inform and educate the Ghanaian citizenry about the goals and aspirations of Accra World
Book Capital, 2023
The UNESCO country representative, Mr Diallo Abdourahamane, enumerated the various benefits the nations stand to derive from hosting the event.
He urged the teams to continue working hard towards the success of the event for the country and the rest of the world.
The Mayor of Accra, Madam Elizabeth Naa Sackey, praised the committee for its role and pledged to support the successful hosting of the event.
Background
The concept of World Book Capital by UNESCO acknowledges the power of books and reading as cornerstones to a more inclusive, equitable, peaceful, and sustainable society. The Government of Ghana believing in this vision also recognizes the need to address barriers to equity and inclusivity in all aspects of societal life.
In education for example, several actions, including, making secondary education free, provision of more schools and STEM Centers across the country, developing adapted curricula at all levels, and improving the quality of teachers and the teaching profession are all efforts by the Government to guarantee a just and sustainable society.
Ghanaian musician Adomaa has opened up about her struggles with insecurity and depression way back in school.
In a recent interview with content creator Yaa Somuah, Adomaa admitted that she almost resorted to skin bleaching due to being frequently mocked for her dark skin while attending boarding school in Nigeria.
“I used to hear statements like Oh you are so dark, oh my God the sun in Ghana, does it burn people. It made me feel very very insecure. I am not proud of it but there are times I actually attempted bleaching just to fit in,” she said.
Adomaa also spoke about the challenges of being a celebrity and the lack of privacy that comes with it.
“The celebrity kingdom is not normal. I feel like everybody has vulnerable moments, has everyday lives and there are certain things you want to keep for yourself,” she said.
Despite her struggles, Adomaa has made a successful comeback in the music industry, with popular songs like Healing Blossoms, Real Time Love, Breaking Me Down ft Flowking Stone, and Becoming Adomaa. She remains focused on her goals and aims to “rule the world.”
Popular Nigerian transgender and cross dresser , Bobrisky’s comment section has since been buzzing with interesting comments after claiming that his ‘manhood’ has been removed.
Bob shared a video where ‘she’ visited a spa which captured a young lady viciously scrubbing ‘his’ butt with some of their products while the Instagram celebrity promoted the brand.
As the video continued to spur reactions from social media users, one Usman Olamilekan expressed concern about the lady overwhelmed with looking at Bob’s ‘manhood’ while doing her job.
“This woman will be seeing your gbola like that oooo,” he said.
But reacting to Olamilekan’s concern, the controversial social media personality suggested ‘her’ phallus has been cut off.
“@olamilekan0921 there’s nothing like that there anymore”, responded Bob.
Countering Bob’s claim, general_tobos_ said: “@bobrisky222 that is big lie dude …that dick is still there.
@jaypounds_slaypapa wrote: “@bobrisky222 show us Baba werey. Seeing is believing.”
@iam_maykid stated: “@bobrisky222 so you don cut your manhood and you still Dey alive. Egbon!”
@k_banty1 said: “@bobrisky222 show your front let’s see if there’s nothing like gbola there.”
@prityvictor wrote: “@bobrisky222 oga carry camera go there make we confirm.”
Ningo Prampram Member of Parliament `(MP), Sam Nartey George has expressed concerns over what he describes as multiple breaches associated with the SIM card re-registration exercise which commenced in October 2021.
According to the MP, “there is widespread evidence that there are multiple breaches of citizen’s personal data during the SIM card registration exercise,” a situation he said would have been treated with utmost seriousness “in any serious jurisdiction.”
Sam George’s concern follows reports of a rise in the number of phone numbers (illegally) linked to peoples’ Ghana Cards.
Broadcast journalist with Angel FM, for instance, recently shared on social media how he mysteriously found out there were more numbers than did not belong to him linked to his Ghana Card, after visiting one of the Telcos to inquire about the number of SIM cards linked to his card. Other people have shared similar sentiments.
It is against this background that many people have called for a common and simple system that will allow them to verify the numbers linked to their Cards.
On April 11, 2023, the National Communications Authority (NCA) announced plans to create a system that will enable the public to verify the number of SIM cards linked to their Ghana Cards.
NCA in a social media post said that it has actively engaged the various telecommunication networks on launching a shortcode that will allow subscribers to verify the number of SIMs linked to their Ghana Cards.
Despite this assurance, Sam George noted that there is cause for alarm given the amount of data which have so far been tampered with.
“We are in a crisis! Do not forget that I had raised this issue on October 17, 2022 and the response from the National Communications Authority Ghana was that they were doing mystery shopping. Today, the Director of Legal at the Regulator is not telling us steps taken to check the extent of the breach but is shifting responsibility to citizens to wait for an app to check if they have suffered a breach? Good graces! How low have we sunk as a Nation,” he said.
He, however, proposed some steps to take in order to mitigate the impact of the alleged breaches which has been outlined below:
1. The NCA should immediately halt any further registration and conduct a thorough investigation of registration records to determine how many SIMs have been registered with each unique Ghana Card number.
2. They should then send messages to the primary number associated with each Ghana Card notifying the holder of the number of SIMs registered.
3. Where there is an issue of unauthorised registration using the Ghana Card, the customer is then given a chance to raise a complaint and the Data Protection Commission Ghana is immediately activated to determine the challenges with whichever Data Processor was involved and remedial steps taken including compensation and punitive action on the Data Processor.
4. Based on the findings of the DPC and NCA, criminal charges for identity theft and Data breaches would be brought against the persons or entities involved in the identity theft.
This is what a functional system should commence immediately as a triage of this process which is necessary and commendable but which has been messed up from the get go by poor public policy planning.
Prophet Oduro has thrown subtle jabs at gospel singers, Daughters of Glorious Jesus, for publicly declaring their fondness for some secular songs.
The Alabaster International Ministry founder, during a sermon, labeled the gospel music trio as a bad example following their utterances which was captured in a discussion on United Showbiz.
In a video making rounds on social media, Daughters of Glorious Jesus listed their interest in some highlife artistes.
“It is God who gives talent. As a Christian, you can listen to secular songs, and even their lyrics can touch you and compel you to do the right thing. The gift is from God. That is Moses’ view. I like listening to Amakye Dede a lot. He even came to sing for me on my birthday. Even my husband knows this. I am a Christian and I am married. I like Amakye Dede’s songs and I like him. This doesn’t make me a non-believer. You don’t judge people’s outlooks and determine whether the person is a Christian or not. That I am playing Amakye Dede in my car, doesn’t mean I am not a Christian,” Edna, a member of the group said.
“Yes. I listen to his songs and I don’t think anybody will think I have backslidden just by listening to Kojo Antwi. Some of Kojo Antwi’s songs give good counsel. He sings love songs. If you are married and you listen to some of those songs with your husband, isn’t it a good feeling? Because Kojo Antwi also goes to church,” Another member of the group, Monica, said.
But Prophet Oduro who finds their statements disgusting said:
“The other time, I was watching a program on TV and I became sad. I could hear people who are gospel ministers talking about their preference for all kinds of secular songs. I saw that and I screamed. These people are bad examples to the Christians. This kind of Christianity will make the gospel lost in the next ten years. In only ten years, there will be no gospel. How will you feel if you came to meet me smoking wee on my pulpit? The Bible gives us the free will but not all things are permissible to humankind.”
According to him, the word of God which is standard for all Christians frowns on such acts.
“I don’t listen to Bob Marley; I don’t listen to Alpha Blonde. When it comes to the Word, your opinions do not matter. The word of God is paramount. When you burn in hellfire, you’d realize your opinions do not matter. When COVID struck and pastors were asked not to operate, we obeyed and stayed indoors, so how much more God,” he established.
According to scientists, armed conflict, globalization, and climate change are making it easier for plant pandemics to spread and endangering the food supply that feeds billions of people.
Scientists have called for increased international cooperation in crop species genetic surveillance in order to reduce crop species extinction as a result of the “unprecedented” spread of a fungus that infects wheat throughout the world.
Wheat blast fungus was initially discovered in Brazil in 1985, and it gradually spread to nearby nations before crossing international borders. Pandemics have recently surfaced in Zambia and Bangladesh.
In 2016, it destroyed around 15,000 hectares in Bangladesh, spreading to more than 16% of the country’s cultivated wheat area and consuming up to 100% of yields, while in Zambia outbreaks have continued to occur with varying severity since its arrival in 2018.
Scientists are worried the fungus – Magnaporthe oryzae – could spread to other countries through the importation of infected seeds or through spores travelling on the wind. The fungus has already moved from eight to 21 districts in Bangladesh, and scientists are particularly concerned it will spread to China and India, the world’s two largest wheat producers.
In a new study, an international team of scientists led by University College London and the Sainsbury Laboratory, East Anglia, confirmed that the fungus afflicting Bangladesh and Zambia is of the same genetic lineage as that in South America, although the exact source could not be identified.
The authors wrote: ‘The occurrence of wheat blast on three continents with climatic conditions highly conducive to its spread is unprecedented, and represents a very significant threat to global food security – which is exacerbated by the twin challenge of climate change and armed conflicts in major agricultural regions.’
They said the global community must learn lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and follow the spread of the fungus using similar methods of genetic monitoring used to track the spread and mutations of coronavirus.
Publishing their work in the journal PLoS Biology, the scientists analysed wheat blast’s genetic make-up using 84 simultaneous PCR tests.
The team also found the gene Rmg8 is resistant to the fungus, while the disease is sensitive to the fungicide strobilurin.
They stressed that genomic surveillance, particularly in countries neighbouring infected areas, provides the best method for understanding how to control the fungal spread.
Professor Nick Talbot of the Sainsbury Laboratory said: ‘Only by really understanding the enemy and understanding the pathogens that cause these diseases will we be able to really pre-emptively control them.
‘We have to assume that plant diseases are going to spread all over the world through the impacts of climate change and globalisation, and we have to be prepared for them.
‘We have to be proactive rather than reactive – we have to anticipate the diseases will move and therefore plan accordingly.’
The researchers said further work is needed to understand how plant diseases like wheat blast fungus may evolve to become resistant to pesticides and fungicides and to investigate other potential strategies as alternatives to using chemicals.
The Ghanaian musical duo DopeNation, comprising Michael Boafo and Tony Boafo, have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs), claiming that the organisers of the event have been unfair to them.
According to the duo, the “Group of the Year” category has been eliminated from the annual event which has impacted their recognition and what they stand for as a group.
In an asaase.com report, DopeNation shared their thoughts on the issue, saying, “We are twins, we are a group; that is what we stand for. So musically, when you take that category off, you take away our recognition and what we stand for.”
It has been three years since the award scheme removed the “Group of the Year” category.
DopeNation expressed understanding towards the organisers’ decision, but also called for a review, saying, “We are sure they have tangible reasons for that, but they should also look at it from our point of view.”
The duo went on to highlight their contributions to the music industry, including producing and writing for other artists, touring, and releasing their own music.
They expressed their disappointment at having to compete with solo artists instead of being recognised as a group and compared their experience with that of being nominated as a group at award ceremonies in other countries.
“It really hurts when another country has an award scheme and they nominate us as a group and we have to fly there to represent the country as a group. Meanwhile, back in our home (Ghana), we don’t have a group category,” they said.
According to new statistics, the coronavirus is no longer among the top five killers in England and Wales.
Following the outbreak of the global pandemic that first put the UK on lockdown in March 2020, COVID-19 was the main cause of death in both 2020 and 2021.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), five additional diseases surpassed the virus in 2022, with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease leading the list and accounting for close to 66,000 deaths, or 11% of all deaths, according to the ONS.
As a result of new versions, the expected number of weekly infections for Covid-19 rose to 4.4 million at the end of last March, setting new records for infection levels in 2022.
But this increase in infections did not result in an increase in deaths caused by the virus, most likely thanks to the success of the vaccination roll-out.
Sarah Caul, head of mortality analysis at the ONS, said the figures represent a ‘significant change’ in England and Wales’ leading causes of death.
In both 2020 and 2021 Covid-19 was the leading cause of death, with 73,766 deaths (12.1% of the total) and 67,350 (11.5%) respectively.
By 2022 coronavirus was recorded as the main cause of death for 22,454 people, or 3.9% of all deaths registered.
After dementia and Alzheimer’s disease the other leading causes of death in England and Wales last year were ischaemic heart diseases (59,356 deaths and 10.3% of the total); chronic lower respiratory diseases (29,815 deaths, 5.2%); cerebrovascular diseases such as strokes and aneurysms (29,274 deaths, 5.1%); and trachea, bronchus and lung cancer (28,571 deaths, 5.0%).
Vaccinations against Covid-19 were first rolled out to key workers and the clinically vulnerable in early 2021, with booster jabs introduced during the winter months.
The total number of deaths registered in England and Wales last year was lower than in 2021 and 2020 – but still 6.2% above the five-year average.
The ONS says 33,747 deaths in 2022 were considered to be ‘excess’ deaths, but they believe Covid-19 only played a minor role in last year’s figures.
Instead they believe seasonal viruses like flue, the impact of the summer heatwave, pressures on the NHS, and access to medical services, would have contributed to last year’s excess deaths.
Following the stabbing of an imam leading morning prayers, a guy was detained in New Jersey.
At the Omar Mosque in Paterson on Sunday morning, Serif Zorba, 32, is accused of stabbing Imam Sayed Elnakib, 65, and is charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon.
On Sunday around 5.30 a.m., the incident took place before daybreak.
Security footage from the mosque’s building caught some of the horrifying attack. Zorba walked forward holding a knife as the other worshipers bent over to pray.
Suspect Serif Zorba’s mugshot after he was arrested in Paterson (Picture: Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office)
After the stabbing, members of the mosque were able to grab and subdue Zorba while waiting for police to arrive.
‘The suspect has been apprehended because of the heroic actions of Omar Mosque’s congregants,’ the mosque’s spokesperson Abdul Hamdan said. ‘They apprehended the individual swiftly and immediately.’
Authorities said Zorba had worshipped at the Paterson, New Jersey mosque before, but is not a member of the congregation.
Paterson City Councilmember Al Abdel-aziz reported that Elnakib was in stable condition at St Joseph’s University Medical Center and is expected to fully recover.
‘My heart goes out to everyone affected by this tragic event,’ Abdel-aziz said. ‘While it is unclear what motivated the attacker, there is no justification for violence of any kind, especially in a sacred space.’
Investigators are still working to determine a motive for the stabbing.
Zorba was arraigned in court on Monday, where he pleaded not guilty with the help of a Turkish translator. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Paterson, the third-largest city in New Jersey, is also home to one of the largest populations of American Muslims.
Police in Paterson announced that they would be adding enhanced security at each of the city’s 12 mosques through the rest of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
