The head of a charity which works on protecting African wildlife, Tusk, says the coronavirus pandemic is the biggest threat to conservation in his 30 years of working in the sector.
Charlie Mayhew told the BBC that his organisation expects to lose $2m (£1.6m) from cancelled fundraising events alone.
The number of coronavirus cases across the continent is relatively low, but despite this, the tourism industry has collapsed.
Almost four million people work in the conservation industry – guiding safaris, working in lodges and hotels, and protecting wildlife.
Now, with large numbers of people out of work, there are reports of an increase in poaching.
Tourism can often make up half the revenue for wildlife reserves; the loss of that income will make it much harder to fund the rangers that protect the animals.
Tourists and their guides out on safari can also act as a deterrent to poachers. Now those extra pairs of eyes and ears are gone.
Multimedia Group Limited, parent company of Joy Fm, Adom Fm and numerous other outlets, has laid off over 100 workers.
The layoff has become necessitated due to financial challenges the company is facing, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company has reportedly shown over 100 workers the door, including most notably Naa Ashorkor Mensah Doku of Joy Fm.
Naa Ashorkor announced earlier today that she had been axed from Multimedia, but her sacking was apparently just the tip of the iceberg.
According to yen.com.gh, citing deep throat sources in the company, about 100 workers are set to face the same fate as Naa Ashorkor by the end of this month.
Another big name said to have lost his job is Sammy Duodu, News editor of Adom Fm.
The company has reportedly been facing financial challenges long before COVID arrived, but things became worse with the pandemic.
Some workers reportedly had to deal with delayed salaries and other inconveniences.
Inevitably, the company was forced to take this decision to enable it remain viable.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s health ministry has confirmed 92 new coronavirus cases in the country, its highest single-day increase since the outbreak began in March.
Some 69 cases were detected in the capital, Kinshasa, and another 23 cases in the south-west province of Kongo Central.
The ministry has also said 212 suspected cases are being investigated.
The Ndolo military prison in Kinshasa, a hot-spot of infections, has been disinfected after at least 104 people, including inmates and wardens, contracted the virus.
Public Health Minister Eteni Longondo said on Tuesday that the situation was under control despite the significant increase in cases and the government was even considering reopening schools.
The country has to date confirmed 705 cases and 34 deaths.
The Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has urged the government to withdraw the pre-tertiary education Bill from Parliament.
He said the government needs to consult stakeholders broadly on the Bill and incorporate their before seeking parliamentary approval.
The Bill, when passed, will among other things see basic schools, Senior High Schools and TVET institutions being managed by District Assemblies, Regional Education Directorates and a Director-General, independent of the Ghana Education Service.
Haruna Iddrisu who spoke to Citi News on the sidelines of a donation event said the many concerns raised by some stakeholders must be considered before the passage of the Bill.
“I am not principally against decentralization or decentralized roles in basic education but there are legitimate concerns raised by the stakeholders. At least I have read a formal correspondence from the Catholic Secretariat and their concerns are legitimate. Are our district and metropolitan assemblies are not ready to the responsibility and obligations we are creating for them?†he quizzed.
The Tamale South legislator added that a more thorough national discussion is needed on the Bill before parliamentary approval is sought.
“My plea to the president is for him to withdraw the pre-tertiary education Bill for a more thorough national consultation and discussion,†he said.
He further said it is unconstitutional to make secondary education a part of basic education as earlier announced by President Nana Akufo-Addo.
“To make Senior High School a necessary part of basic education is wrong in theory, wrong in practice and wrong constitutionally…. He [Akufo-Addo] is doing a constitutional wrong to say that SHS is part of basic education. He should also not forget that Ghana is part of the West African sub-region, has he asked other leaders in the subregion whether they are doing same? Because there must be congruity,†Haruna Iddrisu said.
Meanwhile, the Minority leader has donated 1,000 desks worth GH¢300,000 from his Social Investment fund to five schools in the Tamale South constituency.
A hotel manager in South Africa’s North West province has told local eNCA news station that alcohol was the “main priority” of a group of robbers who raided his business at gunpoint.
“First of all they requested access to the alcohol… and then they wanted access to the rooms to see what valuable items were in the rooms,” Willie Kruger said.
Alcohol sales are still banned under the lockdown in South Africa, which has been partially relaxed.
CCTV footage broadcast by eNCA shows the criminals filling up a large bin with the contents of a fridge and then dragging it away.
The robbery took place just after the night-time curfew began, the TV station reports.
Tom Cruise is hoping to blast into the Hollywood record books by shooting the first action movie in space.
Nasa is working with Cruise to film aboard the International Space Station.
There are no details of the film, but Deadline – which first reported the story – said it would not be a new instalment of Mission: Impossible.
The report also said Cruise, 57, is also working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which will transport two US astronauts to the ISS for Nasa later this month.
Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote on Twitter: “Nasa is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the Space Station!”
Musk replied to say the project “should be a lot of fun!”
Cruise played an astronaut in 2013 film Oblivion, when he safeguarded Earth’s natural resources from alien invaders.
He also narrated the 2002 Imax documentary Space Station 3D. It’s not known when the star will blast off to the ISS for real.
Despite the pandemic, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is due to take Nasa astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS on 27 May. The spacecraft can accommodate seven people.
Risky business: 4 daredevil stunts from Cruise’s career/b>
As well as being one of Hollywood’s most popular action heroes, Cruise is known as a daredevil who does many of his own stunts.
In an interview about his new Top Gun sequel, co-star Miles Teller says: “I think when Tom hears that something’s impossible or can’t be done, that’s when he gets to work.”
That sounds not unlike his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt, who has been seen in many of the most daring scenes.
1. Leaping off a roof (and breaking an ankle)
In 2017, he broke his ankle while jumping from one rooftop to another (attached to a cable) for Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
Despite instantly knowing he was injured, he carried on by hauling himself onto the roof and running off.
“I knew it was broken,” he later told The Graham Norton Show. “I just said, ‘Ugh,’ and I ran past the camera. We got the shot, it’s in the movie.”
His co-star Simon Pegg joked: “Everyone said, when you got up and ran out of shot, ‘Oh, that’s so him. To complete the shot with your foot hanging off – that’s so him.’”
2. Climbing a skyscraper
In 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Hunt is seen scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – the world’s tallest building – from the outside.
Although Cruise trained for four months and was wearing a harness – which was edited out – he said he struggled with crosswinds as he tried to swing in through a window.
“It took a while to work out how not to come slamming into the building head first,” he said.
3. Hanging off a plane during take-off
In Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Cruise hangs from the side of a plane by his fingertips as it takes off. It was really him, and it was a real plane.
He performed the stunt four times over two days, again wearing a harness, but the crew had to scour the runway for the tiniest items that could have been thrown up and hit him.
“While we are going down the runway, we’re worried about bird strikes, any kind of particle that the propellers could pick up, any kind of stone,” Cruise told USA Today.
“I remember I got hit by a stone that was so tiny, you cannot believe. I thought it broke my rib. Lucky it went to my vest and not my hands or my face, it would have penetrated and gone right through.”
4. Falling off a cliff
One of his other famous stunts appears in the opening scene of Mission: Impossible 2, where Hunt climbs – and then almost falls off – a vertigo-inducing cliff, apparently with no ropes.
Cucumber-cool Cruise was actually attached to a thin safety wire, which was later erased – but that did little to calm director John Woo’s nerves.
“I was really mad that he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn’t,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn’t even watch the monitor when we shot it.”
Government has officially handed over the site for the construction of the Jamestown Fishing Harbour to the Chinese engineers and contractors.
The construction is expected to be completed in 32 months.
The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo cut sod on December 5, 2018 for the project which had been on the drawing board since 1965 where he stated that even though many sod cutting ceremonies have been held by previous governments, he will ensure actual work on the grounds starts for the completion of the harbour.
The President also indicated that the construction of the harbour is being made possible by a $60 million grant by the Chinese Government.
The Deputy Minister of Transport, Daniel Titus-Glover during the handing over ceremony, revealed that the modern fishing harbour would not only constitute the fish landing sites but also include cold store facilities, market areas and other social amenities to holistically improve the livelihoods of the constituents of Odododiodioo, and Ghana at large.
“There was the need to look at, after the project is done, the storage of the fish, the processing of the fish, the marketing and distribution of the fish altogether. There is going to have a cold store, a market area and a crèche for children of these women who trade at the port,†he expressed.
He said in the same vein Government has sought to provide infrastructural development to the area, constituents of the community should endeavour to cooperate with Authorities for the successful completion of the project.
“I have appealed to them to cooperate with the contractors. We have a whole human resource of labor in the Odododiodioo Constituency so they should engage them,†he added.
Kwame Asare Obeng (A-Plus) has shown off his two beautiful daughters. Kwame A Plus shares secrets to how to make your kids look exactly just like you, the parent.
Kwame A Plus posted,
“My sister, if you want them to look like you, donâ€t be a “missionary.†Get on top. 😃😃😃 Good morning my friends ðŸ˜âœŒðŸ¾ðŸ˜Žâ€
The Bundesliga in Germany is set to become Europe’s first major football league to resume playing during the coronavirus crisis with a re-start confirmed for this month, it was announced on Wednesday,
Germany’s government and its federal states have given the green light to start again, with the date for a restart due to be decided this week when the German Football League convenes for an Ordinary Assembly on Thursday. The earliest possible return date is May 15, with a May 22 start date also mooted.
The league has nine matchdays remaining and there is a commitment to finish the season by June 30. Fans will not be allowed into stadiums, with a ban on mass events in Germany until Aug. 31.
“The eyes of Europe and all of the world will be on us,” Germany and Bayern Munich captain Manuel Neuer wrote in an op-ed in German broadsheet FAZ on Wednesday. The goalkeeper highlighted the responsibility on German football’s shoulders and said they acted as role-models for society. Bayern lead the Bundesliga by four points as it stands.
That role has been questioned after Hertha Berlin forward Salomon Kalou live-streamed a video of himself greeting teammates with physical contact and bursting in on a teammate’s coronavirus test. The former Chelsea player was suspended by the club and later apologised.
Fears have also been voiced by some that fans could gather outside stadiums during the Geisterspiele; the games without fans. But several leading Ultra and supporter groups have said they have no plans to do so, despite some rejecting the idea of football without fans.
DFL CEO Christian Seifert, as well as influential club chiefs including Borussia Dortmund’s Hans-Joachim Watzke and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge at Bayern Munich, have warned that cancelling the league would put around 56,000 jobs in the industry in danger. Following negotiations with the broadcasters, Seifert secured crucial payments of around €280 million from the rights holders as some clubs feared for their survival amid the pandemic. Bundesliga club FC Schalke 04 called the crisis “existence-threatening.”
Bundesliga teams resumed training in small groups in early April as the DFL worked on plans to bring back the league with a medical concept for training and match operations required by the government and its federal states.
Players and staff are tested regularly for the coronavirus and in a first wave, 1,724 tests were conducted on all 36 clubs of the upper two tiers late last week. Ten cases of COVID-19 were identified and reported to health authorities. Not all cases were made public after the DFL asked clubs not to report cases individually. Full results from a second round of testing have yet to be released, though on the eve of Wednesday’s decision, second-division club Erzgebirge Aue put their entire squad in home isolation after a member of staff tested positive.
Infected persons must self-isolate, but the DFL’s plan does not require to put squads in isolation. The league has asked clubs to go into the final part of the season with a big squad which can be filled up with reserve or under-19 players.
There have been mixed signals from political decision-makers on what will happen if a player or staff member is tested positive for COVID-19.
“I don’t know how the season can be finished if one team is sidelined,” Anja Stahmann, the chair of the German sports minister conference, told Sport1.
First COVID-19 deaths were reported in Germany on March 9 and the league was suspended on March 13.
“Corona is under control,” Bavaria’s influential minister president Markus Soder said on Tuesday when announcing to lift several restrictions in the German federal state hit hardest by the coronavirus.
According to numbers released by the Robert-Koch-Institut on May 6, Germany had 164,807 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with over 137,000 recovered, and 6,996 deaths.
Elsewhere in Europe, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have cancelled their seasons and Italy, Spain and England are hoping for a possible June return.
Lazarus Chakwera, the leader of Malawi’s main opposition party, the Malawi Congress Party, has named the country’s sitting Vice-President, Saulos Chilima, as his running mate as he seeks to wrestle power from incumbent President Peter Mutharika in fresh presidential elections slated for 2 July this year.
Mr Chakwera was buoyant as he presented his nomination paper to the election management body, the Malawi Electoral Commission, in the commercial capital, Blantyre.
Malawi will hold a fresh presidential vote after last May’s re-election of Mr Mutharika was nullified by the country’s Constitutional Court.
Mr Chakwera, who came a close second in the annulled vote, is leading a coalition of nine opposition parties, including the UTM party formed by Mr Chilima after he fell out with the president.
Mr Chilima came third in the annulled vote.
While the governing Democratic Progressive Party is keen to delay the vote, citing the emergence of Covid-9, there is a clear determination by the opposition to let the elections go ahead.
Rapper Sarkodie has released a video with numerous gospel songs he claims are his all-time favourite works in the genre.
Taking to Instagram to share the 24 minutes video he said that he made the video for his fans to enjoy amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Cyndi Thompson, Esther Smith, Bernice Offei, Daughters of Glorious Jesus, Hanna Marfo, Yaw Sarpong are some of the Gospel artistes whose songs were featured in the video.
“The time is good for some classic… just made a quick collection of some of my favourite Ghanaian gospel music… God bless you all and please enjoy with headphones or good speakers 😊 #Memories,†Sarkodie wrote.
African Union official and former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga is the latest politician to deploy the language of war when it comes to talking about coronavirus.
Mr Odinga, who is the AU’s high representative on infrastructure, said the pandemic was like “a third world war without the bombs”.
“Even in the Second World War we did not have the extent of casualties that we have witnessed within a short period of time,” he told South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC.
“The effects are going to be far-reaching to the continent.”
He warned that the continent will likely be left on its own in the post-coronavirus era.
“African countries will wake up to this reality that nobody is going to help them because everybody has been affected. Europe is on its knees, the US is crying, even China is crying.
“About 85% of Africa’s trade is with the external world and most of it is commodities which we are exporting. We now need to look internally into intra-Africa trade,” he said.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has said 48,022 people have been infected with Covid-19 in Africa. That number includes 1,878 deaths and 16,019 recoveries.
Scientists say they have identified a mutation in coronavirus which they believe means a more contagious strain has been sweeping Europe and the US and could even reinfect those who already have antibodies.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US detected 14 mutations in the Covid-19 virus spike proteins, one of which known as Spike D614G they said was of “urgent concernâ€.
Their research paper suggests the mutated strain of coronavirus that has become dominant across the world was first indentified in Europe and is different to those which spread early on in the pandemic.
So urgent is the issue that the research paper describing their findings has been made available before being peer-reviewed, although this has caused concern among some observers.
By analysing more than 6,000 genetic sequences of coronavirus samples taken from patients globally, the researchers found the mutated strain was persistently becoming the most dominant version of the virus in every region it was detected in.
While first discovered in Europe in early February, the researchers believe the coronavirus mutation has now become the most prevalent strain across the whole of the world.
The study indicates it has been consistently out-competing the original strain detected in Wuhan, which spread through that region of China and some other Asian countries before March.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Regional Office has called on governments, private sector partners, innovators, scientists and communities to invest in access to water for health facilities and households in the region.
The office said the outbreak of Coronavirus (Covid-19) has shunned the light on the inequalities in access to basic services, adding that the situation provides an opportunity to improve access to water for vulnerable communities on the Continent.
“This year, as we battle the Covid-19 pandemic, the life-saving importance of clean hands has never been more prominent,†said WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti.
In a statement to mark World Hand Hygiene Day on May 5, Dr. Moeti said hand hygiene, along with physical distancing; respiratory etiquette and disinfecting surfaces are the basic preventive measures for a range of diseases, including Covid-19.
She said the theme for the Day, “nurses and midwives, clean care is in your hands†was selected because infection prevention and control, including hand hygiene, is important especially in health facilities as part of ensuring quality patient care.
“We are also working with sub-regional nursing associations and other partners and have trained more than 3000 health workers via interactive virtual seminars, including demonstrating good hand hygiene,†she said.
Dr. Moeti observed the need for an urgent scale-up of access to water across the continent as more than one in four health-care facilities have no water service and less than 50% of households having basic hand washing facilities with soap and water.
“Over the past 20 years, progress on access to water in Sub-Saharan Africa is mixed,†she said.
“The number of people using unimproved sources remained the same. The number using surface water decreased by one third,†she added.
The number of people travelling 30 minutes or more roundtrip to collect water, has also more than doubled, with this burden falling mainly on women and girls.
The WHO Regional Director said her office is, therefore, working with countries, the World Food Programme (WFP) and other partners to ensure health workers have essential supplies, such as personal protective equipment, including gloves.
“In recent weeks, we delivered replenishments to more than 50 African countries,†she said.
Dr. Moeti further noted that an increasing number of facilities are producing alcohol-based hand rubs locally, but said it was not a substitute for safe, reliable water supply.
“In response to Covid-19, more and more hand washing points are being set-up, and we need to look at longer-term solutions to sustainably increase access,†she urged.
He paid tribute to the country’s medics comparing them to “soldiers who go to war”.
The main message is about partnership. Everyone must play a role in the fight against #COVID19. Our partners today are Sibanye Stillwater and Old Mutual.
Burundi’s police says it has arrested 64 supporters of the main opposition party, the National Freedom Council (CNL), who are blamed for violent clashes with ruling party supporters during the current general election campaign.
Burundians are due to go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on 20 May.
The latest person to be arrested Cathy Kezimana, an outspoken CNL parliamentary candidate. She was detained on Tuesday during a campaign tour in the south of the country.
Police spokesperson Pierre Nkurikiye told the state broadcaster that “most cases of violence and crimes in the campaigns are committed by CNL members” against members of the ruling CNDD-FDD party.
Mr Nkurikiye said the clashes had so far led to the deaths of two people.
He accused opposition leaders of encouraging the violence.
Opposition spokesperson Terence Manirambona told the BBC they were shocked by the comments
“Since the campaigns started many of our members have been arrested under false charges, two have gone missing and many injured in clashes caused by the ruling party members who invade our activities,†he said.
Seven candidates are vying to replace President Pierre Nkurunziza who is stepping down after being in power for 15 years.
The alleged divorce of Gospel musician Joyce Blessing and husband, Dave Joy could be the latest celebrity divorce in town.
Zionfelix.net reported that their source close to the couple leaked this information to them.
According to this source, the reason for the decision of the couple, who have looked very good together all this while to seek a divorce is something that is still under wraps.
The source, however, promised zionfelix.net that they will be in the know once that particular information comes to light.
Celebrities Buzz after coming across the reports have contacted the management of Joyce Blessing to confirm the reports. They are yet to reply.
Below is a screenshot of our message to her management:
Mobile telecom giant, MTN Ghana, has announced the postponement of its 2020 Annual General Meeting scheduled for 13 May 2020.
At the same time, it has announced the suspension of the payment of dividend scheduled for 25 May 2020, until further notice.
The AGM is to bring the shareholders of the company to take critical decisions.
MTN has several tens of thousands of shareholders following its successful Initial Public Offer in 2018.
According to a statement from the company, the postponement has become necessary as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the ensuing directives imposing restrictions on public gatherings, to curb the spread of the virus namely:
On March 15, 2020 President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo announced a directive on public gatherings.
Also, the Ghana Stock Exchange Circular No 001/2020 dated March 16, 2020, reinforced the restrictions on public gatherings as set out in the March 15, 2020 directive.
“Consequently, payment of the Final Dividend for 2019, and the payment date of May 25, 2020, as published in the Scancom Plc. (MTN Ghana) Annual Results for the year ended 31 December 2019 (the “Annual Resultsâ€), are hereby also postponed until further noticeâ€, the statement emphasised.
The statement added that “Kindly note that the Ex-dividend date of April 28, 2020, and the Qualifying date of April 30, 2020 published in the Annual Results remain unchangedâ€.
However, the Board of Directors of Scancom Plc. is assuring all Shareholders of Scancom Plc. that it continues to monitor the situation, and a new date and/or alternatives, will be communicated to Shareholders in due course.
The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has explained why most markets are overcrowded with people even though there is a directive for all to practice social distancing, at all times, as part of the precautionary measures to fight Coronavirus.
According to the Association’s president, Dr. Joseph Obeng, market women in Ghana operate in a confined environment hence, making it difficult for traders to practice the social distancing rule.
He complained that the nature of their business at these enclosed spaces makes them more exposed to the virus, ruling out claims that traders are perverse.
His comments come after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his last address to the nation lauded supermarkets for practicing the precautionary measures outlined by the GHS.
He called on market women to follow the stringent measures put in place by the supermarkets and also force their clienteles to do same.
But Dr Obeng in an interview with GhanaWeb said, “We are very much exposed because our nature of doing business here is not like the advanced country where they have the bigger spaces…we are confined in a limited space”.
Speaking on suggestions that traders should run shifts, the GUTA president said such a system when introduced will be at a disadvantage to many as there wouldn’t be a fair representation of who goes to the market.
However, he advised his members to try their best to comply with all the precautionary measures outlined by the Ghana Health Service while working in the limited space to stay alive to be in businesses.
The Nkwanta South Police Command has given Nana Poku Antoh III, Paramount Chief of Tutukpene in the Oti Region, 48 hours to produce a 17-year-old boy he had banished for stealing.
The lad, a primary six pupil of the Tutukpene Municipal Assembly Basic School, was on Friday, April 24, allegedly caught breaking into a room, and was the same day, banished by the Chief and his elders.
Superintendent Lawson Lartey, the Municipal Police Commander of the Oti Region, summoned the community leadership over the matter and said failure to produce the boy would land them in the grips of the Law.
The Commander condemned the action of the community, saying the practice of banishment was not covered by Law and was an abusive act.
Mr Lartey advised that traditional leaders worked more with State structures in fighting crime, and asked that they aligned customs and traditions to fundamental human rights.
The Chief is said to have prohibited anyone from tracing the boy, with his family expressing fear of losing him to hunger and disease.
“My son can die of hunger or be affected by this Coronavirusâ€, Afua Amoah, mother of the boy said, and appealed to the public to help find him.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a warning against people using untested remedies for coronavirus.
Africans deserve access to medicines that have gone through proper trials even if they are derived from traditional treatments, it said.
Its statement comes as Madagascar’s president is promoting a herbal tonic for treating Covid-19 patients.
The African Union (AU) said it wanted to see the scientific data on the “safety and efficacy” of the product.
The tonic, known as COVID-Organics, was tested on fewer than 20 people over three weeks, a presidential aide told the BBC – which is not in line with WHO guidelines on clinical trials.
This can be a lengthy process in which a potential drug is tested in four phases, scaling up from a trial on a small number of patients to using it on a population countrywide.
Despite these reservations, several African countries, including Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Liberia, have already ordered COVID-Organics, which is produced from the artemisia plant – the source of an ingredient used in a malaria treatment – and other Malagasy plants.
Last week, Madagascar’s President, Andry Rajoelina, spoke to an online meeting of African leaders about the tonic.
Following that meeting the AU asked to see more details about COVID-Organics which could be reviewed by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
In its statement, the WHO welcomed innovations based on traditional remedies and plants but said they “should be tested for efficacy and adverse side effects”.
“Africans deserve to use medicines tested to the same standards as people in the rest of the world,” it added.
On Monday, more than $8bn (£6.5bn) was pledged to help develop a coronavirus vaccine and fund research into the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
Dozens of research projects trying to find a vaccine are currently under way across the world.
Most experts think it could take until mid-2021, about 12-18 months after the new virus first emerged, for a vaccine to become available.
Several African countries acted swiftly in trying to prevent the spread of coronavirus by imposing lockdowns or curfews. But these are now beginning to be lifted as governments try to balance health and economic interests.
The easing of the lockdowns has added urgency to the need to find treatments.
Madagascar has recorded 151 cases of Covid-19 and no deaths, Africa CDC says.
The president imposed a lockdown on the three major cities, but these have now been relaxed, the AFP news agency reports.
Players at Barcelona and Real Madrid started to undergo coronavirus tests on Wednesday as La Liga clubs planned to return to restricted training ahead of the proposed resumption of the season next month.
Barca captain Lionel Messi and France international Antoine Griezmann were among players pictured arriving one by one in their cars at the club’s training centre early Wednesday morning.
Players at Madrid, including Eden Hazard and Karim Benzema, also underwent health checks at Real’s training base on the outskirts of the city.
Results from the coronavirus tests are typically known within 48 hours. The testing is part of the league’s strict medical protocol with which teams must comply before a return to training.
Atletico Madrid, who will also carry out tests Wednesday, are aiming to resume training immediately once the results are known if all goes to plan.
The first of a four-phase de-escalation programme announced by the Spanish government last week would allow players to initially train alone, with a maximum of six players allowed on the pitch.
Players will be expected to arrive on club premises already in their kit and wear a mask and gloves when not training. After each session they will be given a bag with clothes for the next day.
La Liga’s programme will then permit training in small groups before a return to larger team sessions.
In the fourth and final phase, scheduled for early June, the government have said outside events can go ahead when attended by fewer than 400 people.
La Liga is proposing to complete its season behind closed doors, with games starting again in the middle of June.
“People’s health is paramount, so we have a comprehensive protocol to safeguard the health of everyone involved as we work to restart La Liga,” league president Javier Tebas said on Monday.
“Circumstances are unprecedented, but we hope to start playing again in June and finish our 19/20 season this summer.”
Spain has been one of the worst-hit countries in the world by the coronavirus pandemic, with almost 26,000 deaths in the country according to the latest figures on Wednesday.
Angel Di Maria’s wife Jorgelina Cardoso has revealed that she “didn’t like anything†about Manchester after her husband swapped Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu for Old Trafford in 2014, describing the experience as “horrible†and referring to England as a “sh*tholeâ€.
The Argentine spent just one season with the Red Devils despite joining for a then record fee for a British club, with his time at United largely remembered for a lack of consistency in performances given the money involved to prise him away from Madrid.
Things were not much better off the pitch either, according to Cardoso, as the couple had argued over the merits of a move to the Premier League long before Di Maria’s ill-fated spell in England’s top flight.
“I remember Angel coming up and saying, ‘An offer from Manchester United has come in. Maybe we’ll be a little more financially secure…’. We fought about it,†she told Los Angeles de la Manana. “I told him, not a chance, he could go on his own. ‘No, come on. Let’s go’, he replied.
“There was a lot of money involved, and afterwards, the Spanish were calling us peseteros (people only interested in money). And they were right! If you are working for a company and the competition comes along and offers to pay you double, you take it!
“I didn’t want to go to Manchester because at that moment in time, I was friends with Gianinna Maradona, who was married to [Sergio] Aguero, and we flew from Madrid to his house in Manchester to pay him a visit for two or three days when Angel had a few days off at Real Madrid.
“It was horrible! All of it was horrible, we went to the house and we were like… ‘See you later guys, we’re out of here’. When we left, I said to him, ‘Go to any country – except England’. Anyway, one year later and there we were in England and it was horrible, a sh*thole.â€
Cardoso continued to stress that there was not a single thing she enjoyed about the experience, adding: “I didn’t like anything about it, not a thing. The women are all skinny, prim and proper… weird.
“You’re walking down the street and you don’t know if they’re going to kill you or what. The food’s disgusting. All the girls are all dolled up to the nines, perfectly made-up and there’s me with my hair in a bun and with no make-up on.
More than two-thirds of people surveyed in 20 African countries said they would run out of food and water if they had to stay at home for 14 days.
Just over half of the respondents said they would run out of money.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention research was conducted to help governments map out future policies on how to tackle coronavirus.
It warns that if measures are not adapted to local needs, there is a risk of unrest and violence.
The report, Using Data to Find a Balance, shows the difficulties of maintaining strict lockdown policies on the continent.
The research was conducted between late March and mid-April in 28 cities in 20 countries to assess the impact of the crisis and people’s attitudes to restrictions that had already been imposed in some areas.
Several African countries which had responded swiftly to the coronavirus threat are now easing restrictions.
“The proliferation of peaceful protests demanding government relief is evidence of the strain some people are already under, and highlights gaps in current responses,” the report says.
But it found that there was currently general support for restrictions that had been put in place.
Opposition was highest to measures such as closing workplaces and shutting down markets.
According to the survey, the lowest-income households expected to run out of food and money in less than a week.
In Nigeria and Kenya, social media users noted that hunger in urban area was forcing them to violate stay-at-home orders, it said.
The findings chime with a story that viral last week of a Kenyan widow who was found cooking stones for her eight children to make them believe she was preparing food for them, saying: “I could do nothing because I had nothing.”
The researchers have recommended that governments need to communicate more effectively with their citizens and properly inform them about the reasons behind the measures that are being taken.
“What we’ve learnt from Ebola and other outbreaks is that countries need to decentralise the response to the community level and increase their capacity to identify and diagnose cases,” said Matshidiso Moeti, Africa director of the World Health Organization (WHO), which also commissioned the research.
Governments in Africa have been facing a dilemma when deciding how best to respond to the pandemic.
Millions need to leave their homes every day to go and work to feed their families.
“Countries now must find a balance between reducing transmission while preventing social and economic disruption,” the report says.
So far Africa has recorded nearly 50,000 cases of Covid-19, the respiratory infection caused by coronavirus, with just under 2,000 deaths.
The report recommends that while caseloads remain low, countries on the continent need to “build public health capacity to test, trace, isolate, and treat cases” as the necessary foundation for reopening societies.
Lots of people have lost their jobs due to the deadly coronavirus. Though the fight is not over, the latest to join the list of the unemployed in the society is Ghanaian actress, Naa Ashorkor.
On Wednesday, May 6, 2020, she announced that her appointment with the Multimedia Group of Companies had been terminated for unknown reasons.
Taking to her Facebook page to console people who find themselves in such an unfortunate situation, she asked them not to lose hope as they go through these trying times.
She said “It’s not an easy time to be out of a regular and steady income. We are not in normal times, but hey, I would like to use this opportunity to encourage everyone who has lost their job or income during these difficult times to not lose hopeâ€.
Quoting a bible verse to buttress her point, Naa Ashorkor wrote “Jeremiah 29:11, For I know the plans. I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Before joining MGL, Naa Ashorkor was with EIB Network, operators of Starr FM, and GhOne TV.
Ghanaian actress and media personality, Naa Ashorkor Mensah-Doku has announced her departure from the Multimedia Group.
Naa Ashorkor, who hosted Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z and a ladies talk show, Strong and Sassy, wrote on Facebook Wednesday that her contract with the media group had been terminated effective Tuesday, May 5.
Describing the termination of her appointment as both good and bad news, Naa Ashokor wrote: “I have got Good news and bad news everyone! With immediate effect as of yesterday, my now former employers, Multimedia Group, terminated my appointment. That’s the bad news.â€
“Now for the good news, such situations only give my God the opportunity to show up.
It’s not an easy time to be out of a regular and steady income. We are not in normal times, but hey, I would like to use this opportunity to encourage everyone who has lost their job or income during these difficult times to not lose hope,†she added.
She also exhibited her faith and trust in God as a child of God.
“Hope is an amazing thing that gives us the ability to stand and trust God in such difficult circumstances. Don’t lose hopeâ€
“Jeremiah 29:11, For I know the plans. I have for you,†declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
“Stay tuned for some more news soon,†she added.
Naa Ashokor joined the multimedia group in 2017 after leaving GHOne where she hosted a ladies talk show, Tales from the Powder Room.
Sita Tyasutami had all the tell-tale symptoms of coronavirus. Yet, as she lay in a hospital bed in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, her condition had not been diagnosed. Nor had that of her mother, Maria Darmaningsih, who had been admitted to the same hospital.
Confined to separate hospital rooms, Tyasutami and her mother were anxiously awaiting the results of their coronavirus tests, when Indonesia’s president made a startling announcement.
In a news conference broadcast to the nation, President Joko Widodo said two Indonesian nationals had tested positive for Covid-19, the first two confirmed cases in the country. The pair – a 64-year-old woman and her 31-year-old daughter – were being treated at an infectious diseases hospital in Jakarta, the president said.
The briefing, held in front of jockeying reporters outside the presidential palace, confirmed the inevitable: coronavirus had reached Indonesia.
Aired on TV screens at the hospital, the president’s announcement left Tyasutami and her mother in disbelief. President Widodo was talking about two patients at their hospital, with their profiles, their ages, their symptoms, their contact history.
President Widodo did not mention the patients by name, but he did not have to.
Her brain whirring, Tyasutami asked a nurse whether the hospital was currently treating any other coronavirus patients. When the nurse said no, reality hit her like a punch to the gut.
She and her mother had been revealed as the first two known cases of coronavirus in Indonesia. “I was confused, I was angry, I was sad,” Tyasutami told the BBC. “I didn’t know what to do because it was all over the media.”
Before her diagnosis, Tyasutami was a professional dancer, a performing arts manager, a sister, a daughter, a friend. Afterwards, her identity was reduced to a humiliating two-word label: case one. Her medical records were leaked. The details of her case were misreported. False rumours spread online.
Within a matter of hours, she became the face of Indonesia’s coronavirus outbreak.
It started with an itchy throat.
Tyasutami brushed it off. It was nothing to worry about, she thought. Then, on the morning of 17 February, she woke up with symptoms that were more than just the hallmarks of a benign illness.
Her mother Darmaningsih, a professor of dance at the Jakarta Institute of Arts (JIA), fell ill later that week. Darmaningsih’s condition worsened after a dance performance on 23 February, leaving her feeling “very sick”.
At this point, Darmaningsih and Tyasutami went for a medical check-up at their local hospital in Depok, on the outskirts of Jakarta. Initially, the doctor diagnosed Darmaningsih with typhus – a bacterial disease spread by lice or fleas – and Tyasutami with bronchopneumonia.
“We asked to be tested for Covid-19, but our request was rejected because, at the time, the hospital didn’t have the right facilities,” Tyasutami said.
Image copyrightSITA TYASUTAMIImage captionTyasutami said the first hospital she attended did not have Covid-19 testing facilities
On 27 February, they were kept in hospital, unaware of the pathogen invading their cells. It took a tip-off from a friend, 24 hours later, to set alarm bells ringing. The friend phoned Tyasutami to tell her she had attended the same dance event as a Japanese woman who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Tyasutami did not know the Japanese woman, but understood the gravity of her diagnosis.
“That’s why I insisted once again to the doctor to be tested,” Tyasutami said.
Doctors yielded to her request this time. She and her mother were transferred to Sulianti Saroso, Jakarta’s infectious disease hospital, where they underwent a swab test for Covid-19.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionTyasutami and her mum were transferred to an infectious disease hospital in Jakarta
Tyasutami and Darmaningsih expected a doctor to tell them the results. Instead, their diagnoses were read out by President Widodo on 2 March. It was as much of a surprise to them as it was to the country. A few days would pass before Tyasutami and Darmaningsih were told that, in the event of a disease outbreak, the president must be informed before patients, by law.
Achmad Yurianto, a spokesman for the Indonesian government, told the BBC there was nothing wrong with the president’s disclosure to the public. A 2009 health law says patient discretion does not apply to matters of public interest. Therefore, the president’s announcement was lawful, according to Jakarta-based legal expert, Bivitri Susanti. Was it the right thing to do, though, given the legal protection of medical records? “I don’t think so,” Ms Susanti said.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionPresident Widodo announced Tyasutami’s diagnosis in a news conference at the presidential palace
Right or wrong, the announcement thrust case one and case two into the national limelight. Within hours, messages showing the initials, full address and medical records of case one (Tyasutami) and case two (Darmaningsih) were leaked and shared widely on WhatsApp. The backlash on social media, and the spread of misinformation about their lives, was immediate, vicious and unrelenting.
“They attacked Sita, blaming her for bringing the virus to Indonesia,” Tyasutami’s older sister, Ratri Anindyajati told the BBC. “They blamed her for losing their job, or being separated from their families. They questioned how she could look so nice and beautiful after being sick. They said it was a set-up.”
Image copyrightSITA TYASUTAMIImage captionTyasutami is a professional dancer and performing arts manager
Now, Indonesia is one of the worst-hit countries in south-east Asia, with about 12,000 cases and almost 900 deaths to date. The origins of Covid-19 in Indonesia may never be known. Case one and two, however, were on record.
“Before my diagnosis, I had less than 2,000 followers on Instagram,” Tyasutami said. “I didn’t have anyone sending me hate speech. Within days [of my diagnosis], my followers went up to 10,000. People were commenting on everything, especially pictures of me in sexy, revealing dance clothes.”
Why “patient zero” is not a helpful term
Analysis by Richard McKay, historian of epidemics and lecturer at the University of Cambridge
Given its accidental formation and lack of precision, “patient zero” is always a misleading phrase, so it is best avoided. It was coined by mistake in the 1980s. It is thought by some to mean the first (or “primary”) case in a given area by date of infection, by others to mean the first case noticed in an outbreak (“index case”), and by still others to mean the first case “ever” appearing in humans.
The term also has a long history of being used as a sensational, attention-grabbing device and of generating stigma. Real-world conditions – like infected individuals who don’t display symptoms – remind us that placing overdue emphasis on any definitive ordering and numbering of cases would be misguided.
If Covid-19 had previously been perceived as a risk far removed from Indonesia, there might be some public education value to confirming the existence of cases in the country. However, whenever the number of cases is small, extreme discretion must be used when discussing them.
On 3 March, President Widodo urged hospital and government officials to respect the privacy of Covid-19 patients, but by that point, the damage was already done.
The leak set the tone for what was to come next. Imprecise comments from Indonesia’s health minister, Terawan Agus Putranto, would prove even more chastening. At a news conference on 2 March, the minister wrongly suggested case one (Tyasutami) contracted the disease from a Japanese citizen, a “close friend”, while dancing at a nightclub in Jakarta. The minister’s comments allowed imaginations to run wild.
Image copyrightSITA TYASUTAMIImage captionTyasutami said she was at the same dance event as a Japanese woman who later tested positive for Covid-19
There were false reports that suggested “the Japanese person was a close friend who was ‘renting me’,” Tyasutami said. “My story has been twisted so many times. People were making assumptions about me,” she added.
The health minister did not respond to requests for comment.
Tyasutami said the media should also take responsibility for the way her diagnosis was reported. “There is this culture of victim blaming,” she said. One press freedom group, the Alliance of Independent Journalists, urged the media to avoid “sensationalist” reporting and respect the privacy of Covid-19 patients. The media went too far, Tyasutami felt. While watching television in hospital she could see reporters “bombarding” her house.
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had non-surgical treatment for a gallbladder condition, and is now “resting comfortably”, the court says.
Ms Ginsburg, 87, was treated in Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital on Tuesday, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.
Ms Ginsburg plans on Wednesday to take part in the court’s work remotely from the hospital.
As the court’s most senior liberal justice, her health is closely watched.
She is expected to stay in the hospital for up to two days.
On Wednesday, the court’s justices will be continuing hearing oral arguments by telephone because of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. They are expected to consider a case relating to the Affordable Care Act.
Justice Ginsburg is the oldest sitting justice on the Supreme Court, and has received hospital treatment a number of times in recent years.
In August, she was treated for a cancerous tumour on her pancreas. She received treatment for colon cancer in 1999, and pancreatic cancer in 2009.
In December 2018, she had surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her lung.
She has also suffered fractured ribs from falls.
US Supreme Court justices serve for life or until they choose to retire, and supporters have expressed concern that if anything were to happen to Ms Ginsburg then a more conservative judge might replace her.
President Donald Trump has appointed two judges since taking office, and the current court is seen to have a 5-4 conservative majority in most cases.
US President Donald Trump has confirmed the White House coronavirus task force will be winding down, with Vice-President Mike Pence suggesting it could be disbanded within weeks.
“We are bringing our country back,” Mr Trump said during a visit to a mask-manufacturing factory in Arizona.
New confirmed infections per day in the US currently top 20,000, and daily deaths exceed 1,000.
US health officials warn the virus may spread as businesses begin to reopen.
The US currently has 1.2 million confirmed coronavirus infections and more than 70,000 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, which is tracking the pandemic.
What did President Trump say?
During a visit to the plant in Phoenix after weeks holed up at the White House, Mr Trump told journalists: “Mike Pence and the task force have done a great job, but we’re now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening. And we’ll have a different group probably set up for that.”
Media captionCoronavirus: How long does it take to recover?
The president – who wore safety goggles but no face mask during his tour of the facility – was asked if it was “mission accomplished”, and he said: “No, not at all. The mission accomplished is when it’s over.”
Critics have accused the president of sacrificing Americans’ public health in his eagerness to reopen the US economy ahead of his re-election battle in November.
In Arizona on Tuesday, Mr Trump said that Democrats were hoping his coronavirus policy would fail “so they can win the election”.
Acknowledging a human cost to the plans, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be affected? Yes.
“Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.”
However, it will be up to individual states to determine how they reopen.
Some Democratic governors in badly hit states have been cautious, calling for more testing and other safeguards before easing lockdowns. Other states, many led by Republicans in the south and mid-west, have already begun lifting restrictions.
The task force was set up on 29 January. Mr Pence became its chairman four weeks later and its members include more than 20 experts and leading administration officials. The White House said the task force’s duty was to “lead the administration’s efforts to monitor, contain and mitigate the spread of the virus” and provide the public with information.
Mr Trump’s once-daily task force briefings became increasingly scarce after he was widely condemned by the medical community for pondering at the podium last month whether injecting bleach into people might kill the virus.
Dr Deborah Birx has been the task force’s response co-ordinator. The president was asked on Tuesday whether she and another high-profile member, Dr Anthony Fauci, would still be involved in efforts to address the coronavirus.
“They will be and so will other doctors and so will other experts in the field,” the president said.
What did the vice-president say?
Mr Pence earlier on Tuesday told reporters in a briefing that the task force could soon be disbanded.
He said the Trump administration was “starting to look at the Memorial Day [late May] window, early June window as a time when we could begin to transition back to having our agencies begin to manage, begin to manage our national response in a more traditional manner”.
He said it was “a reflection of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country”.
Mr Pence has led the task force, which reports to the president and co-ordinates with medical institutes, political staff and state governors. The group also consulted medical experts to formulate national guidelines on social distancing.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later tweeted that the president “will continue his data-driven approach towards safely re-opening”.
Media captionCoronavirus: When might Hollywood reopen for business?
Lives and livelihoods
The White House’s shift in focus from the public health aspect of the coronavirus pandemic to its economic impact continues.
For more than a month, the task force had been the public face of the administration’s response to the crisis, even though President Trump sometimes veered far from the topic at hand during its press briefings.
When the president wasn’t talking, however, government public health officials led the conversation.
Now, it appears, the officials setting the agenda will be ones more concerned with jobs, businesses and the fiscal health of the nation – even though the number of cases of the virus throughout the US continues to increase.
There is growing frustration among the president’s core supporters, however, with government shelter-in-place orders. Several states, encouraged by the president, have already begun to ease restrictions, even though they have not met White House guidelines for when to do so.
Those recommendations were set by the current coronavirus task force, of course. And the “different group” in a “different form” that replaces it, as the president describes, may have other ideas.
Does the US have the pandemic under control?
Not yet. Besides New York, which is still the US epicentre despite an ongoing drop in new cases, the level of infection continues to climb across much of the country.
Many states that have allowed some business to resume – including Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee, Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana -Â are seeing more new cases reported daily.
While some cities such as New York, New Orleans and Detroit have shown improvement, others like Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago are seeing the caseload rise every day.
According to a report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), more than 3,000 people may be killed by the virus each day by next month.
The White House has dismissed the report as inaccurate, with Mr Trump saying it describes a scenario in which Americans make no effort to mitigate the spread of the infection.
On Sunday, the president increased his forecast for the number of US pandemic deaths to 100,000, after saying two weeks earlier that it would be fewer than 60,000.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, a public forecast model that has been frequently cited by the White House, now estimates that Covid-19 will account for 135,000 American deaths by 4 August. This more than doubles its 17 April forecast.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is holding a video summit with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states to agree on how to move to a wider reopening of society.
According to a leaked draft of the deal, shops, schools and Bundesliga football will all be part of an extensive plan to emerge from the coronavirus lockdown.
The states have reportedly agreed to take control of timing the reopening.
They will also have to react fast to any new surge in infections.
A limited resumption has already begun, but this would be far more widespread.
Germany has seen fewer than 7,000 deaths in the coronavirus pandemic – a much lower figure than seen in other Western European countries including the UK, Italy, France and Spain.
The RKI public health institute reported 165 deaths in the past 24 hours on Wednesday and some 947 new infections. Significantly the rate of infection has been consistently low for some time.
What will Merkel decide?
Popular Bild daily newspaper announced on Wednesday that Germany was opening up again. And broadly that is what the draft deal proposes.
Schools have already begun opening for older children; the plan is now for all pupils to return to school gradually during the summer term.
During Wednesday’s talks, state leaders reportedly agreed to take responsibility for the consequences of lifting the lockdown, which came into force on 17 March.
Germany, in common with other countries, is wary of a second surge in infections. If new infections rise to above 50 people in every 100,000 over a seven-day period, then in the affected areas the reopening has to be reversed, news agency DPA reports.
Shops of all sizes will also be allowed to reopen under the draft deal; restaurants, hotels and gyms too. But as a number of the 16 states have been less affected by the crisis than others, some are more eager to reopen than others.
Media captionProtesters say their constitutional rights are being eroded
Bavaria in the south plans to reopen restaurants on 18 May while Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the north plans to do that this Saturday.
Reopening restaurants and hotels is seen as a particular risk because it will heighten the number of people travelling across Germany and raising infection rates.
A return to football?
The German football league, the Bundesliga is also likely to get the green light to resume.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionBayern Munich are among a number of Bundesliga clubs to have returned to training
So-called ghost games without spectators could start again as early as 15 or 21 May as long as a two-week quarantine is put in place for the players, in the form of a type of training camp.
It would be the first big European football league to resume after the pandemic. However, it is not without risk. Ten positive cases were revealed this week by the German football league out of 1,724 tests across the top two divisions.
Not everyone has been happy with the speed of reopening. Baden-Württemberg state premier Winfried Kretschmann accused “a whole row of colleagues of rushing ahead with their own openings”.
Meanwhile, tourism commissioner Thomas Bareiss has held out the hope that Germans will be able to go on holiday this summer.
If the outbreak remained under control, he suggested they could go away in Germany and in neighbouring countries that had seen a similar drop in infections.
The Democrats’ likely presidential candidate Joe Biden has demanded justice over the killing of an unarmed black man in the US state of Georgia.
Mr Biden said his heart went out to the family of Ahmaud Arbery.
Mr Arbery, 25, was jogging in February when confronted by an ex-policeman and his son. Video purported to show the shooting emerged online on Tuesday.
A district attorney in Georgia has now ruled that a grand jury should decide whether charges should be brought.
An earlier decision by a prosecutor in the Brunswick jurisdiction argued there was no probable cause to arrest Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, the New York Times has reported.
How did Arbery die?
Mr Arbery was out running in the Satilla Shores neighbourhood of Brunswick in Georgia’s Glynn County early in the afternoon on 23 February.
In a police report, Gregory McMichael says he saw Mr Arbery and believed he resembled the suspect in a series of break-ins.
He and his son armed themselves and pursued him in a pick-up truck.
In the police report, Gregory McMichael says he and his son had said “stop, stop, we want to talk to you” and that Mr Arbery had attacked his son. Shots were fired, with Mr Arbery falling to the street.
Mr Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper, said police told her her son had been involved in a burglary before the incident, but the family say they do not believe the keen jogger had committed a crime and he was unarmed.
What does the video show?
It was initially posted on a local radio station website but was then taken down.
However, it said it did not know who recorded the footage and could not independently confirm its authenticity.
The 36-second video is shot from a vehicle following the pick-up truck said to be involved in the incident.
It shows a man jogging and then approaching the stationary pick-up from behind. He tries to bypass the truck and then is seen struggling with a man carrying a shotgun. There is muffled shouting and shotgun shots are heard.
A second man is standing in the bed of the pick-up. The second man is then shown with a pistol standing alongside the other armed man with the jogger no longer in view.
Although not shown in its video, CNN says that after a third gunshot the jogger recoils and blood appears on his T-shirt below his ribcage.
What have Mr Biden and other officials said?
Joe Biden sent out a tweet saying: “The video is clear: Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood. My heart goes out to his family, who deserve justice and deserve it now. It is time for a swift, full, and transparent investigation into his murder.”
A statement from Lee Merritt, a lawyer for Mr Arbery’s family, said: “This is murder. The series of events captured in this video confirm what all the evidence indicated prior to its release.”
Image copyrightEPAImage captionGovernor Brian Kemp tweeted that “Georgians deserve answers”
Tom Durden, the district attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, decided on Tuesday that a grand jury should be involved.
“After careful review of the evidence,” he wrote in a statement, “I am of the opinion that the case should be presented to the grand jury of Glynn County for consideration of criminal charges.”
Governor Brian Kemp tweeted that “Georgians deserve answers”.
The McMichaels have not been charged and have not so far responded to the video. CNN said Gregory McMichael had earlier told it he would not be commenting.
The New York Times said it had obtained a letter in which a prosecutor had earlier argued there was not sufficient probable cause for arrest because the pursuers were legally carrying firearms, were within their rights to follow “a burglary suspect” and were able as private persons to “arrest an offender if the offence is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge”.
The Economic Advisor and Spokesperson for the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Dr Gideon Boako has stated that government is ever ready to respond and correct any “distorted” information that may be churn out to the public by former President John Dramani Mahama and his opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
According to him, negative news and propaganda had the potency to derail any economy, hence government would not allow the opposition to use negative news and propaganda to destroy the country’s economy.
Dr Boako who was speaking on Accra-based Citi FM Tuesday, May 5, 2020 on why Vice President on Monday, May 4, took a swipe at the former President Mahama for saying that his government would have handled the coronavirus pandemic better than the current administration.
He explained that although President Akufo-Addo had given a clear directive to his appointees and by extension all Ghanaians not politicise with the coronavirus, if the opposition party led by its flag bearer, Mr Mahama would take advantage of the situation engage in politics by distorting facts, government would not sit aloof.
According to him, Vice President Bawumia compared the management of the current coronavirus crisis to that of the power outages (dumsor) under Mahama because of what Mr Mahama had been saying in recent times.
He was of the view that Mr Mahama could not have managed the coronavirus pandemic better than the Akufo-Addo-led government because he was not even able to manage the dumsor crisis.
He said government was resolved in building a resilient economy and that it would not allow any person to use negative news and propaganda to destroy the gains of the country.
Jamaican singer Millie Small has died at the age of 73 after suffering a stroke.
The star was most famous for her hit single My Boy Lollipop, which reached number two in both the US and the UK in 1964.
It remains one of the biggest-selling ska songs of all time, with more than seven million sales.
Island Records founder Chris Blackwell announced her death and remembered her as “a sweet person… really special”.
It was Blackwell who brought Small to London in 1963 and produced her version of My Boy Lollipop, showcasing her childlike, high-pitched vocals.
“I would say she’s the person who took ska international because it was her first hit record,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
“It became a hit pretty much everywhere in the world. I went with her around the world because each of the territories wanted her to turn up and do TV shows and such, and it was just incredible how she handled it.
“She was such a sweet person, really a sweet person. Very funny, great sense of humour. She was really special,” said Blackwell.
Born Millicent Small in Clarendon, south Jamaica, she was one of seven brothers and five sisters, raised on the sugar plantation where her father was an overseer.
At the age of 12, she won a talent contest at the Palladium Theatre in Montego Bay; and by her teens, she was recording for Sir Coxone Dodd’s Studio One label in Kingston.
There, she teamed up with reggae singer Roy Panton, and they became one of the island’s most prolific duos, scoring a major hit with We’ll Meet.
Blackwell took an interest in the singer after releasing some of those records in the UK on his fledgling record label, Island, and brought her to London in 1963.
Small was enrolled at the Italia Conti Stage School for speech training and dancing lessons; and she toured the UK before cutting My Boy Lollipop with a group of London session musicians (Small claimed Rod Stewart played the harmonica solo, but he has denied being present at the recording).
Released in February 1964, it made her an international star, and helped popularise ska music around the world.
“It is the ska equivalent of Elvis’ Heartbreak Hotel or the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen – the disc that popularised a sound previously considered to be on the margins of mainstream consciousness,” wrote music historian Laurence Cane-Honeysett in Record Collector magazine.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionSmall was given a hero’s welcome when she returned to Jamaica after the success of My Boy Lollipop
However, Small was unable to replicate the success of My Boy Lollipop, scoring only one further hit, a soundalike called Sweet William, later the same year.
But she continued to tour and record, and appeared frequently on 1960s pop shows like Juke Box Jury and Ready Steady Go.
“My life seemed very normal to me – even though I was only 17, I took fame in its stride,” she told the Express in 2016.
After leaving Island in 1970, she recorded for legendary reggae label Trojan Records, where her first single was a cover of Nick Drake’s Mayfair.
However, it was the b-side that attracted greater attention. Called Enoch Power, it was a defiant response to Enoch Powell’s inflammatory, anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech.
Small’s lyrics, which captured the mood of the UK’s Caribbean population, received a rapturous response when she played the song at the Caribbean Music Festival at Wembley Arena, a month after its release.
Soon after that single, and the accompanying album Time Will Tell, Small stepped away from music, saying “it was the end of the dream and it felt like the right time”.
In later years, she lived in Singapore and New Zealand before returning to London, where she concentrated on writing, painting and raising her daughter.
When My Boy Lollipop was re-released in 1987 to mark Island Records’ 25th anniversary, the singer gave a rare interview to Thames TV, where she revealed she had, at one point, been penniless and sleeping rough in London.
However, she took the hard times in good grace, explaining: “That’s all experience. It was great. I didn’t worry because I knew what I was doing.
“I saw how the other half live. It’s something I chose to do.”
In 2011, Jamaica’s Governor-General made Small a Commander in the Order of Distinction for her contribution to the Jamaican music industry.
The singer is survived by her daughter, Joan, who is also a musician based in London.
Tributes were led by actor Vas Blackwood, who said Small “lit the fuse for Jamaican ska music”.
R I P MILLIE SMALL. ‘My Boy lollipop’ 1964 lite the fuse for Jamaican SKA music, her track went Global making history & developed the foundational structures of Jamaican Reggae Music. SLEEP WITH ANGELS SISTER MILLIE X pic.twitter.com/Ydl0za0st4
Sad to hear about Millie Small. Her early journey was steered initially by Coxone Dodd’s label, then Chris Blackwell’s Island….. My Boy Lollipop put island Records on course to become an influential record label with an excellent musical reputation. pic.twitter.com/orKLmSqToJ
Sad to hear about Millie Small. Her early journey was steered initially by Coxone Dodd’s label, then Chris Blackwell’s Island….. My Boy Lollipop put island Records on course to become an influential record label with an excellent musical reputation. pic.twitter.com/orKLmSqToJ
Angel Di Maria’s wife Jorgelina Cardoso has revealed that she “didn’t like anything†about Manchester after her husband swapped Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu for Old Trafford in 2014, describing the experience as “horrible†and referring to England as a “sh*tholeâ€.
The Argentine spent just one season with the Red Devils despite joining for a then record fee for a British club, with his time at United largely remembered for a lack of consistency in performances given the money involved to prise him away from Madrid.
Things were not much better off the pitch either, according to Cardoso, as the couple had argued over the merits of a move to the Premier League long before Di Maria’s ill-fated spell in England’s top flight.
“I remember Angel coming up and saying, ‘An offer from Manchester United has come in. Maybe we’ll be a little more financially secure…’. We fought about it,†she told Los Angeles de la Manana. “I told him, not a chance, he could go on his own. ‘No, come on. Let’s go’, he replied.
“There was a lot of money involved, and afterwards, the Spanish were calling us peseteros (people only interested in money). And they were right! If you are working for a company and the competition comes along and offers to pay you double, you take it!
“I didn’t want to go to Manchester because at that moment in time, I was friends with Gianinna Maradona, who was married to [Sergio] Aguero, and we flew from Madrid to his house in Manchester to pay him a visit for two or three days when Angel had a few days off at Real Madrid.
“It was horrible! All of it was horrible, we went to the house and we were like… ‘See you later guys, we’re out of here’. When we left, I said to him, ‘Go to any country – except England’. Anyway, one year later and there we were in England and it was horrible, a sh*thole.â€
Cardoso continued to stress that there was not a single thing she enjoyed about the experience, adding: “I didn’t like anything about it, not a thing. The women are all skinny, prim and proper… weird.
“You’re walking down the street and you don’t know if they’re going to kill you or what. The food’s disgusting. All the girls are all dolled up to the nines, perfectly made-up and there’s me with my hair in a bun and with no make-up on.â€
The US coronavirus death toll climbed by 2,333 in the past 24 hours, a tally by Johns Hopkins University showed Tuesday, more than twice as many as the day before.
The Baltimore-based university said as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Wednesday) that the country had suffered a total of 71,022 deaths.
On Monday, the United States recorded its lowest daily balance in a month, with 1,015 fatalities.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday made his first major foray out of the White House since the coronavirus lockdown began, pushing for the US economy to reopen as Britain became the country with the second most deaths.
The growing US death toll is by far the highest globally, while Britain’s rose to 32,000, putting it above Italy in the grim ranking of national fatalities.
EUROPE
Elsewhere in Europe, hard-hit Italy, Spain and France have reported a levelling off of figures, offering hope that life could slowly start returning to normal.
With experts warning of a severe global recession, many governments have been easing stay-at-home measures in a bid to revive badly hammered economies.
Financial markets hinted at some light at the end of the tunnel, with stocks and oil prices rallying Tuesday.
“We can’t keep our country closed for the next five years,” Trump said on a trip to a mask-making factory in Arizona, conceding that some people would be “badly affected.”
He urged US states to ease restrictions as he attempts to fire up the world’s biggest economy before the November presidential election when the high death toll and millions of lost jobs could cost him dearly.
The US registered 2,333 more deaths over the 24-hours to Tuesday evening, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, with some scientific models suggesting the figure will rise to 3,000 a day by June.
NEED TO REVIVE
Countries are balancing the need to revive stalled economies against the risk of a new wave of deadly infections.
In Germany, regional leaders pushed back against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s pleas for caution, with the biggest state Bavaria saying it would reopen restaurants and hotels this month.
Hong Kong announced plans to reopen schools, cinemas, bars and beauty parlours from Friday, while Californian bookshops, florists and clothing stores will also be allowed to reopen at the end of the week.
Authorities also unveiled plans to hand out reusable face masks to all 7.5 million city residents.
“It’s better now that I’m waking up and doing something,” South African mechanic Milton Nkosi, 40, told AFP as he checked a new set of tyres at a garage in Johannesburg.
“I’m used to working,” he added. “It’s the first time in my life to stay home so many days.”
But the garage only called back four of its eight employees after being closed for five weeks and is only partially open — underlining the huge challenge to rebuild the global economy.
250,000 GRIM MILESTONE
At least 254,532 people have died of the novel coronavirus since the epidemic surfaced in China late last year, according to an AFP tally at 1900 GMT Tuesday based on official sources.
Russia cemented its place as the European country reporting the highest number of new infections as its total cases soared past 155,000.
Despite the increases, the Russian government has indicated it could gradually lift confinement measures from May 12.
The economic casualties have also piled up from the impact of the pandemic.
Spain added 280,000 people to its jobless ranks, while the Virgin Atlantic airline said it would have to fire one in three staff as the virus grounds planes worldwide.
Walt Disney said it expected an impact of some $1.4 billion in the current fiscal quarter as a result of a massive hit to its theme parks and other operations.
And home-sharing platform Airbnb announced it would slash one fourth of its workforce due to the collapse of the travel industry.
In India, police used batons to beat back crowds jostling to buy alcohol for the first time in 40 days as the world’s biggest lockdown eased.
The government in New Delhi credits its strict shutdown with keeping the official tally of COVID-19 deaths to 1,400 in a country with a population of 1.3 billion.
But the policy has resulted in misery for millions of workers in India’s vast informal sector left suddenly jobless.
India said Tuesday it had embarked on a “massive” operation calling up passenger jets and naval ships to bring back some of the hundreds of thousands of its nationals stuck abroad.
Evacuees will have to pay for their passage and spend 14 days in quarantine on arrival.
Polish voters were still in the dark on Tuesday as to whether their presidential election will go ahead as scheduled this weekend.
The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government is seeking parliamentary approval to conduct the election by postal ballot — despite widespread concern that it would not be fair, legal or safe.
In a ray of hope for the sports world, South Korea’s baseball players returned to action, albeit to empty stadiums.
Banners with photos of masked fans stretched across the bleachers at the Incheon-based SK Wyverns club’s Munhak Baseball Stadium.
Players have been asked not to shake hands or exchange high-fives, while spitting is prohibited.
Friday will also see the delayed start of the country’s football K-League.
Juventus players returned to individual training at the team’s sports centre in Turin on Tuesday, though star player Cristiano Ronaldo began two weeks’ quarantine after returning to Italy following two months of confinement on his native island of Madeira.
But in Britain, sports leaders warned of the “catastrophic” impact of the virus, with football, cricket and rugby counting the cost of delayed or cancelled tournaments and leagues.
A top scientist who advised British leaders on coronavirus lockdown measures said on Tuesday he had resigned from a key government panel after admitting to breaking the country’s rules on social distancing.
Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist on the advisory team helping the UK coordinate its pandemic response, stepped down following media reports that he had allowed a woman to visit him at home.
“I accept I made an error of judgement and took the wrong course of action,” he said.
“I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic.”
The scientist said he had “stepped back” from his role on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. A government spokesman confirmed his resignation.
Britain, the world’s second worst-hit country after the US with more than 32,000 coronavirus deaths, imposed strict stay-at-home orders in late March.
The government had ramped up its response to the crisis after research by Ferguson and his colleagues at Imperial College London warned that Covid-19 infections and deaths would spiral without drastic action.
Ferguson’s resignation came after the Daily Telegraph reported that a woman, said to be his “lover”, came to his home in London on two occasions during the lockdown.
“I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms,” the professor said.
He added: “The government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was hospitalised by the disease and has now recovered, ordered the initial three-week lockdown on March 23.
Under the measures, “non-essential” shops and services were shut while residents were told not to go out except for exercise and to buy essential items. Police were given powers to fine those flouting the rules.
The lockdown was extended for another three weeks in mid-April, but Johnson is soon expected to set out his plan to lift the stringent rules, according to media reports.
Accra Hearts of Oak defender, Christopher Bonney has revealed that his target before the start of the 2019/20 Ghana Premier League was to finish the season well and get a contract with a foreign team.
The right-back who enjoyed a lot of playing time under Kim Grant has struggled to command a place in the team after new coach Edward Nii Odoom decided to play captain Fatawu Mohamed at the right side of the club’s defense.
However, the former Asante Kotoko player has fallen down the pecking order to youngster Larry Sumaila to be the third choice right-back in the Phobian team.
Bonney made this revelation in an interview with Alex Eshun on Cape Coast-based Live FM.
“My target before the start of the season was to try and get a contract abroad but the Coronavirus halted league may make things difficult.”
I’m currently in a dazed state trying fruitlessly to unravel the rationale behind the Vice president’s ‘digital encounter’ that sought to respond to President John Mahama, the flagbearer and leader of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). President Mahama last Thursday delivered a paper on his perspective on matters arising from the Covid 19 pandemic. He ripped through the shambolic manner in which the government has always been late in taking decisions that could save this nation from the rapid spread of the scourge. His personal contributions in the form of provisions of PPE’s and other essential items at moments when government had no clue as to where to procure a single PPE from.
President John Mahama intervened using his past experience as former president to reach out to his allies across the globe to respond promptly in securing some appreciable quantity to distribute among our frontline health workers who were almost always bemoaning the absence of PPE’s to protect themselves.
This was at a time when the likes of U.S.A and other European countries had blocked the supply of PPE’s from major production factories worldwide. Our government had no clue as to what to do to secure Protective gear for health workers.
Jack Ma, (A?ibaba Owner) the Chinese businessman and philanthropist together with the Chinese government made donations of some PPE consignment to Ghana, but for the best part of almost one month, NO PPE had been supplied to any health center.
All that while when John Mahama was busy distributing these items, our Veep was in hibernation. This was also at a time when government was begging the Wor?d Bank and the IMF to hasten to come to our aid to enable us feed our compatriots who needed to be supported with some food items during the Lockdown.
John Mahama again used his money to secure several thousands of food items to feed 20,000 households. Government in its ‘wisdom’ chose to distribute cooked food with the hope that the distribution of food will be channeled through their party structure in order to move the food to areas considered to be their stronghold. Better still they decided to package dry food items and distribute them using their Members of parliament who doubled as parliamentary candidates to reach out to the delegates who will be voting in their primaries then slated for 18th April 2020. They had to be postponed their primaries due to the rise of Covid 19 numbers that was souring higher. In all these activity this Veep had been conspicuously relegated to the background.
The main players led by the Finance Minister, with Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, (Gabby Okyere Darko’s Pawn) and others were in the driving seat calling the shots as to how the 1bn dollars from the IMF and the 36m dollars from the world bank will be disbursed. Our “Useless” Veep could not find any opportunity during all these period to render himself useful to Ghanaians in that, his real jocular talent was not in need during such a time when all serious brains were being harnessed to bring solution to the table to make the country safe against Covid 19 and also provide food to support vulnerable Ghanaians.
Then it turned out that Ghanaians and other world leaders began to heep praises on President John Mahama (JM) for his visionary and foresight displayed, by deliberately committing a huge chunk of hard resources to build new hospital facilities from Tertiary level facilities to Chps compounds all over the country.
His recent weekly media interaction on social media proffering useful ideas and bringing political pressure to bear on the president to decrease electricity bills, make water free, and also support health workers will the Ayalolo buses during the Lockdown period among other useful ideas, which president and his government readily implemented.
Ghanaians had discovered the gem that JM was made of, they began to compare his tenure as president with limited resources but achieved a great feat in various sectors of the economy including the health sector which today is saving lives and compared it to this wasteful government that claims they will use one hundred million dollars to pay hotel bills to keep patients who test positive to Covid 19 in isolation. That same amount can build 3 district hospitals (Dodowa Type) or 20 polyclinics, yet because it will be easy to ’embezzle’ part of that money in the name if paying hotel bills, they opted for that expenditure.
Earlier when the World Health Organization was asking high risk countries (including Ghana) to secure a minimum of $35m as buffer to procure feeding for our compatriots, our government could only shamefully secure Ghc 2m. We were so broke we could not raise $35m to feed our own countrymen, it took a quick intervention by World bank (Wb) and the IMF to rescue the country from hunger. This is a country that only a five months ago was boasting of having raked in $1.9bn from hosting ‘The Year Of Return’ which formed part of the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ initiative. I really can’t stop laughing because, we have a government that sees Ghanaians as so gullible and are dazzled with sweet sounding slogans. Only a few months ago in January this year, it was “the year of roads”, today Covid 19 has completely annihilated that agenda and same rhetoric has been caged in their throats.
The NDC had chosen to lay down its constructively critical stance for the purposes of fighting Covid 19 as a United country in crises. The government was already reeling under the spell of slipping into an economic crisis but for the timely bailout from Wb and IMF and so we decided to lend support to the government in the fight against Covid 19. Until we realised that the government was using this whole pandemic as a looting agenda to create ill- gotten wealth for its party aparachiks at the expense of the well being of a vast majority of Ghanaians. Though a huge chunk of the IMF funds was committed to feeding, only two weeks of partisan feeding was done and we all know the figures don’t add up.
Our inept Veep who is only good at elementary economics meant for passing exams and obtaining certificates and titles but cannot be measured with real life achievements. Using eloquence in the English language to produce a filthy economy that couldn’t survive three weeks Lockdown.
The NDC realised later that the government was clandestinely using the weekly broadcast by the president and the easing of water and electricity bills to canvas for four more years for President Nana Addo. Of course we were not going to sit and watch the president use Covid 19 to his political advantage while we looked on unconcerned. Our flagbearer JM then fired his first salvo at the wretched manner in which the management of Covid 19 process had been carried out by this government.
He drilled holes and drew rings around various bad decisions and wrong calculations of the President especially in his haste in ending the Lockdown process when the Corona infection numbers were rather going up exponentially. JM made it emphatically clear that, that decision was borne out of ‘economic’ reasoning than that erroneous impression being peddled as “data and science”.
When the ‘real men’ were being sought at the forefront of the battle, this ‘clown’ of a Veep was in self ‘quarantine’ just like his boss who has been advised to stay indoors because of his age. He risks experiencing fatality should he be infected with Covid 19. I believe Ghanaians’ prayers have really kept him safe even though he himself was playing ‘dominos’ with the virus when he went perambulating in Switzerland and Norway at the time when the pandemic was Eating-up Europe. Again his lack of foresight invited the pandemic into the country, this is fact.
Our Veep, having been declared hopeless at the nerve center of the Implementation of the government’s Covid 19 agenda, and with the modern communication technology introduced by JM in these Covid times, the man thinks he can revive his cremated carrier by latching on the apron strings of JM to enjoy some trending on social media. I’m really happy to read the flood of foul feedback that he received since that broadcast.
This man is not an honest man in the first place. He assumes he’s dealing with illiterate and so propounds theories that do not make logical sense in any sound argument.
“How can any person who doesn’t suffer schizophrenia compare Covid 19 to Dumsor”, it beats any logical reasoning to dissect these two issues on one platform. Of course I have always said that politics can polish a novice into an accomplished person, much the same way politics can reduce an accomplished person into a novice. I believe our veep is in the latter category where his crestfallen persona is reeking of value crisis.
If the social media responses he received yesterday was anything to go by, then he should know that even in his own party, he’s not receiving those “fan fool” respect that his party apparachiks used to give him.
Mr Veep, if u think u can hike behind JM to relaunch your rotten carrier, then pls go back to your mat in Walewale and rethink that agenda, this time we will not accord u that unfettered space that u have personally desecrated with your puppetry personality, u cannot operate until someone moves u? This time it is JM who is moving your head, arms, legs and waist.
Massa pls grow up and stop fleecing on JM to recalibrate your distorted political carrier that has no grounds in the real NPP fraternity, can’t u see? This time we will have no mercy for u, and remember u are also more or less a candidate now just like JM, we will stop at nothing to strip u bear with all we know if u dared some of us.
Till today u cannot keep your head stable while u r seated, u nod your head even when nothing is being said. Your groomers and psychologists should try and attend to that habit, it’s really unattractive, work on it. Finally, I hope you will find something new to do with yourself. U seem to have failed with all the things u touched.
Economy = kaput
Ghana Post Address System = useless
Paperless Port process = shambolic
Covid Tracker = borla
Dollar Rate = disgraceful
Your Economic Management Team = Now stolen excavator owners What have u done right Mr Veep? What is the one achievement u can boast of which is your own contribution to the gonernment course? Zilch!! U brag too much my man. What is your personal contribution to Covid 19, even to your own Walewale kinsmen when they needed u most?
I know some of the issues you are faced with as a misfit in the NPP fraternity, and I cannot but to join others to weep for u Mr Veep.
It’s that time to learn politics the hard way so prepare! Mr Veep.
Source: Kojo Adu -Asare, Contributor
Disclaimer : “Opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not in any way reflect those of backend.theindependentghana.com. Our outfit will hereby not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article.â€
Midfielder Emmanuel Lomotey is thrilled by the interest from other European clubs for his services following an outstanding showing in the Spanish second-tier this season.
The Extremadura UD central midfielder has been phenomenal this season as he has managed 15 league appearances and has scored once in the process.
French Ligue 1 side FC Metz, Portugal’s Sporting Braga and Bundesliga side Union Berlin have all shown interest in getting the Ghana U23 star this summer.
“I have read about it on the internet but now my focus is on helping my club to stay in the league. I want to give my best always
for Extremadura.” Lomotey told Graphic Sports Online.
“Anything concerning transfer is in the hands of my representatives.”
Lomotey says he will continue to give his best despite attracting interest from other European clubs.
“As a player, if other clubs are said to be interested in you, it means your work is being noticed. I will continue to give my
hundred percent on the field.”
The 22-year-old joined Extremadura in July 2017 from Ghanaian side Dreams FC after being named the player of the season.
Lomotey was a key member of the Ghana team that won the 2017 WAFU Cup of Nations hosted in Ghana.
He was also part of Ghana U23 team that failed to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games in Egypt.
Experienced football administrator, Kofi Manu ‘Blue Boy’ has disclosed that Ghana Football Association (GFA) president Kurt Okraku was in the house of Lawyer Kwesi Nyantaki on the eve of the presidential elections.
The presidential election of the Ghana FA was held at the Physicians and Surgeons center in Accra on October 24, 2019. At the end of a very successful exercise, Kurt Okraku was crowned the winner after beating the likes of George Afriyie, Fred Pappoe, Nana Yaw Amponsah, and a couple of others.
Days after the election, it was speculated that some of the candidates had visited former GFA president Kwesi Nyantakyi to seek his help in winning the polls.
Months on, Kof Manu Blue Boy has revealed that Kurt Okraku visited Kwesi Nyantaki at his residence on the eve of the election.
“Ask Kurt Okraku where he was around 3am on the eve of GFA elections. He was in Nyantakyi’s house”, the outspoken football administrator said.
Experienced football administrator, Kofi Manu has accused Kurt Okraku of being ungrateful to Kwesi Nyantakyi after winning the Ghana Football Association (GFA) presidential elections.
The former vice-chairman of the Player Status Committee made the utterance after implying that Kurt Okraku received help from the formal GFA boss whom he visited on the eve of the elections.
“Ask Kurt Okraku where he was around 3am on the eve of GFA elections. He was in Nyantakyi’s houseâ€, Kofi Manu revealed while speaking to Vision 1 FM.
He continued, “Kurt has been ungrateful to Kwasi Nyantakyi. But I know why he is doing that, it’s not his fault because he is at a tight cornerâ€.
Kofi Manu further shared that Kurt Okraku is not a bad leader but his problem is that he has surrounded himself with bad people.
Veteran football administrator, Nana Fitz has called on the government to set up an independent body to audit the finance of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
The Kurt Okraku’s led administration last week revealed that they inherited Ghc11 million debt.
The details of the debts were contained in a document titled “GFA Legacy Debts†which was presented to club administrators during a recent Executive Council meeting.
According to the FA, a debt of $180,000 owed to former Black Stars coach, Kwasi Appiah as outstanding salaries and bonuses.
But the outspoken administrator argued that government is in charge of paying Black Stars coach so why did the FA captured the said amount in their documents.
He opined that the said FA’s legacy debt is completely fraud.
“The FA legacy debt is completely fraud,” he told Happy FM.
“Why is the Ghana Football Association now telling us that they owe such amount?
“Kurt Okraku was part of the past administration and an Executive Committee member so why is he now telling us this now? Are they hiding something from us?
“I am calling on the government to set up an independent body to audit the accounts of the GFA because government is in charge of paying Black Stars coach so why have the FA captured $180,000 as a debt they must pay to Kwesi Appiah?
“It does not sound right to me. The FA needs to come clean because I don’t believe what they are telling the public,” he added.
China warned Hong Kong protesters Wednesday it would not tolerate them “stirring up trouble again” in the semi-autonomous territory that was rocked by months of pro-democracy demonstrations last year.
Mass arrests of protesters and a ban on large gatherings due to the coronavirus outbreak in the financial hub have stifled the protest movement, but small demonstrations have been held in recent weeks as contagion fears ease.
Hong Kong police used pepper spray to disperse protesters last Friday after a largely peaceful public holiday.
“We noticed that the black violent forces slowed down a little when faced with the Hong Kong epidemic, but now they are stirring up trouble again,” China’s top body overseeing Hong Kong said in a statement, referring to the black clothing worn by many of the protesters.
“The central government will not sit idly by and watch these insane and wantonly destructive forces,” said the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, adding that protesters wanted to “drag Hong Kong off a cliff”.
The statement came after Hong Kong’s economy posted its worst-ever quarterly decline of 8.9 percent, pushing the territory deeper into recession.
Mass anti-government demonstrations began in June last year, triggered by opposition to a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China where courts are controlled by the Communist Party.
But they have since grown to include demands for democracy and full accountability for police brutality.
Police have so far arrested 8,000 people and charged 1,365 over the protests, the latest official figures show.
Anger towards Beijing has been inflamed by the recent arrest of prominent activists on charges related to the demonstrations and senior Chinese officials announcing a greater say in how Hong Kong is run.
Experienced football administrator, Kofi Manu ‘Blue Boy’ has disclosed that Ghana Football Association (GFA) president Kurt Okraku was in the house of Lawyer Kwesi Nyantaki on the eve of the presidential elections.
The presidential election of the Ghana FA was held at the Physicians and Surgeons center in Accra on October 24, 2019. At the end of a very successful exercise, Kurt Okraku was crowned the winner after beating the likes of George Afriyie, Fred Pappoe, Nana Yaw Amponsah, and a couple of others.
Days after the election, it was speculated that some of the candidates had visited former GFA president Kwesi Nyantakyi to seek his help in winning the polls.
Months on, Kof Manu Blue Boy has revealed that Kurt Okraku visited Kwesi Nyantaki at his residence on the eve of the election.
“Ask Kurt Okraku where he was around 3am on the eve of GFA elections. He was in Nyantakyi’s house”, the outspoken football administrator said.
The heir to the Samsung empire bowed in apology Wednesday for company misconduct including a controversial plan for him to ascend to the leadership of the world’s largest smartphone maker.
Lee Jae-yong is vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics and was jailed for five years in 2017 for bribery, embezzlement and other offences in connection with the scandal that brought down South Korean president Park Geun-hye.
The 51-year-old was released a year later on appeal but is currently undergoing a retrial.
“Our technology and products are being hailed as first-class but the public gaze towards Samsung still remains harsh,” Lee said. “This is my fault. I apologise.”
Lee bowed three times before flashing cameras at a Samsung Electronics office in Seoul, where reporters sat apart under coronavirus distancing rules.
He will not allow his children to succeed him at the firm, he said in steady tones, swallowing occasionally.
Wednesday’s apology came at the request of Samsung’s compliance committee, which oversees the firm’s transparency in its corporate dealings.
Lee has effectively been at the helm of the sprawling Samsung group since his father and group chairman Lee Kun-hee was left bedridden by a heart attack in 2014.
The court case centred on millions of dollars the Samsung group paid Park’s secret confidante Choi Soon-sil, allegedly for government favours including ensuring a smooth transition for Lee to succeed his ailing father.
The scandal highlighted shady connections between big business and politics in South Korea, with the ousted president and her friend accused of taking bribes from corporate bigwigs in exchange for preferential treatment.
Samsung Electronics is the flagship subsidiary of the group, which is by far the biggest of the family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebols, that dominate business in the world’s 12th-largest economy.
Its overall turnover is equivalent to a fifth of the national gross domestic product and it is crucial to South Korea’s economic health.
Chairman Lee Kun-hee is listed as South Korea’s richest man — and the world’s 65th — by Bloomberg Billionaires, with a fortune estimated at $15.7 billion, while Lee Jae-yong has a separate listing of his own, and a net worth of $5.7 billion.
Without wearing a face-covering himself, President Donald Trump toured a new medical mask factory in Arizona on Tuesday, taking a rare trip out of Washington to visit a state he hopes to win in the November election even as Americans avoid travel to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Touching down in Phoenix in midafternoon, Trump visited a Honeywell International Inc factory making N95 face masks for healthcare workers.
The facility was rushed into service in less than five weeks because of a shortage of the protective equipment and is producing face masks for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The president wore safety goggles during the factory tour but did not wear a mask, even though production workers at the facility did and a sign was visible that read: “Attention: Face Mask Required in this Area. Thank You!”
Honeywell Chief Executive Officer Darius Adamczyk, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and some other visiting dignitaries also did not wear masks.
Trump told reporters as he left the White House earlier on Tuesday that he would likely wear a mask at the facility.
The federal government has encouraged Americans since early April to wear masks to avoid spreading the virus even when not feeling any symptoms of COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease it causes. Trump has so far declined to wear a mask himself.
Vice President Mike Pence said on Sunday he erred in not wearing a face mask to the Mayo Clinic last month. His decision not to wear the mask had drawn widespread criticism.
The White House did not immediately respond to a query on why Trump did not wear a face mask at the Honeywell plant.
Trump has sought to give an optimistic view about the country’s ability to recover from the virus and is eager for states to reopen businesses whose lockdown closings have crushed the economy and left millions unemployed.
The virus is known to have infected more than 1.2 million people in the United States, including at least 70,000 who have died, according to a Reuters tally.
In Arizona, Trump also participated in a discussion about supporting Native Americans. He took the opportunity to argue that the U.S. economy should be reopened quickly.
“Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon,” Trump said.
The Republican president confirmed his administration’s plans to wind down the White House’s coronavirus task force as it focuses on a new phase, the aftermath of the pandemic.
Stump tour
Asked if he would receive a coronavirus vaccine as soon as one is developed, Trump said he would but also might decide not to if that were deemed better for the country.
“If there’s a vaccine and they wanted me to be first in line, I’d be first in line or I’d be last in line, or I wouldn’t take it at all, whatever’s best for the country,” Trump said.
The location of Trump’s first trip out of Washington in weeks was not coincidental.
Trump won Arizona in the 2016 election against Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but opinion polls show him currently trailing the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the Southwestern state.
The Coronavirus outbreak is the biggest threat to conservation, the head of a charity which protects African wildlife has said.
The number of virus cases in Africa remains relatively low but the outbreak has devastated Africa’s tourism industry, which is worth an estimated $30 billion a year.
Charlie Mayhew of Tusk told the BBC that his organisation expects to lose two million dollars from cancelled fundraising events alone.
Mayhew said organisations across the continent were having to lay off thousands of staff members – leading to a decline in the number of rangers protecting wildlife, but also increasing the number of now unemployed people who are having to turn to poaching to survive.
“This is definitely the biggest threat we have seen to the conservative world in the thirty years I’ve been working in it,” he said, adding that the years of progress made across Africa could be “undone very quickly” by the virus.
