By Muhyideen Jimoh

The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has clarified that the 20th National Sports Festival, Edo 2020, is going on as planned with competitions going on as scheduled.

Mr Ramon Balogun, Assistant Director Press in the ministry disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Benin.

This assurance is coming on the heels of threat by the state government and LOC of the Festival to shutdown the competition on Thursday if they do not get the promised financial assistance from the Federal Government.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that an emergency meeting of the festivals Local Organising Committee (LOC) headed by the Edo Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu held on Wednesday where the threat was issued.

Musa Ebomhiana, Project Manager with the Media and Communications Sub-Committee of the LOC said the decision was necessitated by Federal Governments refusal to fulfill a promise.

You can quote me, that we just finished from an emergency meeting of the LOC (Wednesday), and as I speak with you we have decided to shut down the festival by 12 noon tomorrow (Thursday).

The decision was arrived at because the Federal Government has reneged on its promise to assist the state with funds.

Because of that, we are closing the festival, Ebomhiana said.

The ministry however insist that the festival will continue according to plan while the challenges raised are resolved.

The Ministry and the Main Organizing Committee (MOC) for the festival are unaware of any plans or threat by the Edo Government to shut down the sports festival as there has been no official meeting or communication that relayed such information.

The Honorable Minister, Permanent Secretary and Directors are on ground in Benin City where the Festival is holding.

It is expected that the Edo State Government would formally invite the Ministry for a meeting should any urgency exist around the National Sports Festival or communicate officially with the Main Organizing Committee (MOC) for the festival.

The Ministry has no such communication, Balogun said.

The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development explained that that the funds to support the state government is still being processed and will soon be ready.

The Ministry has since been at work to secure the financial assistance which it believes is being processed.

The MYSD and EDSG are determined to deliver a successful National Sports Festival, Balogun added.

The festival which started on April 2 after numerous postponement is scheduled to end on April 14. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Olayinka Owolewa/Usman Aliyu

Team Kwara on Thursday picked their second gold medal of the ongoing 20th National Sports Festival (NSF) in Benin from the competitions squash court.

Seun Gabriel defeated his Edo counterpart, Femi Shedara, 3-1 in the mens singles final.

Shedara had drawn the first blood by winning the first set 13-11, but Gabriel resurged with more intent to win the second set 11-6.

Gabriel grew stronger in the third set to win 11-4, and closed out the game with an 11-6 win in the fourth set.

Team Kwara had late Wednesday qualified for the final matches of three categories of the squash competition.

Kwara are also in the finals of the mens and womens team events, with Delta their opponents in the womens team event.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Rofiat Abdulazeez had earlier won a bronze medal for the state in the womens singles event of the competition.

Meanwhile, games in the doubles and mixed doubles categories of the squash competition will start later on Thursday, with Kwara also featuring.(NAN)

Source: NAN News

ByIgbaugba Ehigimetor

The Ministry of Youths and Sports Development has assured host of the 20th edition of the National Sports Festival (NSF), tagged Edo 2020, that it will get the Federal Governments financial support to ensure the games go on as planned.

Nebeolisa Anako, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, gave the assurance at a press conference in Benin on Thursday.

The permanent secretary, who is also the Chairman of the Main Organising Committee (MOC), said that the minister, Sunday Dare, met with Gov. Godwin Obaseki on Thursday morning to acquaint him about the efforts being made to ensure the fund is released.

According to him, I can assure that Edo State will get the financial assistance from the Federal Government.

The minister met with the state Governor earlier today (Thursday), while the Presidency also contacted him to confirm that the process of getting the fund is at an advance stage.

The ministry is yet to know how much the Federal Government will release to the host state. Also, if any money has been released as the accounting officer of the ministry, I will know. But it is certain that the government will support Edo State financially.

Anako, who noted that it was the duty of the host to bankroll the NSF, said that the financial assistance is being given based on the several postponements the Games suffered due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

The state government has done well to provide world class facilities, while the Games Village is alive with activities as the athletes and officials are ready to go all the way.

With this, I will urge everyone to disregard the news of halting the games, he said.

Anako said that the clarification was necessary to assure the 9,000 athletes that the NSF would go on uniterrupted.

He urged the athletes to continue to win medals as they have been doing since the game commenced six days ago.

It would be recalled that the Edo Government threatened to shutdown the Games by 12 noon on Thursday over the non-release of the fund meant to support them as host by the federal government. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Ijeoma Okigbo

Julius Joshua of Akwa Ibom has qualified for the final of the mens -63.5kg full contact event in the kick-boxing competition of the ongoing National Sports Festival (NSF) in Benin.

Joshua, gold medalist at the 2018 NSF in Abuja, defeated Edigue Erhahon of Edo by a unanimous decision after three rounds on Thursday to book his ticket for the final.

The -60 kg gold medalist said he had worked hard to ensure this victory, adding that a gold medal in the event was his target.

I feel good. I was very confident that I would win the fight and I did.

This category is a new weight for me, but I am happy with how far I have progressed.

He (Erhahon) was my greatest challenger in this category but, having defeated him, I am certain of a gold medal in the event, Joshua said. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday stressed that vaccination passports must not limit the right to travel.

Lavrov expressed the thought at a news conference after talks with the Kazakh foreign minister, Mukhtar Tleuberdi.

I agree that vaccination passports must not restrict human rights, including the right to travel.

However, exactly this kind of idea was initially discussed in the European Union.

The question remains acute. And we need, as my counterpart said, to draft common rules within the Eurasian Economic Union that will not restrict the right to travel.

Vaccine passports should have just one goal to show health condition of the holder, the Russian foreign minister said. (Sputnik/NAN)

Source: NAN News

President Joe Biden plans to announce Thursday an effort to limit so-called ghost guns weapons sold without serial numbers or other identifying information and to nominate a figure from a major gun control group as director of the federal agency that regulates firearms.

By this, Biden will be making his first foray into efforts to control gun violence since taking office.

The executive actions come after two recent massacres and some activists in anti-violence groups have expressed disappointment with the administration for putting gun regulation behind other priorities.

One of the priorities is the Coronavirus (COVID-19) relief bill. Biden recently announced a 2-trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal.

The administrations moves, which Biden plans to announce at an event with Attorney-General Merrick Garland, are relatively limited in scope but mark a sharp shift in course from the Trump administration.

The administration has consistently deferred to the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups and opposed measures to expand gun regulation.

A senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters on Wednesday noted that the moves were an initial set of actions the administration is taking to address gun violence and that further steps could come later.

The official spoke under the condition that they are not to be identified by name.

The most concrete of Bidens proposals will be new federal rules aimed at ghost guns, made from kits that purchasers can assemble into weapons with relative ease and a few basic tools.

The kits are not classified as firearms, which means a person can buy them without a background check and they can be sold without the identification stamps required for guns.

The sales of such kits have grown rapidly in recent years, and ghost guns have increasingly been showing up at crime scenes.

Law enforcement officials in California have estimated that roughly three in 10 guns recovered from crimes in the state are ghost weapons.

In February, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a lawsuit against a Nevada-based seller of such kits, saying that untraceable ghost guns are the emerging weapon of choice for criminals in Los Angeles and other major cities.

Under Bidens plan, the Justice Department will propose a new rule within 30 days that would require background checks for purchases of ghost guns, according to the senior administration official.

The rule will likely involve reclassifying the kits as firearms under federal law.

Because the proposal will require new federal regulations, however, it will have to go through a lengthy period of public comment before it can fully take effect, meaning the new restrictions probably wont limit sales until late this year at the soonest.

The administration will also step up funding efforts to reduce urban gun violence, which has jumped in several cities over the past year.

Biden has proposed 5 billion dollars over the next eight years for community violence interventions, a term that covers a range of programmes designed to deter violence using tools other than putting people in prison.

These measures can include conflict intervention, connecting people with social service agencies, and working with shooting victims while they are hospitalised in hopes of avoiding retaliatory attacks.

Such programmes have had a significant impact in reducing homicides where theyve been tried, White House officials say.

While waiting for Congress to act on the 5-billion-dollar request, the administration will direct more than two dozen federal agencies to look at existing accounts to find money to support such programmes.

The administrations steps drew praise from gun safety groups.

The actions will begin to make good on President Bidens promise to be the strongest gun safety president in history, John Feinblatt, the head of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement.

In particular, ghost guns allow anyone, anywhere to easily obtain an untraceable firearm, and the Biden administrations decision to treat them like the deadly weapons they are will undoubtedly save countless lives, he added.

Biden will also name David Chipman as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency that regulates guns and gun sales.

Chipman, who spent about two decades as an ATF agent, is a senior policy advisor to the advocacy group Giffords, set up by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona after she was shot and severely wounded at an event with constituents.

There is no one better to lead ATF right now, the senior administration official said, citing Chipmans experience with the agency.

Since 2006, when Congress directed that the head of the ATF be subject to Senate confirmation, the NRA and other gun-rights groups have consistently worked to block nominees.

The last Senate-confirmed head of the agency, B. Todd Jones, who was named by President Obama, stepped down in 2015, and acting directors have run the agency since, limiting its ability to pursue new programmes.

Chipmans extensive contacts with groups that advocate greater regulation of firearms could assuage some of the complaints that the administration has been slow to move on gun issues.

Those complaints mounted after Bidens news conference late last month, at which he said: Successful presidents, better than me, have been successful, in large part, because they know how to time what theyre doing order it, decide and prioritise what needs to be done.

Asked about gun control, immigration, and other issues, Biden said the most urgent problem was the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout.

The other problems were talking about, from immigration to guns and the other things you mentioned, are long-term problems.

Theyve been around a long time, he said.

Through much of his career, Biden has been active on gun control efforts, often boasting of his role in beating the NRA in legislative battles during the Clinton administration, when he was a senator.

As vice president under Obama, he took a role in helping craft gun control proposals, most of which stalled on Capitol Hill.

But since taking office as president, he has focused heavily on other issues.

Although the House passed two bills last month to close loopholes in the federal background check programme, opposition in the Senate has stalled any action.

The Senate could take up a more limited bill later this spring that would close one loophole requiring background checks for weapons sold at gun shows but even that faces a difficult legislative road. (dpa/NAN)

Source: NAN News

Ecuadors Health Minister Mauro Falconi has resigned less than three weeks on the job, the government said on Wednesday, following in the footsteps of his predecessor.

Falconi is the third health minister to resign in some 40 days.

Local media reported major issues on Tuesday and Wednesday with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine rollout in Quito, where senior citizens were made to wait over eight hours in line before being inoculated.

Newspaper El Comercio reported that there were also coordination issues with the delivery of jabs, saying that similar issues occurred in Guayaquil.

Our seniors deserve the utmost respect. What happened today has no justification.

I have asked for the resignation of the health minister and he will be replaced by Dr Camilo Salinas, President Lenin Moreno tweeted on Wednesday.

Secretary General of the Cabinet Jorge Wated Reshuan called the events in Quito unacceptable in a tweet.

His predecessor, surgeon Rodolfo Farfan, was previously appointed to the post on March 1 to replace Juan Carlos Zevallos, who resigned in late February amid allegations of favoritism in the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.

Farfan resigned on March 19.

Salinas is the sixth health minister in the current government and the fifth since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, El Universo reported.

Ecuador, with a population of around 17 million, has so far recorded over 328,000 infections and almost 12,000 COVID-19 related deaths. (dpa/NAN)

Source: NAN News

New Zealand says it will suspend all travel from India after a surge of COVID-19 cases were detected at the border, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday.

The temporary suspension will begin on April 11, and will remain in place until April 28, Ardern told a press conference.

She said that it will be the first time New Zealand has stopped its citizens or residents from returning home.

This is not a permanent arrangement but rather a temporary measure, Ardern said.

On Thursday, health officials reported that 17 of the 23 COVID-19 cases detected at the New Zealand border had arrived from India.

Ardern said she absolutely understood the difficulty the suspension would cause for travellers.

But I also feel a sense of responsibility and obligation to find ways to reduce the risk that travellers are experiencing, she said.

During the suspension, the government would look at how it could reduce the risk of COVID-19 from all high-risk countries.

The suspension would stop travellers from getting sick and also reduce the risk in New Zealands quarantine facilities, Ardern said. (dpa/NAN)

Source: NAN News

The Philippines, on Thursday, temporarily suspended the use of AstraZenecas COVID-19 vaccine for those younger than 60 following reports from abroad of rare blood clotsin some recipients.

The countrys Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called the suspension aprecautionary measureto ensure the safety of every Filipino.

The FDA noted that theEuropean Medicines Agency (EMA) has now recommended that blood clots be listed as a very rare side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Several European countries and Canada have also put age restrictions in place due to a handful of blood clot cases reported in younger people.

While we have not seen such incidents in the country, the FDA has recommended to temporarily suspend the use of the vaccine for persons below 60 years old as we await results of the review being done by our local experts, as well as the official guidance of the WHO (World Health Organisation), FDA Director-General, Eric Domingo, said.

The Philippines had received an initial shipment of 525,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the WHO-COVAX facility.

It is the second vaccine brand delivered to the Philippines; the other is Sinovac from China.

As of April 6, nearly 923,000 doses of both Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines have been administered across the country.

The Philippines reported 9,216 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total cases to 828,366 with 14,119 fatalities.

Meanwhile, Malaysia could reconsider using the AstraZeneca jab, the minister in charge of the countrys inoculation programme said on Thursday.

Responding to the EMA assessment, Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin, said the governments vaccination committee will deliberate on the matter and decide if we will go ahead with using AZ in our portfolio of vaccines. (dpa/NAN)

Source: NAN News

The British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has criticised the Myanmar military after the countrys ambassador to Britain was locked out of the London embassy.

We condemn the bullying actions of the Myanmar military regime in London yesterday, and I pay tribute to Kyaw Zwar Minn for his courage, Dominic Raab tweeted on Thursday.

The UK continues to call for an end to the coup and the appalling violence, and a swift restoration of democracy, he added.

The move comes after Zwar Minn spoke out against the militarys Feb. 1 coup.

He called for the release of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whowas detained by the military in the Februarycoup, after her party won an election by a landslide.

The militarys actions have prompted widespread protests, to which soldiers have responded with a violent crackdown on the population.

Zwar Minn was denied entry to the building on Wednesday night in what he described as a coup by the Myanmar military.

They are refusing to let me inside.

They said they received instruction from the capital, so they are not going to let me in, he told the Telegraph newspaper.

Dpa understandstheBritishForeign Office had initially receivedno formal notification of the termination of the ambassadors position through the appropriate diplomatic channels.

However, those have since been received.

No formal notification of a replacement forZwar Minn is thought to haveyet been received by the British Foreign Office.

Sources told dpa that Britain is in contact with the embassys charge daffaires. (dpa/NAN)

Source: NAN News