U.S., China flag

The United States has become Chinas largest source of service imports, contributing the most to Chinas deficit in service trade in 2019, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Chinas service imports from the United States amounted to 257.45 billion U.S. dollars since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017, the ministry said on Friday in a report released on the sidelines of the ongoing third China International Import Expo.

The defining feature of China-U.S. trade-in-services cooperation is mutually beneficial, said the report, noting that U.S. companies have played an active role in the development of Chinas service trade.

Meanwhile, Chinas service imports have substantially met the needs of U.S. service exporters, which have gained substantial profits and returns, thus promoting the development of the U.S. economy, it said.

However, the economic and trade frictions between China and the United States have significantly affected Chinas import of services from the United States, the report noted.

In 2019, Chinas service imports from the United States dropped by 4 per cent year on year to 83.47 billion U.S. dollars, which accounted for 16.6 per cent of Chinas total service imports, data from the ministry showed. (Xinhua/NAN)

Source: NAN News

Athletes in a Marathon

By Moses Omorogieva

The organisers of the annual Access Bank Lagos City Marathon have announced two major changes to the 2021 edition of the Silver Label race, with the first being that only 10,000 runners from across the world would participate.

The organisers also suspended the 10km race which has always been the crowd puller since it was introduced into the Lagos Marathon.

Bukola Olopade, the race consultant and Chief Executive Officer of Nilayo Sports Management Company, explained on Friday in Lagos that the reduction in the number of participants was in the light of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The drastic reduction in the number of runners was in adherence to safety COVID-19 protocols.

The measure is put in place by the World Athletics, Presidential Task Force, Sports Ministry and other relevant bodies to checkmate the further spread of COVID-19 in the country, he said in a statement.

He added Weve stepped back to take a breather and ensure that all strategies are put in place to have a race that would fit the protocols put together by the World Athletics, PTF, Ministry of Youth and Sports.

At the end of the day, we do not put brands and even the state in trouble, and I can say now we have mapped out our strategies and ready to deliver a safe race.

Outside the reduction of runners to 10,000, the 10km race which has always been the crowd puller since it was introduced into the Lagos Marathon has also been suspended from the 2021 race.

We are only focusing on our flagship race which is the 42km that already has a Silver Label from the World Athletics; with what we are putting in place for 2021, we hope we can be upgraded to the Gold Label.

Beyond the usual fanfare, the goal for 2021 is to stage a world-class event that is equally safe for all.

Already, activities for the 2021 Access Bank Lagos City Marathon has officially commenced with the flagging off of registration on Thursday by top officials of the Lagos State Sports Commission.

Olopade added that the Executive Chairman of the Sports Commission Sola Aiyepeku, alongside the Director-General, Oluwatoyin Gafaar were honored with the first two entry forms for the 2021 race.

Aiyepeku praised the ingenuity of the organisers for mapping out modalities for a safe race adding that Lagos State was making a big statement to stage the 2021 race. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

China donates to Myanmar

China on Friday donated more medical supplies to Myanmar to help the country fight COVID-19, the Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar,Chen Hai, said.

Chen handed over 240,000 sets of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to Myanmars Ministry of Health and Sports at the headquarters of Department of Medical Research in Yangon.

Chen said that China had always been in solidarity with Myanmar, providing assistance to Myanmar and will continue to strengthen cooperation with Myanmar to help overcome the pandemic.

Dr Myint Htwe, Union Minister for Health and Sports, said the donation of medical supplies and assistance by China had saved many lives.

Myint had expressed gratitude to China in a video message at the ceremony.

China has provided medical equipment to support Myanmar since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country and also sent groups of medical experts to help their Myanmar counterparts in the fight against the disease.

The number of COVID-19 cases has risen to 59,277 in Myanmar on Friday, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health and Sports.

A total of 1,342 new cases were reported, with 24 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the release said.

The death toll increased to 1,376 while 43,277 had recovered so far.

A total of 765,399 samples have been tested for the disease as of Friday since the disease was first detected in Myanmar on March 23 this year. (Xinhua/NAN)

Source: NAN News

U.S. President Donald Trump

The U.S. presidential election is not over, President Donald Trumps campaign team lawyer Matt Morgan said on Friday, after Democratic candidate Joe Biden gained the lead in ongoing vote counts in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

This election is not over, Morgan said. The false protection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final.

State officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania earlier on Friday reported data showing that Biden has gained the lead over Trump in ongoing vote counts in both states.

Georgia is heading for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, Morgan said, while alleging that Pennsylvania had seen many irregularities.

Morgan also disputed the decision of two major media outlets to call the state of Nevada for Biden, saying that there appear to be thousands of improper mail ballots.

Fox News and the Associated Press have called the state for Biden, while other major media outlets have not yet made a projection on who will win the state.

Morgan called the projections for Biden irresponsible, adding that Trump is on course to win this state.

Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected, he said.

As of Friday morning, Biden had secured 264 of 270 electoral votes needed to win, compared to Trumps 214 votes, according to the Fox News and AP projections.

CNN and others have put the total electoral vote count at 253-213, in favour of Biden.

A victory in Pennsylvania, which carries 20 electoral votes, would make Biden the winner by all counts. (Sputnik/NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Lucy Ogalue
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) on Friday said its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) as at Sept. 30 stood at N1.4billion as against N4.4billion projection for 2020.

Mr Fidets Okhiria, Managing Director of NRC, in a statement said the sum of N245million was remitted to the TSA as at Oct. 31.

Okhiria said this at the 2021 Budget Defence to the Joint Committee of Land and Marine transport at the National Assembly in Abuja.

He said that the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic affected its operations as train services were stopped during its peak, thus affecting the IGR projection for the year.

The Joint Committee should also note that for the year 2020, the Corporation presented a separate Internally Generated Revenue

Buhari and-Sanwo-Olu on Lagos EndSARS protest

By Ismaila Chafe

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State behind closed doors where he received pictorial reports on properties damaged by hoodlums during #EndSARS protests in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Sunday Aghaeze, the Personal Assistant to the President (Photography), confirmed this via pictorial reports on the meeting.

The governor presented a report on the extent of the destruction suffered by Lagos State in the aftermath of the ENDSARS protests, one of the captions of the pictures indicated.

NAN reports that the governor, however, declined to take questions from State House Correspondents at the end of the meeting.

It would be recalled that similar report on the aftermath of the ENDSAR protest by the Ministers from the south west zone of the country was presented to the president during the Federal Executive Council on Wednesday.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, submitted the report on behalf of the affected ministers where they urged the Federal Government to support Lagos State to restore damaged facilities.

They particularly appealed for the immediate repair of those facilities related to the maintenance of law and order, and the administration of justice such as police stations, court buildings and forensic laboratory in the state.

Buhari had in Oct. 21 sent members of the Federal Executive Council to their home states, with a view to solicit the support of stakeholders including political, traditional, religious and community leaders against the violence that emanated from EndSARS protests.

The presidential directive was also meant to douse tensions that resulted from the EndSARS protests across the country.

Fashola said: The other matter in which I briefed council on behalf of ministers from the South-West namely, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, representing Ekiti; Rauf Aregbesola, representing Osun, Sunday Dare, representing Oyo, Olamilekan Adegbite, representing Ogun, Olorunimbe Memora, Lagos and Tayo Alasoadura, representing Ondo, was in regard to how we executed the directive on the Oct. 21 to ministers, for us to visit our states governors.

So, we first met and then met with governors. After meeting with the governors, the position of the governors was that Lagos being the epic center, commercial and strategic city state in the South-West is where we should all go.

That was what informed our visit to Lagos. So, I just briefed council about the reports that were presented to us by the Lagos State Government when we visited. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

Rocket moves into orbit with satellites

China had successfully sent 13 satellites into orbit from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in north Chinas Shanxi Province on Friday.

The satellites, including 10 commercial remote sensing satellites developed by Argentine company Satellogic, blasted off atop a Long March-6 carrier rocket at 11:19 a.m. (Beijing Time).

Each weighing about 41 kg and with a design life of three years, the 10 satellites will be used to provide commercial remote sensing services with their multispectral and hyperspectral loads.

Also on board the rocket were three satellites developed by Chinese high-tech companies and research institutes for remote-sensing observation, science experiments, and science popularisation.

One of the three is a 6G test satellite, weighing 70 kg and named after one its developers, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

The satellite, carrying a terahertz satellite communication load, will establish a transceiver link on the satellite platform and carry out terahertz load tests.

The launch of the 6G test satellite marks a breakthrough in the exploration of terahertz space communication technologies in Chinas space field, said Xu Yangsheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The satellite will be used in smart city construction, disaster prevention and mitigation, land planning, environmental protection, and the monitoring of major infrastructure construction.

Fridays launch was the 351st by the Long March rocket series. (Xinhua/NAN)

Source: NAN News

Edo Sports Festival logo

By Muhyideen Jimoh

The National Council on Sports has recommended Dec. 3 to Dec. 18 for hosting of National Sports Festival tagged Edo 2020 which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a communique issued at the end of its two-day meeting on Friday in Asaba, the Council, however, stressed that the Games would be held under strict COVID-19 protocols.

According to the communique signed by Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, and other members of the Council, this years games will be held in two phases.

Competition days Phase 1, comes up from Dec. 6 to Dec. 10; break and arrivals for second phase comes up on Dec, 11 and Competition days for Phase 2 from Dec. 12 to Dec. 16; closing ceremony for Dec. 17, and closure of Games Village on Dec. 18, it said.

The Technical Session of the meeting had agreed on the new format for the Games in order to strictly keep with the COVID-19 protocols.

The virtual meeting held earlier this year unanimously agreed to host the Festival this year.

The Committee of Experts set up during the virtual meeting made specific recommendations regarding the successful organisation of the 20th National Sports Festival.

It has become imperative to tinker with the modus operandi of the Festival, the communique read in part.

It, however, noted that the recommendations were subject to the guidelines of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and final approval by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, who is the Chairman of the Council, assured that all COVID-19 protocols would be fully implemented in line with international best practice.

He said that all infrastructure for the Games were COVID-19 compliant as confirmed by the National Assembly inspection visit to the state.

Earlier, Edo Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, who was also present at the meeting, emphasised the states readiness to conduct COVID-19 testing for all athlete and officials who would attend the competition.

It is indeed heart warming that the long awaited NSF is holding this year 2020 as jointly approved by the National Council on Sports, today in Asaba, he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the festival was postponed few days to kick off in March as a precautionary measure against the spread of the virus. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

Port Harcourt Maiduguri narrow gauge railway

By Naomi Sharang and Kingsley Okoye

The reconstruction and rehabilitation of Port Harcourt Maiduguri (Eastern narrow gauge railway) is to start in 2021, says Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi.

He said this during the 2021 budget defence of the ministrys estimates before the Joint Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives held in Abuja on Friday.

Amaechi said that the rehabilitation of the gauge was part of priority projects of the Federal Government to achieve intermodal transportation to enhance economic growth.

He also mentioned the construction of the central railway from Itakpe to Abuja and connection to new Warri Port as part of the priority projects.

He disclosed that the ministry was proposing a total capital vote of N205,161,882,492 to cover: Land, N204,316,793,527; Marine, N845,088,965; and overhead of N358,799,999 in the 2021 budget for consideration.

The minister said that the aims and objectives of the proposals were to make significant progress on all ongoing projects as well as to complete and deliver modern railway services.

He said that the proposals would also provide an efficient and cost effective alternative transport for economic growth.

It is also for creation of job opportunities for the citizenry.

He further said that under the railway modernisation programme, the construction of Lagos Ibadan Standard Gauge line had reached 92 per cent completion.

However, for the project to achieve full loan drawn down from our co-financier, China EXIM Bank, and attain practical completion for intended purpose, some aspects of works involving construction of upgraded railway stations, signaling and telecommunication system among others have to be completed.

These additional and extra works amounting to 656 million dollars which is to be financed 100 per cent by the Federal Government has been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for implementation.

Therefore, in order not to forestall the progress of implementation, adequate fund needs to be provided in the 2021 budget proposal to facilitate the completion of the project.

Amaechi said that the ministry in its budget proposal had presented amounts required for completion of some projects by the year 2021.

He said that it included completion and fencing on the Abuja Kaduna railway line to ensure security and safety of train operations for the staff members, passengers and general public.

In his remarks, Mr Tajudeen Abass, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Land Transport, requested additional time to consider the budget proposal for the ministry owing to the delay in the submission of the document. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

NCDC Coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) update

By Abujah Racheal

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has announced an additional 180 new cases of the Coronavirus (COVID19) infections in the country, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 63,508.

The Director-General of NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, gave the figures in Abuja on Thursday while updating newsmen on COVID-19 infections in the country.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that 673,183 people have been tested for the disease since the first confirmed case was reported in the country on Feb. 27, 2020.

Ihekweazu said that the new infections were reported in 13 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

He said there was no COVID-19-related fatality in the past 24 hours in Nigeria.

The NCDC DG also disclosed that 73 COVID-19 patients had been successfully treated and discharged at isolations centres across the country.

According to him, Lagos recorded the highest number of 87 new infections , while Oyo, the FCT, Plateau and Edo had 51, 12, 10 and four new confirmed cases respectively.

Ekiti and Ogun had three new cases each; Bauchi, Kaduna and Niger had two cases each and Kano, Ondo, Osun and Rivers had one each.

Till date, 63,508 cases have been confirmed in the country, 59,748 patients have been discharged and 1,155 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the FCT, Ihekweazu said.

He said the NCDC has activated a multi-sectoral National Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), at Level III to coordinate response activities.

Ihekweazu disclosed that his agency has accredited Clina Lancet Laboratory, Abuja, as a private fee-paying laboratory for COVID-19 testing.

Source: NAN News