Foreign news
In a country where gun violence is rare, the murder of former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe is raising questions about the shooter and his motive. Here’s what we know based on media reports and official statements.
What happened?
Abe had just begun a campaign speech in the western city of Nara on Friday when he was shot from behind, from a distance of about three meters (10 feet). Two gunshots were heard. Moments later security personnel tackled a man to the floor. He was wearing a gray t-shirt, khaki trousers and a face mask.
Who was the shooter?
The gunmen has been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, an unemployed former member of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force — Japan’s navy — who is being investigated for murder following the confirmation of Abe’s death. NHK reported that he worked for the force from 2002 to 2005.
What has the suspect said?
Yamagami told police he held a grudge against a "certain group," and that he intended to kill Abe because he believed Abe had ties to that group. Separately, NHK reported that the suspect claimed not to have attacked the former PM over his political beliefs. The Mainichi newspaper characterized the target of the suspect's enmity as a religious group, and also claimed he was aiming at a religious leader who wasn’t attending the rally, adding to the confusion.
What weapon did he use?
Police said the gun was homemade, about 40 centimeters long and 20 centimeters high. A close-up shot of the weapon on the ground appeared to show two tubes wrapped together with black tape.
What are the police doing now?
Police discovered several more guns, also homemade, at the suspect's residence. Explosives experts were also summoned to the scene due to concerns the handcrafted weapons may unexpectedly explode.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said Tuesday he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump, while speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference, in a Reuters report .
Musk, who has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” recently inked a $44 billion deal to acquire the social media platform.
The decision to ban Trump from Twitter did not silence the former president’s voice, but rather amplified his views among people on the political right, Musk said, calling the ban “morally wrong and flat-out stupid.”
Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter shortly after the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol. Twitter cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” in its decision.
Central African Republic has adopted bitcoin as an official currency, the Country's presidency said on Wednesday, becoming the first country in Africa and only the second in the world to do so.
Despite rich reserves of gold and diamonds, Central African Republic is one of the world's poorest and least-developed countries and has been gripped by rebel violence for years.
A bill governing the use of cryptocurrency was adopted unanimously by parliament last week, said a statement signed by Obed Namsio, chief of staff of President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
"The president supports this bill because it will improve the conditions of Central African citizens," Namsio told Reuters, without elaborating.
In the statement, he called it "a decisive step toward opening up new opportunities for our country".
Central African Republic is one of six nations that use the Central African CFA franc, a regional currency governed by the Bank of Central African States (BEAC).
Two of the country's former prime ministers last week signed a letter expressing concern about the adoption of bitcoin without guidance from the BEAC, calling it a "serious offence".
"The BEAC learned at the same time as the public of the enactment of a new law on cryptocurrency in Central African Republic," a BEAC spokesman told Reuters, adding that the bank did not have an official response yet.
El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender last year, but the rollout was hampered by scepticism and it postponed a proposed bitcoin bond in March amid global market turmoil.
African governments have taken a varied approach to regulating cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Nigeria's central bank barred local banks from working with cryptocurrencies last year before launching its own digital currency, the eNaira.
South African regulators have been exploring the potential regulation of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technology, and Tanzania's central bank said last year it was working on a presidential directive to prepare for cryptocurrencies.
Russia will on Wednesday stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria, the two NATO and EU members said, an escalation in the deepening rift between the West and Moscow over Ukraine as tensions also surged in neighbouring Moldova, reported.
Kyiv accused Moscow of blackmailing Europe and of trying to drag Moldova into the conflict after authorities in the Moscow-backed region of Transdniestria said they had been targeted by a series of attacks.
Staunch Kremlin opponent Poland is among the European countries seeking the toughest possible sanctions against Russia for invading its neighbour.
Poland's state-owned PGNiG (PGN.WA) said supplies from energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) via Ukraine and Belarus will be cut at 0800CET (0600GMT) on Wednesday, but Warsaw said it did not need to draw on reserves and its gas storage was 76% full.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on "unfriendly" countries to pay for gas imports in roubles, a move only a few buyers have implemented so far.
"The ultimate goal of Russia's leadership is not just to seize the territory of Ukraine, but to dismember the entire centre and east of Europe and deal a global blow to democracy," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Tuesday.
His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Russia was "beginning the gas blackmail of Europe".
"Russia is trying to shatter the unity of our allies," Yermak said.
Bulgaria, which is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports, said it had fulfilled all its contractual obligations with Gazprom and that the proposed new payment scheme was in breach of the arrangement.
It has held initial talks to import liquefied natural gas through neighbouring Turkey and Greece.
Gazprom said it had not yet suspended supplies to Poland but that Warsaw had to pay for gas in line with its new "order of payments." It declined to comment regarding Bulgaria.
The invasion of Ukraine, launched on Feb. 24, has left thousands dead or injured, reduced towns and cities to rubble, and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.
Moscow calls its actions a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists.
Ukraine and the West say this a false pretext for an unprovoked war to seize territory in a move that has sparked fears of wider conflict in Europe unseen since World War Two.
Russia's ambassador to the United States has warned Washington to stop sending arms to Ukraine, saying that large Western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the situation.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned late on Monday that: "NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war," saying the risks of nuclear conflict should not be underestimated.
U.S. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there was no reason for the conflict in Ukraine to escalate to nuclear war. "A nuclear war cannot be won and it shouldn't be fought," he said.
In Transdniestria, an unrecognised sliver of land bordering southwestern Ukraine, authorities said explosions had damaged two radio masts that broadcast in Russian and that one of its military units had been attacked.
It provided few details, but blamed Ukraine, while Moldova's pro-Western President Maia Sandu blamed the "escalation attempts" on "pro-war" factions in Transdniestria. read more
Reuters could not independently verify the accounts. The Kremlin, which has troops and peacekeepers in the region, said it was seriously concerned.
Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic with close cultural ties to NATO member Romania, expressed alarm last week after a top Russian general said Moscow aims to forge a path through Ukraine to Transdniestria.
Meanwhile fighting continued in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Russia's defence ministry said its forces had "liberated" the entire Kherson region in southern Ukraine and parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions, Interfax news agency reported.
If confirmed, that would represent a significant Russian advance.
One of Putin's closest allies, Nikolai Patrushev, said Ukraine was spiralling towards a collapse into "several states" due to what he cast as a U.S. attempt to use Kyiv to undermine Russia.
More than 40 countries met in Germany to discuss Ukraine's defence.
Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters while flying to Tuesday's meeting that the next few weeks in Ukraine would be "very, very critical".
In potential humanitarian relief, Putin agreed "in principle" to U.N. and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) involvement to evacuate civilians from a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, according to the United Nations.
The UN’s annual report on mitigating calamities shows that a radical rethink is needed to protect those who suffer most
If the world seems beset by constant disasters, from the pandemic to drought, we only have ourselves to blame.
Over the past two decades, we have experienced up to 500 disasters a year as a result of human activity. By 2030, this could rise to 560 a year – or 107 a week.
Given the disproportionate impact these disasters have on the most vulnerable, the tragedy is that the world is actively reversing social and economic gains, particularly in developing countries, by underestimating the threat. With this broken risk perception, humanity itself is on a spiral of self-destruction – a key finding of the UN’s Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022 (Gar 2022).
Not only are the most exposed developing countries left with just a negligible share of international funding to prevent disasters or mitigate their impact, they are also the least insured, leaving the poorest to pay the highest cost. The world’s priorities are not aligned to those facing the greatest risk.
Climate change and disaster impacts are set to displace 216 million people inside their own countries by 2050, and push 132 million into poverty by 2030.
To prevent this, and shore up progress made around the world in reducing poverty, governments, development actors and the financial sector must reconfigure the way disaster risk is seen and managed. All sectors need to properly measure the true costs. For instance, the Asia-Pacific region loses an average of 1.6% of GDP to disasters each year, while Africa loses an average of 0.6%.
Yet “financing disaster risk” is too often isolated from other forms of risk management, leaving planners blind to the true cost of the climate crisis, which is causing that same dramatic increase in the number of disasters.
In reconfiguring how we manage these true costs, development projects, financial investments and governments should carry out regular social and environmental impact assessments to account for risk and indirect impacts so often neglected in these analyses.
More investment could then be better directed towards disaster risk reduction, which accounted for less than 5% of disaster-related aid financing between 2010 and 2019, and a minuscule portion of the global development pot.
Reducing the risk and impact of disasters around the world also means addressing the behavioural biases that too often place potential disasters far away, and far into the future. Global, regional and national institutions urgently need more systems that factor in how human minds make decisions about risk, considering the various biases that feed into this thinking. In particular, insurance and financial products should be reconfigured to incentivise risk reduction decisions.
After the 2010 earthquake and tsunami in Chile, its government helped incentivise safe construction by providing funds to poor families to cover the cost of “half a good house” that adhered to building codes, while allowing the personalisation of homes. Other tools, such as “opt-out” disaster insurance, could help overcome human decision-making barriers.
The increasing scale and frequency of disasters have made it clear that risk systems need to work with, not just for, affected people, to achieve the greatest possible buy-in.
In Nepal, flood early-warning systems come with flood risk communications co-designed with the most vulnerable communities themselves, resulting in a clear reduction in deaths due to flooding.
When the risk of disaster is largely of our own making, the silver lining is that it is within our power to stop it. The world has two opportunities to come together to act on the recommendations of Gar 2022. The first is the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, from 23-28 May, in Bali, Indonesia. The second is the Midterm Review of the implementation of the UN’s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which will conclude in 2023.
Policy, finance and development sectors must start by accounting for risk and investing in inclusive risk reduction, particularly in the most affected countries. Only then can we protect the most vulnerable while safeguarding the social and economic gains made worldwide.
• Mami Mizutori is the UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
There are a total of 763 commercial banks located across the 54 countries that make up the African continent.
Findings by Business Insider Africa show that South Africa and Tanzania have the highest concentration of commercial banks at 51 and 50, respectively. Kenya on the other hand has 42 commercial banks, followed by Egypt with 40, Ghana with 34, Uganda with 24 and Nigeria with 22.
Interestingly, not only does Africa have a lesser number of commercial banks compared to other continents —Asia has at least 1,900, the EU has about 6,000 and the USA alone has more than 4,000 —African banks also have significantly lower valuations compared to their foreign counterparts.
But this is not to say that all the banks in Africa have low valuations. As you will see shortly, some African banks have total assets valued at over $100 billion. Assets basically include all the properties, cash, account receivables and other valuable resources owned by corporations such as banks.
Before we go ahead and unveil the list, it's important to mention that this information was sourced from Statista, a leading global provider of markets and consumer data.
Below are Africa's largest banks by asset size, comprised mostly of South African and North African banks.
Standard Bank (Stanbank) Group: At $172.9 billion, this South African bank has the largest asset size in Africa.
National Bank of Egypt: This Egyptian bank's total asset size is valued at $124.9 billion.
Absa Bank: This is another South African bank and it has a total asset size of $87.8 billion.
FirstRand: The third South African bank on the top 10 list has a total asset size of $81.9 billion.
Nedbank Group: This South African bank has a total asset size of $78.6 billion.
Attijariwafa Bank: This Moroccan bank has a total asset size of $63.8 billion.
Banque Misr: This Egyptian bank has a total asset size of $57.9 billion.
Banque Centrale Populair: This is a Moroccan bank and it has an asset size of $49.9 billion.
BMCE Bank Group: This is yet another Moroccan bank and it has an asset size of $37.3 billion.
Investec Bank: Lastly, we have South Africa's Investec Bank which has an asset size of $29.9 billion.
Emmanuel Macron comfortably defeated far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Sunday, heading off a political earthquake for Europe but acknowledging dissatisfaction with his first term and saying he would seek to make amends.
His supporters erupted with joy as the results appeared on a giant screen at the Champ de Mars park by the Eiffel tower.
Leaders in Berlin, Brussels, London and beyond welcomed his defeat of the nationalist, eurosceptic Le Pen.
With 97% of votes counted, Macron was on course for a solid 57.4% of the vote, interior ministry figures showed. But in his victory speech he acknowledged that many had only voted for him only to keep Le Pen out and he promised to address the sense of many French that their living standards are slipping.
"Many in this country voted for me not because they support my ideas but to keep out those of the far-right. I want to thank them and know I owe them a debt in the years to come," he said.
"No one in France will be left by the wayside," he said in a message that had already been spread by senior ministers doing the rounds on French TV stations.
Two years of disruption from the pandemic and surging energy prices exacerbated by the Ukraine war catapulted economic issues to the fore of the campaign. The rising cost of living has become an increasing strain for the poorest in the country.
"He needs to be closer to the people and to listen to them," digital sales worker Virginie, 51, said at the Macron rally, adding he needed to overcome a reputation for arrogance and soften a leadership style Macron himself called "Jupiterian".
Le Pen, who at one stage of the campaign had trailed Macron by just a few points in opinion polls, quickly admitted defeat. But she vowed to keep up the fight with parliamentary elections in June.
"I will never abandon the French," she told supporters chanting "Marine! Marine!"
Macron can expect little or no grace period in a country whose stark political divisions have been brought into the open by an election in which radical parties scored well. Many expect the street protests that marred part of his first term to erupt again as he presses on with pro-business reforms.
"There will be continuity in government policy because the president has been reelected," Health Minister Olivier Veran said. "But we have also heard the French people's message."
How Macron now fares will depend on the looming parliamentary elections. Le Pen wants a nationalist alliance in a move that raises the prospect of her working with rival far-rightists like Eric Zemmour and her niece, Marion Marechal.
Hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, who emerged as by far the strongest force on the left of French politics, said he deserves to be prime minister - something that would force Macron into an awkward and stalemate-prone "cohabitation".
"Melenchon as prime minister. That would be fun. Macron would be upset, but that's the point," said Philippe Lagrue, 63, technical director at a Paris theatre, who voted for Macron in the run-off after backing Melenchon in the first round.
Outside France, Macron's victory was hailed as a reprieve for mainstream politics rocked in recent years by Britain's exit from the European Union, the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the rise of a new generation of nationalist leaders.
"Bravo Emmanuel," European Council President Charles Michel, wrote on Twitter. "In this turbulent period, we need a solid Europe and a France totally committed to a more sovereign and more strategic European Union."
"Congratulations to the President and a true friend @EmmanuelMacron on the election victory," Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on his Twitter account in early hours on Monday.
"The financial markets will breathe a collective sigh of relief following Macron's election victory," said Seema Shah, Chief Strategist at Principal Global Investors.
The disillusion with Macron was reflected in an abstention rate expected to settle around 28%, the highest since 1969.
Initial polling showed the vote was sharply split both by age and socio-economic status: Two-thirds of working class voters backed le Pen, while similar proportions of white-collar executives and pensioners backed Macron, an Elabe poll showed.
Macron won around 59% of votes by 18-24 year-olds with the vote almost evenly split in other age categories.
During the campaign, Le Pen homed in on the rising cost of living and Macron's sometimes abrasive style as some of his weakest points.
She promised sharp cuts to fuel tax, zero-percent sales tax on essential items from pasta to diapers, income exemptions for young workers and a "French first" stance on jobs and welfare.
"I'm shocked to see that a majority of French people want to reelect a president that looked down on them for five years," Adrien Caligiuri, a 27-year-old project manager said at the Le Pen rally.
Macron meanwhile pointed to Le Pen's past admiration for Russia's Vladimir Putin as showing she could not be trusted on the world stage, while insisting she still harboured plans to pull France out of the European Union - something she denies.
A Canadian woman who spent decades impersonating nurses and other professionals by using fake identities was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for fraud.
Brigitte Cleroux, 50, was arrested in Ottawa last August after her latest deceit was discovered by a colleague seeking to file a complaint against her with a governing body for nurses and an imposter alert popped up.
She pleaded guilty in January to seven offenses including impersonation and assault with a weapon — for administrating medication and injections to 20 patients at a fertility clinic and a dental clinic.
Ontario Court Justice Robert Wadden was quoted by public broadcaster CBC as saying her fraud struck “at the core of the trust our society puts in our health-care system.”
Minus credit for time spent in detention awaiting trial, Cleroux must serve five years and eight months in a federal penitentiary, her lawyer told AFP.
Cleroux had reportedly committed similar frauds throughout her adult life, using forged resumes and fake identity cards with dozens of aliases and accumulating a long criminal record.
When found out, she would sometimes disappear before she could be held accountable. Cleroux still faces prosecution on separate charges of having posed as a nurse at a British Columbia hospital for a year.
Several patients have also launched a lawsuit against the British Columbia health authority for failing to verify her nursing credentials when employing her.
Imagine going from having nothing to your name to winning over a quarter of a million dollars only to be unable to claim it due to a lack of ID.
That’s exactly the problem an Algerian undocumented immigrant in Belgium is facing right now Oddity Central has reported.
A few days ago, the lottery winner, whose name has not been disclosed for obvious reasons, went into a shop in Zeebrugge, a Belgian port city and popular transit point for migrants and refugees, and bought a lottery scratchcard.
He paid 5 euros for it and ended up winning a whopping 250,000 euros ($270,000). He was so stunned that he had a friend verify the prize, and then they both double-checked with the shop owner. He had won 250,000 euros and his life was about to change for the better. Or so he thought…
The 28-year-old lottery winner is an undocumented immigrant in Belgium. He came to the European country from Algeria with nothing, no luggage, no money and no papers. That last one is actually the thing preventing him from claiming his life-changing prize, as he has no way to prove his identity, which is a mandatory step required by the Belgium National Lottery.
“My client is in an illegal situation, he has no papers and no bank account,” Alexander Verstraete, a lawyer for the 28-year-old, told the AFP news agency.
“We are looking for those documents that can prove his identity. He will have to contact his family in Algeria.”
In order to make things easier for himself, the lucky winner sent some friends to claim the prize on his behalf.
He just gave them the scratchcard and sent them on their way, ignoring one minor detail – the Zeebrugge store he had bought the lottery ticket from had security cameras, and the man in the footage looked nothing like the claimants.
They ended up spending a night in jail until the actual winner showed up with his lawyer to explain the situation.
The lucky card is now being held by a court in the town of Bruges, and authorities have reportedly promised not to deport the Algerian man before he can claim his prize. If or when the 28-year-old man gets his identification papers in order, he first has to travel to the lottery authority headquarters to be verified.
He must also have a bank account opened in his name and a legal address.
The scratchcard expires in one year, so the winner only has 11 months left to claim it, but his lawyer claims that it’s doable. After all, it would be a shame to let such a life-changing opportunity pass him by.
“Maybe you have one chance in a million to win 250,000 euros,” Verstraete said. “So he has very much luck indeed.”
The queues formed early each morning outside the Russian embassy in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.
Drawn by rumours on social media, young men and old, many with their military records in hand, arrived with hopes of fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
What began as a trickle of volunteers swelled over two weeks to scores, two neighbourhood residents told Reuters.
On Tuesday, Reuters reporters saw several hundred men registering with Ethiopian security guards outside the embassy. The guards recorded their names and asked for proof of military service.
There is no evidence that any Ethiopians have been sent to Ukraine, nor is it clear if any ever will be.
A man who came out of the embassy and addressed the volunteers in Russian through an interpreter said Russia had enough forces for now, but that they would be contacted when they were needed.
The Russian embassy did not respond to questions from Reuters about the man's identity or whether Russia was deploying Ethiopian volunteers to Ukraine. It issued a statement later on Tuesday saying that it was not recruiting fighters, and that the Ethiopians who showed up outside were well-wishers expressing "solidarity and support for the Russian Federation".
The Ethiopian foreign ministry welcomed the Russian statement for what it called "refuting the unfounded reports of recruitment for the Russian Armed Forces" but did not respond to Reuters questions. Neither did the Russian foreign ministry.
Ukraine's embassy in Addis Ababa referred questions to the Ethiopian authorities.
Ethiopia has called on all sides in the war to exercise restraint and did not vote on a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine which Russia calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise the country.
But many in Ethiopia have voiced solidarity with Russia, which has enjoyed close relations with the Horn of Africa nation since the Soviet era.
Social media rumours of a $2,000 payment to join up and the possibility of work in Russia after the war tantalised some of the men in the queues. Many parts of Ethiopia are riven by conflict and annual inflation hovers around 30%.
"I am willing to support the Russia government and, in return, once I get out, I will get benefits," Leta Kibru told Reuters outside the embassy, where he returned on Tuesday to check on what he said was his application.
"Living in Ethiopia is becoming difficult," said the 30-year-old street vendor, who said he had retired from the Ethiopian army in 2018 and now sells clothing and mobile phones. "What I need is to live in Europe."
Leta said he had heard about a $2,000 payout from friends who had registered before him. Two others in the queues this week said they had seen posts on Facebook saying the embassy was signing up recruits.
Reuters was not able to find any posts on the subject from official sources or confirm any such offer.
The rumours followed news reports in March that Russian President Vladimir Putin had given the green light for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russian-backed rebels to fight in Ukraine, although Reuters has not been able to confirm that any have been sent there.
"The reason I want to go to Russia is not to fight Ukraine but it is because I am not benefiting from my country," said Binyam Woldetsadik, a 40-year-old security guard who said he served in Ethiopia's 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea.
"I'd rather be a national of a different country."
By late Wednesday morning, when Binyam showed up, the number of volunteers outside the Russian embassy had dwindled to around 20. A guard told him the embassy was no longer accepting registrations, he said.
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The government of Rwanda on Thursday confirmed that it had signed a “bold new partnership” with the UK under which some people seeking refugee protection in Britain will be transferred to the central African country while awaiting processing, the New York Press News has reported.
The announcement comes ahead of a speech in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson will pledge to tackle clandestine migration, particularly in small boats across the English Channel, which has been seen as a significant political problem for his government.
Ministers will also announce plans for a new multimillion-pound processing centre at RAF Linton, a base in North Yorkshire, in an acknowledgment that not all asylum seekers will be sent 4,000 miles away.
However, the Rwanda deal, which has echoes of Australia’s policy of holding clandestine migrants in offshore processing centres, will cause significant controversy because of the human rights implications of removing people seeking asylum.
Rwanda said it would receive an “upfront investment” of £120mn under the deal, which would “fund opportunities for Rwandans and migrants”, including secondary qualifications, vocational and skills training, language lessons, and higher education.
The deal represents the latest effort by the UK under home secretary Priti Patel to deter irregular migration by reducing the rights of those who breach immigration law to reach the UK. It is expected to lead to the transfer of thousands of would-be migrants to the east African country.
The UK detected 28,526 people arriving in the UK via small boats in 2021, a record for peace time. In November, 27 would-be refugees drowned when their boat foundered off the coast of France.
Powers to process migrants overseas are contained in the nationality and borders bill making its way through parliament.
Proposals to process asylum seekers overseas have caused controversy because they contradict longstanding interpretations of the UK’s obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. This has been seen as obliging countries not to penalise people who breach immigration law to reach their country to make an asylum application.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said on Thursday that it could not comment on the deal but stressed that it “does not support the externalisation of asylum states’ obligations”.
“This includes measures taken by states to transfer asylum-seekers and refugees to other countries, with insufficient safeguards to protect their rights, or where this leads to the shifting rather than the sharing of responsibilities to protect refugees,” it added.
Kigali called the deal, signed between Patel and Rwandan foreign minister Vincent Biruta, the Rwanda-UK Migration and Economic Development Partnership. Rwanda said the agreement would address the “urgent humanitarian crisis” of widespread clandestine migration flows “by tackling its root”.
“By relocating migrants to Rwanda and investing in personal development and employment for migrants, our nations are taking bold steps to address the imbalance in global opportunities which drives illegal migration, while dismantling the incentive structures which empower criminal gangs and endanger innocent lives,” Rwanda said. “The partnership will disrupt the business model of organised crime gangs and deter migrants from putting their lives at risk.
“Migrants will be integrated into communities across the country” and be entitled to “full protection” under local law, equal access to employment, and enrolment in healthcare and social care services, it added.
Rwanda has a tradition of welcoming refugees, and currently hosts about 130,000, mainly from neighbouring Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Simon Hart, Welsh secretary, told Sky News that Rwanda was an “up and coming economy” that had “a very good record with migrants”.
“It’s an arrangement which I think suits both countries very well and provides the best opportunities for economic migrants, for those who have been in the forefront of this particular appalling problem for so long now,” he said. “I think that this arrangement has the potential to be a really good step forward and a really humane step forward.”
The deal was strongly criticised by the UK opposition and groups working with refugees.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, described the proposal as “a desperate and shameful . . . attempt to distract from his own law breaking”, referring to the “partygate” scandal.
“It is an unworkable, unethical and extortionate policy that would cost the UK taxpayer billions of pounds during a cost of living crisis and would make it harder not easier to get fast and fair asylum decisions,” she added.
Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, a charity, called the deal a “grubby cash-for-people plan”, which he said would be a “cowardly, barbaric and inhumane way” to treat people fleeing persecution and war.
“Our so-called ‘Global Britain’ is offshoring its responsibilities on to Europe’s former colonies instead of doing our fair share to help some of the most vulnerable people on the planet,” Naor Hilton said.
The plan will also come under scrutiny because it involves the UK sending asylum seekers to a country whose human rights record has been a subject of intense controversy. In July last year, Rita French, the UK’s international ambassador for human rights, criticised Rwanda’s record in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council.
Human rights activists also criticise Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, for brooking little political dissent. He won the 2017 presidential election with 98.6 per cent of the vote.
France votes on Sunday (today) in the first round of a presidential election, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen posing an unexpected threat to President Emmanuel Macron's re-election hopes, Reuters has reported.
Until just weeks ago, opinion polls pointed to an easy win for the pro-European Union, centrist Macron, who was boosted by his active diplomacy over Ukraine, a strong economic recovery and the weakness of a fragmented opposition.
But his late entry into the campaign, with only one major rally that even his supporters found underwhelming, and his focus on an unpopular plan to increase the retirement age, have dented the president's ratings, along with a steep rise in inflation.
In contrast, the anti-immigration, eurosceptic far-right Le Pen has toured France confidently, all smiles, her supporters chanting "We will win! We will win!". She has been boosted by a months-long focus on cost of living issues and a big drop in support for her rival on the far-right, Eric Zemmour.
For sure, opinion polls still see Macron leading the first round and winning a runoff against Le Pen on April 24, but several surveys now say this is within the margin of error.
Voting starts at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) and ends at 1800 GMT, at which time the first exit polls, will be published. Such polls are usually very reliable in France.
"We are ready, and the French are with us," Le Pen told cheering supporters in a rally on Thursday, urging them to cast a ballot for her to deliver "the fair punishment which those who have governed us so badly deserve."
Macron, 44 and in office since 2017, spent the last days of campaigning trying to make the point that Le Pen's programme has not changed despite efforts to soften her image and that of her National Rally party.
"Her fundamentals have not changed: it's a racist programme that aims to divide society and is very brutal," he told Le Parisien newspaper.
Le Pen rejects allegations of racism and says her policies would benefit all French people, independently of their origins.
RUNOFF RISKS FOR MACRON
Assuming that Macron and Le Pen go through to the runoff, the president faces a problem: many left-wing voters have told pollsters that, unlike in 2017, they would not cast a ballot for Macron in the runoff purely to keep Le Pen out of power.
Macron will need to persuade them to change their minds and vote for him in the second round.
Sunday's vote will show who the unusually high number of late undecided voters will pick, and whether Le Pen, 53, can exceed opinion poll predictions and come out top in the first round.
"Marine Le Pen has never been this close to winning a presidential election," Jean-Daniel Levy, of Harris Interactive pollsters, said of Le Pen's third run at the Elysee Palace.
Supporters of hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, running third according to opinion polls, hope for another kind of surprise, and have called on left-wing voters of all stripes to switch to their candidate and send him into the runoff.
Macron and Le Pen agree the outcome is wide open.
"Everything is possible," Le Pen told supporters on Thursday, while earlier in the week Macron warned his followers not to discount a Le Pen win.
"Look at what happened with Brexit, and so many other elections: what looked improbable actually happened," he said.
An unnamed 61-year-old man in German reportedly got 90 doses of Covid-19 vaccine injected into his body so he could make money selling vaccination certificates to people who didn’t want to get vaccinated, oddity central has reported.
The man from the eastern German city of Magdeburg, whose name was not released, allegedly managed to receive up to 90 shots of Covid-19 vaccine at various vaccination centers in the eastern state of Saxony for months, before being caught earlier this month. He was finally discovered when he came to a vaccination center in Eilenburg, Saxony for the second day in a row, asking to get a Covid-19 jab. It turns out the man kept getting Covid-19 shots in order to sell forged vaccination cards with real vaccine batch numbers to people not wanting to get vaccinated themselves.
According to information obtained by the Freie Presse newspaper, the 61-year-old man got vaccinated up to three times a day, racking up no less than 87 coronavirus vaccinations in the state of Saxony alone. It’s unclear what, if any, effects the 90 doses of Covid-19 vaccine, which were from a different brand, may have on the man’s body in the long term.
A police report made available to the media suggests that every time the man entered a vaccination site, he brought a new, blank vaccination document with him. Then, after getting the shot, he removed the pages with the information about the vaccine batch numbers and sold them to vaccine opponents who wanted to enjoy the freedom of having proof of vaccination.
The unnamed man always registered for the vaccination appointments using his own name and birthdate, but never presented his health insurance card at the appointments, as that would have raised suspicion.
This isn’t the first time we cover the topic of multiple Covid-19 vaccinations. Back in January, we featured the story of an 83-year-old man who received 11 vaccine doses, and they were feeling excellent. Then there was the guy who got five doses of vacine injected into his body in 3 days.
The suspect was not detained but is under investigation for unauthorized issuance of vaccination cards and document forgery.
Six Nigerians have been blacklisted by the United States of America, USA, following their support for Boko Haram insurgents, in addition to the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons.
This was disclosed in a statement by the spokesperson of the American Department of State, Ned Price which gave the identities of the blacklisted Nigerians as: Abdurrahman Musa, Salihu Adamu, Bashir Yusuf, Muhammed Isa, Ibrahim Alhassan, and Surajo Muhammad in a Penpushing report.
“The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added Nigerian nationals Abdurrahman Musa, Salihu Adamu, Bashir Yusuf, Muhammed Isa, Ibrahim Alhassan, and Surajo Muhammad to the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons”, the statement reads.
‘The six Nigerians were blacklisted for financing the activities of the terrorists group, Boko Haram, who have in at least the past 10 years been responsible for insecurity in Northeastern Nigeria as well as in neighbouring countries’.
The statement reads, "it is on record that, the group’s activities have caused over 100,000 deaths in Northern Nigeria since 2009, according to official figures, noting that the American action follows the United Arab Emirates’ prosecution and conviction of the individuals for supporting terrorism.
“Pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of,
"The Department of State designated Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organisation on November 14, 2013.
The six persons were convicted by an Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over alleged funding of the terrorist group, while two of the convicts, Surajo Muhammad and Salihu Adamu, were sentenced to life imprisonment
The remaining four, Ibrahim Alhassan, AbdurRahman Musa, Bashir Yusuf and Muhammad Isa were jailed for 10 years each.