Author: straightnewsng.com

After South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was booed at former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s memorial in Harare on Saturday as he took to the podium, he has apologised over xenophobic attacks on fellow Africans in his country, News24 reported. This came after widespread tensions and condemnations, over the looting of property and killing of some Nigerians and other Africans by South African locals. Ramaphosa acknowledged that there was a problem in his country, apologising to those caught in the sporadic violence that has sparked across parts of South Africa over the past two weeks. “I stand before you as a…

By Akanimo Sampson The Head of Technical with Malaria Consortium, a civic group for West and Central Africa, Helen Counihan, says antimicrobial resistance is a major global health challenge, affecting people, animals and the environment. According to her, it occurs when bacteria and other microbes change and become resistant to the drugs designed to kill them, resulting in common infections becoming much more difficult to treat. Diseases that would normally be easy to control or cure through the use of antibiotics suddenly become deadly. The drugs stop working. The rest of her testimony goes thus: Imagine you are a chicken…

Liverpool recovered from a shock Newcastle opener to open up a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League with a 3-1 win at Anfield, as Tottenham and Chelsea bounced back to form with big wins on Saturday. Tammy Abraham’s sensational form continued as the English forward scored a hat-trick as Chelsea romped to a 5-2 win at Wolves. Spurs were 4-0 up by half-time against Crystal Palace to record just their second win of the season as Son Heung-min scored twice, while Erik Lamela and an own goal from Patrick van Aanholt rounded off the scoring on a…

The main reason ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo handed over oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular to Cameroun has emerged. Bakassi peninsular, a 1,600-kilometre land boundary between Nigeria, near the city of Calabar in Cross River State, and the Rio del Ray estuary in Cameroon was ceded by British to Germany through the Anglo-German agreement of 1913 and Germany ceded it to France and then France ceded same to it (Cameroon). Following the legal battle between Nigeria and Cameroon, International Court of Justice at Hague ruled on October 10, 2002 that Bakassi belonged to Cameroon, and in 2008, Obasanjo officially ceded Bakassi to Cameroon by…

By Akanimo Sampson A new United Nations report says concerted global efforts are required to spread the rapidly expanding digital economy’s gains to the many people who currently reap little benefit from it. This coming as the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released its first-ever Digital Economy Report 2019. The report maps the flow, data and funds in the world’s digital economy, and outlines the enormous potential gains, possible development costs as more of the world moves, connects as well as buys online. Wealth creation in the digital economy is highly concentrated in the United States and…

By Akanimo Sampson Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, has challenged the world to reinvent the international order in a bid to salvage small island states that are on the frontline of the climate crisis, a war they did not start. “An international order that is not inclusive, or strongly rooted in fairness and moral legitimacy will fail to halt and reverse climate change,’’ Mottley said while delivering the prestigious 16th Raúl Prebisch Lecture at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Mottley is the first woman to lead the island nation and the second woman to deliver…

Professor Chukwuka Okonjo, Obi of Ogwashi Uku, Aniocha South local government area of Delta State in Nigeria and father of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, is dead. Okonjo died in the United States at 91. The late monarch, a professor of mathematics, ascended the throne of his ancestors in 2007. Following the completion of traditional rites, a new monarch has been crowned. Ngozi who announced this Friday in a Twitter said “The new monarch, Ifechukwude Chukuka Okonjo, is a financial management expert and CEO of Chevy Chase Consulting.”

“Full Moon tonight — “Friday the 13th”. Rare-ish. Occurring every one to two dozen years. Know what’s just as rare? A Full Moon on “Thursday the 12th”, but nobody makes movies about it,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist from New York City tweeted on Friday. So, Friday, September 13, 2019 marks full moon. The full moon has been associated with strange or insane behavior, including suicide, sleepwalking and violence. Straightnews delves into the ways the full moon supposedly affects mankind. Lily Feinn writes in Bustle “Here are the many ways that the full moon supposedly affects the human body. The…

By Akanimo Sampson Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has taken on some unnamed governors on the platform of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), alleging that most of them wear the face of Janus. Janus is a two-faced god in the mythology of ancient Rome. He did not also spay All Progressives Congress (APC) political potentates from the state for not attracting federal projects to Rivers in spite of their status as a big oil and gas state. By implications, Wike is unequivocally claiming that some PDP governors play the PDP card in the day and largely APC…

By Akanimo Sampson The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has unfolded what it considers as the best response to the disturbing challenges posed by climate change. According to the UN agency in its Commodities and Development Report 2019, economic and export diversification is the best response. The diversification could be horizontal, which entails venturing into new goods and sectors to reduce dependence on a narrow range of commodities, or vertical, which involves moving the value chain of a commodity up to increase its worth, says the report entitled “Commodity Dependence, Climate Change and the Paris Agreement”. According…