Niger’s government has announced plans to ramp up military presence in a region in which more than 100 civilians were killed in an attack by gunmen over the weekend.

Niger aims to permanently set up a company in the affected province, said the commander in charge, Mamane Sani.

Sani spoke after visiting the site of Saturday’s attack on two villages near the border with Mali together with Prime Minister Brigi Rafini.

He said more than 100 people were killed in the attack on two villages – Tchombangou and Zaroumdareye – with around 30 others injured.

According to Sani, no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Terrorist groups that have pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda or the militant group, Islamic State (IS), are active in Niger and other countries in the region.

The government has little control over the desert-like expanses outside the cities, a fact exploited by both jihadist groups and criminal networks.

Niger is one of the most important transit countries for African migrants, who want to reach Europe via the Mediterranean.

Together with Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso, Niger is part of the G5 Sahel group that has pledged to fight terrorist groups. (dpa/NAN)

A dialysis patient is the first person in the world to receive the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine outside a clinical trial.

Brian Pinker, 82, received the jab at Oxford University hospital in Oxford at 7:30 am (0730 GMT), according to Britain’s National Health Service.

Pinker, who is from Oxford, said he was proud to be receiving the jab in his home city, which is 82 kilometres north of London.

“I am so pleased to be getting the COVID-19 vaccine today and I’m really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford,” he said.

“The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year.”

It comes after the vaccine was approved first by Britain’s regulatory body, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), for emergency usage on Dec. 30.

Britain began its mass vaccination programme in early December with the Pfizer/BioNTech injection. (dpa/NAN)

Seventeen more U.S. soldiers and six civilians in South Korea tested positive for COVID-19, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said on Monday.

The USFK said in a statement that 23 USFK-affiliated individuals were confirmed with COVID-19 after arriving in South Korea between Dec. 16 and 31.

Eight service members and one dependent arrived at Osan Air Base on U.S. government-chartered flights from the United States on Dec. 16, 21 and 29.

The Osan Air Base is located in Pyeongtaek, 70 km south of Seoul.

Nine service members, three dependents, one contractor and one retiree arrived at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on international commercial flights on Dec. 16, 19, 21, 27, 28, 29 and 31.

The confirmed patients have been transferred to designated isolation facilities at the U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys and Osan Air Base, both of which are located in Pyeongtaek.

The total number of infections among the USFK-affiliated personnel rose to 509, according to Yonhap news agency.

The COVID-19 resurged here since November.

In the latest tally, South Korea reported 1,020 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 64,264.

The daily caseload rose above 1,000 in three days, hovering above 100 for 58 days since Nov. 8. (Xinhua/NAN)

South Korean shares touched a record high as it began trading in 2021, driven by major heavyweights, as more investors bet on a swifter economic recovery.

The won hit its strongest level since mid-June 2018, while the benchmark bond yield fell.

The KOSPI soared 58.72 points, or 2.04 per cent, to 2,932.19 by 0245 GMT, set for a sixth straight gain, after ending 2020 up 30.8 per cent.

South Korea’s exports expanded at their fastest pace in 26 months in December, on robust chip demand and improved global demand, providing additional signals that the recovery is on track despite resurgences in the novel coronavirus.

Chip giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, surged as much as 4.2 per cent and 5.9 per cent to their record highs.

Shares of Hyundai Motor Co., the nation’s biggest carmaker, surged to a near four-year high, while its affiliates also jumped on hopes for electric vehicle (EV) boost this year.

South Korean battery maker, SK Innovation’s shares soared as much as 15.5 per cent to their highest since October 2018 on a bullish outlook for EV battery demand and hopes for its construction of a battery factory in Georgia.

Foreigners were net sellers of 35.9 billion won ($33.19 million) worth of shares on the mainboard.

The won was quoted at 1,080.7 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.52 per cent higher than its previous close and the strongest since June 12, 2018.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,081.4 per dollar, up 0.3 per cent from the previous day, while in non-deliverable forward trading, its one-month contract was quoted at 1,080.5.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.02 points to 111.49.

The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 0.2 basis points to 0.972 per cent.

($1 = 1,081.5900 won) (Reuters/NAN)

Botswana announced on Sunday extension of nighttime curfew up to Jan. 31 following the emergence of a new and more transmissible strain of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Minister of Health and Wellness Edwin Dikoloti made the announcement via national television, saying the curfew, enacted by the president on Dec. 23, would continue to be enforced between 20:00 and 04:00 (1800-0200 GMT) daily.

Virus-related risks have increased in Botswana according to evidence submitted by the director of health services, the minister said, stressing that curfew was an effective way of curbing rising coronavirus infections.

Dikoloti that rising COVID-19 cases during the Christmas and New Year holidays showed that people have not been strictly abiding by the set regulations to prevent spreading of the virus. (Xinhua/NAN)

By Harrison Arubu
The 117th U.S. Congress took office on Sunday with Nancy Pelosi securing re-election as Speaker of the House of Representatives with a narrow voting margin.

Pelosi, 80, retained the position after garnering 216 votes to beat her rival, Kevin McCarthy of the Republican Party, who secured 209 votes.

Five fellow Democrats chose not to support Pelosi. While two voted for lawmakers who were not running, three others simply voted “present”, according to ABC news.

This will be the California lawmaker’s 4th term (non-consecutive) as speaker, and she remains the only woman to have ever held the office.

The Democratic Party lost 11 seats in the Nov. 3 elections thus narrowing its majority in the House to 222-212.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence swore in members of the new Senate, whose control has not been determined due to two pending run-off elections in Georgia.

The Republicans are currently leading with 50-48 seats, and should the Democrats win the two vacant seats on Tuesday, the Vice President, who is the chairman of the senate, becomes a tie-breaking voter.

On Wednesday, the two chambers will hold a joint session to certify the election of President-elect Joe Biden before his inauguration on Jan. 20.

It promises to be the first major test of the new Congress where 11 Republican senators, led by Ted Cruz (Texas), have vowed to vote against Biden’s victory in swing states disputed by Trump.

But in a statement on Sunday, a bipartisan group of 10 senators said the 2020 election was over, and urged their colleagues to certify Biden’s election.

By Harrison Arubu  

President Donald Trump, on Sunday, said the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States was exaggerated.

In a tweet, Trump blamed the alleged exaggeration on the “ridiculous method of determination” by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low.

“‘When in doubt, call it COVID.’ Fake News!”, the tweet reads.

But health experts, including the country’s top infectious disease professional, Dr Anthony Fauci, quickly countered the president’s claim.

“There’s no running away from the numbers”, Fauci said in an interview with ABC News shortly after Trump’s tweet.

“It’s something that we absolutely got to grasp and get our arms around and turn that inflexion down by very intensive adherence to the public health measures, uniformly, throughout the country, with no exception.

“The deaths are real deaths. All you need to do is go out into the trenches. Go to the hospitals and see what the health care workers are dealing with.

“They are under very stressful situations in many areas of the country. The hospital beds are stretched, people are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel, who are exhausted,” he said.

As of Saturday, the country’s COVID-19 cases had topped 20.4 million with  350,775 deaths, according to John Hopkins University.

The country also set another daily record of 299,087 cases and 2,398 fatalities on Saturday.

Also, reacting to Trump’s claim, U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, said he had no reason to doubt the country’s Covid-19 fatality data.

Meanwhile, Trump in another tweet on Sunday, complained that the U.S. media was not giving him credit for his work on the pandemic.

“Somehow Dr Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job.

“Yet, he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?”, he said. (NAN)

Three people were killed and 66 others injured after a passenger train derailed in central Tanzania on Saturday evening, said the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) on Sunday.

The train was ferrying 720 passengers from the country’s port city Dar es Salaam to up-country regions of Tabora, Katavi, Kigoma and Mwanza when it derailed 58 kilometres from the capital Dodoma, the TRC said in a statement.

It added that six of the 12 wagons derailed at around 7.00 p.m. local time in the Kigwe-Bahi area.

TRC officials, along with security staff, were investigating the cause of the accident, said the statement.

TRC Director-General, Masanja Kadogosa, told Xinhua over the phone that heavy rains in the area could be the culprit. (Xinhua/NAN)