By Lizzy Okoji

Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama says with Nigeria’s Amb. Bankole Adeoye as the African Union’s (AU) Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, the fight against terror in the ECOWAS sub-region will be strengthened.

Onyeama said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

The Minister said he was optimistic that the Nigerian ambassador, who the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government has endorsed, would win the election to the AU position coming up on Feb. 6 and Feb. 7.

“Nigeria has a lot to benefit  because we can leverage more easily on the African Union to also support our fight against terrorism in West Africa, including Nigeria.

“And to support more coherently the multinational Joint Task Force of which Nigeria is a leading member, a coalition of countries against Boko Haram.

“So the very concrete benefit is that we would now be able to have greater cohesion between what the African Union is doing on peace and security and what ECOWAS and Nigeria is doing.

“And I think that is something that is not as strong as it should be now,” Onyeama said.

Onyeama described Adeoye’s candidacy as a unique development given the fact that  the ECOWAS leaders “have thrown all their weight behind him and endorsed him as ECOWAS’ candidate.”

“It has been very good, a unique situation there because all the ECOWAS countries had candidates, most of them very good candidates.

“And at the level of the Presidents of all those countries they agreed to withdraw all their candidates and just present Nigeria almost as a sub-regional candidate for the position of political Affairs, Peace and Security.

“Now, one of the main reasons being for West Africa, Peace and Security is number one priority and they also feel that Nigeria as a country has the wherewithal to take advantage of that position as commissioner, to make a difference for not just West Africa but for Africa.

“So that is very very good and the voting is today and tomorrow.

“So we are hopeful because the other sub-regions, Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa also have candidates. So we still have to battle.

“But the fact that we have the whole of West Africa behind us gives us a very good chance of securing this position,” Onyeama added.

Adeoye is Nigeria’s former member to the African and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

He was Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti between 2017 to 2020.

Adeoye was ranked overall best candidate in an independent assessment by the AU panel of eminent Africans. (NAN)

Two tigers escaped from a zoo in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province, with one of the animals killing an employee who tried to stop them, according to local media reports on Saturday.

The white tigers ran away from Zinka Zoo in Singkawang district on Friday after a rain-triggered landslide and subsequent flooding damaged their enclosure, according to zoo official Elka Surya.

“The landslide created a big hole in the tigers’ enclosure, allowing them to escape,’’ Elka said, according to the state Antara news agency.

An employee tried to stop the tigers but was attacked and killed, Elka said.

One of the tigers was shot and killed on Saturday morning, CNN Indonesia reported.

A team is searching for the other one, it added.

“We used a tranquillizer but it didn’t work. We shot it because we feared it was running to residential areas,’’ local conservation chief Sadtata Noor Adirahmanta told the broadcaster. (dpa/NAN)

Myanmar resumed the vaccination programme against COVID-19 across the country on Friday, according to an announcement from the Health and Sports Ministry.

The announcement said the country started vaccinating about 103,142 front line medical staff and volunteers since Jan. 27, in the first phase of the nationwide vaccination programme.

The group of people who will be given priority to be inoculated starting from Friday includes union ministers, deputy ministers and union-level officials as well as senior government employees.

Others are; the elderly over the age of 65 who are residing in townships under the stay at-home order, former union ministers, deputy ministers and regional or state government members.

Myanmar received the first batch of 1.5 million doses of Covishield vaccine and 30 million doses of Covishield vaccine will arrive in Myanmar soon, the ministry said.

The Health and Sport Ministry has been arranging to vaccinate about 38.35 million people aged above 18 years within this year.

Myanmar has reported 141,104 COVID-19 cases and 3,163 deaths as of Thursday, the ministry’s latest data showed.

COVID-19 was first detected in Myanmar on March 23 2020 and over 2.43 million samples have been tested for the virus so far. (Xinhua/NAN)

By Joan Odafe

A company, Food Doctors Nigeria Limited (FDNL), says it has invented a “cold bike” to aide safe transportation and distribution of vaccines in Nigeria.

The Team Lead of FDNL, Mr Awesu Joseph, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.

Joseph, a food safety consultant, said the invention was inspired by the need for a sustainable cold chain system that would ensure safe and speedy delivery of temperature-sensitive goods, such as vaccines.

He said the aim of the invention was to solve cold chain logistics problem in Nigeria.

“We started a fruit break initiative where we supply fruit salad to four schools in Ibadan.

“We needed safe and speedy delivery, and to deliver the fruits before 10:00 a.m. daily, at three to one degrees Celsius.

“Temperature is critical to food safety; we searched online but couldn’t find a solution.

“So we decided to design a cold bike which will find application across the food, agriculture and vaccine value chain,” he said.

Joseph explained that cold chain logistics was expensive in Nigeria, particularly as the major players focused more on pharmaceutical products.

He said vaccine potency was subject to cold chain logistics and unavailability of dry ice in the North-East region, rural and riverine communities posed a challenge to the success of vaccination programmes.

“Cold bike has cooling capacity of minus 22°C; it comes with a temperature data logger which is used for cold trace.

“The cooling capacity can be charged using direct current (DC) battery charger. It also comes with an extra charger.

“The cooler is detachable and can be connected to any kind of energy source such as 54 watts and 12 by 24 DC.

“It has a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracker for real time tracking of the bike,” he said.

Joseph said that the bike could be used to transport the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the recommended temperature to the remote areas of the country.

He said apart from the vaccines distribution, it would also help in data collection, monitoring and evaluation of effectiveness as well as patients’ details. (NAN)

COVID-19 vaccination should take place “in all countries and among all populations” to realise global containment of the pandemic, Naledi Pandor, chairperson of the African Union (AU) Executive Council said.

Pandor, who is also Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa, made the remarks during the opening session of the 38th ordinary session of the AU Executive Council.

“The most important public health measure to prevent COVID-19 is a vaccine.

“For the past year, efforts have been underway to find vaccines that are both safe, affordable and effective,’’ Pandor told the virtual session of the AU Executive Council meeting, which gathered ministers of the 55-member pan-African bloc.

“We finally have achieved the goal, with a number of vaccines having undergone clinical trials and passed stringent safety tests.

The production of the vaccine has begun in earnest,’’ she said.

Noting that vaccines are costly, Pandor, however, stressed that all countries must get vaccines and must get them speedily.

“ It is vital to the global containment of COVID-19 that vaccination takes place in all countries and among all populations.’’

“We are all aware of the challenges of accessing vaccines for the Global South, particularly for Africa,’’ she added.

According to the South African minister, the developed North, which has substantial financial resources, has purchased the largest stocks, “while we in Africa are struggling to get our fair share.’’

“The painful irony is that some of the clinical trials for these vaccines were carried out in Africa.

In other cases, vaccines are packaged right here on the continent, yet we struggle to access them for our populations,’’ she added.

On Jan. 14, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairperson of AU, announced that AU had secured a provisional 270 million COVID-19 vaccine doses on behalf of its member states.

As the African continent strives to get adequate COVID-19 vaccine under the leadership of the bloc, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 28, called on Africa’s private sector to support the continental ambition in terms of securing adequate COVID-19 vaccine. (Xinhua/NAN)

As many as 303 doctors died due to the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in Indonesia, according to the Indonesia Medical Association on Thursday.

Among the 303 doctors, 169 were general practitioners, 129 specialists, and five resident doctors.

The oldest doctors who died of COVID-19 were aged between 81 and 85 old, and the number stands at six.

The youngest were aged between 28 and 30, and the number stands at 11.

January 2021 is the month with the highest fatality of doctors due to the pandemic which stood at 57, while in December 2020 the virus killed 55 doctors in the country.

The provinces with the highest death toll of doctors due to the pandemic are East Java (60), followed by Jakarta (44), Central Java (44), West Java (34), and North Sumatra (27). (Xinhua/NAN)

Health authorities in Australia on Thursday said they were aiming at vaccinating the entire population against COVID-19 by October, saying they had secured 150 million doses of vaccine.

According to Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, Australia had secured an additional 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which was approved for use in the country late in January, bringing the total doses of vaccine secured to 150 million.

The total number includes 20 million Pfizer doses, 53.8 million Oxford/AstraZeneca doses, 51 million Novavax doses and 25.5 as part of the vaccine distribution alliance Covax, Health Minister Greg Hunt said in a joint press conference.

“We’re starting initially with Pfizer at the end of this month, and then with AstraZeneca in March and later we’ll be scaling up with the aim to vaccinate the population by October,” said Brendan Murphy, head of the Scientific Industry Technical Advisory Group on Vaccines.

Hunt said AstraZeneca and Pfizer confirmed that at this point in time the vaccine roll-out remained on track, subject to shipping.

The health minister also said all the people living in Australia would receive the vaccine.

Australia, a nation of around 25 million people, has recorded around 28,500 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, significantly a lower per capita rate than most developed countries.

The national death toll currently stands at 909 and no deaths were recorded in January.

Australia has taken a strict lockdown approach, alongside a system of rigorous testing and tracing to contain the virus. (dpa/NAN)

The Sri Lankan Government has rejected a UN report on human rights violations, claiming the report was “beyond their scope” and the content was “malicious,” a cabinet minister said on Wednesday.

Minister Udaya Gammanpila, reacting to a report compiled by the UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, said Sri Lanka’s detailed response will be made public at the human rights sessions in Geneva later this month.

“The government decided to reject the report as it has been prepared in violation of mandates given to the UN Human Rights Council,” Gammanpila said.

The UN report released on Jan. 27 warned that the failure of Sri Lanka to address past violations has significantly heightened the risk of human rights violations being repeated.

The Sri Lankan government had made no public statement since the report was released by the UN until Gammanpila made his views public at a news conference.

The UN has repeatedly called for a credible investigation into the allegations of war crimes during the final stages of a conflict with the Tamil rebels which ended in the northern part of the country in 2009.

The UN report said it was concerned about the appointment of senior military officials who were implicated in UN reports on alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the final years of the conflict.

Tamil politicians on Wednesday held a protest in the eastern province demanding the government investigates alleged war crimes as demanded by the UN. (dpa/NAN)

Harrison Arubu

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for urgent steps to address the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

A statement by his office on Tuesday evening said Guterres remained “seriously concerned” over the situation in the war-hit region.

The statement said he attached strong importance to the partnership between the Ethiopian government and the UN, through its Country Team, to address the “acute humanitarian needs of all affected populations”.

“He underlines the need for continued urgent steps to alleviate the humanitarian situation and extend the necessary protections to those at risk.

“In this context, the Secretary-General welcomes the positive engagement of the Government of Ethiopia during recent visits by senior UN officials.

“These engagements are undertaken in line with the Secretary-General’s call to the government for sustained, impartial and unimpeded humanitarian access to affected areas,” it said.

Ethiopia’s central government launched an offensive in November after the Tigray People’s Liberation Army (TPLA) seized military bases in the region in a secession attempt.

On Nov. 28, government troops captured the regional capital, Mekelle, ousting the TPLA, which had been Tigray’s ruling party for almost 30 years.

Guterres’ statement came amid reports that the Ethiopian government was denying the media and aid agencies access to the region.

Briefing newsmen on the situation on Monday, UN spokesman, Mr Stephane Guterres, said provision of humanitarian assistance continued to be challenged by “access constraints and administrative bureaucracy”.

“Access to essential services, livelihoods and cash remains restricted across large swathes of Tigray. 

“Two refugee camps remain inaccessible since November, hunger is increasing and the health system has reportedly collapsed,” Dujarric said citing reports by UN aid teams.

Earlier on Tuesday, opposition parties in Tigray reportedly warned that the crisis would soon degenerate into a “humanitarian disaster” if aid was not delivered urgently.

The parties said people were already dying from hunger and urged the international community to intervene, reports the BBC.

But Ethiopia’s government said aid was being delivered and nearly 1.5 million people have been reached, the news outlet added.

No fewer than 200,000 people are said to have been displaced by the conflict in which about 100,000 Eritrean refugees sheltering in UN-run camps in the region are reportedly caught up.

The BBC quoted a UN refugee agency spokesperson as saying they had received reports that some of them were eating bark of trees and drinking water from puddles. (NAN)