Category: BREAKING NEWS

A Kenyan senator is reported to have been sacked from parliament after attending a session while wearing a white suit stained red in an apparent menstrual activism campaign.

Gloria Orwoba, of the ruling coalition, is due to table a motion on a bill to provide free sanitary pads on Wednesday as part of efforts to end period poverty.

According to reports, senators disrupted Tuesday’s afternoon session to draw the Speaker’s attention to Ms Orwoba’s “inappropriate dress code”.

But the senator protested saying: “I am shocked that someone can stand here and say that the House has been disgraced because a woman has had her periods.”

Speaker Amason Kingi ordered the senator to go change her clothes before she could be readmitted to the chambers.

“Having periods is never a crime… Senator Gloria, I sympathise with you that you are going through the natural act of menstruation, you have stained your wonderful suit, I’m asking you to leave so that you go change and come back with clothes that are not stained,” the BBC quoted speaker in a report

Outside the chambers, Senator Orwoba confirmed the report to journalists saying “unfortunately I have been kicked out because I’m on my period and we are not supposed to show our period when we are on our period and that is the kind of period stigma girls and women are having outside…”

Thousands of Labour Party supporters welcomed the group’s presidential candidate, at a rally in Abuja on Thursday (Feb. 09).

Peter Obi is one of 18 seeking Nigeria’s highest office in the February 25 polls.

He pledged to support the country’s youth. Unemployment among ppl aged 15 to 34; stood at 35 per cent, as of the 2nd quarter of 2020.

“Nigerian youths, young people in Nigeria don’t know where the next meal will come. We have high level of youth unemployment, we would employ our youths, we would make them productive. We have vast land in the north where our youth will be engaged and they will be productive. Nigeria will feed itself, Nigeria will be a great nation again….

Muhamadu Buhari’s 2nd term was marked by a worsening security situation and the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, felt across the globe.

“The Nigeria that all of us have been dreaming of, the Nigeria that we leave here to run away to go and study abroad, (Peter) Obi is the man that will grant us that Nigeria that we all dream of and that’s why I am here to support him and also very confident that he is going to win his election,” Kingsley Inyamah a research analyst said.

“Obi himself motivated me to support him. When he came out and he was talking about himself, how he was accountable when he ruled Anambra State, the whole thing just captivated me, and I fell in love with him right on the spot,” Mirabel Onyewe, a student.

Since campaigning began last September, other top contenders have made pledges similar to Obi.

It remains uncertain how many Nigerians will cast a ballot, though as they battle a conjunctions of crises including a cash shortage.

Widespread tensions caused by a rift within Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christian church have resulted in the suspension of access to social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook, and Telegram.

The church, which recently denounced a splinter group in the country’s largest region as “illegal,” has accused Ethiopia’s government of interfering in its affairs. It has threatened to go forward with a rally on Sunday despite a government warning.

The division within the church, followed by the majority of Ethiopia’s more than 110 million people, came after church members in Oromia declared a new synod on Jan. 22, claiming a need to exercise their faith in local languages. The church ex-communicated several church officials who participated in the split.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has urged church members to solve their differences and said the government will not get involved. But many followers of the church are accusing the prime minister, an ethnic Oromo and a Protestant, of undermining the church and siding with the breakaway synod.

On Friday, the church said talks were ongoing between Abiy and the church patriarch over the controversy that has engulfed many parts of the country.

The internet observatory NetBlocks confirmed social media platforms had been “restricted in Ethiopia amid anti-government protests” as of Thursday evening.

Earlier in the week, several dozen cities and towns, mostly in Oromia and the outskirts of the capital, Addis Ababa, saw sometimes violent rallies.

On Friday, the government-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said at least eight people were killed by security forces in Shaashamane in the Oromia region on Saturday. It said many people were arrested.

The government in a statement Thursday accused unnamed groups of aiming to “shake the government using armed violence.” It said the government has begun “bringing to justice who are taking part in the movement.”

Four people were trapped after a gold mine collapsed in the early hours on Thursday in western Kenya.

The incident in Kakamega county initially saw 12 artisanal workers trapped for hours.

8 of the victims were rescued by the morning, following hours of digging by community members and they are said to be in stable condition.

The miners were operating at an aged mining tunnel and were unlicensed by the local government, according to the authorities, local news reported.

“What they are doing is risking their lives and most of the people here are mostly youth who are doing this work. Due to the unemployment problem, people are putting their hands on anything that can put food on their table,” Kakamega county commissioner John Ondego said.

He added that mining at night time will no longer be allowed.

Incidents of collapsed mines are rampant in parts of western Kenya.

In January this year, a gold mining company said that three workers have been killed after a blast in western Kenya and blamed illegal mining activities, the Associated Press reported.

Karebe gold mining company said in a statement late Monday that a wall built to prevent flooding and illegal incursion was blasted by illegal miners, causing an explosion.

Three other workers were injured and hospitalized for treatment. Their conditions weren’t immediately available.

In 2020, four miners were killed and 15 injured after a gold mine collapsed in Migori.

Contrary to earlier reports, former Newcastle United winger and Ghana international Christian Atsu is yet to be rescued from the rubble of the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syra.

Relatives of Ghanaian footballer Christian Atsu told Africanewsguru tv on Wednesday that they still had no news of the player playing for Turkish club Hatayspor after the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, despite initially reassuring information.

While the Ghanaian Embassy in Turkey and the Ghana Football Federation assured on Tuesday that the attacker had been found alive in the rubble of a collapsed building, Hatayspor coach Volkan Demire l and image agent d’Atsu said on Wednesday they were worried about the fate of the former Chelsea and Newcastle player.

“The news I have is not good, he has not yet been found under the rubble,” Demirel said in an audio message to Africanewsguru tv. “It’s a very distressing situation,” said Gaynor Fascione, Christian Atsu ‘s image agent, who is in contact with the player’s family in the United Kingdom.

“He is still missing. The club cannot find him among all the hospitals,” she told Africanewsguru tv. _”Everyone is trying to locate the medical centre where he might be.”_ Initially, Ghana’s ambassador to Ankara, Francisca Ashietey-Odunton, said on Tuesday that Christian Atsu had been found in Hatay.

“Christian Atsu was successfully rescued from the rubble of the collapsed building and is currently receiving treatment,” the Ghana Football Federation (GFA) wrote on Twitter.

The 31-year-old joined the Turkish club Hatayspor in September, based in the province of Hatay (south), near the epicentre of the violent earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday.

The earthquake, followed by powerful aftershocks, killed more than 11,200 people in Turkey and Syria, according to the latest official reports released on Wednesday, also leaving thousands injured and homeless in the freezing cold.

Atsu, 31 has played 107 games for Newcastle and had spells with Chelsea, Everton and Bournemouth.

He has won 65 caps for Ghana and joined Hatayspor in September after a season with Saudi Arabian team Al-Raed.