Yellow fever kills 250 in Angola

A yellow fever epidemic in Angola has killed at least 250 people since the end of December and continues to spread, stretching limited resources, doctors and officials said Tuesday.
The head of the Luanda pediatrics hospital, Mateus Campos, said 27 children died there on Monday alone, with 900 suspected cases turning up each day.
“We don’t have the human resources to cope,” Campos added.
Health ministry spokeswoman Adelaide de Carvalho told AFP that the ministry registered 76 suspect cases and 10 deaths in three days alone this month, but gave no overall toll.
A week ago the World Health Organisation put the death toll at 250 but some doctors believe the situation may be far worse.
There is no specific treatment for yellow fever, a viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes and found in tropical regions of Africa and Latin America’s Amazon region.
Authorities launched a mass vaccination campaign in February and the government urged residents to sterilise stagnant water before drinking it.
Luanda remains the worst-hit area, with nine of every 10 deaths registered in the city over the last days.
Critics such as surgeon Maurilio Luyela have blasted authorities for failing to upgrade public health facilities or pay doctors good wages.
“Doctors who graduate from university don’t join the public health sector because there isn’t enough money to pay them,” he told journalists.
Yellow fever vaccinations are routinely recommended for travellers to Angola, though the country had not previously seen a significant outbreak since 1986.
World Health Organization figures show there are an estimated 130,000 cases of yellow fever reported yearly, causing 44,000 deaths worldwide each year, with 90 percent occurring in Africa.
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One gunman dead in Brussels anti-terror raid linked to November Paris attacks

One gunman was killed by police in a Brussels apartment on Monday evening after an anti-terrorist raid by Belgian and French officers investigating November’s Paris attacks was met with heavy-weapon gunfire that left four police officers wounded.
An official said the man’s body was found when police stormed an apartment at the centre of the raid where suspects had opened fire on police.
A joint French and Belgian anti-terrorism squad investigating the Paris attacks that killed 130 people had arrived to search an apartment building in the quiet neighbourhood of Forest in the south-west of Brussels at about 2.30pm.
The police came under gunfire from “heavy weapons”, according to the French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve. Three Belgian police officers were wounded in the initial shootout, with one in a serious condition after being hit in the ear and head according to Belgian media outlets. Another burst of gunfire reportedly took place around two hours later. Further gunfire was heard after 6pm. In total, four officers were wounded in the various shootouts.
During the afternoon, armed French and Belgian police had launched a manhunt in the quiet neighbourhood of Forest as they sought two suspected gunmen who were believed to have gone on the run after opening fire and wounding the officers.

A police sniper takes position on a rooftop during the operation. Photograph: Laurent Dubrule/EPA

“Police were fired at,” Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor, told AFP, adding that the search was “linked to the Paris attacks investigation”.
“Two individuals apparently barricaded themselves inside a home,” Forest mayor Marc-Jean Ghyssels told local media.
In the mid-afternoon, a police spokeswoman told French television that gunmen were at large.
Dozens of armed police in balaclavas armed with submachine guns cordoned off the scene. Security services blocked roads and told residents to stay indoors. Two primary schools and creches close to the scene of the shooting were in lockdown until the children could be safely collected by parents. Journalists were asked not to publish videos or photos that identified police officers.
Police cordoned off a wide area and local trams were suspended. The incident took place across the street from an Audi auto factory and the train lines leading to the Gare du Midi railway station where Eurostar trains to London and Thalys trains to Paris run from.

In the early evening, on one approach to the scene, four police and one van blocked off the street, while two helicopters buzzed overhead.
The police cordons raised memories among commentators of the five-days of lock-down imposed on Brussels two weeks after the Paris attacks, when authorities warned of an imminent threat of violence in Brussels during the ongoing manhunt for suspects.
But beyond the wide security cordon, the broader area of Forest attempted to get on with their lives. In early evening, around 50 people had gathered but life carried on as normal. In nearby streets a couple sat in the laundrette and a woman walked her dog.

Locals were shocked to kind the sleepy neighborhood at the centre of a major police operation. “It’s always quiet here, it is peaceful, “ said Nathanael Dantas, a 21-year-old student, who said he was unable to return home. “I’ve never seen so many police here, against the blare of sirens. But police allowed one family with three small children to pass through the cordon and go home.
“It is a very calm peaceful area,” said one 17-year-old, standing in her parents’ shop. “This is a shock for everyone.” Outside television cameras crowded around the police cordon.
“Forest is a calm, peaceful place. I’ve never heard of gunfire in this neighborhood, said Maria, 29, pushing a buggy, as she waited outside the police cordon, unable to visit her mother who lives inside. “Now I am afraid, I am afraid for my little girl.”
The November attacks in Paris are believed to have been in part prepared and coordinated in Brussels.

Belgian security forces are still hunting suspects and associates of Brussels-based militants involved in the attacks in Paris on 13 November in which 130 people were killed.

But police confirmed that the raid was not connected to Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old French national who grew up in Brussels and is one of the prime suspects in the Paris attacks.
Abdeslam, believed to have played a key role in organising the Paris attacks, has been on the run since November. He left Paris in the hours after the attacks, shortly after his brother had blown himself up as part of the terrorist assault. Abdeslam fled across the border to Belgium, helped by friends. He is believed to have stayed for a time in Belgium but has not yet been found.
“The operation was not targeting Salah Abdeslam. It was aimed at people connected to one or several of the 11 Belgians who have been charged,” a police source confirmed to AFP. Eight of the 11 people charged are still in detention.
Abdeslam’s associate Mohamed Abrini, who like him grew up in the Molenbeek area of Brussels, is also still at large.
Abdeslam was reportedly holed up in an apartment in the Schaerbeek district in north Brussels for three weeks after the Paris attacks. In January, Belgian authorities said they had found two apartments and a house used by Abdeslam and other suspects in the run up to the attacks.
A fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam was found in the apartment along with traces of explosives, possible suicide belts and a drawing of a person wearing a large belt.
Authorities also found DNA traces from Bilal Hadfi, another of the attackers who blew himself up with a bomb vest near the French national stadium during the November attacks.
The other premises identified were a flat in Charleroi – a town south of Brussels where a major airport is located – as well as a house in the rural village of Auvelais near the French border.

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Fleeing driver kills pregnant woman, four children in Delta

Barely one week after an auto crash claimed the lives of fifteen persons on Ibusa Road, near Asaba in Delta State, another accident has claimed the lives of a pregnant mother and her four children.
The accident, which occurred along Ozoro Road in Oleh, Isoko South Local Government Area of the state, also claimed the life of a motorcycle rider identified as Chukube.
An eyewitness, Joyce Ejiro, said that the pregnant woman was waiting by the roadside with her four children to board a car after closing for the day when a driver, who was fleeing from his relatives, hit them.

It was gathered that the driver was trying to escape after snatching N200,000 deposited as part payment for the sale of land belonging to the deceased woman’s family.
Investigation revealed that members of the family had offered a piece of land to a buyer for N400,000 and the buyer, who accepted the offer, made a part payment of N200,000.
There was, however, a dispute among the family members over how the money would be shared. While some members insisted that the money would only be shared after the buyer completes payment.
In the course of the heated argument, the driver, who is a member of the family and distant relative to the woman, snatched the money and took off in a Hilux Van.
Upon realising that he was being chased by three other family members in a Camry, he suddenly swerved in a bid to overtake another car, but control and ran into the motorcyclist, who was riding towards the same direction, also hitting the woman and her children.
It was gathered that the vehicle dragged them and the motorcycle for some distance before coming to a halt after which the driver absconded.
It was gathered that the Camry somersaulted several times but the occupants made it out and attempted to escape before being apprehended by sympathisers at the scene of the accident.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mrs. Celestina Kalu, said investigation was ongoing.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the deceased, which were identified by their families, have been taken to the morgue at the Central Hospital, Oleh with the driver of the Hilux Van at large.

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Buhari condemns political violence in Rivers

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday condemned the recent political violence in Rivers, saying the killing of people over political differences was primitive, barbaric and unacceptable.

A statement issued in Abuja by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, noted that the President made this known at an interactive session with Nigerians living in Equatorial Guinea.

Buhari warned that “henceforth, government would deal decisively with perpetrators and sponsors of violence, irrespective of their status in the society.

“Violence in any form will no longer be tolerated before, during or after elections.”

On the possibility of allowing Nigerians abroad to vote in future elections, the President said that the Independent National Electoral Commission would be encouraged to explore it in the 2019 general elections.

While noting that some African countries had started allowing their citizens resident abroad to vote in national elections, Buhari said that he fully empathised with the desire of Nigerians in the diaspora to vote in national elections.

He, therefore, pledged to do all within his powers to fulfill that desire, adding that “I want all Nigerians to know that I respect them and their right to choose their leaders.”

The President, who was responding to complaints over the absence of direct flights from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea said that establishing a new national airline was not currently on Federal Government’s list of priorities.

He declared that his administration’s main area of focus now was reducing the level of poverty in the country.

He added that developing the required infrastructure to boost production in all sectors of the economy and creating more jobs for young Nigerians, as well as other actions that would directly improve the living conditions of ordinary Nigerians would continue to be prioritised by his administration.

The President, however, assured that his administration’s war against corruption would remain relentless.

“We will be relentless in pursuing all those who abused public trust.

“Nigerians will see how some of the elite conspired to run the nation down.”

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Names, personal details of 22,000 terrorists leaked

The personal details of not fewer than 22,000 terrorists have been leaked in what is now being described as the breakthrough of a lifetime in the war against terror and insurgency worldwide. According to reports coming from the UK, names and family details of 22,000 jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have been revealed in huge cache of leaked HR forms of the terrorist organization. Daily Mail UK reports that a priceless cache of documents containing the personal information of 22,000 Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq has been seized. The files which were stored to a memory stick (flash drive) were packed full with the names, addresses, telephone numbers and family contacts of ISIS recruits. The memory stick revealed that recruits had to fill in the 23-question registration card to be allowed into the group, also known as Daesh, including details like next of kin, and previous employment. The flash drive was stolen from an IS leader by a disgruntled recruit who handed it over to British television, Sky News. British authorities are reporting that the details the flash contains are authentic. The files were passed to Sky News on a flash drive stolen from the head of Islamic State’s internal security police, an organisation described by insiders as the group’s SS, who had been entrusted to protect the organisation’s core secrets and he rarely parted with the drive. The man who stole it was a former Free Syrian Army convert to Islamic State who calls himself Abu Hamed.
Daily Mail UK reports that Hamed, disillusioned with the Islamic State leadership, says the terrorist group has now been taken over by former soldiers from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein. He claims the Islamic rules he believed in have totally collapsed inside the organisation, prompting him to quit. He told Sky News that IS was giving up on its headquarters in Raqqa and moving into the central deserts of Syria and ultimately Iraq, the group’s birthplace. Asked if the IS files could bring the network down he nodded and said simply: ‘God willing’.  Thanks for reading

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Oil extends losses, falls below $40

World oil prices sank further below $40 per barrel on Tuesday, as hopes faded that major crude producers would freeze output levels to ease a world surplus.
At around 17:00 GMT, United States benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in April was down a hefty $1.11 at $36.07 per barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for May delivery slid 96 cents to $38.57 a barrel compared with Monday’s close.
“The price of Brent crude has fallen four of the last six days, its worst run in three weeks as chances become more remote of a joint output freeze amongst OPEC and non-OPEC producers while Iranian production ramped up significantly last month,” said CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler. A meeting proposed by Russia and Saudi Arabia to discuss output limits has been pushed back to April from March 20, after signs that some key producing nations do not support the move.
Oil prices slid Monday after Iran reportedly signalled it would not join the effort until its own crude production reached pre-sanction levels of 4.0 million barrels per day.
WTI had slumped 3.4 per cent and Brent dipped 2.1 percent, giving up gains that saw the global benchmark break $40 a barrel for the first time this year.
“I remain sceptical on any such supply talks as the probability of any definitive action is unlikely to be high,” added analyst Bernard Aw at IG Markets in Singapore.
Even if the talks happen, the meeting’s agenda is freezing production levels – a stop gap measure – rather than the more long-term goal of cutting output to reduce the global crude oversupply, Aw noted.
“What I fear is that any breakdowns in the proposed talks, if there even is a meeting, will drag oil prices through the mud again,” he said.
The talks were supposed to be held in Russia this month, but are now set to happen next month in Doha, Qatar.
Singapore trade minister S. Iswaran told a gas conference Tuesday that crude prices are likely to remain between $30 and $50 per barrel this year due to oversupply, a slowing Chinese economy and Japan restarting nuclear power plants.
Traders are also watching for US economic data and a meeting of US Federal Reserve policy makers starting Tuesday for clues on whether they will announce another interest rate hike.
A rate increase is a boost to the dollar, which would make dollar-priced oil more expensive, hurting demand and prices. The Fed raised rates for the first time in nearly a decade in December.

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Nigerians in diaspora to vote in 2019 elections; says Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday in Malabo said that the Independent National Electoral Commission will be encouraged to explore the possibility of Nigerians abroad voting in the 2019 general elections. This was contained in a statehouse release signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity, Femi Adesina. President Buhari who was at an interactive meeting with Nigerians resident in Equatorial Guinea, noted that some African countries have started allowing their citizens resident abroad to vote in national elections. He said that he fully empathised with the desire of Nigerians in the diaspora to vote in national elections, assuring that he will therefore do all within his powers to fulfil that desire. “I want all Nigerians to know that I respect them and their right to choose their leaders,” President Buhari was quoted. The President also said that establishing a new national airline was not currently on the Federal Government’s list of priorities. Thanks for reading

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