The coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout will help China rise past the US to become the world’s largest economy, a new report shows. Beijing is now expected to overtake the US by 2028, as opposed to 2033, a UK think tank said in its latest report. “We expect the United States’ share of global GDP to decline from 2021 onwards, and for the country to eventually be overtaken by China as the world’s largest economy,” the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said in an annual report released yesterday (Saturday). We now expect this to happen in 2028,…
Author: YemieFash
President Muhammadu Buhari has saluted the sacrifices of the doctors who were killed by COVID-19 in parts of the country. In a statement on Saturday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, President Buhari gave an assurance that the welfare of doctors and other health workers would be a priority for his administration. He also sent his condolence to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) over the death of the doctors due to the pandemic, noting that the sacrifices made by the frontline medical workers were appreciated. “The death of our frontline health workers in the battle…
The Federal Government has urged religious leaders in the country to refrain from stoking the embers of hatred and disunity. It warned that resorting to scorched-earth rhetoric at a time such as this could trigger unintended consequences in the country. The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, issued the warning in a statement on Saturday in Lagos. “While religious leaders have a responsibility to speak truth to power, such truth must not come wrapped in anger, hatred, disunity, and religious disharmony,” he said. Mohammed believes it is graceless and impious for any religious leader to use the period of…
France’s first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine were delivered early Saturday to the Paris hospital system’s central pharmacy outside the capital, an AFP journalist saw. After more than 62,000 Covid-19 deaths in France, shots are set to begin with people in two elderly care homes on Sunday, the same day the rest of the EU begins injections. A refrigerated truck brought the roughly 19,500 doses from the Pfizer factory in Puurs, northeast Belgium, to Paris, the capital’s APHP hospital authority said, with pharmacy chief Franck Huet calling it a “historic” moment in the pandemic. After repackaging in Paris, the…
A report by the World Bank has noted that over the past 12 months, the Covid-19 pandemic has harmed the poor and vulnerable the most, and it is threatening to push millions more into poverty. This year, the World Bank said, after decades of steady progress in reducing the number of people living on less than $1.90/day, COVID-19 will usher in the first reversal in the fight against extreme poverty in a generation. The report said the latest analysis warns that COVID-19 has pushed an additional 88 million people into extreme poverty this year – and that figure is just…
Pope Francis on Friday urged the countries of the world to assist one another in the fight against coronavirus by making its vaccines available for all. “Today, in this time of darkness and uncertainty during the pandemic, different lights of hope appear, like the discovery of the vaccines … they must be available to everyone,” the Pope said during his traditional Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) message at the Vatican. “I beg all those in charge of states, of companies, of international bodies … to promote cooperation and not competition and to seek a solution for…
The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Saddique Abubakar, took lunch on Friday with troops of Air Task Force of ” Operation Lafiya Dole” in Maiduguri to celebrate Christmas. Speaking at the occasion, Abubakar said that the gesture was to fill the vacuum created as a result of troops inability to celebrate with their families. “This occassion also fosters comradeship and gives us the opportunities to commend ourselves for our collective efforts in the ongoing fight against insurgency. “It is not easy to quantify your enormous contributions and sacrifice towards the war against insurgency. “Christmas celebration is all about sacrifice.…
The Central Bank of Nigeria has revoked the operating licences of seven payment services providers. The CBN disclosed this on Thursday on a report titled ‘Revocation of operating licences of some payment service providers’. The affected firms are Easifuel Limited, Transaction Processing System, Grand Towers Limited, Paymaster Limited, E-Revenue Gateway Limited, Eartholeum Network Limited, and Globasure Limited. According to the CBN, the firms have ceased to carry on in Nigeria the type of business for which their licences were issued for a continuous period of six months. It also said they failed to fulfil or comply with the conditions subject…
The Defence Headquarters on Friday, said that the troops of the air component of Operation Hadarin Daji have neutralised over 38 bandits in separate operations in Katsina and Zamfara States. This was contained in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja by the Coordinator, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. John Enenche, titled, ‘Operation Hadarin Daji: Air component neutralizes scores of bandits in Katsina and Zamfara States’. Enenche explained that the operations in Katsina State included an airstrike executed on Tuesday, after intelligence reports indicated that a group of bandits, armed with high calibre weapons, had rustled some cattle and…
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control is expected to give emergency approval for COVID-19 vaccines once they arrive in Nigeria, Saturday PUNCH has learnt. The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof Moji Adeyeye, said this during an interview with Saturday PUNCH on Friday. Adeyeye said NAFDAC would be doing something called, “Emergency Use Authorisation.” She said the agency had been in contact with Pfizer since May and had already received a preliminary report which would guide NAFDAC’s decision. Adeyeye explained that vaccines that had been approved by reliable bodies like the United States Food and Drug Administration could easily pass the test…