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[Radio Dabanga] Kutum -- At least nine people have been killed and 17 others wounded during an attack by militiamen on the sit-in at Fata Borno camp for the displaced in Kutum locality in North Darfur on Monday morning. A State of Emergency has been declared throughout the state.

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[Nairobi News] Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli has attempted to reconcile two of the country's leading Bongo Flava artistes Diamond Platnumz and AliKiba.

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[Nairobi News] Bongo superstar Diamond Platnumz has confirmed that he is no longer single.

Africanews  

Nigeria members of parliament have resolved to investigate the purported voluntary resignation of 365 military officers from the Nigeria army. The decision to probe the resignation followed the adoption of a motion of matters of urgent public importance moved on Tuesday by the Chief Whip of the House, Muhammed Monguno and 3 others . According to Monguno, the soldiers tendered their resignation due to alleged embezzlement of allowances and inferior military hardwares. Monguno in his motion linked the recent exposé by Lance Corporal Martins Idakpein to the mass resignation. “On the 22nd of June 2020, a lance corporal in the Nigerian Army, Martins Idakpein made an online video where he condemned the attitude of the Service Chiefs towards the attacks and killing of Nigerians and soldiers as well as untold hardship soldiers face while conducting combat operations, ” Monguno said. If you recall, 356 soldiers fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria’s North-East recently wrote the country’s Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, seeking voluntary retirement over “loss of interest”. The soldiers in a letter with reference number NA/COAS/001, quoting the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service soldiers/rating/airmen (Revised) 2017, asked for approval to leave the Nigeria Army due to low morale. House Probes Resignation of 365 Soldiers https://t.co/4ZyV2YyWJC via Nigerialawyers— The Nigeria Lawyers (Nigerialawyers) July 15, 2020 Some said this is further compounded by poor welfare for them and their families by the army.

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[RFI] 3 min

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[Premium Times] The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, says the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu will reopen for normal business on August 30.

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[Nation] Lancet Kenya is once again on the spot over discordant Covid-19 results of 17 teaching staff of St Andrew's School Turi, who tested positive and negative three days later.

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[Nation] A total of 429 health workers have tested positive for Covid-19, with the latest being staff at Kenya's largest maternity referral hospital.

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[Nation] You still stand a high chance of succumbing to Covid-19 even after getting admission to intensive care unit, data from the Health ministry, which confirmed 497 new cases yesterday, show.

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[Nation] Five non-executive directors of Kenya Power, representing half of the board, on Monday resigned without the electricity distributor announcing their replacement.

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[Nation] Hundreds of Muslims in Mombasa yesterday attended midday (dhuhr) prayers for the first time after mosques were reopened.

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[This Day] Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, the first-ever female combat helicopter pilot in Nigeria, is dead. She was barely 23 years of age.

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[Monitor] Ministry of Finance has put into effect the budget cuts proposed by Gen Salim Saleh, the head of Operation Wealth Creation (OWC).

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[This Day] Abuja -- The Senate yesterday passed the Criminal Code Amendment Bill, which increased the penalty for kidnapping from 10 years to life imprisonment in the 16 southern states of the federation.

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[Monitor] For close to three weeks, the country has gone without a substantive Chief Justice to oversee the judiciary and Inspector General of Government (IGG), the ombudsman.

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[Premium Times] Ten more people have died as a result of COVID-19 complications in Nigeria, pushing the total death tally to 754 in a country of over 200 million.

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[Premium Times] A United States district court has ordered the Nigerian government and British Virgin Island engineering firm, P&ID, to hold a telephonic conference to determine whether a lingering document dispute can be resolved without court intervention.

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[Monitor] More than 100 Ugandan trucks carrying about 6,000 tonnes of sugarcane are stuck at the Busia border following a new ban on importation of raw sugarcane and brown sugar by Kenya.

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[Premium Times] The Nigerian House of Representatives has endorsed a former minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to clinch the post of Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Africanews  

It’s the result scientists were hoping for. The first covid-19 vaccine trial in the United States revived people’s immune system, researchers reported Tuesday. “They’re phase one studies, but it’s a good first step. It looks as though the vaccine generated a vigorous immune response. We like that. We think that’s going to be associated with protection. A couple of notes: this is a two dose vaccine. And there were some people who had sore arms and a little bit of fever and some fatigue, et cetera. Small price to pay for protection against COVID, I would think. So there’s nothing there that would inhibit us from going on to larger trials. And they’re currently underway”, Dr. William Schaffner of the Vanderbilt University said. But researchers are treading cautiously as they begin to try the vaccine on older people. “It’s a careful stepwise way of doing it. First, a smaller group of younger people. Then you expand it to older people since it worked very well in the younger group. And we’ll have to see how the older persons respond. We know that they generally don’t respond as well as younger people to vaccines. So, this is something we’ll look at very carefully. It’s probably one of the reasons this is a two dose vaccine, because we clearly want to protect older people and people who are frail with chronic underlying illnesses”, Dr. Schaffner added. The 30,000-person study will mark the world’s largest study of a potential COVID-19 vaccine so far. Nearly two dozen possible COVID-19 vaccines are in various stages of testing around the world.

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[Premium Times] The federal government has announced the commencement of the Special Public Works Programme aimed at employing 774,000 citizens, a thousand from each of the 774 local government areas in the country.