Flowerbud News

Month: October 2023

  • California To Sue Trump Over New Migrant Children Detention Policy

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) Gov. Gavin Newsom says California will join other states in filing a new lawsuit as early as next week to block the Trump administration’s efforts to indefinitely detain immigrant minors and families with children.

    Newsom made this known in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

    “It’s an assault on the Flores decision,.

    “Clearly, I think it will be rejected by the courts, and the answer to your question is California will once again assert itself in the court of law,” the governor said of the administration’s new regulations.

    The Department of Homeland Security announced plans this week for new regulations that would roll back protections for migrant children.

    Trump officials are taking aim at the 1997 Flores settlement that set minimum standards of care for youths in U.S. custody.

    The government is generally prohibited from detaining children, who traveled to the U.S. alone or with their families for longer than 20 days.

    Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan blamed the Flores settlement for an influx of Central American families coming to the U.S. border and said that the administration’s new regulations would deter migration.

    President Donald Trump also inaccurately claimed that former President Barack Obama started separating immigrant families.

    The regulations, which federal officials expect to publish Friday, add to an ongoing battle over the Trump administration’s ability to hold migrant families and the conditions that immigrants endure in detention centers.

    “Seven young children have died since Trump was inaugurated as president, not one died over eight years under President Obama’s stewardship.

    “Family separations happen under this administration,” Newsom said during his interview with CNN.

    Nathan Click, a spokesman for the governor, declined to offer any additional information about the timing of the lawsuit or its contents.

    The office of Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose attorneys represent the state in court, also declined to comment.

    As of last week, California had filed some 56 lawsuits against the Trump administration on a variety of issues, including health care, immigration and the environment.

  • Centre Tasks Education Minister Adamu On Steadfastness, Continuity

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Centre for Peace, Transparency and Accountability has urged the reappointed Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, to justify his reappointment by remaining steadfast in the reforms he initiated in the nation’s education sector.

    The Centre in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Ogheneyero Patrick and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday explained that the call became imperative considering the fact that Adamu performed creditably well in his first coming.

    “The Nigerian education sector witnessed a leap in your first term as Minister. Under your watch corruption in the sector was fought head-on in your quest to providing unfettered access to quality education within limited resources.

    “Our tertiary institutions were supervised effectively and its loss glory, high level manpower training and provision of quality library services, infrastructural development among others, are gradually returning.

    “Your coming back is a testimony that the President Buhari is determined to see the actualisation of the Ministerial Strategic Plan 2019-2023 for the education sector to continue to take its rightful place as a springboard for national development.

    “We as civil society organisation cannot accept less than what you offered in your first term; we have unwavering confidence in you, and one of the ways you can keep up the tempo is by ensuring that only credible and competent persons get appointed to man any component of our educational institutions.

    “We shall beam our searchlights on the academia to identify individuals that have stood out in providing qualitative services. The current DVC of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE), Prof. Fasina Abayomi Sunday is one of such individuals that has gone full length in ensuring peaceful and conducive atmosphere for teaching and learning.

    “Besides mediating between the Academic Union of Universities (ASUU) and the University management over time has influenced investors to the institution and the University now generates funds for to augment the federal allocations,” the statement explained.

    The CSO added that Prof. Fasina is an example of thinking outside the box and urged the Minister to look out for such personalities that would stop at nothing in proffering solution to challenges.

    The group urged the minister to consider working with him at levels of higher responsibility for the overall good of the educational sector.

  • Video: Watch How Faulty Elevator Crushed Man In New York Building

    (tca/dpa/NAN/FLOWERBUD NEWS) A 30-year-old man was crushed to death by a falling elevator in his luxury apartment building Thursday as passengers watched in horror, officials said.

    Samuel Waisbren rode the elevator down to the lobby of his 23-story apartment building, known as the Manhattan Promenade, at 344 Third Ave. near E. 26th Street with six other residents about 8:30 a.m., but didn’t make it out alive.

    The victim’s devastated father, Dr. Charles Waisbren, made this known to the New York Daily News by phone from his home in Milwaukee on Friday.

    “It’s hard to see how you can go on living when such a big thing is taken from you,” Waisbren said.

    He added: “Sam was an absolutely wonderful young man. Smart and loving and very, very sensitive.

    ”He had his whole life ahead of him.”

    Waisbren started to walk out of the elevator on the heels of another passenger when the lift suddenly plummeted, crushing him, according to officials and a building worker who witnessed the gruesome mishap.

    The passenger, who made it off the elevator spun around and tried to help the trapped victim.

    A worker, who witnessed the horror said, ”The elevator took him down. It’s awful. It was disgusting.”

    The five people who remained on the descending elevator were forced to watch as Waisbren was sucked into the gap between the shaft and the elevator car, officials said.

    “Some people were left on the car after the car moved down to the basement,” FDNY Chief Anthony Arpaia said.

    Waisbren was crushed by the elevator against a shaft wall and died at the scene, authorities said.

    Arpaia said responding firefighters scrambled to remove the five horrified passengers and free the victim.

    “The patient was unfortunately stuck between the first floor and basement.

    “We had to work pretty hard to get the elevator car moved and extract the patient,” Arpaia added.

    Waisbren moved to the city six years ago, relatives said. He worked in sales at software company CB Insights.

    “A Midwest boy goes out to the big city, and dies.

    “It’s just horrible to feel that he’s not going to grow up to have children, to have his own family, progress in his career,” said his father.

    The dad said that his son had complained to his parents about elevator problems in the building.

    One-bedroom units go for 3,600 dollars in the building.

    “My feeling about New York is you pay a bazillion dollars for rent, the least they could do is provide safety,” the victim’s father said.

    The building’s management company, ATA Enterprises, did not return calls for comment.

    The building has 17 past building violations, none of them for elevator issues. But residents said the building’s two elevators have long been an issue.

    “There’s always something wrong with the elevators.

    ”They’re always down, people are getting stuck,” said Dayna Sargen, 39, who’s lived in the building with her husband and two small kids for two years.

    “If I had ever thought that this could happen I would’ve never ever put myself and my family in an elevator.

    “It’s just sad. It’s tragic,” she added.

    City Buildings Department inspectors were investigating how the elevator malfunctioned.

    “Elevators are the safest form of travel in New York, due to the city’s stringent inspection and safety requirements.

    “We’re determined to find out what went wrong at this building and seek ways to prevent incidents like this in the future,” said Buildings Department spokeswoman Abigail Kunitz.

    See the video below: Warning: graphic content

    https://youtu.be/f6e_cpMaUdo

  • FMBN, Diaspora Commission Plan To Providing Easy Mortgage For Abroad

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) is developing  a Diaspora mortgage housing scheme to assist Nigerians living abroad to own homes in Nigeria, the Managing Director, Mr Ahmed Dangiwa, says.

    Dangiwa spoke in Abuja on Thursday when Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, paid him a courtesy visit.

    He described the visit as timely because the bank was currently managing Nigerians in the Diaspora on mortgage products developed for them.

    Dangiwa said that several presentations had been made on the subject at external engagements attended by the bank, particularly in the UK and the U.S.

    He said the bank had received positive responses and visits as a result of some of the engagements.

    “The Diaspora Mortgage is a special window developed for Nigerians living abroad to facilitate access to finance for residential housing development at home.

    “The steps we took show that we have the interest of Nigerians in Diaspora,” Dangiwa said.

    He said that the central focus of the bank’s strategic realignment was to strengthen its partnership and collaborate with stakeholders to promote mutual understanding to  achieve  the purpose of the National Housing Fund (NHF).

    He said that the bank was established to provide affordable mortgages to drive home ownership among Nigerians, particularly low and medium income earners, through NHF.

    Dangiwa said Nigerian workers contributed 2.5 per cent of their monthly income to the NHF scheme.

    In her speech, Dabiri-Erewa said the project would make the lives of Nigerians in Diaspora easier by enabling them to acquire their own houses.

    She said that it would deal with the major challenges faced by Nigerians in Diaspora as many  had been duped by friends and relatives.

    “Many of them will send some money home for people to help them build houses but at the end, those relatives will spend the money without doing anything,” Dabiri-Erewa said.

    She said that Dangiwa had made mortgage attractive as poor Nigerians could now own houses.

    Dabiri-Erewa said it was important that something was done urgently to ensure that Nigerians in Diaspora owned houses in the country.

    She said that the staff of the commission would participate in the bank’s mortgage programme. (NAN)

  • Embrace Organic Fertilizer To Boost Soil Fertility, Official Urges Gombe Farmers

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS)  Ibrahim Sajo, Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Gombe State Ministry of Agriculture has advised farmers in the state to embrace the use of organic farming to boost soil fertility.

    Sajo gave the advice during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Friday.

    According to him, the use of organic fertiliser is key to sustaining the quality of the soil, as the continued use of chemical fertilisers depletes the soil while reducing crop yield over time.

    He said that the use of organic fertiliser and its awareness was increasingly gaining momentum across the globe as a result of the many benefits to the soil and crop.

    “We are encouraging farmers to embrace organic fertiliser use as way of improving the quality of our soil. It is important they do that, so we can protect the soil for the future.

    “Organic fertilisers have been there from time but these chemical fertilisers are more accepted and popular among our farmers because it is easier to apply on plants and the output is seen by farmers.

    “Our extension officers are working to ensure farmers embrace the use of organic fertiliser to encourage soil fertility. Too much chemical has some negative effects on soil and even human health.

    “Organic foods are good for human health and are more of high demand. If our farmers accept the use of organic fertiliser to grow organic food, they will make more money because organic foods are more expensive.

    “We are planning in collaboration with the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) in the area of enhancing soil health and fertility.
    “The plan is to buy organic fertiliser alongside chemical fertiliser for farmers to cultivate its use.

    “As the organic begins to get acceptance, we will begin the gradual withdrawal of the chemical fertilisers,’’ he said.

    He expressed concern that most farmers were still foot-dragging toward the acceptance of organic fertiliser, adding that in most parts of the world organic fertiliser use was gaining more acceptance.

    “Organic fertiliser is now gaining more attention in most countries because it improves soil structure and preserves essential nutrients that crops need to grow well.

    “Having used chemical fertilisers for a long time, farmers need to buy organic in place of chemical fertilisers to restore soil fertility and get good crop yields and even more money for themselves.

    ’’He stated that the ministry was already linking farmers to experts and markets where farmers could access organic fertilisers, adding that all extension officers were ready to provide any help in that regard.(NAN)

  • Google Disables YouTube Channels For Hong Kong ‘Influence Operation’

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) Google said it disabled 210 channels from its platform YouTube which uploaded content related to the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in an apparent coordinated influence operation.

    Shane Huntley, director of Google Security’s Threat Analysis Group, said in a blog post that the channels were disabled earlier in the week “when we discovered channels in this network behaved in a coordinated manner while uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

    “This discovery was consistent with recent observations and actions related to China announced by Facebook and Twitter.”

    Earlier in the week Twitter and Facebook accused the Chinese government of running a social media campaign to manipulate public opinion against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and taking advantage of social media platforms that are banned on the mainland.

    Google said that it found “use of VPNs and other methods to disguise the origin of these accounts and other activity commonly associated with coordinated influence operations”.

    VPNs, or virtual private networks, are often used to circumvent geo-restrictions and censorship.

    Some of the 936 accounts originating from China which Twitter suspended this week saying they were part of a state-backed campaign for allegedly attempting “to sow political discord in Hong Kong” also used VPNs.

    The moves by the social media giants are a rebuke of China’s attempt to shape opinion around the protests, as masses of Hong Kong residents have taken to the streets for weeks against what they say is Beijing’s creeping rule over the semi-autonomous territory. (dpa/NAN)

  • UN Expert Says Malaysia ‘Vastly Under-Counting Poverty’

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS)  UN human rights expert critized Malaysia on Friday as having “vastly undercounted poverty” by using an “unduly low poverty line” and by “excluding vulnerable populations from its official figures.”

    Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that Malaysia achieved “undeniably impressive growth in reducing poverty in the last 50 years.”

    However, he said, “the official claim that poverty has been eradicated, or exists merely in small pockets in rural areas, is incorrect and has crippled policymaking.”

    Official statistics suggest Malaysia’s official poverty rate dropped from 49 per cent in 1970 to 0.4 per cent in 2016. However, the percentage is calculated off a poverty line of RM 980 (235 dollars) per household per month – a figure Alston called “tragically low.”

    “Actual poverty rates are much higher than official figures suggest, and the Government needs to reassess how it measures poverty,” Alston said in a report published following an 11-day factfinding mission.

    The undercounting had led to “underinvestment in poverty reduction and an inadequate social safety net that does not meet people’s needs,” he added.

    Alston pointed to indigenous communities, migrant workers, refugees and the stateless as groups that had been “systematically excluded from official poverty statistics.”

    Alston’s findings corroborate a 2018 report by non-profit Khazanah Research Institute that found structural weaknesses in official poverty measures and said that poverty statistics would be higher if the index was adjusted to reflect reality. (dpa/NAN)

  • Integrity Group Nigerian Law School On Ondo Deputy Speaker Studentship

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) The Integrity Group which is a leading advocacy group has written to The Director General, Nigerian Law School, Bwari, Abuja to complain against the reckless abandon of Legislative Duties by Honourable Ogundeji Iroju of Ondo State House of Assembly, currently representing Odigbo 1 Constituency.

    The failure of the self styled Deputy Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly to perform his duties has generated so much crisis in the running of the house.

    According to Dr. Dan Obidike and Mr Olaseeni Akinbote who signed the letter, they wonder how he is able to participate in Nigerian Law School, which is a full time program when he is in Ondo State.

    Dr Dan Obidike further said,
    We are a Public Advocacy Group tasked with the responsibility of ensuring public peace, promotion of democratic values and ensuring that public Institutions and public officials are alive to their core responsibilities.

    We are constrained to bring to your attention the activities of Hon. Ogundeji Iroju- a two-term lawmaker (elected on the platform of the APC) that currently represents Odigbo 1 Constituency in the Ondo State House of Assembly which was proclaimed on the 3rd day of June 2019 by the Executive Governor of Ondo State.

    The self-same Hon. Iroju Ogundeji is also currently a student at the Abuja Campus of the Nigerian Law School. It is a well known fact students admitted to the Nigerian Law School are supposed to be physically present full time while we also aware that the membership of the Ondo State House of Assembly is also supposed to be a full-time public assignment.

    The reality is that Hon. Iroju Ogundeji uses proxies to perform his functions at the Nigerian Law School, Abuja while he is on his seat at the Ondo State House of Assembly where he is presently the Deputy Speaker.

    Similarly, he is undergoing Chambers Attachment at R.O Kazeem & Co,(Legal Practitioners) at Ikare Akoko while he did his mandatory Court Attachment at the Chief Magistrate Court No. 4, Akure. From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that the membership of Hon.

    Iroju Ogundeji at the Ondo State House of Assembly and his studentship at the Nigeria Law School, Abuja are two full-time assignments which cannot be performed pari-passu.

    We had earlier drawn the attention of the affected Honourable member to this state of affairs and the need to ensure that he does not allow his current studentship at the Nigerian Law School, Abuja to affect his core responsibility of rendering effective representation to his constituents at Odigbo 1 at the Ondo State House of Assembly coupled with his administrative functions as the Deputy Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly, but the Honourable member chose to turn deaf ears.

    Hence, we were left without any other option than to present this petition to your good office.

    We therefore urge you sir to use your good offices in ensuring that Honourable Ogundeji Iroju be made to forfeit his present studentship at the Nigerian Law School, Abuja so as to allow him to fully concentrate on his public service as the lawmaker representing Odigbo 1 Constituency in the Ondo State  of Assembly in addition to other appropriate disciplinary actions you may wish to initiate

  • Rep. Solicits Support For Development In Idah

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) A member of the House of Representatives, Rep. David Zacharia (APC-Kogi), has called on Mr Emmanuel Egwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to join him to bring dividends of democracy to people of Idah Federal Constituency of Kogi.

    Zacharia made the call while reacting to the judgment of a tribunal which upheld his election on Thursday in Abuja.

    Egwu contested in the 2019 National Assembly election for the House of Representatives against Zacharia of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and lost.

    He challenged the outcome of the election at the tribunal, alleging that the election was marred with violence, snatching of ballot boxes, multiple voting, none use of voter card readers and unlawful vote allocation.

    His petition was, however, dismissed by the Chairman, Justice A.O Chijioke for lack of merit.

    Chijioke said that the petitioner failed to discharge the burden of prove laid on him as there were not enough evidence to back his claims.

    Zacharia said that it was time to work together for the development of the constituency.

    ”I call on the petitioner to join hands with me to deliver the dividends of democracy. I am satisfied with the judgment and the time it took the tribunal to deliver it,” he said.

    The lawmaker dedicated the victory at the tribunal to God Almighty and to the law abiding people of his constituency.

    Zacharia currently represents Idah Federal Constituency of Kogi which is made up of Idah, Ibaji, Ofu and Igalamela Odolu Local Government Areas.

    Reacting to the judgment Isiaka said that though they are bound by the judgment, they will study it and take further legal actions.

    The counsel said he would discuss with the petitioner with a view to appeal the judgment.

    On his part, the legal counsel to the accused, Mr Smiala Abbas described the ruling as victory for democracy, for the people of the constituency and for Nigeria in general.