[HURIWA] condemns the recent harassment and intimidation of Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho

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PRESS STATEMENT

 

HUMAN Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) hereby condemns  the recent alleged harassment and intimidation of the immediate past interior minister Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho by Nigerian Maritime And Safety Agency (NIMASA) over alleged storage of “stolen crude oil” (AGO CARGO) in the tank farm associated with the former minister of interior. The manner of the arrest of the former minister to us is a total violation of the Fundamental Human Rights of a Nigerian citizen. We are aware of the widely circulated defence put up by the former minister whereby he cleared himself and company of involvement in the storage of the alleged stolen petroleum products.

 

The firm run by the former minister had claimed thus; “On Thursday the 13th September 2012, our management was surprised by the incidence of the vicious invasion of our Tank Farm facility at Ibafon by a group of uniformed armed men, numbering about thirty and purporting themselves to be acting on the orders and instructions of the D.G. NIMASA and of Mr. Tompolo, MD, of a private company GVWSL.”

 

The immediate past minister had also contrary to the allegation that his company was in breach of the law in storing the said petroleum products claimed thus; “In the course of the invasion, the intruders ransacked the entire tank farm complex, arresting and violently manhandling the workers at the complex, laying them flat on the floor, seizing their handsets. At the end of the day, five members of the staff of the company were allegedly abducted and taken to NIMASA for interrogation and have since been transferred to the SSS at Shangisha where they were held incommunicado.”

 

The former minister had also claimed that the assault on the company’s business has since continued with a renewed invasion of the company’s Corporate Headquarters occurring at other Marine Road offices on Friday, September 14th, 2012.

 

As a human rights organization, we recognize the sanctity of fundamental human rights as enshrined in section 36 of the constitution of Nigeria of 1999 as amended. A Citizen alleged to be in breach of the law is innocent in the eye of the law until proven guilty by a competent court of law and must not be subjected to undue harassment through the instrumentality of Government controlled power of coercion.

 

We are also against the media trial that was carried out against the former minister who we believe served this country creditably. If Government believes that his firm has indeed breached any extant law, Government is obliged to follow the due process of the law and not to use crude means that is akin to abduction of a citizen.

 

HURIWA is of the conviction that Nigeria must not return to the dark days of military brute force or crude application of the law. The past interior minister had alleged that he was allegedly abducted by armed men suspected to be working with a privately-run security outfit linked to a former militant leader. This allegation is serious and must be investigated by President Jonathan.

 

These serious allegations must be probed more so when report shows that the said petroleum products were validly cleared by all relevant authorities including the necessary inwards clearance documentation, issued by The Nigerian Navy, the Department of Petroleum Resources DPR, the Nigerian Port Authority and surprisingly, NIMASA.

 

HURIWA is aware that the former minister had clearly stated in the media that the controversial AGO cargo was borne to their tank farm on a vessel the MT Grace, owned by Messrs Akoto Ventures/Danyomile Marine Services Ltd.

 

In the defense put up by the company of the former minister stated thus; “The controversial Ago cargo which the NIMASA and Messrs GWVS claim to have been stolen, transported and is stored in our tanks, was lifted to our tank farm on the MT Grace, passed through NPA channels and facilities en-route to our jetty, was cleared for discharge at our jetty by both the DPR and the Nigerian Navy. The cargo is not owned by Integrated Oil and Gas as we were never the official receivers of the cargo. The cargo was officially consigned to Messrs PDR/Capital Oil Plc”.

 

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA hereby appeals to President Goodluck Jonathan to set up an investigative panel to probe the allegation made by the former minister of interior that someone high up there is after his legitimate business. The President should speak out and clear his administration of alleged collusion to destroy the businesses of certain persons including but not limited to the immediate past minister of interior.

 

As a democracy, when any citizen is accused of breaching any law, he/she must be appropriately made to face the full weight of the law but not subjected to psychological or physical torture.

 

We believe that; “Human rights are the most fundamental rights of human beings. They define relationships between individuals and power structures, especially the State. Human rights delimit State power and, at the same time, require States to take positive measures ensuring an environment that enables all people to enjoy their human rights”. History in the last 250years has been shaped by the struggle to create such an environment. Starting with the French and American revolutions in the late eighteenth century, the idea of human rights has driven many a revolutionary movement for empowerment and for control over the wielders of power, Governments in particular.”

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Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko,

 

National Coordinator/Executive Director on behalf of the coalition of human rights and civil society community.

Anambra Local Governments: Another Transition To Nothing!!!

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Today another set of unelected imposters were sworn in to occupy space in the 21 Local Governments Areas in Anambra State.

Anambra Citizens have since come to terms with the fact that their state is yet to catch up with the rest of the country in terms of democracy because when it comes to the executive arm of government at all levels, the officers that currently occupy office ,without exception are unelected. Hence it is unlikely that those at the helm of affairs would like those operating below them to be elected for that will confer superior mandate and deny the former their ill-gotten loyalty.

Therefore, everything we have seen so far in terms of attitude of governance has been founded on this situation which has created three categories in the Anambra people:

· 1- There are those who feel that they should continue to say the truth of this situation and to make themselves heard.

· 2-There is a second category that feels that the current despotic APGA government should be left to their designs while looking at the calendar for the exit of their OPPRESSORS IN GOVERNMENT, and the arrival of a properly elected government.

· 3-There are yet others, in the elite and business class who ,like they collaborated with Military governments of the past ,feel that they should take advantage of the current distortion for their personal gains, while it lasts.Tis is largely peopled by APGA members who are the main beneficiaries of this anomaly.

Driven by the need to guard the polity called Anambra State, minimise the risk to it and the damages likely to be incurred in the interim, until such a time when a proper government that respects the democratic aspirations Ndi Anambra, to elect, be consulted and form part of the consensus of government actions is in place in Anambra State, ACN proudly associates with the first of these three categories.

ACN once again condemns in its entirety, the idea of having unelected governments in place at any levels of governance in Anambra,et alone the 21 local governments of the state ,which helps to deny Ndi Anambra , at least 25,000 jobs, while pretending to create other jobs through undesired graft.

We note with satisfaction that the ACN stand coincides with the legacy –of philosophy bequeathed to the entire Ndi Igbo by Dim Chukwuemeka, Odumegu-Ojukwu in his evergreen and memorable words : “As a committed democrat, every singe day under an un-elected government hurts me. The citizens of this county are mature enough to make their own choices, just as they have the right to make their own mistakes” DIM CHUKWUEMEKA ODUMEGWU-OJUKWU (1933-2011)

We however note that the executive misgovernance of the state is largely unchecked by the Anambra State House of Assembly which is yet to rise to the responsibilities conferred on them by the constitution and the legitimacy placed on their shoulders by the aspirations of the constituencies that make of the house.

But the common parasite running through the Anambra executive misgovernance and the COLLABORATIVE WEAKNESS of Anambra State House of Assembly is the destructive, controlling influence of APGA.

Hence our position is the same as that of Ojukwu, which unfortunately is different from that of today’s APGA, which only applied and applies Ojukwu’s name to selfish exploits.

We condemn the appointment and swearing in of yet another set of transitional governments, to destroy structures without buiding, to beat up journalists who take photographs in the line of their duty ,coluude with state officers to fritter away local government funds, collude with elements of the state House of Assembly to legitimise iniquity at the councils and bequeath us the wrong values as a people.

We condemn another bold step in Anambra’s transition to nothing!!!

We
however urge Ndi Anambra to take solace in the fact that March 2014 is in sight and that the change they require is in their hands.

For: ACTION CONGRESS OF NIGERIA, ANAMBRA STATE CHAPTER

Okelo Madukaife

State Publicity Secretary

 

Delta Sets Up Special Courts for Kidnappers

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Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan’s war on kidnapping and other violent crimes has led to the setting up of two special courts dedicated to trying offenders of those crimes.

In addition, the state government has acquired communication gadgets and other equipments that would help law enforcement agencies in tracking perpetrators of the crimes.

Uduaghan and the State’s Chief Judge, Justice Zai-Laye Smith disclosed these on Tuesday when the latter led other judges on a courtesy call to the governor as part of activities marking the beginning of the 2012/2013 legal year.

The governor who was represented by his Deputy Prof. Amos Utuama (SAN) apologized to the judiciary over the kidnapping of one of them recently but informed that his administration was tackling the problem headlong.

Uduaghan added that, his administration worried by the spate of kidnapping had acquired equipment and gadgets that would enable security agencies to track perpetrators of the crime.

The governor commended the judiciary for acknowledging that it has “a role to play in dealing with insecurity and other criminal activities that endanger the security of our people. I’m happy that you have started implementing what we discussed.

“Talking of security, good governance cannot be enthroned in an atmosphere of insecurity. There cannot be peace without security. Unsecured environment breeds anarchy. Security is a public good that must be sold and be bought by government and the people respectively.

“It is in this regard that we have always asked for the decentralization of the police. In the ongoing constitutional review, Delta State had strongly asked for state police. We need state police that we can deploy…discipline.”

He reiterated the commitment of his administration towards ensuring that the judiciary remained independent and financially autonomous, explaining that the judiciary remained the bastion of democracy.

Smith, the Chief Judge had told the governor, “because of the insecurity we have generally, two courts have been set aside to operate in Asaba, to handle murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. These two courts will only deal with criminal matters.”

Drugs: Abia and Nnewi Man Arrested In One Flight

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emole kennedy uka

Two suspected drug traffickers have been caught at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos for concealing 2.560kg of cocaine in their travel luggage. The drug suspects, Emole Kennedy Uka, 32 years old was found with 1.335kg while Obi Ezenwa Tochukwu, 31 years old was found with 1.225kg of narcotics. They were arrested by officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) while attempting to board a Turkish Airline flight to Turkey.

NDLEA MMIA Commander, Mr Hamza Umar said that officers had to forcefully break the luggage to recover the drugs. “Searching for drugs these days is a serious business. In this case, we had to forcefully break open the bag in order to discover the drugs. Both suspects were arrested on same flight and they adopted same mode of concealment” Hamza stated.

Emole Kennedy Uka who lives in Togo said that he smuggled drugs because he needed money for medical treatment. “I am a trader in Togo. I sell shirts. This is my first time of dealing in drugs. I have heart problem and I needed money for medication” Emole stated. He hails from Abia State and would have been paid the sum of 4,000 dollars.

Obi Ezenwa Tochukwu who hails from Nnewi in Anambra State says he needed money for his marriage. “I wanted to marry and settle down. I am a 2008 graduate of Business Administration at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology. The person I met for financial assistance towards my marriage introduced me into drug trafficking. The drug was hidden in the bag and they promised to pay me 3,000 dollars. Unfortunately, I was arrested” Obi lamented.

Chairman/Chief Executive of the Agency urged members to be part of the anti-drug campaign. “We are prepared to give our best but let me also appeal to members of the public to join in the crusade to stop drug trafficking” Giade stated.

The suspects will soon be charged to court.

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Lagos State: Too Many Laws, Few Compliers – By Godday Odidi

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Barely few months ago when the Lagos State Governor , Babatunde Fashola (SAN) signed into law the Tenancy bill which many Lagosians applauded the proactive moves of curbing the persistent high cost of accommodation in the state.  This tenancy law has not make any momentous difference rather impecunious Lagosians which house owners have failed to adhere to the law and suddenly increase the cost of securing accommodation by ruthless house owners while the State government failed to monitor the commendable exercise. To the extent that Lagos landlords have increased their house rents from 50 percent to 95 percent without abiding to the laws of the State.

 

The ever-increasing population of Lagos State has prompted house owners to see their houses as hot cakes to the extent that some of these houses are antediluvian and ramshackle. The population of Lagos state is estimated to 18 million people while 20 percent of new comers come into the State on daily basis. Accommodation is one of the challenging factors in the state which40 percent of the population resides in the state without comfortable places to lay their heads on. Most of these lawmakers in the corridors of power have awfully failed to know that Lagos State is the highest commercial city in Africa and Nigeria. The Tenancy law is not respected by house owners rather compelling house seekers and searchers to consult Fashola to give them houses to stay. In Ajegunle, for instance, house owners have devised means to increase their houses which one-room apartment goes for #150,000, plus Agreement and commission, one- room self-contained goes for #320,000 plus AC, two-room self contained goes for#450,.000 plus AC, two- bedroom flat goes for #600,000 plus AC and three-bedroom flat goes for #720,000 plus AC.. Ajegunle is densely populated with compacted houses, while 50 percent of houses are not maintained by landlords.  Even house owners now take both agreement and commission and make agents useless and restless in their professions.

 

It is sad that Lagos State government has failed to monitor this tenancy law which many tenants are now prey to these greedy and voracious landlords. None of these Landlords in Lagos State collect one-year rent anymore rather demand for two to three years rent in favor of them. Some go as far to contact their half-baked lawyers to write notice of quit to tenants that failed to comply with their exorbitant house rents.

 

Residing in Lagos is the beginning of many people relocating to other States for greener pastures. Lagos non house owners are living in flagrant fears of unnecessary house rents in the state. The high rate of illegal and unregistered house agents is disquieting to the core. No area in Lagos state is local again because desperate landlords and house agents have made the place uncomfortable for poor Lagosians. Lagos State must review the tenancy law together with the Lagos State House of Assembly to affect it than making it a mockery of all sorts. Even the officials appointed to monitor the scheme only succeeded in arresting offenders and free them with undisclosed amount of money while non house owners are living in pains of poverty.

 

Since 2007 when Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola was sworn into power, over 50 percent laws have been made, only few are compiled by Lagosians. Some of these Lagos State officials have used this means to extort money from innocent Lagosians and dubiously enriched themselves without qualms.  The tenancy law needs urgent attention because Lagosians are living in fears of fraught house owners. Some schools of thought assume that some of these lawmakers are housing owners in the state makes the law not ineffective at the moment.

 

The newly Lagos State New Traffic Laws which was signed into law by governor Babatunde Fashola initiated by the Attorney- General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaiye was a good stand to excessive nuisances and touts from our roads. The high rate of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the state is nothing to write home about. Lagos State laws are always effective for only two weeks while the rest is history. Banning motorcyclists popularly known as Okada riders from our high ways is not new, though the prevailing robbery cases prompted Lagos State to stop Okada riders from plying high ways and others. The problem is that would Lagosians comply with these laws? Though many Laws have helped Lagos State to be sought after while sanity has gradually returned to the commercial city. If LASTMAS, LASAA, LASEPA, KAI and others can be effective while the tenancy law is yet to be obeyed by house owners. It is good these laws are revisited especially the tenancy law. 40 percent of Lagosians are living on bridges, uncompleted houses, locked-shops, and squatting with friends and relatives. Even to the extent that a box quarters goes for #160,000 while most landlords are smiling to banks while some sell off their houses for quick profits with ridiculous ejection of tenants from their houses. The cost of acquiring land in the state is appreciating beyond the means of the poor.

 

Now Lagos State government wants to ban people from smoking in public places together with those that are selling local gins in unquestionable spots. This is a good move in the right direction, but people will still violate the laws. Most of these laws favored police and other security agencies in the state. Even when LASG introduced the use of helmets by okada riders, how many of these okada riders obey those laws? Most of these laws are being violated with disdain. It is not about making these laws but ability for Lagosians to comply it. At least two- third of Lagos residents has the new traffic laws which are mainly sold on our high ways bystreet hawkers.

 

Therefore, Lagos State government needs to review the tenancy law to ameliorate the sufferings of Lagosians whose hopes have been dashed to the thin air.  Lagosians are respecter of laws but the ability for LASG to make the laws effective is the major challenge. The reality of these many laws is to the state a sanity one. Every house owners that demand for two to three house rents should be sentenced to prison while agent operators should be checkmated to know the genuine ones in the state. It is only Lagos state where agent operators collect money while other states use the services of lawyers and nothing more.

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BY GODDAY ODIDI, PUBLIC AFFAIRS ANALYST,08063458693,08058124798,@20 ORO STREET AJEGUNLE APAPA LAGOS

NBS Denial of N5000Notes Opinion Poll: A Self-Indictment on PDP Government

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PRESS STATEMENT

The All Nigeria Peoples Party [ANPP] received with interest the news on Monday of the denial by the National Bureau of Statistics [NBS] the report credited to it that, according to an opinion poll it carried out, 75percent Nigerians opposed the introduction of N5000 notes. The curious rejoinder signed by the NBS management stated that they introduced some interactive tools on their website and data portal, one of which is an opinion poll, and that the opinion poll is used simply ‘‘as a social interactive tool to engage users of our statistical data’’; it also insisted that ‘‘its is not an official statistical tool because it is not based on any statistical methodologies or systems that formulate the basis on which all of the NBS’ surveys are developed’’. The odd official rebuttal ended by asserting that ‘‘those polls are not official and cannot be considered to be scientific in any way’’.

 

For starters, it is patently naïve at best, and deceptive at worst, for an agency as supposedly scientific and well-informed as the NBS to go public with a ham’s act of a rebuttal which tried to discredit one of its own most authentic and effective ways of gauging the heartbeat of the people, just in a bid to play to the gallery. To refresh our memory, last week a survey by the NBS, revealed that 75.1 percent of Nigerians are opposed to the currency restructuring by the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] which will lead to the introduction of the 5000 note as the country’s highest currency denomination and the conversion of lesser bills to coins. According to the poll, only 16.1percent of the Nigerian populace is in strong support of the CBN policy while4.04 and 4.62 percent are partially in support and against the currency restructuring, respectively.

 

Our great party believes that the above statistics is a manifest signpost of the wishes of the Nigerian people. But soon as the NBS had laid bare the truth in accordance with its constitutional mandate to always put up in facts and figures all issues affecting the lives of Nigerian citizens, it did a 360 degrees somersault by coming out again to unconvincingly deny its own statistics. We must not therefore hesitate to bring to the notice of NBS and the good people of this great nation the larger implication of such an attempted denial. The most important is that the Bureau has given Nigerians cause to doubt the validity of its often-criticized national economic growth statistics. In fact, it gives us shivers to consider that the latest of such statistics, which stated that the country’s economy grew by 6.28 percent in the second quarter of the year, from 6.17 percent in the first quarter, might be another hogwash to boost the ego of the current PDP government, just as the dismal rebuttal was actually intended to erase the vote of no confidence of the people on this present government and its anti-people policies.

 

The ANPP therefore calls on the National Assembly to summon the Statistician General of the Federation for him to explain the sources and methodologies of his statistical processes, as the denial of opinion poll calls to question his competence as a statistician serving a nation of more than one hundred and fifty million multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-creed peoples. In other developed democracies, opinion polls and random sampling, handled by professionals worth their salt, are veritable tools of accurately gauging the pulse of the citizens at any given time.

 

Signed:

 

Hon Emma Eneukwu

 

National Publicity Secretary

 

ANPP

 

18-09-12

PhotoNews: The National Awards

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Obama chides China about trade

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President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event Monday at Eden Park’s Seasongood Pavilion in Cincinnati, Ohio. (AP photo)

CINCINNATI – President Barack Obama lodged an unfair-trade complaint against China on Monday and immediately used it as a wedge against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, whose beleaguered campaign is trying to regroup after a shaky few weeks.

Obama told voters in Ohio, where the auto industry is important, of his administration’s new push for the World Trade Organization to sanction China for subsidizing exports of vehicles and auto parts – and costing American jobs.

Romney responded quickly and dismissively. Obama “may think that announcing new trade cases less than two months from Election Day will distract from his record, but the American businesses and workers struggling on an uneven playing field know better,” the Republican said.

Referring to his own criticism of Obama, he said, “If I’d known all it took to get him to take action was to run an ad citing his inaction on China’s cheating, I would have run one long ago.”

However, it was Romney’s own campaign that preoccupied many GOP activists around the country Monday.

Romney allies tried to dampen growing complaints that the campaign fumbled opportunities at its August convention on foreign unrest and, most crucially, on the U.S. economy, which is seen as Obama’s weakest point.

Campaign adviser Ed Gillespie, in a conference call with reporters, said voters want more details about Romney’s tax and spending proposals, and he promised they will come.

“We’re not rolling out new policies,” Gillespie said, but the campaign wants people to “understand when we say we can do these things, here’s how we’re going to get them done, and these are the specifics.”

Obama continued to taunt Romney for gaps in his deficit-cutting promises. It wasn’t immediately clear when Romney might start offering more specifics.

Deficit hawks have long urged politicians of all stripes to tell voters the painful truth that services must be cut and/or taxes must be raised to slow federal deficit spending.

Romney addressed another sensitive area Monday, immigration, in his speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles.

He pledged to work with both parties to “permanently fix our immigration system.” He said a fair and efficient system would never be achieved “if we do not first get control of our borders.”

The careful language underscored the fine line Romney must walk between appealing to Latino voters and angering conservatives who oppose proposals for pathways to citizenship for some illegal immigrants.

Republican activists have watched with growing concern as opinion polls suggest Obama has opened a small lead over Romney since the parties’ late-summer conventions. Some conservative writers have complained for months that Romney needs to put more details behind his pledges to tame the deficit while also preserving all tax cuts and expanding military spending.

Others say Romney mishandled a chance to criticize Obama’s foreign policy last week when the Republican nominee issued sharp remarks in the opening hours of fast-changing and complicated episodes of violence aimed at American facilities in the Middle East.

On Sunday, Politico reported significant tension and disarray in the Romney campaign. Particularly chaotic, according to the account, were efforts to draft Romney’s acceptance speech at the Tampa, Fla., convention. The speech drew lackluster reviews in general, and rebukes from some for making no mention of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Romney played down the reports in an interview with Telemundo. “I’ve got a terrific campaign,” he said. “My senior campaign people work extraordinarily well together. I work well with them.”

With 50 days until the election, Romney’s camp unveiled new TV ads and planned a renewed focus on policy in campaign appearances by the nominee, his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, and top surrogates.

Obama, speaking in Cincinnati soon after Gillespie’s conference call, seemed eager to challenge the notion that Romney will detail potentially painful changes Americans will have to accept to slow the fast rise in the federal debt.

Obama’s own spending plans would not balance the budget. But he has offered more detailed tax-and-spending proposals, in part because he must present budget proposals to Congress. In Ohio on Monday, Obama noted that he, unlike Romney, would raise taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year. Romney’s platform, the president said, “doesn’t add up.”

“They say the most important thing we have to do is reduce the deficit,” Obama said. “Then the first thing they do is to spend trillions of dollars more on tax breaks for the wealthy.”

“And whenever you ask them to explain the plan, they won’t,” he said. “They won’t say how they pay for $5 trillion in tax cuts.”

In his Los Angeles speech, Romney added no new significant details to his deficit-cutting claims. He said he would put the nation “on track to a balanced budget,” in part by eliminating non-essential programs or subsidies. The only subsidies he specified go to Amtrak, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the national endowments for the arts and humanities, and the Legal Services Corporation.

These programs, which Romney has targeted since 2011, receive a tiny portion of federal spending.

Several balanced-budget advocates want both Romney and Obama to confront tougher decisions about spending and taxes. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired a deficit-reduction commission, told NBC Sunday that the presidential campaigns contain “not nearly enough substance” on this topic.

“There’s no easy way out,” Bowles said, “and I think the candidates are afraid to stand up and say, ‘Look, we need to make some tough choices. We need to have some shared sacrifice.’”

In Cincinnati, Obama reiterated his claims that Bain Capital – the private equity firm Romney headed for years – helped companies shift U.S. jobs to China.

“He made money investing in companies that uprooted from here and went to China,” the president said. “When other countries don’t play by the rules, we’ve done something about it. We’ve brought more trade cases against China in one term than the previous administration did in two.”

Romney’s campaign recently began airing TV ads accusing Obama of allowing American manufacturing jobs to be lost to China. The campaign said Bain was not involved in moving jobs to China while Romney headed the firm.

Separately, China filed its own World Trade Organization case Monday challenging U.S. anti-dumping measures on billions of dollars of kitchen appliances, paper and other goods, adding to worsening trade strains between the two economic giants.

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Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Babington reported from Washington.

Iran’s newest nuclear facility struck by ‘saboteurs’

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Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, disclosed the incident during a speech in Vienna to the 155 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Saboteurs have struck Iran’s newest and most sensitive nuclear facility by blowing up its power supply cables, the head of the country’s atomic energy programme disclosed.

This announcement offered a rare glimpse of a long-running campaign to sabotage Iran’s critical nuclear installations, believed to be a key priority of Western and Israeli intelligence agencies.

The Fordow plant, located inside a bunker dug into a mountainside, became the latest target on Aug 17 when an explosion severed its electricity cables, running from the nearby city of Qom.

Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, disclosed the incident during a speech in Vienna to the 155 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He noted that IAEA inspectors visited Fordow the day after the explosion and insinuated that they might have been responsible.

“During the early hours of next morning, an Agency inspector requested to conduct an unannounced inspection. Does this visit have any connection to that detonation?” asked Mr Abbasi. “Who, other than the IAEA inspectors, can have access to the complex in such a short term to report and record failures?”

Mr Abbasi added: “Terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the Agency and might be making decisions covertly.”

Five Iranian nuclear scientists are known to have been assassinated since 2007. Mr Abbasi was himself wounded when a motorcyclist attached a bomb to his car in Tehran in November 2010, on the same day as another scientist was killed by this method.

The Fordow enrichment plant, buried beneath about 260ft of rock and earth, was built in secret from 2006 onwards. But Western intelligence discovered its construction, allowing President Barack Obama to reveal the installation’s existence in 2009. Fordow is Iran’s most valuable plant because its location in a hollowed out mountainside could render it immune to air attack.

The IAEA says that 696 centrifuges are being used to enrich uranium inside Fordow, with another 1,444 installed but not yet operational. If these machines lost their power supply, they would be severely damaged, said Mark Fitzpatrick, the head of non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“If there was no power source to keep them spinning, and if they stopped, as they slowed down they would crash,” he said.

But IAEA inspectors visited Fordow the day after the incident, on Aug 18. Their report on Iran’s nuclear programme, released on Aug 30, does not mention any damage to the centrifuges.

This suggests that Fordow must have a backup electricity system. It would, in any case, be an extraordinary oversight for an installation of this sensitivity to lack an independent power supply and rely on a normal grid connection.

The development of Fordow may not be progressing as rapidly as Iran might have hoped. While the total number of centrifuges installed in the plant has tripled since February, the number of operational machines has remained constant for the last seven months at 696.

Mr Fitzpatrick noted that the electricity supply for Iran’s other enrichment plant at Natanz had been singled out for sabotage, with one power surge destroying 50 centrifuges. It was “entirely conceivable” that Fordow could be encountering the same attention, he said.

The CIA is understood to have begun a sabotage campaign, code-named “Olympic Games”, under the Bush administration. The most successful intervention was the Stuxnet computer virus, which makes centrifuges spin out of control and tear themselves to pieces. This was infiltrated into Natanz in 2009 and briefly forced all enrichment to be halted for emergency repairs. This virus alone probably delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions by up to a year.

Chinese Loan: Nigeria Plunging Into Another Debt Trap, Neo-Colonialism – CNPP

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The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) says the recent $1.1billion Chinese loan facility granted to Nigeria; will further plunge the country into foreign debt trap and what it describes as Chinese neo-colonialism.

 

In a press statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Osita Okechukwu, CNPP said it is a paradox that the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who less than ten years ago was hailed for doling out $12.4 billion to exit Nigeria from the Paris and London Debt Trap and Western Imperialism is today heading the unconscionable Debt Squad and Chinese Imperialism.

 

The group further lamented that had it not been for the patriotism of the members of the National Assembly, Nigeria’s foreign debt profile could have sky-rocketed over the roof; as earlier in the year the Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala had written to the National Assembly requesting for$7.9 billion foreign loan for sundry purposes.

 

“Whereas, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties{CNPP} agrees that some of the projects for the loans and in particular, the$1.1billion Chinese Credit Facility are of high priority and of high impact, which as the Ministry of Finance canvassed are designed to have practical economic effect and make life better, more convenient for all Nigerians of all socio-economic groups.

 

“However with Excess Crude Account of over $8billionand billions fleeced off corruptly, there is no justification for subjecting sovereign Nigeria to Chinese imperialism or any for that matter,” CNPP said.

 

The group queried why the Federal Government of Nigeria is borrowing $100m for Galaxy Backbone, when the private telecommunications companies like GLO, MTN, Microsoft, Huawei, Ericsson, Etisalat, ZTE and co are busy doing same across the federation in partnership with Nigerians?

 

“With unprecedented oil revenue, Nigeria has no genuine cause to return to foreign debt trap; as a careful study of Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa shows that like all known imperialism in history; it is exploitative, anti-people, anti-democratic and ruthless,” CNPP lamented.

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