FG can’t borrow N1.1trn to end ASUU strike – Festus Keyamo
Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has said that it is unfair and totally unrealistic for the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to expect the Federal Government to borrow money to end the more than five-month old strike.
He made this statement on Friday while speaking on ChannelsTV Politics Today. He couldn’t fathom why ASUU would prefer that the government borrow to pay them considering that their salary already takes up around 50 percent of the government’s overhead. “Should we go and borrow to pay N1.2 trillion yearly?” he asked.
“You cannot allow one sector of the economy to hold you by the jugular and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion for overheads when our total income would be about N6.1 trillion.” And you have roads to build, health centres to build, other sectors to take care of. ” He added
He, however, urged parents to plead with ASUU to call off the strike while negotiations continue.
Muslim-Muslim ticket reason I left APC – Daniel Bwala
Daniel Bwala, spokesman for the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, has said the Muslim-Muslim ticket of his former party, the APC, is the reason he left APC for the PDP.
He stated that the decision seems to be a deliberate move by the ruling party to exclude sections of the country from the dividends of democracy in Nigeria.
Bwala also linked his decision of joining Atiku Abubakar’s campaign train to his capacity to deal with the multitude of problems created under the Buhari administration. He promised that his previous allegiance to the APC wouldn’t affect his ability to “sell” his candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to Nigerians.
Read also:APC to address Muslim-Muslim ticket controversy before election – Adamu
China halts co-operation with US on key issues over Pelosi’s Taiwan visit
China is putting a brake on diplomatic ties with the US over Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. The areas of mutual cooperation likely to be affected are climate change, military talks, and efforts to combat international crime.
According to the BBC, China, which also announced that it would be sanctioning Pelosi and her family, views the visit as a challenge to its claims of sovereignty over Taiwan.
The self-ruled island sees itself as distinct from the mainland. The measures were announced by China’s foreign ministry on Friday.
It said dialogue between US and Chinese defence officials would be cancelled, while cooperation on returning illegal immigrants, climate change, and investigating international crime would be suspended.
Wall Street records mixed result after positive US jobs report
Following positive non-farm payroll results, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 0.2 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, while the Dow gained more than 70 basis points.
The US jobs data report showed gains higher than Wall Street expectations, which surprised many analysts despite the aggressive monetary tightening of the US Fed Reserve.
A close examination of the US Labor Department report showed that the US economy added 528K payrolls in July 2022, as against 398K jobs in June 2022.
According to Trading Economics, the data came after several Fed policymakers made hawkish comments, making a policy pivot even more elusive as the central bank sought to cool an overheating economy.
Banks and energy stocks advanced while Tesla and other tech companies slumped.
Palestinian militants fire rockets at Israel after Gaza air strikes
Fears were ignited that we may witness another May 2021 Israeli-Palestinian war, which killed 250 people in Gaza and 13 people in Israel following a reprisal attack by a militant group in Gaza.
The militant group called Islamic Jihad claimed that it fired more than 100 rockets into Israel as retaliation for Israel’s airstrikes that killed at least 10 people, including a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.
The militant group took this action on Friday. However, the Israeli government acknowledged the actions of the group in Gaza but claimed through videos shown on State TV that a number of these missiles were shot down.
The Isreali Military said that there were no casualties from the airstrike.
