BAKKACIMA BLOG

  Headlines .... US Politics : Joe Biden - Here's my promise to you: if I have the honour of serving as the next commander in chief, I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honour their sacrifice, always. Nigeria : The price of petrol jumped to between N162 and N164 per litre on Thursday following Wednesday's hike in ex deposit price. Coronavirus Update : India is reporting over 80,000 new coronavirus cases per day at the moment.  Nigeria Insurgency : There's no single human being in at least three (3) local government councils of Borno because of the deteriorating security situation in these areas, the state assembly speaker says. SPORTS : England players will all take a knee before the upcoming Nations League games against Iceland and Denmark.  US - Iran : Trump on Twitter said, "Hearing that Iran is looking to execute a great and popular wrestling star, 27 year old Navid Afkarai, whose sole act was an anti-government demonstration...

  Bannon and three others have been charged with defrauding people who donated to the viral "We Build the Wall" campaign on GoFundMe.  Bannon was arrested Thursday morning along with Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, according to a statement from the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York. “As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction. While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle. We thank the USPIS for their partnership in investigating this case, and we remain dedicated to rooting out and prosecuting fraud wherever we find it.”  Aud...

  Nigeria COVID-19 update - 18/8/2020 410 new cases of Coronavirus were recorded in Nigeria on Tuesday August 18, as confirmed by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).    A breakdown of the new cases across states is as follows; Lagos-210, FCT-45, Ondo-30, Plateau-21, Edo-19, Ogun-16, Oyo-13, Nasarawa-12, Bauchi-11, Enugu-10, Kwara-7, Kaduna-6, Anambra-4, Ebonyi-3, Abia-2, Rivers-1.    There are now 49,895 confirmed cases of Coronavirus across the country. 981 deaths have been recorded, 37,051 patients who recovered from the disease have also been discharged.   

  Relations between China and Canada grew worse after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer and  the daughter of the founder of Chinese tech giant Huawei,  Meng Wanzhou,  at Vancouver's airport in late 2018. A court in China has sentenced a Canadian to death for transporting and manufacturing drugs, the second Canadian in just two days to receive the death penalty for narcotics. The Intermediate People's Court of Foshan City in Guangdong Province said Ye Jianhui was given the death sentence for "the crime of transporting and manufacturing drugs," according to a court statement released on Friday. Ye Jianhui, a Canadian national, was sentenced after a trial in the southern city of Foshan, the Foshan Intermediate People's Court said in a notice on its website on Friday. Authorities found 218 kilograms (480) pounds of amphetamine in a room the court said was used by the defendant. A smaller amount of the drug was seized in a bag and res...

Photo:  bakkacima In life, you must be careful of the persons you share your dreams, visions and details of your assignment with, to avoid wrong influences that will war against such an assignment or vision.  You must also be careful of the people you visit or that will visit and spend time with you when your are at the conception or birthing stage of great things in your life.  There are people whose visits will lead to goodly encounters, but there are people whose visits will lead to gossips, anger and regrettable encounters. Below are some details of people you should not visit and share details of your dreams and visions with as well as people you can visit or allow to visit you and their visits will not mar your dreams and visions.

                Written by                Jack -  Guest author Contact tracing apps seem to be the new fad. Their popularity is also one that comes on the back of a series of unfortunate events. They seem to hold another approach to fighting the menace of a disease that has claimed no less than 400,000 lives worldwide. The widespread race to get these apps working can also be attributed to the coming together of two big names in tech, Apple and Google, to make the frameworks for such apps happen. Like every other thing, though, how does the scales tip in favor of, or against, these apps? The Case for Contact Tracing Apps In April alone, the US people lost more jobs than the economy had been able to gain in about a combined decade. More unemployment claims are filed daily, while companies do not take their staff out of furlough anytime soon. Businesses are folding up daily, too, especially those still p...

The popular singer and entrepreneur, Kanye West on Saturday said he is running for president in the 2020 US election, an apparent challenge to go head-to-head with President Donald Trump. "We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future," West tweeted. "I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION." West tweeted his plans days  teasing a new song and announcing a new album titled "God's Country." Fans immediately tweeted their support for the musician and business mogul, who has a history of promoting himself and his projects with political statements. So far, it doesn't appear West has any intention of actually running for president. With the election only four months away, West still needs to register with the Federal Election Commission, present a campaign platform, collect enough signatures to get on the November ballot and more. He has already missed the deadline to file a...

Samuel Ortom Governor of Benue State has sympathized with families of the 23 victims whose boat capsized while crossing River Benue. The Governor who described the incident as painful and unfortunate, particularly consoled with ECAN Church, Ijaha, Makurdi Local Government Area which members were involved in the boat mishap. He said marine police personnel were immediately deployed to the area, assisted by local divers in rescuing the victims. The Governor urged members of Kwaghter community where the incident took place to cooperate with the police rescue team to enable them find the missing persons. He reminded Benue people about this year’s weather predictions on torrential rains and advised that those who travel by water should employ all safety measures to avoid unforeseen incidents. Governor Ortom enjoined Benue people to always observe COVID-19 prevention measures by staying away from crowded places to curb the spread of the disease.

The premature twin girls 'Anne' and 'Analú' were mauled to death by the animal when their mother, Elaine Novais, left them briefly to speak to a neighbor. The baby girls died on June 23, the same day they were scheduled to be born by cesarean. But they arrived a month early, The SUN reported.  The dog involved in the killing of the twins is Labrador and American Foxhound mix. The animal had been with the family for five years, and has been described usually docile. However, since the arrival of Anne and Analú, the dog became jealous after losing affection from its owners. The reports claimed on the day of the incident that happened in Piripá, in the northeastern state of Bahia, the 29-year-old mother of the twins rushed to her bedroom where the 26 day-old babies lay after hearing their cries. After reaching the room, she pulled the dog away from the children but the animal had already critically damaged the abdomen of the two. They were rushed to the hospital, however, ...

Willian's brace was not enough for Chelsea to secure a point away from home as they suffered a surprise 3-2 defeat to West Ham, who moved three points clear of the relegation zone thanks to Andriy Yarmolenko's 89th-minute winner at the London Stadium. The defeat ended Chelsea's 6 games unbeaten run in all competitions. Though they still maintained their fourth position in the table, just two points clear of in-form Manchester United and Wolves with six matches remaining in the race for Champions League qualification. Asked if he was concerned that Chelsea had a mental issue following their inconsistent form in 2019-20, head coach Lampard told reporters: "It's something that has happened a few times this season. "We've had opportunities to close gaps and jump over teams because of other results or whatever situation. "But we haven't done it and that's a sign of where we are. We know we have a lot of hard work to do to get where we want to be an...

India's first domestic candidate to get the green light from the government's drug regulator to proceed with  human trials of  COVID-19 vaccine is  Bharat Biotech International Ltd. The Drug Controller General of India has approved the company's application to conduct a Phase I and II clinical trial of Covaxin, which was developed along with the Indian Council of Medical Research's National Institute of Virology, the company said in a statement on Monday. Human clinical trials are scheduled to start across the country in July for the vaccine, which was developed and manufactured in Bharat Biotech's facility at Genome Valley in Hyderabad, India. More than 16,000 people have died from the disease since the first case in India in January - low when compared with countries with similar numbers of cases. But experts fear hospitals in the densely populated nation will be unable to cope with a steep rise in cases,  as cases surge in a country with more than 1.3 billion peo...

In China, a  new flu virus has been found in pigs which has now  become more infectious to humans and needs to be watched closely in case it becomes a potential "pandemic virus", a new study has found. A team of Chinese researchers looked at influenza viruses found in pigs from 2011 to 2018 and found a ("G4" strain of H1N1) with "all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus", according to the paper, which was published in the US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS. This is because workers on pig farms showed elevated levels of the virus in their blood, the authors said, adding that "close monitoring in human populations, especially the workers in the swine industry, should be urgently implemented.

Iran has just issued an arrest warrant for Donald Trump - the US President, over the drone strike that killed a top Iranian general (Qasem Soleimani) in January, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Monday. Trump is one of 36 people Iran has issued arrest warrants for in relation to the death of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Fars, but the Tehran attorney general Ali Alqasi Mehr said Trump was at the top of the list. Fars reported that Mehr claimed Trump would be prosecuted as soon as he stands down presidency after his term ends. Furthermore, Iran also said it had asked Interpol to issue a Red Notice for these 36 individuals, semi-official state news agency ISNA reported, though it was unlikely that Interpol would grant the request. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in January along with five others, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mo...

The wife of late Ex-Governor of Oyo State, Mrs. Florence Ajimobi, yesterday, accused the Oyo State government of playing politics with her husband’s death. She also accused Governor Seyi Makinde of not calling her or paying a condolence visit to her since the death of her husband last Thursday. She said this on a day her husband’s remains were laid to rest amid tight security at his Oluyole residence at 10:05 am on yesterday. Earlier, there was a heated controversy over where the former governor should be buried. Newsmen gathered that the Oyo State Government was reportedly reluctant in allowing the Ajimobi family to bury the body at Agodi GRA due to a pending court case. The widow of the former governor advised the governor to avoid playing politics with the death of her husband. Ajimobi said: “I read in the newspapers a few days ago that the governor of Oyo State, Mr. Seyi Makinde, claimed to call me and I didn’t pick up, he never visited Ajimobi’s family since my husband was admitte...

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency - CFIA is launching an investigation after the arrival of a Ukraine International Airlines flight from Kyiv to Toronto's Pearson International Airport with approximately 500 puppies on board, 38 of whom were found dead. This incident place on June 13. The French bulldog puppies who survived were exhibiting symptoms such as dehydration, vomiting and weakness. The breed is popular in Canada. The agency said; "CFIA officials are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding this incident and will determine next steps once the investigation is complete." Ukraine International Airlines condemned the incident on their Facebook page, saying they were working with local authorities to determine what happened. A spokesperson for Transport Canada told newsmen that there were no set Canadian Aviation Regulations for pet transportation in airline cabins or in cargo holds, and that air operators set their own policies regarding pets on board...