Suspected Boko Haram Insurgents Kill Pastor, Five Others In Yobe State

The assailants attacked the community early Friday and also set houses and cars ablaze during the assault.

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have killed Pastor Luka Levong of the Church of Christ In Nations (COCIN) in Kwari, Geidam Local Government Area of Yobe state. The attackers also killed five others. 

Some residents who evacuated the corpses to the Specialist Hospital Geidam told Channels Television that the attackers invaded the community around 2: 00 am on Friday and shot the pastor and his church treasurer Maina Abdullahi.

According to them, the other victims were also killed in their separate houses one after the other before the arrival of the security men, while many houses including one church and vehicles were also set ablaze.

Both the military and the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) are yet to comment on the incident as of now and efforts to speak with them have proved abortive.

Geidam is located 177 kilometers away from Damaturu, the state capital, and is about 40 kilometres away from Nigeria/Niger Republic border.

The incident is coming days after Boko Haram insurgents attacked a community in neighbouring Yobe State, killing 12 persons and injuring two others.

That attack took place in the Gartamawa community of Chibok Local Government Area which is 125 kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

“The terrorists stormed the community of Gatamarwa around 5 pm on Monday during the New Year celebration heavily armed with AK-47 rifles, came on motorcycles and Hilux vans, and opened fire on mourners returning from Gatamarwa.

“They later attacked another Tsiha community near Shikarkir and killed three people and abducted a young lady burning houses and looting their foodstuffs,” a source told Channels Television.

At least 40,000 people have been killed and more than two million others displaced since the hardline group launched a rebellion in 2009.

The insurgency has spread into neighbouring Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, prompting a regional military force to be set up to fight the militants.

Japan Quake Death Toll Rises To 94 With 222 Missing

Two elderly women were pulled from the rubble on Thursday, but hopes of finding other survivors after the 7.5 magnitude quake on New Year's Day were fading with rain, snow and falling temperatures forecast in the coming days.

Hampered by bad weather and damaged roads, Japanese rescuers searched Friday for 222 people still missing four days after a devastating earthquake as the death toll approached 100.

Two elderly women were pulled from the rubble on Thursday, but hopes of finding other survivors after the 7.5 magnitude quake on New Year’s Day were fading with rain, snow and falling temperatures forecast in the coming days.

Thousands of rescuers from all over Japan have been battling aftershocks and roads littered with gaping holes and blocked by frequent landslides in the central Ishikawa region to reach hundreds of people in stranded communities.

On Thursday afternoon, 72 hours after the quake, the two older women were miraculously pulled alive from the remains of their homes in Wajima, one of them thanks to a sniffer dog.

The port city of Wajima on the Noto Peninsula was one of the worst hit, with a pungent smell of soot still in the air and faint columns of smoke visible from a huge fire that destroyed hundreds of structures on the first day.

“I was relaxing on New Year’s Day when the quake happened. My relatives were all there and we were having fun,” Hiroyuki Hamatani, 53, told AFP amid the burnt-out cars, wrecked buildings and fallen telegraph poles.

“The house itself is standing but it’s far from livable now… I don’t have the space in my mind to think about the future,” he told AFP.

Authorities said on Friday afternoon that 222 people were unaccounted for, down from an earlier count of 242, including 121 in Wajima and 82 in Suzu.

The death toll was raised to 94 from 92, with 464 people injured. The dead included a junior high school boy visiting his family, reports said.

Around 30,000 households were without electricity in the Ishikawa region, and 89,800 homes there and in two neighbouring regions had no water.

Hundreds of people were in government shelters.

“We are doing our best to conduct rescue operations at the isolated villages… However, the reality is that the isolation has not been resolved to the extent that we would like,” regional governor Hiroshi Hase said Friday.

In the town of Anamizu, Sang and his four fellow Vietnamese compatriots have no heating or water in their damaged house. The toilet was full of bricks.

“We were cooking when it happened. We all dashed out of the house,” the 32-year-old told AFP.

“We had no internet connection on the day of the earthquake, but it resumed yesterday. We were able to contact family in Vietnam,” he said.

“What we need now is something to eat and drink.”

The Suzu area was also devastated, with fishing boats sunk or lifted like toys onto the shore by tsunami waves that also reportedly swept one person away.

Noriaki Yachi, 79, fought back tears after his wife was pulled from the rubble there and confirmed dead, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.

“My life with her was a happy one,” Yachi said.

Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year and most cause no damage, with strict building codes in place for more than four decades.

Earthquakes have hit the Noto region with intensifying strength and frequency over the past five years.

The country is haunted by a massive 9.0 magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

It also swamped the Fukushima atomic plant, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

Germany Drops Planned Subsidy Cuts After Farmers Protest

Contrary to the initial plans, a discount on the vehicle tax for agricultural machinery would be maintained, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

The German government on Thursday dropped part of its plans to cut agricultural subsidies in the face of massive protests from farmers.

Contrary to the initial plans, a discount on the vehicle tax for agricultural machinery would be maintained, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

Meanwhile, tax breaks on fuel used by the same vehicles would not be scrapped completely but reduced progressively, Hebestreit said.

The move was agreed in light of new information on the state of the government’s finances and “in order to avoid the sometimes considerable bureaucratic effort for the companies affected”, he said.

An end to the subsidies was initially announced in December after a shock court ruling upended the government’s spending plans.

The move almost immediately prompted significant protests by farmers, who descended on central Berlin in their thousands.

The protestors blocked one of the main roads in the heart of the capital with tractors and dumped manure on the street.

The partial reinstatement of the tax breaks was “insufficient”, said Joachim Rukwied, the head of the German Farmers’ Association (DBV).

“Our position remains unchanged: both proposed cuts must be abandoned,” Rukwied said.

Germany’s highest court decided in November that the government had broken a constitutional debt rule when it transferred 60 billion euros ($66 billion) earmarked for pandemic support to a climate fund.

After adopting an emergency budget for 2023, Social Democrat Scholz and his junior coalition partners, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, hashed out a new financial plan for 2024.

The government hoped to pass the revised budget through the lower house of the German parliament in January, Hebestreit said. Until it is passed, a provisional budget applies.

Hiring Peseiro One Of Nigerian Football’s Greatest Mistakes, Says Gara-Gombe

A former Chairman of the Gombe Football Association Ahmed Gara-Gombe does not believe in the capabilities of Super Eagles Head Coach Jose Peseiro, describing his appointment as the greatest mistake in Nigeria's football history. 

A former Chairman of the Gombe Football Association Ahmed Gara-Gombe does not believe in the capabilities of Super Eagles Head Coach Jose Peseiro, describing his appointment as one of the greatest mistakes in Nigerian football. 

“Since the time of Clemens Westerhof, we never had a transition, a championship without confusion, without uncertainty, turning Nigerians into prayer warriors, praying for somebody to lose before we win; even from the qualification to where we are, I do not have confidence in the system,” he said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily. 

“In the first place, hiring Peseiro for the Super Eagles was one of the greatest mistakes we have ever made in the history of our football,” he said.

Peseiro has been heavily criticised for the Super Eagles’ poor showings in recent times and for lacking a playing style.

Nigeria began the 2026 World Cup qualification on a shaky note, drawing their first two games against lowly Lesotho and Zimbabwe.

While there were calls for his sack ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) stuck with the Portuguese.

But Gara-Gombe maintains that since the arrival of the former Venezuela coach, the Super Eagles have not improved.

“Being with them [the team], what was the outcome? There was never a time this guy managed this team from the sidelines that we were confident,” he said on the show.

“You and I know. Those days you can sit down and count a team, 11 players for the national team that you can say, ‘Yes, these are good to go’.

“You can sit down and say as soon as we line up before any team in Africa, ‘Yes, Nigeria will overrun them with ease’. You can sit down and say, ‘Okay, this is the tactics that the Super Eagles are playing.

“But today, no. Anybody who does that is just doing that for pleasure but not a reality, a reality.”

‘Intervention of God’

super-eagles-

With three titles already, the Super Eagles gaffer is optimistic Nigeria can rule Africa again when the AFCON starts in Cote d’Ivoire in about two weeks.

However, Gara-Gombe has ruled out the Super Eagles from winning the competition. That can only take a miracle to happen, he said.

“The reality of the situation is that the Super Eagles are not just ready for this championship. Let us go and keep on trying our cut and paste strategy, our wobble and fumble strategy,” the football chief said.

“Let’s go ahead with that. If anything happens, then it’s the intervention of God, not because we are ready or we are prepared for that.”

Birmingham City Sack Rooney Just After 15 Matches In Charge

Rooney oversaw just two wins in 15 matches with Monday’s 3-0 thumping by Leeds, their ninth defeat under him, proving the final straw.

Manchester United legend, Wayne Rooney has been sacked as Birmingham City boss after a poor 15-match run.

He was sacked as manager of Championship side Birmingham City on Tuesday following a disastrous spell in charge.

The 38-year-old former Manchester United and England star was appointed in October but oversaw just two wins in 15 matches with Monday’s 3-0 thumping by Leeds, their ninth defeat under him, proving the final straw.

Birmingham — who have NFL legend Tom Brady as a minority shareholder — are embroiled in a  battle against relegation, slumping to 20th from sixth since Rooney took over.

“Despite their best efforts, results have not met the expectations that were made clear at the outset,” read a statement from the club.

“Therefore, the board feels that a change in management is in the best interests of the football club.”

Rooney replaced John Eustace, who was sacked just after he had guided Birmingham to two successive wins which propelled them into the play-off places.

“Football is a results business -– and I recognise they have not been at the level I wanted them to be,” said Rooney.

“However, time is the most precious commodity a manager requires and I do not believe 13 weeks was sufficient to oversee the changes that were needed.

Five Dead In Japan Plane Collision

All 367 passengers and 12 crew onboard the Airbus plane were evacuated.

Five people on board a coast guard aircraft died after a runway collision with a Japan Airlines plane at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday, the Japanese transport minister said.

“Regarding the coast guard plane, we have been informed that the captain escaped and five people were confirmed dead,” Tetsuo Saito told reporters.

FG Suspends Accreditation Of Degree Certificates From Benin Republic, Togo

This move followed a report detailing how a degree was acquired from a university in Benin Republic in under two months. 

The Federal Government has suspended the accreditation and evaluation of degree certificates from Benin Republic and Togo. 

This move followed a report detailing how a degree was acquired from a university in Benin Republic in under two months.

“This report lends credence to suspicions that some Nigerians deploy nefarious means and unconscionable methods to get a Degree with the end objective of getting graduate job opportunities for which they are not qualified,” the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education Augustina Obilor-Duru said in a Tuesday statement.

“The Federal Ministry of Education vehemently decries such acts and with effect from 2nd January 2024 is suspending evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from Benin and Togo Republics pending the outcome of an investigation that would involve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria and the two countries, the ministries responsible for Education in the two countries as well the Department of State Security Services (DSSS), and the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC).”

The ministry is also calling on Nigerians to assist in providing information to help the committee as it seeks lasting solutions to prevent future occurrences.

“FME has been contending with the problem including illegal institutions located abroad or at home preying on unsuspecting, innocent Nigerians and some desperate Nigerians who deliberately patronize such outlets,” the statement added.

“Periodically, warnings have been issued by the Ministry and NUC against the resort to such institutions and in some instances, reports made to security agencies to clamp down on the perpetrators. The ministry will continue to review its strategy to plug any loopholes, processes, and procedures and deal decisively with any conniving officials.”