At least 16 killed as train hits bus in Russia

A handout picture released by Vladimir region branch of the Russian Interior Ministry shows the site of a collision, after a train slammed into a passenger bus that had broken down on a level crossing, near the city of Vladimir, some 110 kilometres (70 miles) east of the Russian capital, on October 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Russian Interior Ministry / HO 

At least 16 people were killed on Friday when a train slammed into a bus that had broken down on a level crossing east of Moscow, authorities said.

The collision occurred before dawn on Friday near the town of Pokrov, some 110 kilometres (70 miles) from the Russian capital.

“According to preliminary information, 16 people, including a child, have been killed,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said.

“Other passengers, including minors, have been taken to hospital with various injuries. The number of dead and injured is being ascertained,” the committee said, confirming it had opened an investigation.

The regional interior ministry said the bus broke down on the level crossing.

Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that 19 Uzbek nationals had died in the crash, despite the Investigative Committee reporting a lower figure.

The train, travelling at 90 kilometres per hour from the second city of Saint Petersburg to Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, slammed into the bus at 3:29 am (0029 GMT) on Friday.

The train was 400 metres (yards) away from the crossing when the driver slammed on emergency brakes and sounded a warning alarm, but it was not able to stop before it hit the vehicle, Russian Railways said.

All victims on the bus
All of those killed were on the bus, which was carrying 58 people, 56 of them Uzbek nationals.

The remaining two were drivers from Kazakhstan.

“There are no victims among the train passengers,” the interior ministry said.

Images from the scene showed the white Mercedes bus had been almost completely torn apart with most of its roof ripped off and debris scattered across the tracks.

The Uzbek ambassador to Russia was on his way to the scene along with other staff from the embassy, it said.

the interior ministry was sending a team of experts to the region to offer assistance.

Millions of migrants from poverty-stricken ex-Soviet countries such as Uzbekistan come to work in Russia. None of the official statements specified what the Uzbek nationals who were killed in the crash were doing in the country.

The foreign ministry of neighbouring Kazakhstan confirmed the two bus drivers, one of whom was killed, were Kazakh nationals.

The train continued on its route at around 11:00 am local time.

The train-bus collision appears to be Russia’s most deadly accident involving a train since 2006 when 22 people were killed when a train struck a bus at an unprotected crossing in the southern Krasnodar region.

In 1996, a train hit a school bus in the area of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, killing 21 children and injuring 19 others. The driver was unable to see the bus early enough to brake because of a heavy fog.

Another road accident
In a separate accident later Friday, at least six people died and about 15 were injured when a bus overturned in a ditch in the Moscow region, a regional interior ministry spokesman told AFP.

Russia’s road accident mortality rate is extremely high, although it has been declining over the past few years. Some 20,000 people died in car crashes in the country in 2016.

Seventeen people were killed in August when a bus carrying construction workers veered off a pier and plunged into the Black Sea.

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Trump rolls back Obamacare provision for free birth control

US President Donald Trump speaks about business during a proclamation signing in the Oval Office of the White House October 6, 2017 in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski / AFP

US President Donald Trump’s administration annulled on Friday an Obamacare provision that obliged employer health plans to pay for contraception, potentially stripping free birth control from millions of women.

The move extends to all commercial enterprises an exemption already given to religious institutions.

Rights groups, physicians, Democrats and ordinary citizens were outraged, and #HandsOffMyBC was a top trending hashtag on Twitter while the American Civil Liberties Union threatened a lawsuit.

But the White House insisted it was a matter of religious freedom.

The ruling expands “exemptions to protect moral convictions for certain entities and individuals whose health plans are subject to a mandate of contraceptive coverage” under Obamacare, a note published by the US Department of Health and Human Services said.

Millions of American women who had the cost of contraception reimbursed could be affected by the decision, which conservative groups had been seeking since Obamacare began.

Challenges to Obamacare had reached the US Supreme Court, which in 2014 ruled that family-owned private companies could choose not to provide contraceptive coverage to female employees on religious grounds.

In May, Trump signed a decree on religious liberty ordering his administration to take into account objections of conscience on matters of contraception.

Obamacare is the common name for the Affordable Care Act, health reforms that took effect under former president Barack Obama in 2010. It allowed millions of people to get health insurance.

It was not immediately clear how many women would be affected by the new ruling. The Trump administration, basing estimates off the number of employers who had previously filed lawsuits over the Obamacare requirement to fully cover the costs of birth control, said it would only be about 120,000 women.

A 2016 government study said Obamacare had guaranteed that 55.6 million women with private insurance had access to free birth control.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it was “suing the Trump administration to block new rules allowing employers to deny insurance coverage for birth control.”

Planned Parenthood said the new rule “puts our birth control coverage at risk.”

‘Disdain for women’s health’ 
The non-profit health organization, targeted for cuts by Trump’s administration because it provides abortion services, said on Twitter that the decision on contraception coverage “shows the Trump admin’s disdain for women’s health & lives.”

Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in last November’s election, called the new rule sexist.

“It’s the latest display of Republicans’ total disdain for women’s ability to control their own lives,” he said.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said the decision would threaten women’s health.

“These rules will negatively impact the health of women and their families by limiting access to essential preventive care,” the organization’s president, Haywood Brown, said in a statement.

“Contraception is a medical necessity for women during approximately 30 years of their lives. It improves the health of women, children and families as well as communities overall,” said Brown.

But the White House framed it as an issue of religious liberty and asserted that the law was on its side.

“The president believes that the freedom to practice one’s faith is a fundamental right in this country and that’s all today was about,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

“I don’t understand why that should be an issue. The Supreme Court has validated this decision, certainly many times over and the president is somebody who believes in the constitution,” Sanders said.

Repealing Obamacare was one of Trump’s most strident campaign promises. He described Obamacare as a “total disaster,” but his Republican Party has failed in efforts to repeal the health reforms.

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Monkey pox arrives Bayelsa, Residents avoids hand shake.

Some people who spoke during Thursday’s World Teachers Day celebration in Yenagoa said the precautionary measure was justified due to the anxiety created by the news of the dreaded disease on social media. PHOTO:CDC

Government Sets Up Rapid Response Squad To Curtail Spread

Residents of Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, are avoiding handshakes and bodily contact in public places following the outbreak of monkeypox viral disease, which has infected 13 people, including a medical doctor.

According to NAN, many people at public functions on Thursday and yesterday in Yenagoa kept their distance and avoided handshakes and hugs that characterised exchange of pleasantries at social functions.

Some people who spoke during Thursday’s World Teachers Day celebration in Yenagoa said the precautionary measure was justified due to the anxiety created by the news of the dreaded disease on social media.

“This issue of avoiding handshakes reminds one of the days of Ebola, which compelled everyone to heighten personal hygiene. “It is based on advice that we should wash hands frequently, and if my hand is clean, I would endanger myself by shaking hands with someone with unwashed hands,” one respondent said.

Residents across the state capital have been circulating text messages urging people to abstain from shaking hands due to the outbreak of the disease.

As part of efforts to curtail the spread of the epidemic, the Bayelsa State Government has inaugurated a 12-member rapid response team, comprising top medical professionals.

The committee, whose mandate is to prevent the spread of the disease, besides the 12- member core team, is also made up of other sub-teams to carry out contact tracing of patients.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the abstention from handshakes followed an advice by the Commissioner for Health, Prof Ebitimitula Etebu, to members of the public to wash hands frequently and maintain higher level of personal hygiene to curtail the spread of the disease.

This is just as authorities of the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital (NDUTH) disclosed that the infected medical doctor and the 11-years-old boy earlier quarantined in the hospital have been treated and discharged.

Etebu, who inaugurated the committee, reassured the people that there was no need to panic, saying the state had 13 suspected cases at different stages of recovery, following treatment at the makeshift isolation ward at the NDUTH, Okolobiri.

He also said that over 50 persons were being actively followed at differently located places in the state, stressing that the situation was not beyond control, but restated the need for people to observe the simple hygiene of washing hands, noting that government has handed over some boxes of hand sanitizers to the team entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the disease.

Etebu stated: ‘”The state Ministry of Health, with the support of the international community, led by the World Health Organisation (WHO), international partners, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have since embarked on enlightenment campaigns.

“Active disease surveillance has also been carried, case management and other sundry measures have also been carried out in a bid to halt the spread of the disease in the state.

“New suspected cases are being reported everyday in the state. The situation can get out of hand if critical measures are not quickly put in place, and that is why we have thought it expedient to inform the public.

“The essence is to allay the general public of the fact that there is no need to panic; it does not call for any fear. The government is on top of the situation.

He said the disease is transmitted when a person comes in contact with the virus from animals or materials that are contaminated with the virus, noting that the virus enters the body through broken skin that is usually not visible and through respiratory tract or the mucus membrane in the eyes, in the nose and in the mouth.

He said animal to human transmission could occur by the bite of many bush animals and it could also occur through a direct contact with body fluids or lesions of patients that had already come down with the disease.

“It can also be contracted through contaminated beddings and so on and so forth. Human to human transmission occurs through droplet infection with direct contact with body fluids or lesions or materials that are in direct contact with contaminated clothings and the like.

“So, the simple measures we have been propagating and sensitising people and creating awareness is that if you maintain simple hygiene of washing your hands when you touch animals, whether dead or alive, when you go to toilet and so on, will help prevent transmission of this virus.

“We are telling the public that if you see anybody that has developed an unusual rash that is similar to chicken pox rash or small pox, immediately contact us or advise the person to go to the nearest health facility.”

The commissioner recalled that the first index case came from Agbura in Yenagoa, where somebody was purported to have killed and ate monkey meat and started developing rashes.

Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Markson Iworiso, said the government was embarking on practical steps to ensure that the disease was prevented from spreading, urging the people to report all cases of unusual rash to the medical facilities for necessary action.

The Chief Medical Director of NDUTH, Prof Dimie Ogoina, said the affected victims were responding to treatment and stressed the need for the creation of awareness to effectively arrest the disease.

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Buhari to Meet Kachikwu over NNPC Appointments, Contracts

•  Why cold war exists between minister and Baru
• PDP demands GMD’s suspension, probe, APC declines comment

Omololu Ogunmade and Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has invited the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to meet with him to discuss the contents of his letter, alleging irregularities in the $24 billion contract awards and insubordination by the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru.

Presidency sources informed SPLENSIZY Thursday night that the minister will meet with the president possibly Friday or in the next few days.

Kachikwu had in the correspondence said that he would have liked to discuss the concerns raised in the letter personally with the president, but had been blocked by certain unnamed persons in the State House despite several attempts to see him.

In the letter, dated August 30, 2017, Kachikwu also alleged that Baru undermined his office by unilaterally making senior executive appointments without recourse to the board of NNPC which he chairs, and as stipulated in the law governing the operations of NNPC.

The minister had pleaded with Buhari to suspend the appointments until due process had been complied with.

Meanwhile, more facts have come to light on what led to the breakdown of relations between Kachikwu and Baru, with sources revealing to SPLENSIZY  that the cold war started when Kachikwu, in his capacity as GMD of NNPC, restructured the organisation in March 2016.

Kachikwu for almost a year had held the dual post of Minister of State for Petroleum and GMD of NNPC before he was removed and replaced by Baru in July 2016.

During the restructuring, which led to the creation of five divisions and 20 Autonomous Business Units (ABUs), Baru who had been appointed Group Executive Director, Exploration and Production of the corporation eight months earlier, was moved out of the post to the ministry as Kachikwu’s technical adviser.

Baru, a source in NNPC confided, did not take kindly to the redeployment and immediately started moving mountains to supplant Kachikwu as the GMD of the state-run oil firm.

With the assistance of his friends in the presidency, Baru eventually got his desire when Buhari announced Kachikwu’s removal and made Baru the new head of NNPC.

However, the source explained that when Buhari appointed Baru the new GMD, he was unaware that he had approved his redeployment to the ministry as Kachikwu’s adviser three months earlier.

The source explained that the president did not know Baru personally at the time and simply approved the redeployments that came with the restructuring, but Kachikwu’s letter has now helped to shed more light on what led to the division between his minister and the NNPC GMD.

However, ever since the letter became public, it has elicited strong reactions from Nigerians who have expressed divergent views over the propriety or otherwise of the issues raised by Kachikwu.
Joining the fray Thursday, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called on the president to immediately suspend and investigate Baru over the award of multi-billion dollar contracts without the approval of the NNPC board.

The main opposition party equally alleged that the $24 billion contract scam at NNPC might have been fuelled by the need to oil Buhari’s second term bid.

PDP said the sum involved in the NNPC scandal was $24 billion, pointing out that less than 10 per cent of the amount ($2 billion) was involved in the arms funds scandal allegedly diverted by the former National Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki, over which hundreds of Nigerians had been arrested and hounded.
It expressed great shock at the “loud silence” of the president over what it termed the “humongous corruption scandal and other illegalities” currently being exposed at the nation’s cash cow, the NNPC, in which two of his henchmen – Kachikwu and Baru – are the dramatis personae.

PDP also used the opportunity to warn that it would take legal measures to remove any of its members in the House of Representatives who justify their defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on grounds that the PDP is divided.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the spokesman of the PDP, Dayo Adeyeye, said its suspicion on the matter was reinforced by the unfolding events that seem to indicate that powerful people in the corridors of power are tacitly involved in the NNPC contract scandal.

“We suspect and our suspicion is reinforced by the unfolding events that powerful people in the corridors of power are tacitly involved in this.

“If the president’s powerful Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, could sit on the NNPC board and such a calamity is taking place without an eyelid being blinked, we are forced to believe that the stealing is being done to the advantage of the president who has shown by his body language that the only thing that matters most to him for now is his second term ambition,” he said.
The PDP spokesman maintained that the opposition party was demanding both the suspension of Baru and immediate probe of the issues raised by Kachikwu.

When converted to naira, according to him, the sum of $24 billion said to be the subject of the latest controversy, is about N9 trillion, a sum that is bigger than the nation’s annual budget.
“Will it be considered ‘hate speech’ if we say the money being stolen by President Buhari’s men is being kept aside into a special pool for the prosecution of his second term ambition?
“We challenge the president to prove us wrong by allowing his allies being caught in acts of brazen stealing of our commonwealth get punished in accordance with the laws of the land.

Anything aside this, we will take as confirmation of our suspicion that the rot is from the very top,” he said.

PDP also challenged the president to do the needful and order a thorough investigation into the matter.

“We demand as bona fide Nigerians, an express order from President Muhammadu Buhari to the NNPC GMD asking him to go on compulsory leave so that an investigation into the matter at stake can be conducted without interference.

“We also demand an order from the president to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other anti-graft agencies to immediately commence investigations into all issues of corruption levelled against Baru as well as other persons who might have overtly or covertly participated in the illegal act.

“As a political party, we expect that the president, who prides himself as an indefatigable corruption fighter, would for once try to live above board by genuinely allowing one of his own, accused of corruption, get properly investigated and prosecuted as a show of his impartiality in the war against corruption,” PDP added.

The party further challenged Buhari to correct the impression Nigerians have about his “so-called anti-corruption war” that it is not just a tool for the persecution of perceived enemies.

According to PDP, the president should not give the impression that he is trying to shield Baru as he did with Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

“We view the allegations levelled against Baru by Kachikwu as too grave to be swept under the carpet and we insist that the NNPC GMD must be treated like an accused who should not have the opportunity to influence investigations into his alleged misdeeds.

“In this light, we demand the immediate suspension of the NNPC GMD so that a proper investigation can be carried out by the relevant anti-corruption agencies.

“Ordinarily, if there was sincerity in the anti-corruption war, President Muhammadu Buhari should not wait for any prompting before he takes decisive action on this matter, but as customary with his administration, we suspect that he’s trying to shield Baru as he did Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), whom he merely suspended to allow the hullabaloo generated by the fraud perpetrated in the management of the emergency funds for the IDPs, die down.

“Also, up till now, we have never heard anything again about the millions of dollars and naira discovered in an Ikoyi apartment.

“Nigerians have not forgotten the acts of illegality and double standards perpetrated by the president in refusing to hand over Babachir Lawal to the EFCC for proper investigation and possible prosecution for graft, but rather preferring to give the task of investigation of the open sleaze to the vice-president, in a move not known to any law of this nation.

“Even at that, the report of the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo-led committee is gathering dust on the shelf of the president because he probably cannot bear to see one of his closest allies punished by the laws of the land, even when all the facts show that blatant and unbridled theft was perpetrated by the president’s man.

“The sum involved in the NNPC scandal is $24 billion; less than 10 per cent percent of that ($2 billion) was involved in the so-called arms scandal allegedly diverted by the former NSA over which hundreds of Nigerians have been arrested and hounded.

“Nigerians can now see the hypocrisy in the so-called anti-corruption fight. We might as well say that the privileged class of APC members enjoy total immunity from the anti-corruption campaign.
“We have been saying this for months that the looting of the nation’s resources under this administration is record-setting in the history of this nation and we are being proven right on a daily basis by the little revelations that are being made by even those working under the administration.

“We wonder what the stench will be when the real and hidden atrocities being perpetrated under the watch of President Buhari are finally exposed when Nigerians throw the APC government out of power in 2019.

“This we find is one of the very many reasons the nation’s economy has nosedived under the inept administration of the APC.

“The allegations raised by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources is a confirmation of our earlier stance that the APC administration is in tatters, an administration without coordination, one planted firmly in the hands of a cabal that is sucking the nation dry while the president continues to feign ignorance of the sickening stench.

“If not, how on earth can President Muhammadu Buhari justify a situation where a minister he appointed to serve under him, presiding over an important sector like the oil sector, be turned to a mere house-help who must get clearance from some ‘outsiders’ before accessing the president?
“How on earth will a mere MD of a corporation have the temerity to sideline a minister under whom he works and take decisions without consultation with the appropriate authority. How on earth could the NNPC GMD have been bold enough to sideline the entire board of NNPC and take such far-reaching decisions that have grave implications for the nation’s economy alone?

“Much as we commend the National Assembly for indicating interest in probing the allegations against the NNPC GMD as approved in the adoption of the motion moved by Senator Samuel Anyanwu at the Senate plenary on Wednesday, we wish to appeal to the leadership of the Senate to prevail on the ad hoc committee set up for the purpose of the investigation to make their sitting open to all Nigerians so that nothing will be surreptitiously swept under the carpet.

“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) reiterates our support for the drive to eliminate corruption from the workings of the Nigerian government, but we hold firmly to our stance that the APC government under President Buhari must lead and live by example.

“We say no to soft landing to corruption and corrupt members of the APC government. We say no to double standards in the fight against corruption,” the party said.

When contacted Thursday on the Kachikwu letter and the issues raised by the PDP, surprisingly, the ruling APC declined to comment.

The APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, who spoke on behalf of the party on the allegations erupting in NNPC, said: “We cannot comment on that now. In fact, we have no comment on it.”

The APC National Vice-Chairman, South-west, Dr. Pius Akinyelure, is a board member of NNPC.

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