Day: March 17, 2023

HM King congratulates the Irish President on National Day.

HM King issues decree restructuring Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

HM King issues decree making appointments at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning.

HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister congratulates the President of Ireland.

HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister receives the Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Bank.

HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister issues circular on working hours during the holy month of Ramadan.

HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister restructured the Water Resources Council.

HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister issues edicts.

HRH Princess Sabeeka congratulates Dalal Al-Zayed.

HRH Princess Sabeeka congratulates Dr. May Al Otaibi.

HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad receives GPIC chairman.

Finance minister stresses Bahrain’s support to promising sectors

King Hamad Global Centre, Brazil to boost education cooperation.

BDF Chief of Staff receives Jordanian Military Attaché

BDF holds a graduation ceremony.

Royal Bahrain Naval Force holds a graduation ceremony for cadet officers.

Foreign Minister attends OIC meeting.

NIHR participates in GANHRI meeting.

France is a key trading partner- BCCI Chairman.

The Health Minister attends the Arab Health Ministers Council meeting.

Shura Council chairman receives BIC officials.

Oil and Environment Minister opens the expansion of Ras Sanad nursery

Bahrain All Share Index ends trading at 1,896.98 points.

Source: Bahrain News Agency

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Jigawa has disengaged some ad hoc personnel for incompetency and lackadaisical attitude during the Feb. 25 Presidential and National Assembly election.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Muhammad Bashar said this at a media interactive session on Friday in Dutse.

The thrust of the session was to discuss level of the Commission’s preparedness ahead of the Saturday’s Governorship and State Assembly election in the state.

However, the REC could not gave the exact figure of the ad hoc staff affected by the exercise.

Bashar said the Commission had successfully rescreened the ad hoc workers after the Presidential and National Assembly election, to ascertain those who were unable to perform duties efficiently and quickly replaced them before the March 18 election.

INEC, he said, adopted proactive measures to address challenges and glitches experienced during the Feb. 25 election.

He said that 4,522 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), sensitive and non-sensetive materials had been deployed to the 27 local government areas of the state for successful conduct of the election.

“I want to assure that INEC is fully prepared for the conduct of the governorship election in the state.

“We’ve put in place all the facilities needed to conduct successful Governorship and State Assembly election tomorrow, the 18th of March 2023.

“The BVAS deployed were fully reconfigured and tested. I assure that there will be no hitches as experienced in the last elections,” he said.

According to him, a total of 2,292,372 eligible voters are expected to vote in the elections at 4,519 polling units across the state.

Bashir also assured residents of the state of free, fair, credible and hitch free election. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Prof. Frank Imarhiagbe, a Consultant Neurologist, has advised Nigerians going through sleepless nights to seek medical care instead of resorting to sleeping pills.

Imarhiagbe, a consultant at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, gave the advice during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Benin.

The consultant, who spoke on the occasion of the 2023 World Sleep Day, said that taking drugs like Valium and Lexotan were not remedy for sleeplessness.

He said, “‘If you can’t sleep, something must be underlining. Going to take pills to sleep is not the answer to your problem.

“if you can’t sleep for a night or two, consult a doctor to help you find out the cause of the sleeplessness.

“Find the cause, don’t resort to Valium, Lexotan; you are postponing the evil day and compounding the problem”, he said.

The Neurologist said that there were different causes of lack of sleep, which include disturbed mind, drug abuse, medical condition, psychiatric illness, abusing sleeping pills and genetic condition.

According to him, sleep is the brain-controlled natural unconsciousness that is timed and fixed.

“Sleep is not optional, it is a basic requirement to maintain life. It is usually regulated to the night time according to the body’s biological clock.

“When the sun begins to set, some chemicals are released to the brain that tells the body that it is time to sleep; when you are at sleep the body rearranges itself for the next day”.

He advised people who do night shifts to always make up for the sleep loss by sleeping during the day, noting that sleep is essential for healthy living.

Imarhiagbe also recommended good sleep hygiene, including keeping television set and reading tables away from the bedroom.

“The bedroom should be made comfortable for sleeping; avoid too bright lights, put cell phones off the bed and have a good sleeping position”.

NAN reports that World Sleep Day is an annual event that is held the Friday before Spring Vernal Equinox (The Spring Vernal Equinox occurs on March 20th or 21st of every year) with the 2023 celebration falling on March 17.

The theme for the 2023 World Sleep Day is “Sleep is Essential for health”.

The day aims to reduce the burden of sleep disorders on society by promoting better prevention and management. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

The Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch (CeFTIW) has called for enhanced stakeholders’ actions to stem the rising terrorism and crimes following the release of the 2022 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report.

The index developed by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) using data from Terrorism Tracker and other sources indicated a beehive of terrorism activities in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa, now seen as the epicenter of terrorism.

Mr Victor Agi, the CeFTIW Public Relations Officer, in a press statement on Friday noted that the situation in the sub-Saharan Africa needs urgent attention to forestall further escalation.

Agi said that escalation could descend to a state of statelessness in the worst affected countries.

Citing the report of the GTI, Agi said: “with 8.065 per cent score, Nigeria is now the eighth most terrorised country in the world.

He said this was as the bordering countries to Nigeria from the north, east and west have also increasingly become notorious for terrorism, with Niger ranking 10th with 7.616 per cent.

Agi noted that Cameroon and Chad took 11th (7.347 per cent) and 19th (6.168 per cent) positions respectively; and Benin 28th position (4.840 per cent).

“Only Guinea to the east is safe as per the recently released index which analysed the impact of terrorism across nations and covers 99.7 per cent of the total world’s population,” he said.

Agi, therefore, called for an intergovernmental collaboration in order to address the rising cases of terrorism which he said had assumed a transnational dimension like every other organised crime.

“This empirical insight into terrorism activities means that countries in the region must, as a matter of necessity come together and proffer practical solutions that will address the aforementioned factors that continue to fuel terrorism.

“The situation in the tri-border area of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger needs to be swiftly subdued for the security of civilians and state security actors,” Agi said.

He called on the Nigerian government to strengthen the implementation of legal framework, especially the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act which President Muhammad Buhari signed into law, in May 2022.

“For instance, Part X (Section 63-75) provide measures for investigating and prosecuting of terrorism offences; we are therefore calling for an aggressive implementation of the law.

“Although Nigeria’s 2022 ranking was considered an improvement in comparison with 2021, as it drops by two places, increasing terrorism activities in the Sahel region calls for concern.

“Islamic State of West Africa (ISWA), Boko Haram, and Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) also made it to the top 10 deadliest terrorist organisations in the world in 2022, ranking six, seven and 10 respectively.

“Sahel region is accounting for more terrorism deaths in 2022 than both South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) combined.

“Terrorism-related death in the region accounted for 43 per cent of the global figure, and a seven percent increase from 2021,” Agi said.

He urged regional leaders to tackle complex and systemic underlying issues of weak governance, ethnic polarisation, ecological insecurity, abuses by state security, pastoral conflict, political instability and transnational crime.

Agi also called on leaders to tackle food insecurity, the growth of transnational and geopolitical competition which were identified as causative factors to the rise of terrorism in the region. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria