Day: May 8, 2023

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Global Autonomous Corporation (GAC), a Subsidiary of Alpine 4 Holdings Nasdaq: (ALPP), Establishes a Presence in the United Arab Emirates

PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / May 8, 2023 / Alpine 4 Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALPP), a leading operator and owner of small market businesses, announces that its subsidiary, Global Autonomous Corporation (GAC) has selected Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as its first international point. The Company is working towards the deployment of the GAC Fulfillment Delivery Network in and around Dubai, dubbed “The City of the Future,” as they have a proven willingness to adopt new and emerging concepts and technologies. The Alpine 4 Executive Team are in Dubai May 8th-15th to establish a new office in the heart of Dubai’s technology epicenter, near the Burj Khalifa, that will support strategic business functions, including kiosk operations, flight management and business infrastructure. Additionally, Alpine 4 /GAC’s UAE based consultants, Ghani Consulting, have set up meetings with top officials within several agencies and authorities including: the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai Smart City and Silicon Oasis, Dubai Roads and Transportation Authority, Dubai Police Ports, Dubai Small Medium Enterprise, H.E Helal Saeed Almarri, General Manager of Dubai’s Economy and Tourism Authority, and the Dubai Future Foundation to further the initiatives of GAC. As GAC expands into Dubai and throughout the UAE, the Company seeks to add Dubai’s highly skilled local workforce as it aims to immediately add executives and support staff to meet GAC’s growth initiatives, subsequently supporting the local economy of Dubai.

Kent Wilson, CEO of Alpine 4 and Global Autonomous Corporation had this to say, “After visiting Dubai in late September 2022, the Company concluded that Dubai, and by a larger part, the UAE, represents an ideal host city and country for the inaugural deployment of the GAC Mesh Fulfillment Network due to their regulatory desire and potential user base to see these technologies deployed. We also understood the magnitude of choosing Dubai as the first city to receive the GAC Mesh Fulfillment Network, as the City’s commitment to embracing new technologies is second to none around the world. This is the perfect environment to showcase our Vayu Aerospace American Made G1 Drones to the UAE and future US-2’s. I want to personally say thank you to all the hard-working groups that have brought us to this point; we look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with Dubai and the UAE.”

To lean more about the various agencies and authorities the Alpine Team will be meeting with, visit:

https://www.dcaa.gov.ae/

https://www.dubaifuture.ae/

https://www.dsoa.ae/

https://www.rta.ae/wps/portal/rta/ae/home?lang=en

https://sme.ae/Default/en

https://www.dubaitourism.gov.ae/en/

About Global Autonomous Corporation: Global Autonomous Corporation’s (GAC) mission is direct and resolute. Create a simple, pleasant, and meaningful user experience to deliver goods autonomously.

https://gacusa.global/

About Alpine 4 Holdings: Alpine 4 Holdings, Inc. is a Nasdaq traded Holding Company (trading symbol: ALPP) that acquires business, wholly, that fit under one of several portfolios: Aerospace, Defense Services, Technology, Manufacturing or Construction Services as either a Driver, Stabilizer or Facilitator from Alpine 4’s disruptive DSF business model. Alpine 4 works to vertically integrate the various subsidiaries with one another even if from different industries. Alpine 4 understands the nature of how technology and innovation can accentuate a business, focusing on how the adaptation of new technologies, even in brick-and-mortar businesses, can drive innovation. Alpine 4 also believes that its holdings should benefit synergistically from each other, have the ability to collaborate across varying industries, spawn new ideas, and create fertile ground for competitive advantages.

Four principles at the core of our business are Synergy. Innovation. Drive. Excellence. At Alpine 4, we believe synergistic innovation drives excellence. By anchoring these words to our combined experience and capabilities, we can aggressively pursue opportunities within and across vertical markets. We deliver solutions that not only drive industry standards, but also increase value for our shareholders.

Contact: Investor Relations

investorrelations@alpine4.com

www.alpine4.com

Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements and information in this press release may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The information disclosed in this press release is made as of the date hereof and reflects Alpine 4 most current assessment of its historical financial performance. Actual financial results filed with the SEC may differ from those contained herein due to timing delays between the date of this release and confirmation of final audit results. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements including, without limitation, the risks, uncertainties, including the uncertainties surrounding the current market volatility, and other factors the Company identifies from time to time in its filings with the SEC. Although Alpine 4 believes that the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, any of those assumptions could prove to be inaccurate and, as a result, the forward-looking statements based on those assumptions also could be incorrect. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are made as of the date hereof, and Alpine 4 disclaims any intention or obligation to update the forward-looking statements for subsequent events.

Other factors that may affect our businesses include global economic trends, competition and geopolitical risks, including changes in the rates of investment or economic growth in key markets we serve, or an escalation of sanctions, tariffs or other trade tensions between the U.S. and China or other countries, and related impacts on our businesses’ global supply chains and strategies; market developments or customer actions that may affect demand and the financial performance of major industries and customers we serve, such as secular, cyclical and competitive pressures in our Technology, Construction and Manufacturing businesses; pricing, the timing of customer investment and other factors in these markets; demand for our products or other dynamics related to the COVID-19 pandemic; conditions in key geographic markets; and other shifts in the competitive landscape for our products and services; changes in law, regulation or policy that may affect our businesses, such as trade policy and tariffs, regulation and the effects of tax law changes; our decisions about investments in research and development, and new products, services and platforms, and our ability to launch new products in a cost-effective manner; our ability to increase margins through implementation of operational changes, restructuring and other cost reduction measures; the impact of actual or potential failures of our products or third-party products with which our products are integrated, and related reputational effects; the impact of potential information technology, cybersecurity, or data security breaches at Alpine 4, our subsidiaries or third parties; and the other factors that are described in “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, as updated in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

SOURCE: Alpine 4 Holdings, Inc.

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Recursion Enters into Agreements to Acquire Cyclica and Valence to Bolster Chemistry and Generative AI Capabilities

SALT LAKE CITY and TORONTO and MONTRÉAL, May 08, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX), a leading clinical stage TechBio company decoding biology to industrialize drug discovery, today announced it has signed agreements to acquire two companies in the AI-enabled drug discovery space: Cyclica and Valence.

“Recursion has pioneered the massive, parallel generation of -omics data with machine learning in order to map and navigate biology to discover new medicines faster. The strategic acquisitions of Cyclica and Valence add industry-leading capabilities in digital chemistry, as well as machine-learning and artificial intelligence, which combined with our large-scale automated wet-laboratories and supercomputing capabilities, enables us to deploy what I believe is the most complete, technology-enabled drug discovery solution in the biopharma industry. We look forward to showing the world proof of the compounding benefit of this full-stack approach through the rapid acceleration of our pipeline and partnerships. Amidst a rapidly accelerating global race for technology talent, these acquisitions cement Recursion as the center of gravity for the best and brightest in ML and AI who want to reimagine how drugs are discovered,” said Chris Gibson, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Recursion. “I am so excited to welcome the Cyclica and Valence teams to Recursion, especially at such a dynamic moment in history when machine learning and artificial intelligence are creating so much rapid change across every industry.”

Cyclica, headquartered in Toronto, has built two highly differentiated products in the digital chemistry space which will be integrated into the RecursionOS. MatchMaker™ is an AI-enabled deep learning engine that predicts the polypharmacology of small molecules as the foundation for small molecule drug discovery. It is able to generalize across the proteome and uses both AlphaFold2 structures and homology models. POEM™ (Pareto Optimal Embedding Model) is a unique similarity-based property prediction model. In contrast to other AI prediction models, POEM uses multiple types of molecular fingerprints to describe molecules, providing a much richer measure of similarity that leads to greater accuracy.

“Cyclica and Recursion both believe in the value of industrializing drug discovery,” said Naheed Kurji, CEO and Co-Founder of Cyclica. “Combining our proteome-wide prediction of small molecule-target interactions into Recursion’s data universe will create one of the largest fit-for-purpose biological and chemical datasets in the drug discovery space. Together, I believe Recursion will have an immense impact on human health in the years to come.”

Valence, headquartered in Montréal at Mila, the world’s largest deep learning research institute, is committed to unlocking the full potential of deep learning in the drug discovery process. The company has pioneered the application of low-data learning in drug design, unlocking the ability to design differentiated small molecules with improved properties and function from datasets too small, sparse, or noisy for traditional deep learning methods. Valence has an unparalleled track record of innovation in molecular machine learning, including best-in-class methods for AI-enabled structural biology, generative chemistry, and multi-parametric optimization, ultimately enabling the design of best-in-class or first-in-class chemistry against challenging biology.

“The integration of Valence’s powerful AI-based chemistry engine into Recursion’s diverse and data-rich operating system will help unlock the true power of AI-first digital chemistry and drug discovery,” said Daniel Cohen, CEO and Co-founder at Valence Discovery. “Recursion is a leader in technology-enabled drug discovery with a proven track record of leveraging data to uncover novel biology, and I’m thrilled for our teams to join forces and combine our respective strengths to rapidly advance new medicines to patients who need them.”

Joining forces with Recursion’s Montréal deep learning research office, Valence will become an artificial intelligence and machine learning research center to be led by Daniel Cohen with continued advisory from Yoshua Bengio.

“The acquisition of Valence gives Recursion the opportunity to create a true center of excellence for some of the most compelling AI/ML research in the world,” said Yoshua Bengio, deep learning pioneer and scientific advisor to both Recursion and Valence. “With this newly integrated group housed in the Mila ecosystem, Recursion’s team of researchers in AI and ML for drug discovery reaches a critical mass at a crucial time in the development of new AI algorithms for scientific discovery.”

Terms of the Acquisitions

Recursion has entered into agreements to acquire Cyclica for a purchase price of $40 million and Valence for a purchase price of $47.5 million, in each case subject to customary closing and post-closing purchase price adjustments. The purchase price in the acquisitions will be payable in the form of shares of Recursion Class A common stock, shares of a subsidiary of Recursion exchangeable for shares of Recursion’s Class A common stock and the assumption of certain outstanding Valence and Cyclica options. In certain limited circumstances, Recursion may pay nominal cash consideration to Valence and Cyclica shareholders in lieu of such exchangeable shares or Recursion Class A common stock. Recursion expects no material change to its cash runway as a result of these acquisitions. Recursion expects both acquisitions to be completed in the second quarter of 2023, subject to applicable closing conditions.

About Recursion
Recursion is a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to industrialize drug discovery. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously expands one of the world’s largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. Recursion leverages sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry unconstrained by human bias. By commanding massive experimental scale — up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly — and massive computational scale — owning and operating one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Recursion is uniting technology, biology and chemistry to advance the future of medicine.

Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, where it is a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. Recursion also has offices in Toronto, Montréal and the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at www.Recursion.com, or connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Cyclica
As a neo-biotech, Cyclica is efficiently advancing an industry-leading, robust and sustainable drug discovery portfolio focused on CNS, oncology, and auto-immune diseases. Cyclica has built the only generalizable platform across the entire proteome, expanding the target space for low-data targets, including AlphaFold2 structures, PPIs, and mutant oncogenic targets. Cyclica has brought together a diverse and experienced team of biologists, chemists, computer scientists, and business professionals who are collectively passionate about changing the drug discovery paradigm. By exploring the unexplored, and drugging the undrugged, Cyclica strives to impact patient health like never before. For more information, please visit: www.cyclicarx.com.

About Valence Discovery
Valence is harnessing a revolution in computation to improve human health. The company is a leader in developing and deploying AI and physics-based technologies to enable the design of differentiated small molecules with improved properties and function. Following successful partnerships with leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and an unparalleled track record of innovation featured in top AI journals and conferences, Valence has built a team of interdisciplinary industry veterans and computational experts focused on rapidly advancing a portfolio of internal drug discovery programs. Valence launched publicly in 2021, is supported by leading biotech and deeptech investors, and is headquartered in Montréal. To learn more, please visit www.valencediscovery.com.

Media Contact

Media@Recursion.com

Investor Contact
Investor@Recursion.com

Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains information that includes or is based upon “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, those regarding the timing and completion of the Cyclica and Valence acquisitions and the outcomes and benefits expected from such acquisitions; Recursion OS and other technologies; business and financial plans and performance, including cash runway; and all other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements may or may not include identifying words such as “plan,” “will,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “believe,” “potential,” “continue,” and similar terms. These statements are subject to known or unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements, including but not limited to: challenges inherent in pharmaceutical research and development, including the timing and results of preclinical and clinical programs, where the risk of failure is high and failure can occur at any stage prior to or after regulatory approval due to lack of sufficient efficacy, safety considerations, or other factors; our ability to leverage and enhance our drug discovery platform; our ability to obtain financing for development activities and other corporate purposes; the success of our collaboration activities; our ability to obtain regulatory approval of, and ultimately commercialize, drug candidates; our ability to obtain, maintain, and enforce intellectual property protections; cyberattacks or other disruptions to our technology systems; our ability to attract, motivate, and retain key employees and manage our growth; inflation and other macroeconomic issues; and other risks and uncertainties such as those described under the heading “Risk Factors” in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K. All forward-looking statements are based on management’s current estimates, projections, and assumptions, and Recursion undertakes no obligation to correct or update any such statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except to the extent required by applicable law.

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8833750

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Army condemns maltreatment of civilians by personnel

The Nigerian Army on Sunday in Abuja condemned the maltreatment of civilians by persons clad in military camouflage at 2 Seasons Hotel and Resorts, Kaduna.

Director of Army Public Relations, Brig.-Gen. Onyema Mwachukwu, stated that the assault was an aberration of the values and ethics of professionalism, courage, selflessness and service to humanity which the Nigerian Army represented.

He stressed that the army was aware of a provocative and unacceptable video footage trending in the social media in which certain persons clad in military uniform were molesting civilians.

He added that the army as a disciplined and regimented organisation was committed to the supremacy of the Constitution, defence of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation.

“Authorities of the Nigerian Army have directed immediate investigation into the audio-visual footage to ascertain its veracity, with a view to identifying the culprits.

“Outcome of the investigation and sanctions against the persons clad in military camouflage who perpetrated the dastardly acts, if found to be army personnel, would be treated in accordance with extant provisions of the Armed Forces Act.

“While appreciating the general public for their continued support, the Nigerian Army urges all law-abiding citizens to go about their legitimate businesses without any fear of molestation or intimidation from any quarter.

“Members of the pubic are urged to report any untoward conduct by troops to the Nigerian Army Human Rights desks at the headquarters, Nigerian Army or at the divisional headquarters,’’ Mwachukwu stated.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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NSIB, NCAA begin investigation into Max Air incident

The Nigeria Safety Investigation Board (NSIB) and Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) have expressed readiness to conduct a thorough investigation on the cause(s) of Max Air craft tyre loss.

The accident occurred at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, on Sunday.

The NCAA Director General, Capt. Musa Nuhu, said in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja, that the outcome of the investigation would help the agencies to make appropriate recommendations to prevent any recurrence of such incident.

“A Max Air flight NGL1649 a B737 aircraft with registration 5N-MBD departed Yola for Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, with 144 passengers and 6 flight crew on board.

“During landing at Abuja airport the aircraft lost some tires, the flight crew brought the aircraft to a safe stop on Runway 22 at 2.57pm local time.

“All persons on board were evacuated safely and the airport emergency services including the rescue and fire fighting services response was excellent,” he said.

The NCAA boss affirmed that Abuja airport was shutdown due to the disabled aircraft on the runway, as Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport is a single runway airport.

Nuhu stated that a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) was issued by NAMA accordingly.

“All relevant agencies including NCAA, FAAN, NAMA and NSIB swung into action collaboratively to ensure the prompt removal of the disabled aircraft from the runway and reopening of the airport for flight operations.

“Several flights both domestic and international flights were stranded at Abuja airport, while incoming flights diverted to other airports.

“The damaged wheels of the aircraft were replaced and the aircraft taxied on its power from the runway to an assigned parking position,” he added.

According to him, the runway was inspected and swept for damage and debris by officials of NCAA, Federal Airports Authority (FAAN) and Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) after which the runway was declared safe.

He said that, subsequently, the airport was reopened for resumption of flight operations after 8 p.m.

“It has come to the notice of NCAA of sensational media reports of the incident, classifying it as a crash landing thus creating panic and concerns amongst the traveling public.

“The media are urged to seek clarifications and or information as to make accurate reports of any situation.

“The traveling public should be rest assured that NCAA and other aviation agencies will spare no efforts to ensure the continued safe flight operations in Nigeria as has been the case over several years,” he said.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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FRSC urges motorists to desist from using faded number plates

The Idiroko Unit Command of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has warned motorists to desist from using faded number plates to avoid prosecution.

Mr Akinwunmi Olaluwoye, the Idiroko Unit Commander of FRSC, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Ota, Ogun, noted that some criminals used faded number plates to commit crimes, hence the warning.

“We are, therefore, warning those who are fond of using faded number plates to desist from such act to prevent them from being apprehended by the FRSC,” he said.

The unit commander said the command had started arresting those found wanting, following a directive from the headquarters in Abuja.

He said those arrested by FRSC, especially motorcycle riders, were forced to buy new number plates before they were released.

Olaluwoye said motorists around Idiroko axis were fond of using foreign number plates due to its closeness to the border, while some used faded number plates.

Olaluwoye advised motorists to adhere to traffic rules and regulations to reduce road crashes and ensure sanity on highways.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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Group advocates passage of gender bills

Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), a non-profit civil rights organisation, has urged the National Assembly to consider passing the five gender bills into law as part of the ongoing constitution amendment.

WARDC, in collaboration with USAID and SCALE/PALLADIUM, made the call at a knowledge-building roundtable for media professionals in Lagos State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bills are aimed at greater constitutional inclusion of gender/women’s rights.

The bills are seeking, among other things, affirmative actions in political party administration and ministerial and commissionership appointments.

They also seek expansion of the scope of citizenship by registration.

Recall that WARDC and some other women groups and private individuals had stormed the National Assembly in March 2022, demanding the passage of the gender bills.

The Executive Director of WARDC, Dr Abiola Akioyode-Afolabi, said that one of the bills sought reservation of 111 seats to women in the National Assembly to address the low representation of women.

“The National Assembly should ensure affirmative action for women in political party administration to enable more women participation and voice,’’ she said.

She noted that one of the bills sought granting of citizenship to foreign husbands of Nigerian women, adding that one of the bills sought allocation of at least 10 per cent of ministerial positions to women.

“The fifth bill sought to ensure indigeneship rights to women to avoid the discrimination and violence women suffer in a bid to participate effectively in society.

Akioyode-Afolabi spoke on ‘Beyond the Five Gender Bills – The Unfinished Gender Business of the Buhari Administration’’.

She called on President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the National Gender Policy to show his administration’s approval of 35 per cent affirmative action.

She said that some African countries had mandated reservation of seats for female federal lawmakers.

According to her, South Africa reserved 46 per cent of such seats for women.

“Ethiopia has 38 per cent for women, Senegal has 41 per cent.’’

The executive director also called on Buhari to sign the sexual harassment bill into law before the expiration of his administration.

She urged women to continue to raise their voices.

“There is no retreat, no surrender,” Akioyode-Afolabi said.

In her keynote address, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, Dean Emeritus from the Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said that there was nothing strange about the five gender bills.

She spoke on ‘Building Knowledge around the Five Gender Bills and the 1999 Constitution’’.

“It is essential to include women in the constitution of any country; this is founded on international law and the rights of women to participate in the government of their nation.

“It is important to have more women in politics.

“However, the constitution of Nigeria has excluded female legitimacy.

“This is inequality, injustice and exclusion of women to participate in decision-making process.

“Fortunately, most women cannot hold themselves bound,” Ezeilo said.

The Executive Director of the International Press Centre, Mr Lanre Arogundade, called on the media to correct the anomalies surrounding women’s rights.

Arogundade said that signing the sexual harassment bill into law and passage of the five gender bills in the ongoing constitutional amendment process would foster unity and development of the country.

He expressed optimism that the media would make a difference by setting agenda.

He said: “Gender equality will make half of the world’s population active players in economic and political development process.”

NAN reports that five hashtags were composed at the event to further create public awareness on the bills.

They include #sexualharassmentbill, #consider5genderbills, #affirmativeaction and #equalcitizenship.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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FG expresses commitment to reposition mining cadastre to improve productivity

The Federal Government has expressed its commitment to repositioning Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) through transformation, to improve productivity across the country.

The Director-General of the MCO, Mr Simon Nkom, made the commitment at a one-day Review for Development (R4D) Retreat, in Abuja.

Nkom said the essence of the retreat was for repositioning the entire mining cadastre to meet up with recent challenges being faced by the office.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the MCO inuagurated a new Online Mining Cadastre System based on GAF’s eMC+ framework, in November 2022.

The new system will connect the six newly-established zonal offices in six geopolitical zones with the headquarters in Abuja and ensure efficient and transparent management of the mining sector in Nigeria.

Nkom said through this system, investors would be provided with possibility to submit applications, adding that the system would enable the investors to track the processing.

“The essence of the retreat is for us to do a review on how to adapt on the new EMC+ system.

“We have to discuss on how we can move forward to be able to achieve the best in the next years to come.

“Knowing where we are coming from, we have to work hard to ensure we get what we are looking for, to be able to achieve our objectives.

“In view of that, there’s a need for the staff to be retreated to make the work better.

“With the help of Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Department of State Service (DSS) and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

Nkom said there had been a code of conduct to ensure that at the end of the day, the government and other relevant stakeholders would be figured out.

According to him, if the people do not re-orient themselves, then they are going to have a problem in terms of the process and in terms of the new technology.

“For the first time in the history of the mining cadastre, this event has been the first retreat.

“So, there is a need for re-organising and putting in the key things to play a big role in the mining cadastre in terms of adding value,” he said.

The director-general said that the main aim and objective of the system was to migrate it to an onlined system in a good time.

He said that with the system, anybody could have access to submit an application from any where in the world.

He said that number of people submitting their applications were increasing and going toward perfection.

“So, the system has been made easy for people to submit their applications online.

“There has been about 40 per cent total increase of submitted applications online so far from day to day at different hours which is the essence of the system.

“Offices have been made where people who have challenges with submitting any type of application can be enlightened on how to go about it, especially when it comes to visas applications.

“Looking at the system, one can say that the mining system is a legal activity and the mandate is insurance,” he said.

Nkom said the office had a department of protectorate, which was in charge of illegal activities and it has a mines surveillance unit made up of security agents.

He said that the system continued to issue licences in the fastest possible way within the stipulated time in order to eradicate the illegal mining activity.

The Chairman of the EFCC, Mr Bawa Abdulrasheed, said that corruption was probably the most important factor affecting service delivery in Nigeria today.

Bawa said that the Federal Government over the years has introduced several policies and law to tackle the problem of corruption in the public sector.

“Sector like the Economic and Financial Crimes Act 2004 and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000, as well as the service delivery initiative.’

According to him, the commission has severally advocated that to prevent corruption is cheaper and less time consuming than to fight corruption.

“It is hereby, imperative for every public officer to ensure the implementation of laws and policies are strictly complied with, while transparency and accountability must be brought into action to promote excellent service delivery in organisations.

“Therefore, it is necessary to make full use of the system (eMC+), which has the potential to create environment free of corruption.

“The system increases the ease of conducting business by reducing number of human contact and increase the effectiveness transparency and accountability.”

Abdulrasheed, however, urged the staff to effectively carry out their duties, to promote a corrupt free environment to enable achieve it’s mandates.

The Chairman of ICPC, Prof. Bola Owasanoye, said that integrity and good work ethic have great benefit in the delivery of service.

Owasanoye advised public servants as well as other stakeholders to cultivate the attitude of integrity and good conduct for effective service delivery.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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‘Weighing’ should not stop after child turn two years – Nutritionist

Mr Samuel Atuahene Antwi, a Nutritionist at the Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate, has urged mothers and caregivers of toddlers not to stop sending them to the child welfare clinics popularly known as ‘weighing’ even after they turn two.

Mr Antwi said even though such children were still expected to be seen at the centres for the necessary care and observation, every six months until they turned five, mothers and caregivers abruptly stopped taking the vaccines.

He gave the advice during a health promotion dialogue, ‘Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility,’ a Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy.

Mr Antwi said the continued visits to the child welfare centres help health providers pick up and detect some defects in the children for early interventions, explaining that defects are especially related to developmental stages such as speech, walking, and others.

He added that the ‘weighing’ also help in growth monitoring and promotion, as the child’s weight would be checked and plotted on the gender-appropriate graph to check for normal growth or any deviations.

The Tema Metro Nutritionist bemoaned the behaviour of some mothers when they send their children to the welfare clinic, saying ‘some mothers come appearing too busy and only want the child to be measured quickly for them to leave.’

He reminded them that the clinic was not only for weighing, noting that the time was also used for counselling on proper childcare, as the future of the children depends on the kind of care they receive in their childhood.

He further said mothers receive training on how to properly feed the child, both during the exclusive breastfeeding period and during complimentary feeding, adding that family planning services, food demonstrations, hygiene, the use of mosquito nets, and birth certificate registrations are all available at the child welfare clinics.

Mr Antwi again said the children also receive vitamin A supplements and other vaccinations that help prevent sickness and infant mortality.

The 13 vaccines children receive by age two include BCG, Hepatitis B, yellow fever, measles-rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, influenza, rotavirus, polio, and meningitis A.

‘GNA-Tema Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility,’ according to Mr. Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager of Ghana News Agency, is a public health advocacy platform that was designed to examine the four techniques of health communication: informing, teaching, persuasive, and urging.

Mr. Ameyibor noted that through the weekly health dialogue forum, the GNA platform serves as an excellent communication route for medical practitioners to educate the public about healthy practises and other general health concerns.

Source: Ghana News Agency