A prophet held for predicting Mugabe’s death says he has “no regrets” for making the prophecy, and 8-year-old son of Gambia’s Barrow has died after being bitten by dogs.
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Maiduguri – A Nigerian Air Force fighter jet on a mission against Boko Haram extremists mistakenly bombed a refugee camp on Tuesday, killing more than 100 refugees and wounding aid workers, a Borno state official said.
A Red Cross worker said 20 volunteers with the aid group had been killed.
The state government official, who was helping to coordinate the evacuation of wounded from the remote area by helicopters, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to reporters.
Military commander Major General Lucky Irabor confirmed the accidental bombardment in northeast Rann, near the border with Cameroon.
This is believed to be the first time Nigeria’s military has admitted to making such a mistake.
Among the wounded were two soldiers and Nigerians working for Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Irabor said.
An ICRC employee told the AP that 20 Red Cross volunteers were among the dead.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to give information to reporters.
Doctors Without Borders said its team based in Rann had counted 50 bodies and treated 120 wounded.
A statement from spokesperson Etienne l’Hermitte urged authorities to facilitate land and air evacuations, saying, “Our medical and surgical teams in Cameroon and Chad are ready to treat wounded patients. We are in close contact with our teams, who are in shock following the event. ”
Irabor said he ordered the mission based on information that Boko Haram insurgents were gathering, along with geographic coordinates. It was too early to say if a tactical error was made, he said.
The general, who is the theater commander for counterinsurgency operations in northeast Nigeria, said the Air Force would not deliberately target civilians but there will be an investigation.
Villagers in the past have reported some civilian casualties in near-daily bombardments in northeastern Nigeria.
Some of the nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 and freed last year have said three of their classmates were killed by Air Force bombardments, according to the freed girls’ parents.
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As US President Barack Obama prepares to leave office on January 20, here are 10 things his presidency may be remembered for.
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London – British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday laid out her Brexit priorities and negotiating aims for the first time during a keynote speech in London.
Here are the key points.
SINGLE MARKET: May spelled out that Britain will have to leave the European Union’s single market in order to restrict immigration from the EU.
“What I am proposing cannot mean membership of the single market,” May said, adding however that she wanted British companies to have “maximum freedom to trade with and operate within European markets”.
IMMIGRATION: The thorny issue of Britain’s borders will be the keystone of the government’s negotiating policy, with May’s insistence on full control over immigration set to shape strategy across the board.
“Brexit must mean control of the number of people coming from Europe, and that is what we will deliver,” said the prime minister.
PARLIAMENT VOTE: Any break-up deal that the government strikes with the EU must be first be scrutinised by Britain’s parliament and put to a vote, May said in a concession to lawmakers’ demands.
“I can confirm today that the government will put the final deal to a vote in both houses of parliament before it comes into force,” she said.
‘PHASED’ DEAL: The government will have two years to negotiate a deal once May informs the EU by the end of March of Britain’s intention to leave.
May said she did not want a transition that was “some kind of permanent political purgatory” but a gradual introduction of the new agreement in order to avoid a “disruptive cliff edge” for businesses.
“A phased process of implementation, in which both Britain and the EU institutions and member states prepare for the new arrangements that will exist between us, will be in our mutual self interest”.
STRONG EU: May was keen to convince European leaders that the June 23 vote for Brexit was not designed to bring down the bloc, saying it was “overwhelmingly and compellingly in Britain’s national interest that the EU should succeed. ”
Of the Brexit vote, she said: “I know many fear that this might herald the beginning of a great unravelling of the EU. But let me be clear. I do not want that to happen”.
EU WARNING: May warned she would not accept any deal to punish Britain, saying it would be an “act of calamitous self-harm” that could trigger a trade war, with Britain slashing taxes to attract business.
“I do not believe that the EU’s leaders will seriously tell German exporters, French farmers, Spanish fishermen, the young unemployed of the eurozone, and millions of others, that they want to make them poorer, just to punish Britain and make a political point,” she said.
“No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain. ”
CUSTOMS UNION: Britain will not be able to remain a full member of the EU’s customs union, which sets uniform tariffs for countries outside the EU trading within the bloc, while striking its own trade deals — a priority for the government.
“I do not want Britain to be part of the common commercial policy and I do not want us to be bound by the common external tariff,” she said.
But May suggested Britain could remain a member if a new customs agreement was agreed.
EU BUDGET: May said Britain would be prepared to make “an appropriate contribution” to the EU budget in return for using some of its services, but stressed “the days of making vast contributions will end”.
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January 17, 2017
— WASHINGTON — Insurance premiums would soar for millions of Americans and 18 million more would be uninsured in just one year if Republicans scuttle much of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul without a replacement, Congress’ budget analysts said Tuesday.
Spotlighting potential perils for Republicans, the report immediately became a flashing hazard light for this year’s effort by Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to annul Obama’s law and — in a more complicated challenge — institute their own alternative.
It also swiftly became political fodder in what is expected to be one of this year’s biggest battles in Congress.
Republicans have produced several outlines for how they’d redraft Obama’s 2010 statute, but they’ve failed to unite behind one plan. President-elect Trump and GOP congressional leaders have at times offered clashing descriptions of their shared top goal, so eventual success is hardly guaranteed.
Tuesday’s evaluation came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, joined by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.
Together, they analyzed a Republican-written bill, vetoed by Obama last January, that would have erased major portions of his overhaul. Those included tax penalties for people who fail to buy insurance and for larger companies that don’t cover workers, federal subsidies to help consumers buy policies on the law’s online marketplaces and an expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income people.
The new report said under such a measure, premiums for individual policies — excluding the coverage many workers get from employers — would swell by up to 25 percent the first year after enactment and double by 2026. The number of uninsured would reach 32 million over the decade, the analysts said.
However, Republicans say there’s a big difference between that 2016 bill and this year’s plan: Last year’s version would not have replaced Obama’s statute with a GOP alternative, while Republicans insist replacement will be an integral part of their new health care drive.
Citing that difference, Donald Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the report “assumes a situation that simply doesn’t exist and that no one in Congress advocates. ” AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the estimates “meaningless” because they ignore plans for legislation and regulatory actions by the incoming Trump administration for revamping how people could obtain coverage.
“Nonpartisan statistics don’t lie,” countered Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N. Y., who said the report showed Republican plans to void Obama’s overhaul “will increase health care costs for millions of Americans and kick millions more off of their health insurance. ” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said it illustrated that the GOP effort “will be nothing less than a nightmare for the American people. ”
Trump seemed to complicate the GOP drive last weekend when he told The Washington Post that a forthcoming Republican plan would provide “insurance for everybody. ” In contrast, some congressional Republicans have described their goals more modestly, saying they will offer “universal access. ”
In one sign of how GOP plans continue proliferating, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., are planning legislation that would let states retain coverage under Obama’s law or choose different options.
The CBO analysis has particular weight because Republicans have cited last year’s bill as a starting point for their 2017 drive to erase Obama’s law.
For Senate procedural reasons, that 2016 GOP bill also had to leave intact some mandates that Obama’s law has imposed on insurers. Those include requiring coverage of certain services and barring insurers from denying policies to sick people or charging them higher rates.
Those same Senate procedures could make it hard for Republicans to erase the mandates this year, too. That would make things tough for the GOP because those insurance requirements tend to drive insurers’ costs higher, and leaving them in force while other parts of Obama’s statute are erased could wreak havoc on markets.
CBO said that under the 2016 Republican bill, the number of insured people would fall mostly from annulling the tax penalties Obama’s law imposes on people who don’t buy policies: Some people would simply drop out if not forced to buy insurance. In addition, some insurers would leave individual insurance markets as consumers stopped buying coverage.
Some 59 million people under age 65 — about 1 in 5 — would be uninsured by 2026, the report said, compared to 28 million under Obama’s law.
Premiums would rise because without a tax penalty to fear, many people would stop buying insurance. Since disproportionate numbers of sicker people would be likely to retain coverage, insurers’ costs would rise and higher premiums would follow.
The report estimated that half of Americans live where no insurers would sell individual policies in the first year after marketplace subsidies were eliminated. That would grow to 3 in 4 people by 2026.
At her last official session with reporters, Obama’s outgoing health secretary, Sylvia Burwell, said a GOP repeal without a replacement would push the market into a “negative spiral. ”
In early signs of grassroots rumbling, KHQ-TV news reported that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., was interrupted by chants and booing at a Monday event in Spokane, Washington. Denver TV’s 9News reported that Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., stealthily left a Saturday community event early with more than 100 people waiting to talk to him. Both back repeal of Obama’s overhaul.
Coffman spokesman Daniel Bucheli said the meeting room was reserved for only 90 minutes. McMorris Rodgers spokeswoman Molly Drenkard said the lawmaker said she wants to keep communications open between foes and supporters of Obama’s law.

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