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Tag: Theresa May

  • Femi Adesina releases details of President Buhari meeting with Theresa May

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide, Femi Adesina has in a statement released details of the meeting between the President and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

    According to the statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, while politicians have been preoccupied with 2019 elections, President Buhari is being bothered more about security and the economy of Nigeria.

    Read full statement:

    The three-pronged focus of the current administration resonated through the conversation, as President Muhammadu Buhari held a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister, Theresa May on Monday at 10, Downing Street, London.

    “We campaigned on three major issues, to secure the country, revive the economy and fight corruption,” said the President. “We have elections next year, politicians are already preoccupied with the polls, but I am bothered more about security and the economy,” he stressed.

    Recalling that Nigeria and Britain have a long history of cooperation on several fronts, President Buhari stated: “People ought to know how they arrived where they are, if they would move forward. It was a mistake for us to have stopped the teaching of history as a subject in schools, but we are returning it to the curriculum now.”

    He commended British companies like Unilever, Cadbury, and many others, “who have stood with Nigeria through thick and thin. Even when we fought a Civil War, they never left.

    “But like Oliver Twist, we ask for more investments. We are encouraging more British companies to come to Nigeria. We appreciate the support you have given in training and equipping our military, particularly in the war against insurgency, but we want to also continue to work with you on trade and investment.”

    President Buhari briefed Prime Minister May on the strides in agriculture, which he said has put Nigeria firmly on the road to food self-sufficiency.

    “I am very pleased with the successes in agriculture,” he said, adding: “We have cut rice importation by about 90%, made lots of savings of foreign exchange, and generated employment. People had rushed to the cities to get oil money, at the expense of farming. But luckily, they are now going back to the farms. Even professionals are going back to the land. We are making steady progress on the road to food security.”

    On education, President Buhari said more investment was being made, because “people can look after themselves if well educated. In this age of technology, education is very important. We need well-staffed and well-equipped institutions to move into the next generation.”

    Climate change and environmental issues also came up for discussion, and President Buhari brought up the necessity of inter-basin water transfer from Congo Basin to Lake Chad.

    According to him: “The Lake Chad is now about 10% of its original size, and it is perhaps one of the reasons our youths dare both the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean, to get to Europe. But if there is inter-basin water transfer, about 40 million people in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad, and other countries stand to benefit. I made the case during the Climate Change Summit in France. If Lake Chad is recharged, it will reduce the number of youths coming to Europe to increase social problems. We brought back about 4,000 people from Libya recently. Almost all of them were below 30, and Libya was not their final destination. They were headed to Europe.”

    Prime Minister May, in her remarks, said Britain would continue to work with Nigeria in the areas of training and equipping the military.

    She was particular about abduction of young schoolgirls by Boko Haram, noting that Britain would continue to give Nigeria needed assistance.

    The Prime Minister said the Buhari administration has “been making good progress on the economy,” and urged it to maintain the focus, despite approaching elections, and increase in political activities.

    On education and climate change, she declared: “Good grounding in education is good. It is important to equip young people for today’s world. It is also a good bastion and defence against modern slavery. The issue of the environment and climate change is very important, because of its impact on many countries in the Commonwealth. Stability at home is important, to curb illegal migration.”

    Prime Minister May, who commended President Buhari for the much he has been doing on improving trade and business for Nigeria, noted that it was also time to boost intra-Commonwealth trade.

     

  • Happening Now: Buhari, Theresa May in closed door meeting

    President Muhammadu Buhari holds a discussion on Nigeria–British relations with Prime Minister, Theresa May today at 10, Downing Street, London.

    This was contained in the verified Twitter handle of Personal Assistant to the President on New Media, Bashir Ahmad.

    Details of the meeting have yet to be made public.

    Details later…

  • London Tower Fire: May orders public investigation as death toll rises to 17 [Video]

    British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday ordered a full public investigation into the London high-rise fire that killed at least 17 people, a toll that was likely to rise.

    May made her announcement after she toured the devestation. She earlier had promised a “proper investigation” to the cause of the fire. The Prime Minister also posted a video on her Twitter handle @Number10gov instructing that the investigations be carried out to unravel the mystery behind the incident and also satisfy public curiosity.

    Forty-four households received emergency accomodation. Investigators said they did not expect to find anyone else alive after the blaze and that it was too early to speculate on how the inferno that engulfed the 24-floor building started.

    “Tragically now we are not expecting to find anyone else alive,” Cotton told Sky News. “The severity and the heat of the fire will mean that it will be an absolute miracle for anyone to be left alive.”

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that fire engulfed a 24-storey block of flats in central London on Wednesday, killing over 17 people, injuring at least 50 more and trapping some residents asleep inside the towering inferno.

  • U.K. Parliament: Theresa May loses overall majority

    U.K. Parliament: Theresa May loses overall majority

    Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain suffered a major setback in a tumultuous election on Thursday, losing her overall majority in Parliament and throwing her government into uncertainty less than two weeks before it is scheduled to begin negotiations over withdrawing from the European Union.

    Mrs. May, the Conservative leader, called the snap election three years early, expecting to cruise to a smashing victory that would win her a mandate to see Britain through the long and difficult negotiations with European leaders over the terms of leaving the union.

    But according to results reported early Friday morning, the extraordinary gamble Mrs. May made in calling the election backfired. She could no longer command enough seats to avoid a hung Parliament, meaning that no party has enough lawmakers to establish outright control.

    With all but three of the 650 seats in the House of Commons accounted for, the BBC reported that Mrs. May’s Conservatives would remain the largest party. But they were projected to win only 318 seats, down from the 331 they won in 2015, and eight seats short of a majority.

    Britons quickly started wondering whether Mrs. May would have to resign.

    One Conservative lawmaker, Anna Soubry, said on national television that it had been a “dreadful campaign” and would force the prime minister to “consider her position.”

    The opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, was projected to be on track for 262 seats, up 30 from 2015, significantly elevating Mr. Corbyn’s standing after predictions that his party would be further weakened.

    “Whatever the final result, we have already changed the face of British politics,” Mr. Corbyn said.

    Last month, in an effort to show “just how much is at stake” in the election, Mrs. May acknowledged that even a small loss of seats would amount to a defeat.

    “The cold, hard fact is that if I lose just six seats, I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe,” she wrote in The Daily Mail.

    The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, arriving at party headquarters in London on Friday. Credit Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

    But early on Friday, Mrs. May hinted that her Conservative Party would try to form a government even if it did not have a majority, arguing that Britain needed “a period of stability.”

    If the Conservative Party “has won the most seats and probably the most votes, then it will be incumbent on us,” she said.

    The Scottish National Party was projected to fall to 35 seats from 56, while the centrist Liberal Democrats were projected to win 13 seats, up five from 2015.

    The forecast raised the prospect that neither major party would be able to form a government without help from another party. If a coalition cannot be formed, another election could be in the offing.

    And there was a wild card. Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party, which won seven seats, said it would not occupy them, in keeping with its longstanding policy. That would lower the threshold for Mrs. May’s party to establish an effective majority.

    The former chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said that for Mrs. May losing a majority would be “completely catastrophic” for her and the Conservative Party. But he added that it was also difficult to see how the Labour Party could put together a coalition government.

    “So it’s on a real knife edge,” he said.

    Clearly, Britons confounded expectations and the betting markets once again. The uncertainty could complicate Britain’s exit from the European Union, known as Brexit. Negotiations over the withdrawal are scheduled to start in just 11 days. European leaders want a stable, credible British government capable of negotiating, but Mrs. May’s plea to voters for a strong mandate for Brexit failed badly.

     

    Culled from the New York Times

  • Australian PM calls on Facebook, Apple to help access encrypted chats

    Australian PM calls on Facebook, Apple to help access encrypted chats

    Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said social media companies are too tolerant of extremist material, and called on those companies to help bust the encryption used in user communications.

    “We need these global social media messaging companies to assist in providing access to encrypted communications, which are used by billions of people,” Turnbull said on Monday.

    “The security services need to get access to them.”

    The prime minister said the Five Eyes countries — the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand — are working with social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter to get extremist material taken down.

    Saying nations and their agencies need to be smarter, more agile, and more collaborative than those “who are seeking to do us harm”, Turnbull agreed with the thoughts espoused by British Prime Minister Teresa May over the weekend.

    May called for the introduction of rules to “deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online”, and also hit out at technology firms for not doing enough.

    “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet, that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide,” said May.

    May’s comments followed the UK suffering its third terrorist attack in four months.

    Last week, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin said tackling the online world is a “‘genuinely wicked problem” for police forces.

    “Technology presents challenges to governments like almost never before,” Colvin said. “It is a realm that we cannot simply legislate or regulate to control — we must work with the industry who have their hands on the levers, and invariably, they are in the private sector.”

    Colvin called for the use of traditional and non-traditional policing capabilities to ensure criminals cannot hide behind encryption to avoid the law.

    “Prolific growth in the use of encryption technology is an everyday reality for investigators, and we cannot afford for this to remain an obstacle.”

     

     

    ZDNet

     

  • London terror attack: Facebook wants ‘hostility’ against terrorists

    London terror attack: Facebook wants ‘hostility’ against terrorists

    Facebook says it wants to make its platform “hostile” to terrorists after an attack in London left at least seven people dead this weekend.

    Simon Milner, the company’s director of policy, issued a widely reported statement Sunday that said the social media platform works “aggressively” to remove terrorist content.

    “We want Facebook to be a hostile environment for terrorists,” he said.

    U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May had earlier called for closer regulation of the internet, saying Sunday that terrorists need to be denied the digital tools they use to communicate and plan attacks.

    “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed,” May said. “Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide.”

    May also said that democratic governments must regulate cyberspace, adding that “we need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.”

    Tech companies have increasingly come under pressure in Europe because of the way they handle threats and hate speech.

    And Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and many other services have created encrypted channels that may shield communications from law enforcement.

    Milner said Sunday that Facebook alerts authorities if it means preventing a terrorist attack from happening.

    “If we become aware of an emergency involving imminent harm to someone’s safety, we notify law enforcement,” he said in the statement.

    Nick Pickles, Twitter’s head of public policy in the U.K., also defended his company Sunday, telling CNNMoney in a statement that “terrorist content has no place on Twitter.”

    He added that the company will “never stop working” to prevent events like the London terror attack from happening again.

    At least seven people were killed and 48 were wounded Saturday night in London when three men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge. They then went on a stabbing spree at nearby bars and restaurants.

    The attack happened less than two weeks after 22 people were killed in another attack linked to terrorism at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

     

     

    CNN

     

  • UK attack: Osinbajo urges global community to act with greater vigour

    UK attack: Osinbajo urges global community to act with greater vigour

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Sunday said that the latest attack in the U.K. reinforced the need for the global community to act with greater vigour to overcome the extremist ideologies which underpin terrorism.

    Osinbajo in a statement by the Acting Presidential Spokesman, Mr Laolu Akande, described Saturday’s terror attack in the London Bridge as a sickening atrocity perpetrated by a misguided and cowardly group of terrorists.

    The Acting President strongly condemned the incident and extended Nigeria’s condolences to the families of the victims.

    According to Osinbajo, Nigeria stands with the government and people of the United Kingdom in her trying period.

    TheNewsGuru reports that authorities say seven people were killed and 48 injured after three knife-wielding assailants led a deadly rampage through central London, plowing a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and then running to a nearby open-air market.

    British Prime Minister Theresa May called for tougher measures to fight extremism, as police arrested 12 people in connection with the attack.

     

  • London terror attack: Internet must be regulated to stop terrorism – May

    London terror attack: Internet must be regulated to stop terrorism – May

    Prime Minister Theresa May has called for closer regulation of the internet following a deadly terror attack in London.

    At least seven people were killed in a short but violent assault that unfolded late Saturday night in the heart of the capital, the third such attack to hit Britain this year.

    May said on Sunday that a new approach to tackling extremism is required, including changes that would deny terrorists and extremist sympathizers digital tools used to communicate and plan attacks.

    “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed,” May said. “Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide.”

    “We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning,” she continued. “We need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.”

    May’s call for new internet regulations was part of a larger strategy to combat terror, including what she described as “far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”

    The attack comes as tech giants come under increased pressure in Europe over their policing of violent and hate speech.

    Europe’s top regulator released data last week that showed that Twitter has failed to take down a majority of hate speech posts after they had been flagged. Facebook and YouTube fared better, removing 66% of reported hate speech.

    In the U.K., a parliamentary committee report published last month alleged that social media firms have prioritized profit over user safety by continuing to host unlawful content. The report also called for “meaningful fines” if the companies do not quickly improve.

    “The biggest and richest social media companies are shamefully far from taking sufficient action to tackle illegal and dangerous content,” the report said. “Given their immense size, resources and global reach, it is completely irresponsible of them to fail to abide by the law.”

    Forty-eight people were injured in Saturday’s attack on London Bridge and Borough Market. Police officers pursued and shot dead three attackers within eight minutes of the first emergency call, London police said.

     

     

    CNN

     

  • Manchester Arena attacker has been identified – Theresa May

    Manchester Arena attacker has been identified – Theresa May

    UK Prime Minsiter Theresa May has said the Manchester Arena attacker has been identified but more investigations will be done before releasing his name.

    A bomb had exploded at the Manchester Arena during a concert held by Ariana Grande on Monday night.

    May said, “The police and security services believe they know the identity of the perpetrator but at this stage of their investigations we cannot confirm his name.

    “The police and emergency services have as always acted with great courage and on behalf of the country I want to express our gratitude to them – they acted in accordance with the plans they have in place and the exercises they conduct to test those plans and they performed with the utmost professionalism.”

    About 22 people were reportedly killed while 59 others were injured in the blast.

  • UK general elections to be conducted June 8, Theresa May assures

    UK general elections to be conducted June 8, Theresa May assures

    British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has called for a general election to be held in the country on 8 June.

    In a speech at Number 10 Downing Street, May expressed her resolve to cement her party’s grip to power.

    The Prime Minister said she would go to Parliament and ask for the national vote on June 8, adding: “We need a general election and we need one now”.

    She explained that she had only come to the conclusion an election was needed “recently”.

    Theresa May’s statement reads in part: “I have just chaired a meeting of the Cabinet, where we agreed that the Government should call a general election, to be held on June 8.

    “I want to explain the reasons for that decision, what will happen next and the choice facing the British people when you come to vote in this election.

    “Last summer, after the country voted to leave the European Union, Britain needed certainty, stability and strong leadership, and since I became Prime Minister the Government has delivered precisely that.

    “Despite predictions of immediate financial and economic danger, since the referendum we have seen consumer confidence remain high, record numbers of jobs, and economic growth that has exceeded all expectations.

    “We have also delivered on the mandate that we were handed by the referendum result.

    “It was with reluctance that I decided the country needed this election but it is with conviction that I say it is necessary…so tomorrow let the House of Commons vote for an election, let everybody put forward their proposals for Brexit and their vision for Government.”

    “It will be a choice between strong and stable leadership in the national interest, with me as your Prime Minister, or weak and unstable government under a coalition led by Jeremy Corbyn…every vote for the Conservatives will make me stronger when I negotiate for Britain with the European Union.”