Chelsea Takeover: Todd Boehly’s £4.25bn Bid Approved By Government

The government has approved the £4.25bn Todd Boehly-led consortium takeover of Chelsea.

After months of negotiations, the deal has finally been approved after the government received legal guarantees that Roman Abramovich – who has had his UK assets frozen – will not benefit from the sale.

Russian-Israeli billionaire Abramovich put Chelsea, which he purchased in 2003, up for sale on March 2, a week after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

“Late last night the UK Government reached a position where we could issue a licence that permits the sale of Chelsea Football Club,” read a government statement.

“Following the sanctioning of Roman Abramovich, the government has worked hard to ensure Chelsea Football Club has been able to continue to play football. But we have always been clear that the long-term future of the club could only be secured under a new owner.

“Following extensive work, we are now satisfied that the full proceeds of the sale will not benefit Roman Abramovich or any other sanctioned individual,” continued the statement.

“We will now begin the process of ensuring the proceeds of the sale are used for humanitarian causes in Ukraine, supporting victims of the war.

Read Full Story …. Skysports >>> :   

Source: SkySports

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70 UK Armoured Vehicles To Support Security In Northern Ghana – UK Minister Ford Announces

UK Minister for Africa Vicky Ford has arrived in Accra following the success of the first UK-Ghana Business Council (UKGBC) held in-person since 2019. The Council was held in the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in the heart of London with the senior Government of Ghana delegation led by Honourable Minister for Trade, Alan Kyerematen.

Arriving in Ghana for the second time in 2022, Minister Ford’s visit signals the importance the UK places on the deep and broad bilateral partnership. With almost a billion dollars’ worth of trade between Ghana and the UK, the British Government is committed to growing this by the end of 2024.

Following her arrival at Kotoka International Airport, Minister Vicky Ford said:

“It is fantastic to be back in Ghana, to continue the conversations, decisions and opportunities discussed both at UK-Ghana Business Council and during my visit in February. It’s also been fantastic to meet colleagues from the African Development Bank in-person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am proud to use my visit to announce a successful deal between our nations that will see 70 armoured Husky vehicles deployed to Northern Ghana to ensure the safety of vulnerable communities.”

During her visit, the UK Minister for Africa will attend the African Development Bank’s meeting of Governors where Minister Ford is expected to sign a climate finance deal worth up to $2 billion. Announced at COP26, at least half of the ‘Room to Run’ guarantee will unlock support for countries across the Continent to manage the impacts of climate change. The signing honours the global commitments made at COP26 by leaders from around the world including His Excellency President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Welcoming Minister Ford to Accra for the second time in 2022, British High Commissioner to Ghana, Harriet Thompson said:

“Ghana is a beacon of security, stability and democracy in a troubled region. Its role in ECOWAS and membership of the UN Security Council means that Ghana has a vital role in safeguarding democratic principles and defending freedoms across West Africa and beyond. We strongly support Ghana’s leadership in this.

Our partnership in recent times includes the fight against the impact of climate change and, of course, global health security. Minister Ford’s return to Ghana will reinforce this partnership through the signing of a climate finance deal, to ensure the safety of vulnerable communities.”

Minister Ford will pay tribute to the enduring UK-Ghana security and defence partnership, announcing the completion of a deal between our nations that will see 70 armoured Husky vehicles arrive in Ghana. These vehicles will be used to bolster security along the country’s Northern border, protecting communities from the threat of extremists inciting violence across the border.

Linked to the deal, worth more than $10 million, the UK armed forces will provide training for Ghanaian troops, including training of Ghanaian instructors to teach the operation and daily maintenance of the vehicles.

Minister Ford last visited Ghana in February 2022 as Russia unlawfully invaded Ukraine. During this visit the Minister met with Honourable Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Botchwey and held meetings with like-minded partners in Accra including Ambassadors from the American Embassy, the French Embassy, and Kenya High Commissioner to Ghana, Eliphas Barine and former United Nations General Assembly Chef de Cabinet, Kwabena Osei-Danquah.

During her previous trip, the Minister also visited the West Africa Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), based at the University of Ghana. Now, with vital UK-backing, the centre is supporting the country and the region on COVID-19 genome sequencing. Minister Ford also met with the scientists working on antimalarial drug resistance and new malaria vaccines in partnership with UK research institutions including Edinburgh University, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Francis Crick Institute.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/peacefmonline.com/ghana

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Popular South African Actor Jamie Bartlett Dies

The sudden demise of South African actor Jamie Bartlett has hit the country hard.

South Africans are paying their tributes to actor Jamie Bartlett who died on Monday evening aged 55.

His cause of death is still unknown, according to local media outlets.

He was born in England to a South African mother and a British father.

Bartlett was popular for his roles as a villain in the TV series Rhythm City and Isindigo. He was also a judge in the reality show SA Got Talent.

Tributes have been pouring in from his colleagues and fans.

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Happy Africa Day 2022 – Africa’s Year of Nutrition

 Africa Day 2022 – Africa’s Year of Nutrition

building resilience in food and nutrition security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agri-food systems and health and social production systems to accelerate socio-economic and human capital development’’.

Africa Day is a day of celebration for Africans and people of African descent all over the world. This year's celebration is centred on the theme of nutrition.

School meals help increase access to school, increase enrollment and attendance rates and improve the nutritional status, health and cognitive development of learners.

Texas Primary School shooting leaves 21 dead

 Nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas.

The gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School – which teaches children aged seven to 10 – in the city of Uvalde before he was killed by law enforcement, officials said.

The 18-year-old suspect had a handgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and high-capacity magazines, investigators say.

The teenager is suspected of shooting his grandmother before the rampage.

Local media report he may have been a high school student in the area.

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Chief of Police Pete Arredondo said the shooting began at 11:32 local time on Tuesday, and that investigators believe the attacker “did act alone during this heinous crime”.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the shooter, whom he named as Salvador Ramos, abandoned a vehicle before entering the school to “horrifically, incomprehensibly” open fire.

Two children killed in the shooting have been identified by US media. Family members confirmed the deaths of 10-year-olds Xavier Lopez and Amerie Jo Garza in statements on Tuesday night.

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“My little love is now flying high with the angels above. Please don’t take a second for granted. Hug your family. Tell them you love them,” Amerie’s father Angel told ABC news.

One of the adults killed was a teacher named in US media as Eva Mireles. Her page on the school district’s website said she has a daughter in college and loved running and hiking.

Nearly 500 pupils are enrolled in the predominantly Hispanic school around 85 miles (135km) west of the city of San Antonio.

The Associated Press news agency reports that a US Border Patrol official who was nearby when the shooting began rushed into the school and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade.

Border Patrol is a federal agency that guards US ports of entry. Uvalde, which is fewer than 80 miles from the border with Mexico, is home to a Border Patrol station.

Two border agents were reportedly shot in an exchange with the gunman. One agent was shot in the head, officials say, adding that both were now in a stable condition in hospital.

According to CBS News, the attacker was wearing body armour as he carried out the attack. Another 18-year-old who is suspected of attacking a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on 14 May was also wearing body armour and carrying a semi-automatic rifle – both of which are commercially available in the US.

The Uvalde Memorial Hospital posted on Facebook earlier that 13 children had been taken to hospital “via ambulances or buses”.

A 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were in a critical condition at a hospital in San Antonio, University Health hospital officials said.

This is a profoundly shocking tragedy, yet in America it is also depressingly familiar. The grief and sympathy being expressed around the country is genuine. But no one is genuinely surprised that this could happen.

There have already been 27 school shootings this year alone. Young school children routinely rehearse what to do if a gunman enters their classroom.

It’s only 10 days since ten people were killed in a mass shooting in New York.

Politicians recognise this a problem almost unique to America, where guns have overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of death for children and teenagers. But it’s a problem that politics seem incapable of solving. Deeply entrenched views on gun control are not changed in response to events like the tragedy in Uvalde.

“Why do we keep letting this happen?” asked President Biden. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?”

But there is no sign that Democrats will get any closer to passing tighter gun control legislation. Some Republicans are already accusing them of using this latest school shooting to cynically further their own political objectives

Robb Elementary School will join the roll call of school shootings along with Sandy Hook and the Parkland shooting. The killing of innocent schoolchildren has reignited the debate over guns in America, but has not brought it any closer to a resolution

Toyota To Cut Global Production Plan By 100,000 In June

 Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) will cut its global production plan by about 100,000 to roughly 850,000 vehicles in June due to the semiconductor shortage, it said on Tuesday.

The company did not change its estimate of producing about 9.7 million vehicles worldwide by March 2023.

The automaker also announced additional domestic factory line suspension due to supply shortage triggered by COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai. The additional suspension will be up to five days between Wednesday and June 3, affecting 16 lines at 10 factories for May and June in total.

It is planning to produce about 850,000 vehicles globally a month on average from June through August, it said, adding chips shortage and COVID-19 outbreaks and other factors “are making it difficult to look ahead.”

Source: REUTERS

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Biden makes an emotional plea as victims of Texas shooting named

 Lamenting a uniquely American tragedy, an anguished and angry President Joe Biden delivered an urgent call for new restrictions on firearms after a gunman shot and killed at least 19 children at a Texas elementary school.

Biden spoke Tuesday night from the White House barely an hour after returning from a five-day trip to Asia that was bracketed by mass shootings in the U.S. He pleaded for action to address gun violence after years of failure — and bitterly blamed firearm manufacturers and their supporters for blocking legislation in Washington.

’“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said with emotion. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

With first lady Jill Biden standing by his side in the Roosevelt Room, the president, who has suffered the loss of two of his own children — though not to gun violence — spoke in visceral terms about the grief of the loved ones of the victims and the pain that will endure for the students who survived.

“To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” Biden said. “There’s a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.”

He called on the nation to hold the victims and families in prayer — but also to work harder to prevent the next tragedy, “It’s time we turned this pain into action,” he said.

At least 19 students were killed at Robb Elementary School in the heavily Latino town of Uvalde, Texas, according to local officials. The death toll also included two adults. The gunman died after being shot by responding officers, local police said.

It was just a week earlier that Biden, on the eve of his overseas trip, traveled to Buffalo to meet with victims’ families after a racist, hate-filled shooter killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.

“These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” Biden said, reflecting that other nations have people filled with hate or with mental health issues but no other industrialized nation experiences gun violence at the level of the U.S.

It was much too early to tell if the latest violent outbreak could break the political logjam around tightening the nation’s gun laws, after so many others — including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in New town, Connecticut that killed 26, including 20 children — have failed.

“The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong,” Biden said. He has previously called for a ban on assault-style weapons, as well as tougher federal background check requirements and “red flag” laws that are meant to keep guns out of the hands of those with mental health problems.

Late Tuesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer set in motion possible action on two House-passed bills to expand federally required background checks for gun purchases, but no votes have been scheduled.

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