#Lagos State governor

[jayessentialsblog]

Macaroni writes an open letter to governor Sanwo-Olu over bad roads

Nigerian content creator and activist, Mr Macaroni, has criticized Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for the poor condition of Lagos roads. Macaroni urged Sanwo-Olu to fix the roads to prevent further accidents. He called for the governor to take a drive around Lagos roads and address the potholes causing accidents. Macaroni stated in the open letter that he posted on his X handle on…

[touchaheartnews]

Remains of Akeredolu arrives Nigeria

Remains of Akeredolu arrives Nigeria Late former Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu’s body has arrived in Nigeria. Remains of Akeredolu were brought into the country from Germany, where he passed away. The reports indicated that the aircraft carrying the body arrived at approximately 3:39 p.m. on Friday, January 5, 2024. Chief Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, the late governor’s wife, along with…

[akeliciousmedia]

Lagos Unveils Plans for International Financial Centre in Eko Atlantic

The Lagos State Government has unveiled plans to develop the Lagos International Financial Centre (LIFC) at Eko Atlantic in Victoria Island, in partnership with EnterpriseNGR and various industry stakeholders, aiming to strengthen Nigeria’s position in global financial markets. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu announced the initiative as part of efforts to cement Lagos’ status as Africa’s leading…

[morganablenewsmedia]

2027 Polls: Some PDP Governors May Join APC

2027 Polls: some PDP governors may join APC as preparation for next General Elections kickstarts Apparently, preparation for the 2027 polls have begun as both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the major opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC), gear for another political showdown. Since the re-introduction of the Democracy into Nigeria’s political system in 1999, the power tussle…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump mocked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling him the "Governor" of the "Great State of Canada" in a late-night post on his corrupt Truth Social platform. "It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada," Trump posted at 12:06 a.m. ET on Tuesday. "I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!"

Trump was referring to a comment he made to Trudeau during a dinner the duo had at Mar-a-Lago—Trump's hideously gaudy Florida club where he improperly stored classified documents in a bathroom—about how Canada should become America's 51st state if the 25% tariff Trump is threatening to impose on Canadian goods were to kill the country's economy. Trump's unhinged Truth Social taunt appears to be a response to a comment Trudeau made on Monday, vowing to retaliate if Trump levies a tariff on Canadian products. “Trump got elected on a commitment to make life better and more affordable for Americans, and I think people south of the border are beginning to wake up to the real reality that tariffs on everything from Canada would make life a lot more expensive,” Trudeau said, according to the Associated Press. Trump is hell-bent on imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, describing the tariffs as a punishment for the undocumented immigrants and drugs coming into the United States across the borders with the two countries. 

Trump has falsely said that Canada and Mexico would pay the tariffs. However, it’s actually paid by the American companies that import products from those countries. Those companies then pass the added costs they incur from the tariff down to consumers, inflating prices of goods. Trump's tariff plan could have sweeping negative consequences for U.S. consumers, raising the price of critical goods, such as gasoline, canola oil, and beef, Bloomberg reported. 

Donald Trump doing what he does best yet again: spit on our traditional allies, this time Canada.

[syn0vial]

A timeline of the Trump Administration's hostile actions and threats of annexation towards Canada

Shared from the Facebook page of Mugsy Margarit, who is keeping an updated timeline on their page here.

-----------

One thing I've learned over the past few weeks, and it's been a bit of a sobering lesson, is that a lot of Americans I know don't actually know what's going on between the US and Canada right now, and just how seriously Canadians are taking this. So, against my better judgement, here's a timeline to explain why we're here, and why we're angry.

Nov 30th, 2018 - The United States, Canada and Mexico finalize a trade agreement. Trump personally negotiates the terms and signs the document, celebrating it as 'the greatest trade agreement in history". (This is important.)

Nov 29th, 2024 - In a face to face meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Trump threatens the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, that he will be imposing 25% tariffs and that if Canada wants to avoid that, it should join the US as a state.

Nov 30th, 2024 - Trump publicly calls our Prime Minister 'Governor Trudeau' and instructs his staff to only address him as Governor going forward. He again suggests Canada should join the USA.

Dec 3rd, 2024 - Trump remarks that he would split Canada into two states once annexed.

Dec 10th, 2024 - Trump posts that the majority of Canadians support annexation, despite public polling that only 13% of Canadians would consider the idea.

Dec 18th, 2024 - Trump again falsely states that the majority of Canadians support annexation and that one of his lapdogs, Wayne Gretzky, should have a leadership role in that new scenario.

Jan 7th, 2025 - At a press conference, Trump says that he would use economic force to destroy the Canadian economy to annex it.

Jan 14, 2025 - Trump again claims that most Canadians want to be American, despite new polls showing only 10% of us are open to the idea.

Jan 20th, 2025 - During his inaugural address, Trump says that the U.S. will 'expand its territory' during his second term.

Jan 23rd, 2025 - At the World Economic Forum, Trump says that Canada can avoid tariffs and economic collapse if it joins the US. He says this in front of representatives from most countries in the world.

Jan 24th, 2025 - During a press conference in North Carolina, President Trump reiterated his position, stating that Canada "will" become a U.S. state. He claims that under American governance, Canadians would benefit from "lower taxes" and "better health care."

Jan 31st, 2025 - Trump announces a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports to begin the next day.

Feb 2nd, 2025 - Trump refers to Canada as its 'Cherished 51st state' and that it should join the US to avoid tariffs.

Feb 3rd, 2025 - A one month delay is agreed upon. Trump, in a conversation with Trudeau states that he doesn't think existing border treaties with Canada are valid, and need to be revised.

Feb 7th, 2025 - In a closed door meeting with his cabinet, Prime Minister Trudeau is recorded, without his knowledge, telling everyone that he believes very strongly that Trump is serious and that he stated his reason for annexation as Canadian resources.

Feb 9th, 2025 - In a Super Bowl pre-game interview, Trump says that he's serious about his threats, calling it a 'viable consideration for expanding US territory'

Feb 10th, 2025 - Trump announces an additional 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada to come into effect March 12th.

Feb 24th, 2025 - Trump publicly remarks that whoever signed the USMCA agreement is an idiot. He was the one that signed it.

March 4th, 5th, and 6th 2025 - Tariffs come into effect. Canada retaliates with it's own tariffs. Tariffs are again postponed until April 1st after a huge market backlash.

March 4th, 2025 - In an address to a joint session of congress, Trump states that the US will own Greenland 'one way or the other'.

March 5th, 2025 - US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told Canadian finance minister Dominic LeBlanc that Trump "had come to realize that the relationship between the United States and Canada was governed by a slew of agreements and treaties that were easy to abandon."

March 7th, 2025 - Unconfirmed Memorandum and maps leaked on twitter reveal Trump is allegedly planning to annex the entirety of the great lakes and Southern Ontario, home to 13,491,332 Canadians. This amounts to 35.25% of Canada's total population and includes its largest city, Toronto. This region accounts for 38% of the Canadian economy, and its loss would make Canada's independence functionally impossible. *THIS IS STILL NOT OFFICIALLY VERIFIED*

March 7th, 2025 PT II - Trump claims to reporters that he had Canada’s dairy-tariff situation “well taken care of” at the time he left office the first time, “but under Biden, they just kept raising it.” In fact, Canada did not raise its dairy tariffs during the Biden administration.

March 7th, 2025 PT III - Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser to Trump, says that Canada has been “taken over” by Mexican cartels.

March 8th, 2025 - Canada's foreign minister warns European allies that their government considers Canada to be under existential threat. She emphasized that Canada's current challenges could foreshadow similar threats to other nations, stating, "We are the canary in the coal mine. If the U.S. administration is doing that to Canada, you're next."

March 9th, 2025 - Mark Carney, the new Canadian Prime Minister, in his acceptance speech, states that Trump is seeking to destroy Canada, and its way of life.

March 11, 2025 - President Trump threatens to “permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada” if Canada does not drop a 250% to 390% tariff on U.S. dairy products, which he doesn’t state only kicks in after a certain quantity of tariff-free U.S. dairy enters Canada, a quantity that was originally negotiated and agreed to by Trump during the USMCA in 2018.

In Trump's own words, "The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that. The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World — And your brilliant anthem, “O Canada,” will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!"

March 11th, 2025 PT. II - Peter Navarro, a Senior Advisor for Trump is interviewed by MSNBC. When asked about the tariffs he responds with "Just tamp it down, please, over there, ok? They're throwing down the hockey gloves. Stop that rhetoric...we're not going to tolerate anything but them stopping killing Americans", insinuating that this situation was caused by Canadians killing Americans. It's assumed he's referencing fentanyl, but he doesn't specify the reason.

March 11th, 2025 PT III - Trump again publicly muses that Canada, Greenland, and the US should be one country, and questions the validity of the Canadian and American border.

March 11th, 2025 PT IV - Canada sells $3.5 Billion dollars of its US Bonds

March 11th, 2025 PT V - Trump claims in a social media post that Canada is “One of the highest tariffing countries in the world.” He also claims the trade deficit between the two nations is '$200 Billion dollars". Official US statistics show the 2024 deficit with Canada in goods and services trade was $35.7 billion

Despite Trump's claims about Canadian tariffs, Canada is the 102nd-highest nation on a World Bank list of 137 countries’ trade-weighted average tariff rates in 2022 – and had a lower average (1.37%) than the United States (1.49%) that year, the most recent for which the data is available. This means the US tariffs more than Canada, with Canada being one of the most tariff free countries in the world.

March 12th, 2025 - Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc announces tariffs on $29.8B worth of U.S. goods. This includes tariffs on Steel, Aluminum, computers, tools, sporting equipment and cast iron products.

March 12th, 2025 Pt. II - Mark Carney, Canada's incoming prime minister, expresses willingness to meet with Trump to renew economic and security partnerships between the two countries despite the challenges posed by the recent tariffs.

March 12th, 2025 Pt III - Widespread boycotts of American products across Canada and international markets begin making serious impacts on US economy

March 13th, 2025 - Trump claims that “they (Canada) don’t take our agricultural product for the most part”; he mentioned dairy, then said, “A little bit they do, but not much.” This is false even with Trump’s qualifiers. Canada was the world’s second-largest buyer of US agricultural exports in 2024, according to the US Department of Agriculture, purchasing about $28.4 billion worth.

March 13th, 2025 PT II - New polling shows 46% of Canadians are in favor of joining the EU, something that would have been pure fantasy just a few months ago.

March 13th, 2025 PT III - The Group of Seven (G7) ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, along with the EU, meet in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada for two days of meetings.

March 13th, 2025 PT IV - Alaskan state-level politicians introduce resolutions to oppose Donald Trump’s “restrictive trade measures that would harm the unique Canada-U.S. relationship”

March 13th, 2025 PT V - The Vancouver Sun reports a Canadian woman was arrested by ICE and has been held at the San Luis Detention Center in Arizona since March 3rd with 30 other individuals. Her mother, in an interview: "They are housed together in a single concrete cell with no natural light, fluorescent lights that are never turned off, no mats, no blankets, and limited bathroom facilities."

March 13th, 2025 PT VI - Trump says that he would 'allow Canada to keep their national anthem' -- as a US state.

"As a state, it would be one of the great states. This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at the map, they do an artificial line right through it between Canada and the US. A straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago. And it makes no sense. It's so perfect as a great and cherished state".

March 13th, 2025 PT VII - Trump's choice for United States ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, says that "Canada is a sovereign state" when asked about Trump's repeated threats to annex Canada and make it a U.S. state.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

To my American friends, I know most of you are amazing and generous people. You didn't ask for this, and I understand that. I hold no ill will towards you, whatsoever. But I must stress, with as much seriousness as I can, the amount of damage this has done.

We have viewed you as our closest friend and ally for a century. We thought of you as brothers and sisters. We answered the call, again and again, for any support you needed from us. Most of Canadians visit the USA so much that we've seen more of the US than we have the rest of Canada.

American products have been taken off our shelves. Canadians are cancelling travel plans to the US. Photo after photo has been shared on social media of empty flights from Canada to the USA.

This isn't a joke to us. We're not overreacting. We don't think he's just saying this shit to cause chaos or negotiate a deal. We wholeheartedly believe that our closest ally and friend is about to bring violence across our border, economically destroy us, and eliminate our way of life.

The main driver for Canada's creation in 1867 was SPECIFICALLY to not be part of America, and to end America's very public threats and plans to annex our territory.

We're angry. We're really, really fucking angry. Open your eyes to what's happening because we're tired of trying to make you understand why and asking you why it seems like none of you care.

I still hope that there is time to repair this. I still believe that this is the result of one man's plan to burn it all down. But time is running out, and fast.

**Note**

The hundreds of positive comments and messages I've received from Americans today have restored my faith in you, and humanity. You do care, and I was wrong in assuming you didn't.

[thedialoguedilemma]

If you’re wondering why there is a lack of any political updates within the news cycle today, it’s because Trump is at Mar-A-Lago golfing again today…. On a Tuesday…. After a 3 day holiday weekend.

The Governor of Kentucky sent an emergency declaration to Trump due to the devastating floods that impacted his state… nothing approved yet. Trump still has not mentioned anything regarding Kentucky at all.. yet he still golfs.. at Mar-A-Lago.. on a Tuesday.. after a 3 day weekend.

[cuprohastes]

The Devil went down to Georgia.

And I interviewed him about it.

The Devil takes a long drag on his cigarette. When he exhales, a long sigh, there’s no smoke. he looks at it thoughtfully and puts it out.

"The thing about the fiddle…” he says “The thing that people don’t get, is that I was never going to win.”

He looks at the stump of his ciggy and grinds it out.

“That wasn’t the plan. The plan was to lose. I mean… a golden fiddle? I wish you could have heard it, it sounded like…” he waves a hand. He’s oddly reticent to swear.

“It was awful. Flat, screechy. And I mean, I made it sound good as it could get, y’know? But it was never going to be as good as a real fiddle.”

He laughs. It’s a warm, indulgent laugh, plummy and full of amusement. “No the plan was to lose it. You know how much a golden fiddle you won from the devil is worth? It’s worth… well more than gold.”

He pauses. “The smart thing would have been to take a hammer to it and melt it down, but who’s going to do that? That’s uh… just under 17 kilograms of gold. More than half a million these days.”

He takes another cigarette out and taps it, put it between his lips, takes a long suck that reduces a third of it to ash. I almost don’t notice that he never lit it, because I’m making a note that the prince of lies apparently favours Metric. Or thinks I do.

“It’s worth more with provenance, though. It’s rarer than a Strad - if you could get people to believe it was my actual fiddle, you could sell it for around twenty… thirty million, easily. But that’s the thing.”

And this is where the ol’ devil grins. It’s a brilliant happy smile, the smile of someone who pulled a caper off.

“… Some dumb farmboy goes out, comes back with a solid gold fiddle and a crazy story? Everyone wants the damn thing, for the gold, even if they don’t believe anything else. Family, friends, then the landlord and the Mayor, pretty soon everyone from the governor down was trying to levy taxes on this thing, or confiscate it - That kid killed two guys who broke in before one of them got him. The family started a vendetta against the people they thought they’d taken it. Both of them got beggared by taxes for something they never had…” he chuckles.

“The girl who stole it tried to pawn it, and the guy running the place took her in the back and garotted her with a handful of bootlaces. Bootlaces!” he stops to chuckle. “And then - He got robbed and there’s been at least four heists and ten lawsuits over it. Even I’m not sure where it is.”

He pauses again and stares into the distance, eyes unfocussed.

“Oh the Mar-a-Lago” he states. “Huh. Actually, I think I need to make a call about a certain hidden vault…”

[mightyflamethrower]

Two strange phenomena now characterize the political landscape.

One, opposition to the Trump administration’s initiatives has reached a near-unprecedented fever pitch.

The frenzy is manifested in strange ways. At the bottom end, there is an epidemic of street terrorism, including the keying of Teslas, bullying their owners, firebombing dealerships, or vandalizing charging stations.

All that is mostly the logical but dirty reification of those in the media and the Democrats who brand Elon Musk as a foreign-born counterfeit citizen and a disloyal un-American foreigner, thus deserving to be “taken down,” in the words of Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Or is he to be ostracized as an “ass-h*le” in the invective of Sen. Mark Kelly and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz? The latter cheered a downturn in Tesla stock prices, contrary to the interests of his own state’s public portfolio.

Sometimes, the impotent Democrat Congress issues kickboxing/ninja videos of its feistier female representatives. At other moments, senators race to the bottom, echoing each other’s pottymouth expressions of “sh*t.”

Rep. Al Green could neither disrupt nor end Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress by shaking his cane and screaming epithets. Nor, as he damned Trump on the floor of the Senate for 25 hours in a filibuster to nowhere, could Sen. Cory Booker offer a single word that might offer his supposedly better way to address crushing debt and deficits.

Two, there is a second common denominator to all this frenzy and fury: there is so far no alternate agenda on trade deficits, budget deficits, and debt.

That is, no one on the left—or, for that matter, the libertarian right or the now inert Republican establishment—can outline an alternate pathway to Trump’s remedies for America’s dire problems. Just as the left used to worship Tesla’s breakthrough EV cars and now tries to destroy them, so too it once lectured the country on the merits of tariff-enforced symmetrical trade—until Donald Trump made that his signature issue.

So in lieu of serious counter-proposals, we get from the left vulgarity, the smash-mouth of Rep. Crockett, and street terror against fellow Americans. All this inanity is the natural bookend to the prior four years of lawfare, the efforts to remove Trump from state ballots, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and two assassination attempts.

Most of the organs of Wall Street, the free-market think tanks, and the few liberation university economics departments likewise issue virulent denunciations of tariffs, of even massive DOGE cuts in the federal workforce and budget, and, strangely, of the deportation of Tren de Arugula, a terrorist-designated violent foreign gang whose members entered and now reside illegally in the United States.

So why does the left not simply claim that its prior support of tariffs was wrongheaded? (See the now-ancient denunciations by Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders of Bush-era “free trade,” deindustrialization, globalization, and lost jobs.) Now, the left supports… what exactly? Mini-tariffs? No tariffs? Reciprocal tariffs?

Absent is concern about the ticking time bomb of $3 billion in interest payments on the debt per day, in addition to the monstrous $37 trillion in debt itself. Did Cory Booker spend a single minute of his 25-hour address to outline ways to reduce our 125% debt to annual GDP?

Per year, the interest cost on the debt is larger than the defense budget; does AOC ever note that? The current Biden vestigial budget is nominally $1.7 trillion in the red. Is there a Democrat agenda to head us toward balanced budgets?

So, what does the left propose as its financial remedies?

Is it to raise taxes on those who should “pay their fair share?” That is, do they want the top rates to rise from 37% to 40%, 45%, 50%, so that their own constituent “affluent” in blue states like high-tax California, Illinois, and New York should properly and deservedly pay the IRS 50% to 60% of their earnings in income tax alone?

Does the tax-and-spend left prefer instead a value-added tax or some sort of federal sales tax? Or do they think current levels of spending are just fine?

Is there really no waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal budget, but instead too few federal workers?

Or are they modern monetary theorists, who believe money is but a construct, one that the government can do with in whatever manner it wishes? Thus, debt is simply remedied by printing more of the construct, or finding ways to expropriate private wealth, or inflating our way out of debt?

But again, please tell us how the left has a superior agenda to Trump’s that will get us more quickly and efficiently to a balanced budget, if not a reduced national debt.

Or is debt itself not supposed to be a problem? Does the left believe interest rates are the real crux? As in the recent past, if interest rates are no more than the rate of inflation, then essentially, the government can borrow all it wants at zero interest—and literally did so at times over the last half century. Is that their remedy?

Can the Republican establishment help out and pause a moment from their napalming of the Trump initiatives? Can it issue briefs that outline how to take us to either a balanced budget and reduced debt or convince us that debt in all manifestations is no big deal?

Then we turn to trade deficit. Again, there is utter silence about solutions from most critics. No counter-proposals, no alternate agenda, just fury and hysteria—or denials that deficits and debt are a problem at all.

So, does the left or right believe that 50 years of continuous trade deficits do not matter? Who cares if we are running a near $1 trillion annual outflow in the gap between what we export and import?

Please make the argument that the real losers are the recent economies of India, China, or Mexico, which supposedly foolishly tax imports and yet demand tariff-free exports, all to run up surpluses. Are they suicidal and we, the masters of trade deficits, the real geniuses?

Does it matter that almost all of the proposed Trump tariffs are in some way responsive? In that sense, they are calibrated on autopilot, leaving the proverbial ball in the court of those with high tariffs and huge surpluses to set new shared reciprocal rates.

So, if it was wrong for Trump to level reciprocal tariffs, was it right for others to initiate asymmetrical tariffs on us?

Is it more logical to damn those who object to $1 trillion in annual trade deficits rather than those whose tariffs resulted in their warped surpluses?

Or is it wiser to blame the victim? The U.S. deserves its trade deficit because it is too affluent, too naïve to object, or too profligate to be saved?

Or is the argument one of the Sermon on the Mount: we must turn the other cheek as we have for a half century? Or, as an affluent sort of good Samaritan, can we afford to stay forbearing and take the hit for the global team?

The final problem with the notion of Trump as the 80-day destroyer of America is not just the poverty of economic counterproposals from the left or right. It is also the complete news blackout of what Trump has already accomplished in 10 weeks.

Does anyone notice that, almost overnight, America’s southern border is now magically secure, with virtually no illegal immigration—and without the much-ballyhooed need for “comprehensive immigration reform?”

How did we go from 10,000 illegal aliens a day to near zero? What was so bad about identifying hundreds of billions of budgetary dollars in fraud and waste in a mere two months?

Why are we now talking about ways to end the Ukraine war rather than boasting “as long as it takes” to feed the new Stalingrad?

Why are the Houthis now being abandoned by the Iranians, who, in a matter of weeks, no longer seem to be the feared bully of the Middle East? Were not their terrorist tentacles just months ago considered unstoppable and sacrosanct?

Was it wrong finally and dramatically to reflect the wishes of 80 percent of the American people, who do not want biological males to overturn a half-century’s worth of hard work to obtain parity for women’s sports?

We, as a nation, need to calm down.

Either acknowledge, however reluctantly, the good that has already been done in the first ten weeks. Or, if one feels the border should be open, or the war should be accelerated in Ukraine, or the campuses were just fine until 2025, or women just need to get over losing to transgendered men, then just say so.

Or if one believes huge trade and budget deficits and unsustainable national debt are no big deal, then argue just that.

Or, if the rub is that Trump is addressing these existential and long-neglected crises in the wrong way, then please present alternate plans for quicker and better resolutions or better messaging.

Should he limit tariffs only to those nations with deficits and asymmetrical tariffs? Should he speak more quietly and mention more frequently that he was moved to act only by a half-century of neglect? Could he emphasize more that the $3-4 trillion in promised foreign investment will ignite job growth within a year?

But if there is no alternate agenda, no constructive criticism, then why would anyone listen to those who either helped to get us into this mess or have no clue about its solutions?

[duchessofvastergotland]

The Official Programme for Crown Princess Victoria's visit to Nigeria, 7th-9th April 2025

7th April

Visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a bilateral meeting and viewing of the Ministry's art exhibition

Reception with Nigeria's Vice President at State House and a roundtable discussion

Lunch at the Swedish Embassy and the ambassador's residence, with a tour and meeting with staff

A field visit to a Unicef primary health care facility, Kuchingoro PHC.

Evening reception at the Swedish Ambassador's residence

8th April

Breakfast meeting with Business Sweden and Swedish companies in Nigeria.

Meeting with the Governor of Lagos and a roundtable with Business Sweden, Swedish companies, and Nigerian trade and industry figures.

Attendance at the Nigeria-Sweden Business Forum, where the Crown Princess will give the introductory speech.

Visit to the studio of Nigerian designer Emmy Kasbit

A reception hosted by Business Sweden and the opening of Business Sweden's new trade office. During the reception there will be a fashion show featuring Swedish and Nigerian designers.

9th April

Field visit to Omuwo Odofin local government area with the UN Development Programme.

Visit to the UNDP Innovation Centre

Visit to a textile market in Lagos

Tour of the John Randle Centre for Yorùbá Culture and History

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Badash at NCRM:

President-elect Donald Trump, in a wide-ranging press conference from Mar-a-Lago on Monday, declared he doesn’t like vaccine mandates for childhood diseases, blamed Democrats for them, and appeared to be unaware that every state in the nation has childhood vaccine mandates that include many if not most or all of the CDC’s recommended vaccination schedule of 15 immunizations from birth to age 16. These vaccines protect children and the general population from serious and often contagious and deadly diseases, including polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, seasonal flu, and COVID-19.

While declaring he supports the polio vaccine, Trump appeared to veer off into discussing school closings when asked about childhood vaccine mandates, which first started in the United States in 1855. Responding to a reporter, Trump declared he is “a big believer” in the polio vaccine, but cautioned, “I think everything should be looked at.” Asked, “Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?” Trump replied, “I don’t like mandates.” “I’m not a big mandate person, so, you know, I was against mandates, uh, mostly Democrat governors did the mandates and, uh, they they did a very poor thing. It was, you know, in retrospect, they made a big mistake. Uh, having to do with the education of children. You know, they lost like a year or two years of their lives. The mandate was a bad thing. I was against the mandate.”

Trump, on the campaign trail, repeatedly stated he would defund any school that requires childhood vaccines. “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,” he said in June, PBS reported at the time.

[...] Trump, appearing to side with RFK Jr.’s stated yet false claim there are no vaccines that are safe and effective, also appeared to say there are nations that have a lower infectious disease rate than the U.S. and do not use vaccines, which is false. “No,” Trump replied, “I think he’s gonna be much less radical than you would think. I think he’s got a very open mind, or I wouldn’t have put him there. He’s gonna be very much less radical. But there are problems. I mean, we don’t do as well as a lot of other nations, and those nations use nothing. And uh we’re gonna find out what those problems are.”

Last week, saying he—and not the infectious disease scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—would be the one to decide, in consultation with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which vaccines the federal government should cut, Trump had again invoked the false and widely debunked conspiracy theory that links autism to the life-saving drugs. The President-elect’s remarks were met with concern and condemnation.

Orange Cuckoo pandering to anti-vaxxer nutbars once again, as he called for the removal of vaccine mandates in schools for all vaccines that protect against diseases, including polio, measles, and smallpox.

Trump has also given credence to the debunked vaccines-autism connection.

[mariacallous]

After president-elect Donald Trump announced Lee Zeldin as his nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the former Republican representative from Long Island, New York, phoned into Fox News from Mar-a-Lago.

“You know, the EPA has been in some ways an enemy to a lot of these businesses across America, because they’ve had a long arm,” the Fox News presenter said after congratulating Zeldin on his nomination. “What do you plan to do at the EPA?”

Zeldin proceeded to talk vaguely about reversing a slate of regulations that “are forcing businesses to struggle” and sending American jobs overseas. “We have the ability to pursue energy dominance, to be able to make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world,” he said. “President Trump cares about conserving the environment,” Zeldin added. “It’s a top priority.”

And then he returned to what seemed to be his main point: “So I’m excited to get to work to implement President Trump’s economic agenda.”

The second half of the six-minute interview was spent discussing other matters—New York governor Kathy Hochul’s recent phone call with Trump and the indictment against the former president still making its way through New York’s Supreme Court.

The whole conversation offered an indication of what to reasonably expect from the EPA over the next four years: regulatory rollbacks for fossil fuel industries justified as boosts for the economy and platitudes about the importance of clean air and water, without any mention of how those things will be achieved simultaneously. In a similar rhetorical tact, Trump said that Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

Without saying it directly, Zeldin signaled a tough road ahead for the thousands of community advocates who have spent years pushing for stronger regulations in the nation’s “sacrifice zones”—towns like Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, where a concentration of fossil fuel infrastructure and petrochemical plants dump cancer-causing pollutants into the air and water.

Zeldin, a 44-year-old attorney and former Army lieutenant, does not have a background in environmental policy. He made his foray into politics through the New York State Senate in 2011, serving until 2014. That year, he was elected to be the US representative for the state’s 1st Congressional District, which encompasses much of Long Island.

As a congressman, Zeldin did not serve on any subcommittees overseeing environmental policy. He regularly voted against progressive climate and environment policies, earning him a lifetime score of just 14 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, an advocacy group that tracks congressmembers’ positions on environmental legislation. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, he voted against an amendment to block the EPA from finalizing a Trump-era soot standard that would expose communities of color to additional air pollution that studies have linked to increased Covid mortality. The amendment ultimately passed.

In 2021, Zeldin voted against a bill that would require public companies to disclose information about the climate risks of their business models. That bill passed as well. The following year, he supported a failed bill that would have rescinded US participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a process that encourages international coordination on climate policy and includes participation in the annual UN climate conference.

Notably, Zeldin voted in favor of a bill that would require the EPA to set a drinking water standard for PFAS and PFOA, the so-called “forever chemicals” that accumulate in the environment and have been linked to a range of cancers and other serious health issues. Last year, a local news station found that 33 of Long Island’s 48 water districts have traces of these chemicals in their drinking water.

In 2022, Zeldin ran for governor of New York and lost to Hochul.

Zeldin’s appointment marks a departure from current EPA administrator Michael Regan, whose term will expire when Trump assumes office in January. Unlike Zeldin, Regan has a background in environmental science, and before being nominated as administrator served as secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality and worked as an air quality specialist in the EPA. As EPA administrator, he has overseen the Biden administration’s historic push toward environmental justice, which has included community engagement sessions, the strengthening of national standards for particulate matter, and the overhaul of regulations for many chemical plants.

It remains to be seen whether and to what extent Regan’s initiatives and regulations will persist over the years of a second Trump administration. Zeldin’s nomination will have to be confirmed with a vote from the Senate, which gained a Republican majority in the elections earlier this month.

If confirmed, Zeldin will have considerable power to shape the national direction of climate and environment policy. In addition to overseeing the enforcement of current environmental laws and regulations, he will be tasked with preparing the EPA’s annual budget, which determines how much funding will be allocated toward efforts like state oversight and air monitoring. A more fossil fuel-inclined administrator might choose to gut these parts of the agency, enabling industry-friendly state agencies like the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality or the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to regulate in the dark.

Trump ran on a platform that prioritized minimizing regulatory oversight and maximizing fossil fuel production. Zeldin’s appointment would be key for seeing that through.

[democracyunderground]

Lock up your dogs ‘cause Kristi Noem is back.

2 people familiar with the deliberations currently ongoing at Mar-a-Lago told CNN on Tuesday the South Dakota governor will serve as Homeland Security secretary in Donald Trump’s upcoming administration.

Noem will be joined by 2 other anti-immigration firebrands–former ICE chief Tom Homan and alleged white supremacist Stephen Miller–serving in senior positions within the department.

It’s something of a return from the cold for the South Dakota rancher and farmer after her admission in an autobiography published earlier this year to having once killed a family dog saw her sidelined from the Republican shortlist for Trump’s running mate.

In fairness, she’s not the only right-wing figure to have recently been outed over a penchant for animal cruelty. There’s also Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who’s accused of once having delivered his neighbor’s dog to a similar fate, and the revelations over new NRA chief Doug Hamlin’s role in the 1980 torture-slaying of a frathouse cat.

Nor is it the only bizarre claim to have come out of her 2024 memoir No Going Back, which features a fairly unhinged anti-seatbelt crusade and a passage implying she allowed motorcycle gangs to break COVID-19 laws in South Dakota as an F-you to the ‘nanny state.’

...

[darkmaga-returns]

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said that the new US administration presents “a major new uncertainty.” The markets had already priced in rate cuts ahead of the tariff threats, especially as inflation has allegedly reached the 2% target. This is the fifth time the Bank of Canada has cut rates in only six months after shedding 175 bps total. Yet, the central bank is not taking these tariff threats lightly because they could have a major impact on trade and the overall GDP. Macklem believes the bank can now take a “more gradual approach to monetary policy IF the economy evolves broadly as expected.”

The 25% tariff would send shockwaves through the Canadian economy. Around 77% of Canada’s exports are sent to the US, totaling $548 billion in 2023. The auto ($82 billion), energy ($166 billion), and manufacturing sectors would be particularly vulnerable due to the large cross-border trade. Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and New Brunswick send over 70% of their exports to the US. Reports state that up to 2.4 million jobs tied to these industries, or 12% of the Canadian workforce, could be at risk.

Trump mocked Trudeau last month during a Mar-a-Lago dinner party after suggesting Canada could become the 51st state if it insisted on relying so heavily on the US. This week, Trump reiterated the now ongoing joke on Truth Social. “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!” Trump said in a social media post. While it may be humorous to mock Trudeau, these tariffs are a serious matter.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he believes Canada should retaliate with tariffs if appropriate. “But hopefully we’ll never go down that road. It’s not worth it and we’re so much stronger together. The last country the president should be worrying about is its closest ally and friend, Canada,” he said.

No one will win when using world trade as a political tool. The US economy will also feel the burden of these tariffs, and the supply chain will face disruptions. Unsettling trade with a key partner is not the way to solve the migration or illegal drug trade crises.

[alaba75]

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[sussex-newswire]

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