Music sensation Medikal has expressed his gratitude to God following his recent release from prison remand.
In his latest song, Jah Guide, the musician officially known as Samuel Adu Frimpong says he is thankful that his enemies did not have the last laugh.
He speaks about being deserted by friends in his direst situation and how God came through for him.
He is; however, grateful God pulled him out safely and is hoping that “Jah” continues to “guide” him. Rapper Medikal was remanded in prison custody for five days after he was arrested for brandishing a gun on social media.
The artiste was charged with the unlawful display of arms and ammunition, to which he pleaded not guilty.
Two of Ghana’s dancehall greats, Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale, were at the Police Headquarters in Accra yesterday to engage with the Inspector General of Police, George Dampare. It is the first time the two musicians are meeting since Shatta Wale was arrested and remanded into the Ankaful prisons.
In some videos sighted by Pulse.com.gh, Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy are filmed at the Police Headquarters together with Bulldog and some team members.
Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale had some conversations speaking in the Ga dialect before being ushered into the conference room.
IGP George Dampare has been meeting with key personalities of the creative arts industry. Other Musicians present include D-Black, Sefa, Fameye and many others.
From the movie fraternity, veteran actor Agya Koo, Afia Schwarzenegger, Abeiku Santana and others are present.
The current police administration led by IGP Dampare has since been engaging key personnel in the various industries in Ghana to see the way forward in providing security.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven (L) tendering his resignation
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Wednesday tendered his resignation, a widely expected move paving the way for his designated successor Magdalena Andersson ahead of next year’s general election. Television cameras filmed Lofven handing his resignation letter to the speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlen.
Lofven, who has been in power for seven years, stepped down as leader of the Social Democrats at the party’s congress last week.
Andersson, who is currently finance minister, was elected to replace Lofven as party leader, putting her on track to become the country’s first woman prime minister if she wins a vote in parliament.
No date has been set for that vote yet, but it is not expected until next week.
In Sweden’s parliament, political forces are so finely balanced that the Social Democrats need the support of both their Green Party coalition partners and the Left and Centre parties to elect a new prime minister.
The Centre Party on Wednesday said it would back Andersson, and the Left is expected to do the same.
Tunisia’s powerful General Trade Union (UGTT) has called for a general strike on Wednesday in Aguereb, in the central region of Sfax, a day after a demonstrator died from inhaling tear gas fired by police to disperse protests against the reopening of a landfill site.
UGTT, which has about one million members and is a major force in Tunisian politics, called for a judicial investigation into what it described as “intentional murder of a young man” during the protests.
The trade union pronounced Wednesday a day of mourning for Abderrazek Lacheheb, 35, and demanded that the perpetrators behind his killing be held accountable, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
The 35-year-old died in the town of Aguereb which has seen weeks of angry demonstrations over a growing waste crisis and violent confrontations over security forces reopening a landfill.
The Ministry of Interior denied that Lacheheb had been suffocated by tear gas, saying he had been admitted to hospital for a health condition unrelated to the protests.
The first Nasa mission since 1972 to put humans on the Moon’s surface has been pushed back by one year to 2025.
Few observers expected Nasa to make the previous 2024 date, because of a funding shortfall and a lawsuit over the landing vehicle.
But the space agency’s chief Bill Nelson confirmed the delay in a press conference on Tuesday.
Under its Artemis programme, Nasa will send the first woman and the 13th man to the lunar surface.
A US federal judge recently upheld a decision by the agency to award the contract to build a lunar landing vehicle for this mission to Elon Musk’s company SpaceX.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had contested the decision, in part because he said the contract was supposed to have been awarded to more than one bidder.
However, a funding shortfall from Congress meant this wasn’t possible, according to a rationale published by Nasa at the time of the contract announcement.
The UK’s Supreme Court has rejected a claim that sought billions of pounds in damages from Google over alleged illegal tracking of millions of iPhones.
The judge said the claimant had failed to prove damage had been caused to individuals by the data collection.
But he did not rule out the possibility of future mass-action lawsuits if damages could be calculated.
The case will have implications for similar mass-action lawsuits.
In his judgement, Lord Leggatt said a key issue was that “the claim has been framed in order to try to bring it as a representative action” for many people.
“The claimant seeks damages… for each individual member of the represented class without attempting to show that any wrongful use was made by Google of personal data relating to that individual or that the individual suffered any material damage or distress as a result of a breach,” it read.
“Without proof of these matters, a claim for damages cannot succeed.”
But he added that the case had a “real chance of success” if pursued by the claimant as an individual, instead of as a mass action.
Early trials are under way to test medicinal mushrooms and Chinese herbs to treat COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms.
The first two phase 1 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have begun at UCLA and the University of California San Diego to treat COVID-19 patients who were quarantining at home with mild to moderate symptoms. A third trial is investigating the use of medicinal mushrooms given after COVID-19 vaccines.
The researchers have also launched a fourth trial testing the mushrooms against a COVID booster shot alone. It looks at the effect in people who have underlying conditions that would reduce their vaccine response. An article in JAMA last week described the trials.
The two mushroom varieties being tested — turkey tail and agarikon — are available as over-the-counter supplements, according to the report. They are a separate class from hallucinogenic or “magic” mushrooms being tested for other uses in medicine.
“They are not even as psychoactive as a cup of tea,” Gordon Saxe, MD, PhD, MPH, principal investigator for the trials, says.
For each trial, researchers plan to recruit 66 people who are quarantined at home with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms. Participants will be randomly assigned either to receive the mushroom combination, the Chinese herbs, or a placebo for 2 weeks, according to the JAMA paper.
Craig Hopp, PhD, deputy director of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, told JAMAin an interview that he was “mildly concerned” about using mushrooms to treat people with active coronavirusinfection.
“We know that a cytokine storm poses the greatest risk of COVID mortality, not the virus itself,” Hopp said. “The danger is that an immune-stimulating agent like mushrooms might supercharge an individual’s immune response, leading to a cytokine storm.”
Stephen Wilson, PhD, an immunologist who consulted on the trials when he was chief operating officer of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, says in the JAMA article that a cytokine storm is unlikely for these patients because the mushroom components “don’t mimic inflammatory cytokines.” Wilson is now chief innovations officer at Statera Biopharma.
“We think the mushrooms increase the number of immunologic opportunities to better see and respond to a specific threat. In the doses used, the mushrooms perturb the immune system in a good way but fall far short of driving hyper or sustained inflammation,” Wilson said.
Saxe said the FDA process was extensive and rigorous and FDA investigators also asked about potential cytokine storms before approving the trials.
Cytokine storm is not an issue with a healthy response, Saxe pointed out. It’s a response that’s not balanced or modulated.
“Not a Crazy Concept”
Saxe pointed out that one of the mushrooms in the combo they use — agarikon — was used to treat pulmonary infections 2,300 years ago.
“Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, used mushrooms,” he said. “Penicillin comes from fungi. It’s not a crazy concept. Most people who oppose this or are skeptics — to some extent, it’s a lack of information.”
Saxe explained that there are receptors on human cells that bind specific mushroom components.
“There’s a hand-in-glove fit there,” Saxe said, and that’s one way mushrooms can regulate immune cell behavior, which could have an effect against the coronavirus.
Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, , who was not part of the study, says he wasn’t surprised the FDA approved moving forward with the trials.
“As long as you can demonstrate that there is a rationale for doing the trial and that you have some safety data or a plan to collect safety data, they are fairly liberal about doing early-phase studies. It would be a much different issue, I think, if they were proposing to do a study for actual licensing or approval of a drug,” Kuritzkes says.
As yet unanswered, he noted, is which component of the mushrooms or herbs is having the effect. It will be a challenge, he said, to know from one batch of the compound to the next that you have the same amount of material and that it’s going to have the same potency among lots.
Another challenge is how the mushrooms and herbs might interact with other therapies, Kuritzkes said.
Presiding Member of the Tano South Municipal Assembly, Mr Asare Antwi opening the meeting
Tano South MCE, Mr. Collins Offinam Takyi addressing the house
The Municipal Chief Executive for Tano South in the Ahafo region, Mr Collins Offinam Takyi, has observed that the Municipality is relatively calm and, therefore, a good destination for business.
He acknowledged that there are reported cases of stealing, armed robbery, land and chieftaincy disputes, but gave the assurance that the Municipal Security Council is closely monitoring the situation to ensure peace and stability.
“The municipality has being relatively calm and peaceful over the period, except isolated cases of stealing, armed robbery, land and chieftaincy disputes, which the Municipal Security Council is closely monitoring to ensure peace”, he said.
Mr. Offinam Takyi said this at the first General Assembly meeting of the second session of the second Tano South Municipal Assembly at Bechem.
He assured the house, Nananom and other stakeholders that the assembly will do all it takes to support the security agency to enable them perform their core mandate.
He also announced that the Tano South Municipal now has a Ghana Immigration Command and about ten (10) officers have been posted to work in the municipality.
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Offinam Takyi said agriculture remains one of the most attractive and important sectors that engages the attention of government, hence the interventions by government to make the sector more attractive and to ensure economic growth.
The Department of Agriculture, he said, has also successfully assisted farmer based organisations at Mansion, Onwe Nkwanta, Bechem and Derma.
He explained that when there was the prevalence of fall army worm in 2018, the government through the Department of Agriculture gave chemicals to the municipality to spray farms that were suspected to be affected.
He, therefore, entreated the members to inform their community members or farmers to report any suspected case on their farms to the Extension Officers for remedy.
HEALTH
Mr Offinam Takyi said, the government, through the Ghana Health Service and the Municipal Health Directorate has commenced the vaccination against the COVID-19 pandemic, using the AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines.
He stressed that the first phase of the exercise is targeted on health workers, adding that more vaccines will be received to cover all communities.
He therefore encouraged assembly members to accept the vaccines as a remedy against the spread of the disease when the Ghana Health Service commences the vaccination.
EDUCATION
He noted that the government introduced the Free Senior High School policy to help increase enrolment by providing equal opportunities for all.
According to him, the policy has made positive impacts on the lives of students who might have missed the opportunity to access senior high education.
GRATITUDE
Mr. Offinam Takyi expressed his utmost gratitude to His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, for re-nominating him, and to the members for confirming him once again.
He also extended his appreciation to Mr. George Boakye, the Ahafo Regional Minister, Benjamin Yeboah Sekyere, the Member of Parliament for Tano South Constituency, Nanamon and Heads of Department in the Municipality for their support for the past years and requested all to work collectively for the development of the municipality.
OPENING ADDRESS
Opening the meeting, the Presiding Member (PM) of the Assembly, Mr. Asare Antwi said the meeting provides the platform for assembly members to reflect on the developmental needs and aspiration of the people, and said by so doing take the right decision that would help in the accomplishment of the aspiration and the needs of the citizenry.
He added that the meeting gave members of the house the opportunity to deliberate on the development agenda of the municipality.
Mr Asare Antwi said the meeting was in fulfillment of the Local Government Act 2016, Act 936 and the model standing orders which empower the members to meet periodically to deliberate on matters of concern and take decisions in the best interest of the people they serve.
Mr. Asare Antwi explained that the meeting should have taken place earlier, but had to delay due to re-nomination and confirmation of the Municipal Chief Executive, as well as the District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT) exercise which took place on 11th and 12th October 2021.
He urged members of the house to continue to eschew all forms of partisan tendencies that could derail their collective effort in accomplishing the desired goals for the betterment and transformation of the municipality.
MOTORBIKES
According to the PM, he has received a letter from the Ahafo Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) informing his office about the purchase of motorbikes for the assembly.
“The letter further assured that the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) will soon take delivery of the motorbikes for onward distribution to the assemblies in the region”, he said.
South Africa face a must-win clash in their 2022 World Cup Qualifying campaign when they host Group G rivals Zimbabwe at FNB Stadium today.
South Africa picked up back-to-back wins over Ethiopia in October to remain at the top of the log, though Ghana are just one point behind.
With the Black Stars favourites to win their match, Bafana Bafana will likely be playing to try and reclaim top spot and ensure they take a points advantage into their showdown with Ghana in Cape Coast on the evening of Sunday 14 November.
“We have to focus on the fact that we have to win [the first match against Zimbabwe,” said SA coach Hugo Broos. “If we don’t win the game, what importance can the game in Ghana have? We need to be there with one point ahead, maybe more. Ghana have the pressure to win against us, so we have the pressure to win against Zimbabwe.”
qMr Amissah Arthur, ADA Central Regional Secretary, speaking at the confab
Alliance of Drivers, Ghana, a registered and recognised transport union operating in the country, is calling on the government to remove all toll-booths on our roads and instead introduce toll levy.
According to the group, the toll-booths create inconvenience for motorists and productive time is lost due to the hours drivers and commuters spend at these toll-booths.
Mr Amissah Arthur, Central Regional Secretary of the union, who addressed a news conference at the Kasoa Toll-booth recently, indicated that the introduction of toll levy would also help government to block revenue leakage.
“The toll-booth has become one of the major causes of massive road traffic in the country. As you can see, the Kasoa toll-booth alone is capable of keeping a driver in traffic for more than half an hour.
“The inconveniences created are really unbearable. The petrol we consume in traffic is sometimes overwhelming. We have a strong conviction that when removed, it will tremendously reduce road traffic,” he said.
According to him, reports the group has gathered suggests that some workers at the toll-booths sometimes embezzle funds, alleging “the only body exempted from paying toll per the Toll Roads Act are the emergency services, but many drivers don’t pay when they get to the toll-booth.
“Some drivers also don’t pay road tolls because of familiarity with the toll collectors. Monies collected at the tollbooth are meant for the state and not for private individuals. Hence, we are appealing to you to help us cure this by ending these toll-booths with immediate effect,” he said.
Mr Amissah Arthur contended that aside the inconveniences, drivers are overburdened with the number of toll booths that they have to encounter on their journeys.
“When the toll-booth is removed, it will have a significant reduction on the financial burden of the ordinary driver,” he said, adding that while government is plugging revenue leakages, drivers could also breathe a sigh of relief.
He added that the group has submitted a proposal to the government to consider the toll levy on petrol and take away the toll fees, as it is becoming a burden rather than a relief.
The Secretary also used the occasion to urge the public to be circumspect when discussing issues of fuel pricing at the pump.
In his view, discussions on fuel prices must centre more on proffering solutions to the problem than attacking the government of the day.
“We are deeply saddened by the recent hikes in petroleum prices. Frankly speaking, the current happenings are unbearable, there have been numerous threats of strike action from strong institutions such as COPEC and other driver unions. We honestly don’t wish for this that is why we are calling on all Ghanaians to handle this matter constructively, devoid of politics,” he said
