Teammate likely to appeal doping ruling that cost Bolt gold (Read full details)

Jamaica's Nesta Carter (L) and Usain Bolt celebrating after winning the men's 4×100m relay final at the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.<br />The International Olympic Committee said on January 25, 2017 it had stripped Jamaica of their gold medal earned in the 4x100m relay at the 2008 Beijing Games after Nesta Carter was caught doping.The decision which follows the retesting of hundreds of samples from the Beijing event, means teammate Usain Bolt loses one of the three gold medals he won at that Olympics. Carter was found to have tested positive for banned substance Methylhexanamine.<br />/ AFP PHOTO / Olivier MORIN

Jamaican Olympic officials are likely to appeal the doping sanction of relay runner Nesta Carter that has cost Usain Bolt one of his nine Olympic gold medals.

Carter failed a drugs test in a retest of a sample from the 2008 Beijing Games, testing positive for the banned substance Methylhexaneamine.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Wednesday that it had stripped Jamaica of the 4x100m relay gold won in Beijing.

Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) president Michael Fennell and an attorney representing Carter indicated there will be an appeal, most likely to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS).

“We have to decide what the best legal process is,” Fennell said after the JOA met with Carter’s representatives on Wednesday night. “It is a team and we are interested in ensuring they are properly protected and given a fair chance of clearing their names.”

Carter’s lawyer and executive members of his local club MVP also said on Wednesday they wanted to fight the decision.

Carter ran the lead-off leg on a team that included Michael Frater, Bolt and Asafa Powell that crossed the line first.

The loss of the relay gold deprives Bolt of one of his “triple-triples” — he won gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at Beijing and repeated the feat in London in 2012 and again in Rio last year.

A CAS spokesperson told AFP on Thursday they had not heard from Carter or his representatives.

An appeal must be filed by February 15, 21 days after Wednesday’s announcement of the decision by the IOC.

Teammate likely to appeal doping ruling that cost Bolt gold

Austrian president sworn in as government wobbles (Read full details)

Austria's president Alexander Van der Bellen (C) speaks during the swearing-in ceremony, as Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz (L), Austrian Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner (2ndL) and Austrian chancellor Christian Kern (2ndR) listen during the federal assembly at the parliament in Vienna on January 26, 2017.<br />Van der Bellen, 73, narrowly won a run-off against Norbert Hofer from the Freedom Party (FPOe) in May but the anti-immigration party got the result annulled due to procedural irregularities. / AFP PHOTO / APA / ROLAND SCHLAGER / Austria OUT

Alexander Van der Bellen, who beat the far-right candidate in a presidential election thriller last year, was sworn in on Thursday just as speculation raged about the future of the government.

Van der Bellen, 73, narrowly won a run-off against Norbert Hofer from the Freedom Party (FPOe) in May, but the anti-immigration party got the result annulled due to procedural irregularities.

A re-run set for October had to be postponed because of faulty glue on postal votes and after an ugly and divisive campaign Van der Bellen finally won the largely ceremonial, but coveted presidency on December 4.

Hofer, 45, who like similar politicians in Europe — and Donald Trump in the United States — stoked concerns about immigration and security, would have been the first far-right president in the European Union.

The victory of the professorial Van der Bellen, who was backed by the ecologist Greens but ran as an independent, was greeted with relief by centrist parties in Austria and around Europe.

But the “grand coalition” of Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern, comprising his centre-left Social Democrats (SPOe) and the centre-right People’s Party (OeVP), remains under severe pressure.

Speculation has been heightened that the coalition may throw in the towel and call early elections, as the FPOe has been topping national opinion polls and amid the public squabbling this week within the coalition that is due to rule until late 2018.

“I promise to follow faithfully the constitution and all laws of the republic and to fulfil my role to the best of my knowledge and conscience,” Van der Bellen said in a ceremony in parliament.

Austrian president sworn in as government wobbles

Trump signs executive order against Obamacare health law (Read full details)

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order aimed at limiting the “burden” of the Obamacare health law that the incoming US leader has vowed to repeal.

During the signing in the Oval Office, Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus described the order as aimed at “minimizing the economic burden” of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, “pending repeal.”

Doing away with Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement is a top priority for Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and, since Trump’s inauguration Friday, the White House.

In their view, Obamacare — which aimed to ensure healthcare for the millions of Americans who are neither covered by public insurance, nor by their employers — marked a costly drift toward socialized, European-style medical care.

Until lawmakers are able to repeal Obamacare, “it is imperative for the executive branch to… take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the Act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market,” the executive order said.

The order instructs the US health secretary and other departments and agencies to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the Act” that imposes a fiscal burden or other cost on a state, on consumers, on insurers or on a range of healthcare providers.

Trump has pledged to start undoing the divisive health law on his first day in office, while also declaring it inconceivable that poor Americans are locked out of coverage.

The president has said the law should be repealed and replaced “simultaneously,” a stiff challenge given the complexity of America’s vast health care system.

Obamacare added more than 20 million people onto insurance rolls, lowering the percentage of Americans without coverage from 16 percent in 2010 to 8.9 percent last year.

Republicans are pledging a repeal of Obamacare — which has been blamed for sharply rising insurance premiums — and rapid votes on a replacement bill in order to prevent gaps in coverage and reassure a restless insurance industry.

Only one third of the US population is covered by public insurance — either Medicare, for those over age 65, or Medicaid for the poorest Americans.

Half of all Americans are insured through their employers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, while about seven percent are covered through the so-called individual market, which serves those who are self-employed or are employees without coverage through work.

Obama’s solution rested largely on requiring that everyone be insured, and providing federal subsidies to those who cannot afford coverage.

Republicans deemed the first requirement too coercive, and the latter too costly.

Trump signs executive order against Obamacare health law

19th National Sports Festival to hold this year (Read full details)

Solomon Dalung

The National Sports Festival (NSF), the country’s biennial multi-sports competition organised by the Federal Government will hold this year, the Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung has said.

The Minister made the disclosure on Friday in Makurdi at an interactive forum with the Executive Council of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Benue Chapter.

He said that budgetary allocation for the hosting of the festival was made this year.

According to the minister, such festival serves as a development and training event to assist athletes prepare for continental and international meets.

“The NSF is supposed to be an avenue where youths will showcase their skills,’’ he said.

The minister noted that the event was also important for Nigerian’s preparations for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The Minister said that it was now left for the National Sports Commission to determine where and when it will hold.

“They will ensure that all the facilities for the event were ready before the festival,’’ he said.

Dalong said the festival for some years was billed to take place in Calabar, the Cross River capital in 2014 but had suffered several postponements.

The festival is supported by the National Sports Commission for athletes from the 36 States of Nigeria.

The festival started in 1973 at the National Stadium, Surulere in Lagos, involves all indoor and outdoor sports, and was originally conceived as a “unifying tool’’.

It has as its main purpose, the promotion of peace and cross-cultural affiliation in Nigeria after the Nigerian Civil War in 1970.

19th National Sports Festival to hold this year

Gambian State House website features Adama Barrow (Read full details)

With gale of resignations hitting his cabinet in its last official days, President Yahya Jammeh’s endgame is probably near.

The latest indication of that is the display, as at press time, the picture of the man who brought Jammeh’s 22-year rule to an inglorious, Adama Barrow on the official website of Gambia’s State House. But it is unclear if the website was hacked.

Barrow is expected to be sworn in today. Where it will be done, is yet unclear as Jammeh ignored military threats and stay put in Banjul, refusing to step down.

The country’s national stadium was initially the choice venue for the swearing-in. But Barrow’s spokesman Halifa Sallah said he would be sworn in an undisclosed location.

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz who initiated the last minute effort to break the political deadlock by visiting Jammeh on Wednesday said Jammeh was adamant about hanging on to power.

Jammeh lost to opposition candidate Adama Barrow in the December 2016 presidential election after ruling the West African nation for 22 years. But he later announced that the election results were flawed and unacceptable.

On Tuesday, Jammeh declared a state of emergency just two days before he is due to step down, citing “extraordinary” foreign interference in the country’s post-electoral crisis.The following day, the country’s National Assembly a resolution that gave the incumbent him a three-month tenure extension.

Gambian State House website features Adama Barrow

Migrants race to reach US before Trump takes over (Read full details)

Migrants wait to receive food donated by people from the Community Center for Migrant Assistance in the community of Caborca in Sonora state, Mexico, on January 13, 2017. Hundreds of Central American and Mexican migrants attempt to cross the US border daily. / AFP PHOTO / ALFREDO ESTRELLA

Migrants trying to sneak into the United States from the parched Mexican desert have to contend with border guards’ drones overhead, poisonous snakes underfoot and human trafficking gangs at their backs.

But these challenges are nothing compared to their bigger fear: that someday soon, US President-elect Donald Trump will build a wall to keep them out altogether.

So before Trump takes office on Friday, they are racing against time, riding a freight train up to the border to look for a way across.

In the town of Caborca near the frontier, a group of Hondurans warm themselves by a fire of trash in the early morning cold.

One of them, Wilson, a 48-year-old builder, missed the birth of his daughter to make the journey. Getting to the United States before Trump takes control was more important.

“When I saw that man on the television saying how he hated migrants and was going to build a wall, I thought: ‘It’s now or never,” said Wilson, who would not give his last name.

“So we all spent Christmas and New Year traveling to try to get here in time. We want to beat him to it.”

Mexican authorities are arresting thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of undocumented migrants each month, according to government figures.

Governors of several northern states this week called for extra resources to deal with the surge.

Laura Ramirez, a local charity activist, has been serving more than 200 free lunches a day to migrants.

“There are more and more migrants coming,” she says.

– Walk like a cow –
In the border town of Sasabe, marks in the rust on the border fence appear to show a spot where migrants climbed over, says Sergio Flores, leader of a government migrant task force.

“They have been getting sophisticated” in their efforts to get across undetected, he says.

Nearby on the sand lies a bottle of water, painted black — a common trick to stop the plastic shining in the sun and catching the eye of border guards.

That is just part of the typical migrant survival kit, Flores says.

The migrants wear soft-soled slippers so as not to leave footprints in the sand, along with camouflage clothes and masks.

Some have even made soles for their shoes that make their footprints look like cows’ hooves.

Some put sanitary pads in their socks to cushion their feet on long walks.

In their rucksacks they carry anoraks, remedies for snake bites, alcohol for lighting fires, talcum powder for their feet and painkillers.

They buy their supplies in the shops on the town square in the local village of Altar — an area dubbed “Migrants’ Wal-Mart.”

– Coyotes and mules –
The migrants pay about $1,000 each to so-called “coyotes” — people traffickers — to bring them here from their native countries.

On arrival, some traffickers tell the migrants they must pay another $5,000 to get across the border.

“It’s big business,” Flores says.

Some who cannot pay the traffickers instead cross the border as drug “mules,” with 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of marijuana on their backs.

“You have to bring your own water, food and blanket,” says one such “mule,” a Honduran migrant who called himself El Guero.

“They don’t pay us. The payment is being allowed to cross.”

– Not welcome –
Trump sparked outrage during his election campaign when he branded immigrants from Mexico criminals and rapists.

The insult rankles with the migrants on the migrant trail.

“That racist man is panicking,” said El Guero. “Our only sin is being born in an impoverished country and not having enough money to pay the gangs.”

Just across the US border in the town of Arivaca, Arizona, locals mistrust the migrants.

“We cannot deny that they bring trouble,” says a waiter in the town, who asked not to be named.

“I just think they shouldn’t be here. This is not their home.”

Last week, in his first press conference since winning the election, Trump reiterated his campaign promise to build a wall along the border.

In Caborca, Wilson gazes towards the north, where he hopes soon to cross over to a better life.

“I trust God will soften Trump’s heart,” he says.

Migrants race to reach US before Trump takes over