UN agency says Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean should register GDP growth of 5.2 per cent on average in 2021, an improved forecast but not enough to offset coronavirus losses.
The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean upped its April forecast of 4.1 per cent for 2021, which comes on the back of a 6.8 per cent contraction in 2020 as the region of 33 countries was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report says the expansion, however, will not manage to ensure sustained growth, because the social impacts of the crisis and the structural problems in the region have deepened and will continue to do so during the recovery.
It added that there is nothing to indicate that the low growth dynamic prior to 2020 is going to change.

The World Health Organization says Africa has just lived through its most devastating week of the pandemic, but the worst is yet to come as the third wave gathers pace on the continent.
The WHO’s regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti says Africa has just marked the continent’s most dire pandemic week ever. But the worst is yet to come as the fast-moving third wave continues to gain speed and new ground.
Coronavirus cases have been rising in Africa since the start of the third wave on the continent on May 3. During the week ending July 4, more than 251,000 new Covid-19 cases were recorded on the continent, a 20% increase over the previous week and a 12% jump from the previous January peak.

Tunisia’s health ministry spokeswoman says the health system has collapsed under the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic describing the virus’s effect on the country as catastrophic.
Tunisia recorded 9,823 cases and 134 deaths, its worst daily toll from the virus.
Hospitals in the north African country have seen a significant influx of patients over the past two weeks.
The country of approximately 12 million inhabitants has suffered nearly 465,000 cases and 15,735 deaths.
She says the current health situation is catastrophic and the number of cases has risen dramatically.
Ben Alya said hospitals are overwhelmed, and it is difficult to find available beds and oxygen supplies.

The Ugandan government has begun distributing Covid relief money to people affected by the second lockdown.
The money will be distributed through mobile money services with each beneficiary expected to receive $29.
Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja launched the exercise in the capital, Kampala with about half a million people living in urban areas benefitting from the 53.7bn Ugandan shillings.
The beneficiaries will include slum dwellers, food vendors, waiters, club bouncers, restaurant workers, musicians, comedians, taxi drivers, single mothers, teachers and support staff in private schools as well as those in government schools who are not on the payroll.

The UN Security Council members have backed the African Union’s mediation efforts on the Nile dam row between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.
The members asked the three countries to resume negotiations, which have yielded little progress since they began a decade ago.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, says the negotiations should be held under the leadership of the AU and should recommence with urgency.
The European Union says the AU-led talks needed to be intensified adding that it was ready to support the negotiations as observers working with the UN and the US.
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian representative to the UN, proposed that the three parties meet while in New York to resolve the issues.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service has directed commercial banks in the country to freeze the accounts of Multichoice Nigeria Limited and Multichoice Africa, in a bid to recover about ₦1.8 trillion outstanding taxes.
FIRS spokesman, Abdullahi Ahmad in a statement says FIRS discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements, while the groups’ performance did not reflect in their tax obligations and compliance level in the country.
FIRS further explained that multi-choice Africa, which provides services to its Nigerian subsidiary had never paid value-added-tax to the Nigerian government since its inception, even as the country contributes 34 per cent of total revenue for the multichoice group.
They said the decision to appoint the banks as agents and to freeze the accounts was due to the groups’ continued refusal to grant FIRS access to their servers for audit.

The presidency says President Muhammadu Buhari is not responsible for promotion in the Nigeria Police Force.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu says this as former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu was declined promotion.
President Buhari’s media aide says promotion in the nation’s police structure is determined by the PSC, noting that his principal had no hand in the exercise.
The PSC could have given you the correct position on this if there was an effort to reach them.
Shehu’s reaction followed some rumours suggesting that President Buhari was pushing for the Magu’s promotion who has been under probe over allegations of misuse of his office.

Nigeria has confirmed the detection of the Delta COVID-19 variant in the West African country.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has detected a confirmed case with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, also known as lineage B.1.617.2.
The health agency in a statement says the variant was detected in a traveller to Nigeria, following the routine travel test required of all international travellers and genomic sequencing at the NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.
The NCDC, however, assured Nigerians that the federal government has put measures in place to combat the disease, asking them to adhere to the recommended safety protocols.

Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman is meeting with top Biden administration officials in the United States, just months after a US intelligence report linked his brother, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to the killing of journalists Jamal Khashoggi.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki says Khalid bin Salman is expected to meet with Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, as well as with US State and Defense Department officials.
Psaki says they will discuss the longstanding partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, regional security and the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory.

The World Health Organization has added lifesaving interleukin-6 receptor blockers to its list of treatments for COVID-19 as the pandemic continues to accelerate across the world.
The WHO says the medicines worked particularly well when used alongside corticosteroids, which were recommended by the WHO in September 2020.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement says these drugs offer hope for patients and families who are suffering from the devastating impact of severe and critical COVID-19.
The WHO says the trials showed that in severely ill patients, administering the drugs resulted in 15 fewer deaths per 1,000 patients.