Newscast - Africa

Brazil star Neymar says that the 2022 World Cup will be his last as he doesn’t have the strength to put up with more football”.
He says he doesn’t know if he will still have the mental strength to put up with even more football.
Neymar says that he will do everything to get to the 2022 World Cup in great shape and will do everything to win for his country and fulfil his biggest dream.

Sierra Leone has formally abolished the death penalty after President Julius Maada Bio signed into law a new measure outlawing capital punishment that was agreed by MPs in July.
The president says as a nation, they have exorcised horrors of a cruel past while affirming their belief in the sanctity of life.
Rights group Amnesty International says that last year 39 death sentences were handed down.
Amnesty says Death sentences have often been commuted, but by the end of last year, 94 people were still on death row.

South Sudan’s health ministry has begun the rollout of the single-dose Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson.
South Sudan received the first consignment of just over 150,000 J&J doses in September. They were donated by the US government through the Covax initiative and make up the biggest consignment yet.
Dr Victoria Anib Majur says more than 80,000 people have been vaccinated using the Oxford AstraZeneca jab.
Dr Victoria Anib Majur, from the health ministry, urged women to get the vaccine which she said was safe and effective while refuting rumours which say that Covid-19 vaccination causes infertility.

The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, says that President Muhammadu Buhari was the only politician in Nigeria at this time with the charisma and credibility to rally the whole country behind the patriotic push to rise above its current challenges.
Osinbajo stressed the need for Nigeria to remain an indivisible country, assuring that its challenges would soon be overcome.
Osinbajo urged Nigerians at home and in the diaspora to promote the message of one country, noting, anybody, who looks at how Nigeria operates will recognise that they are better off in this system, and that is the truth.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has failed to make the latest list of the world’s highest income-grossing oil companies, both nationally-run and privately-owned.
The latest list of the world’s highest income-grossing oil companies showed that although a number of the 10 highest-earning oil and gas companies in 2021 lost billions in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and trade war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, big deals and discoveries were still made, further aided by recovering oil prices from the last quarter of last year.
The list showed that Sinopec, also known as China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, earned $323 billion in revenues in 2020, according to a compilation by offshore-technology.com, one of the leading entities covering the global offshore oil and gas industry.

Nigeria’s external reserves have risen to their highest level in 25 months to $42 billion presently due to the inflow of the recent Eurobond issued by the federal government.
The Debt Management Office had explained that the Order Book peaked at $12.2 billion, which enabled the Federal Government of Nigeria to raise $1 billion more than the $3 billion it initially announced.
DMO says this exceptional performance has been described as one of the biggest financial trades to come out of Africa in 2021 and an excellent outcome.
The DMO says bids for the Eurobonds were received from investors in Europe and America, as well as Asia.

President Muhammadu Buhari says improving security, the economy and fighting corruption are still the core priorities of his administration, six years after the triad of promises first won him the presidential election.
He says that this administration will continue to do everything within the ambit of the law to eliminate all forms of violent crimes that are creating fear and anxiety among the citizenry.
He added that they have received new equipment in the fight against any form of insecurity from friendly countries.

136 members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and G-20 Nations at the weekend agreed to a 15 per cent corporate tax rate effective from 2023, though Nigeria withheld its assent.
The signatories officially entered into the agreement on Friday under the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base erosion and profit shifting, leaving Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
The signatories in their says the agreed to ensure that the MNEs pay a fair share of tax wherever they operate and generate profits.
The statement said major reform of the international tax system would ensure that Multinational Enterprises would be subject to a minimum 15 per cent tax rate from 2023.

Nobel Prize award body says Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the 2021 Nobel Prize in literature.
The prestigious prize was awarded by the Swedish Academy, which cited Gurnah’s uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.
He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is best known for his 1994 novel “Paradise”, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.

The Biden administration has called for an imminent return to talks in Vienna to revive the Iran nuclear deal but said a resumption of the negotiations is hinging on the Iranians.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters that Washington is willing to continue the talks as soon as Tehran agrees to re-engage in the negotiations, stressing that the path to diplomacy is still open.
Price says they have made very clear that they are prepared, willing and able to return to Vienna as soon as we have a partner to negotiate with.