9JA VIBEZ HUB

 Hundreds of Afghans gathered outside a passport office in Kabul on Wednesday, a day after Taliban officials said that the country would resume issuing travel documents, ending a months-long suspension that had further diminished the already limited ability of Afghans to leave their war-torn country.

© NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images Afghanistan's passport ranks poorly in terms of visa-free access for its holders.

Alam Gul Haqqani, acting head of the passport office, told reporters Tuesday that up to 6,000 passports would be issued daily. The Taliban government would also release 25,000-plus new passports that had previously been paid for, he said at a news conference.

In Wednesday’s chaotic scenes, Taliban guards beat back people trying to apply for passports in an attempt to maintain order, Reuters reported. The Taliban plans to start issuing passports on Saturday and isn’t yet taking new applications, according to the news agency.

The passports will continue to be issued under the name of the former government, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. No country has officially recognized the Taliban, which has renamed the country an Islamic Emirate, as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.

© Thomson Reuters Afghans gather outside the passport office after Taliban officials announced they will start issuing passports to its citizens again, following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control, in Kabul, Afghanistan October 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

The reopening comes as the Taliban struggles to govern a country that is facing a major brain drain. Many educated Afghans fled following the Taliban takeover of the country in August, fearing that the regime would implement its severe interpretation of Islamic law. While the Islamist militants have pledged to govern more moderately than during their brutal 1996 to 2001 reign, many remain deeply skeptical of such promises.

In the past two months, the passport office received at least 170,000 applications, local media reported.

A Taliban spokesman had previously said educated Afghans should stay because it was “time for people to work for their country,” though the militants have agreed to let citizens with valid visas freely leave, according to Western officials.

There are no restrictions on who can apply for a passport, Interior Ministry spokesman Qari Saeed Khosti said at the news conference. But he urged former government officials and professionals “to come forward as the nation has invested in” them and “to play their part in rebuilding” Afghanistan.

© Thomson Reuters Afghans gather outside the passport office after Taliban officials announced they will start issuing passports to its citizens again, following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control, in Kabul, Afghanistan October 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Afghans with valid passports still face difficulties leaving the country. Afghanistan sits at the bottom of the 2021 Henley Passport Index, which ranks travel documents based on the number of places holders can visit without having to obtain a visa. Afghanistan has been in last place for most of the past 16 years, and many embassies that issued visas have relocated out of the country since the Taliban seized power.

However, even the prospect of being able to leave Afghanistan has led to some relief. Kabul resident Najia Aman told Reuters that she was “very happy” to hear about the resumption of passport issuance, because it meant a family member could go to Pakistan for medical treatment.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Ahmad Khan said in an interview that his country could only process visas on valid passports and that “passport renewal is an Afghanistan issue.”

© Thomson Reuters A Taliban soldier carrying a weapon speaks to Afghans gathered outside the passport office after Taliban officials announced they will start issuing passports to its citizens again, following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control, in Kabul, Afghanistan October 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

But it wasn’t immediately clear if Afghans outside Kabul, the capital, would be able to easily apply for passports. Many regional passport offices were damaged in fighting during the Taliban takeover, according to a resident of Helmand Province, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution.

“Maybe now, it is only in the capital Kabul that people could get their passports,” the person said.

The Taliban is also allowing some female employees at the Interior Ministry to return to work so that they can process paperwork submitted by women applying for a passport, Khosti said. He noted, however, that the female staff “will come to the office through a separate entrance.”

The vast majority of female Afghan government employees have been told to stay home from work, though the Taliban has said such a move would be temporary.

 Grace Edema, Deborah Tolu-Kolawole, Solomon Odeniyi, Abiodun Nejo, Olufemi Olaniyi, Daud Olatunji and Gbenga Odogun

Nigerian teachers on Tuesday joined their counterparts all over the world to commemorate this year’s World Teachers Day just as the Federal Government promises more welfare for teachers.

At a programme organised to commemorate the day in Abuja, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, said the harmonised bill for the new retirement age of teachers which was promised by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), last year “has yet to be presented to the National Assembly for approval.”

© Photo by Audu Marte / AFP. Photo by AUDU MARTE/AFP via Getty Images. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari speaks during a visit to the Maimalari Barracks in Maiduguri on June 17, 2021.

Recall that the President announced a new salary scale for teachers, as well as increased the retirement age from 60 to 65 years.

But Adamu, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, at the Tuesday event said, “The draft bill for harmonised retirement age for teachers/education officers in Nigeria 2020 was presented and approved by the Federal Executive Council on January 20, 2021 and is awaiting presentation to the National Assembly.

“I assure you all that frantic efforts are being made to implement the resolutions to complement the delivery of effective and equitable sound education that will foster development and contribute to the evolution of a strong, democratic, egalitarian, prosperous, indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation.”

On new promises, Echono said the President had rolled out plans to increase teachers’ quality through payment of stipends and offering automatic employment after graduation for graduates of education courses.

He said “The ministry will collaborate with the state governments to ensure automatic employment, undergraduates of B.Ed/B.A.Ed/ BSC.Ed in public institutions are to receive stipends of N75,000 only per semester, while NCE students will receive N50,000 as stipends per semester.”

Echono added that the government, through partnership, would build low-cost houses for teachers in rural areas, engage teachers in trainings and also reintroduce bursary award for NCE students.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Defence, Major General Bashir Magashi (retd.), has assured teachers and students that the federal and state governments are working to ensure they are protected.

The minister spoke at the ministry’s Teachers Day celebration and award presentation to teachers in Armed Forces Schools.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Istifanus Musa, the minister said, “Nigeria have keyed into the safe school programme.

“That means we are taking the necessary steps to make sure every student is protected. As parents and teachers we may have certain feelings but many state governments are already keying into the programme and taking steps by moving students from unsafe areas to safe ones.”

Fayemi restates commitment to teachers’ welfare

Also in Ekiti, Governor Kayode Fayemi reiterated his administration’s commitment to the welfare of teachers.

Fayemi said, “As a responsible government, we shall continue to improve teachers’ welfare and ensure improved conditions of service. We are committed to fulfilling our pledge of clearing outstanding arrears of salaries from the last administration”.

The governor, who spoke during the celebration of World Teachers Day, presented a car to Mr Olasoji Bamidele of Isan Secondary School, Isan Ekiti, who emerged the best teacher in the public secondary schools and Mr Jimoh Akanbi of AUD Nursery and Primary School, Otun Ekiti, who emerged the best teacher in public primary schools category.

Cash prizes were also given to first and second runners up in both categories as well as other categories in the technical education and private schools.

Oyo lauds teachers

The Oyo State Government has applauded the steadfastness and dedication of teachers in the state.

The Executive Chairman, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr Nureni Adeniran, who said this in a statement on Tuesday to celebrate the World Teachers Day, also asked the teachers to show more commitment to their job.

He reiterated the commitment of the Governor Seyi Makinde led administration to the welfare of teachers, especially in the areas of training and re-training, prompt payment of salaries and conducive environment for teaching and learning in public schools.

Kogi ASUSS decry teachers’ shortage

The academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools, ASUSS has expressed serious concern over shortages of teachers in Kogi Stateschools.

The Chairman of the union, Ojo Ranti in a speech said it “is painful that the issue of teachers’ recruitment has remained outstanding for many years despite year-in-year-out calls.

“Distinguished guests and respected colleagues, we will be failing ourselves as a union, failing beloved students in particular and the society in general, if we shy away from presenting the challenge of abysmal shortage of teachers in our schools as it is.”

Abiodun gift Ogun best teachers cash, houses

The Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has fulfilled house and cash donations to the best teachers in the state.

Abiodun fulfil the promise promise he made during the 2020 World Teachers Day, the governor on Tuesday , exactly one year after.

The governor gave a semi-detached bungalow to the best overall teacher for year 2020 in the state.

He also rewarded this year best teachers in the state with cash prizes ranging from N1m to N2m .

He also gave a two-bedroom detached bungalow to Mr Kehinde Oladapo , a teacher in Sapara Junior Secondary School, Ijebu Igbo.

Oladapo also received a donation of N2.5m for being the overall best teacher in the state.

Abiodun announced this while addressing members of the Nigerian Union of Teachers and the Academic Staff Union Secondary Schools in Abeokuta.

He noted that since assumption of office, the government had ordered the release of promotion letters to deserving primary and secondary school teachers due for promotion.

Lagos hails teachers

Also in Lagos, the Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by the Commissioner for Education, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo at the 2021 World Teachers Day Celebration in Ikeja, said, “We are indeed proud of you in Lagos State, and we will continue to hold you in high esteem because we have seen your impacts on the quality of teaching as reflected in the performances of our students across the state.

“Our administration shall continue to reward excellence and productivity of exceptional teachers with cars and other prizes and we will continue to provide better working environment.”

 PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz has filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court, seeking the annulment of the verdict related to the Avenfield Apartments reference, a private TV channel reported on Tuesday.

In her petition filed through Advocate Irfan Qadir, Maryam maintained that the verdict was a ‘classic example of outright violations of law and political engineering hitherto unheard of in the history of Pakistan’. “Supreme Court supervised the entire process of the investigation of the case and monitored the prosecution,” she maintained. “Filing three separate references in the case of assets is also a violation of the law,” she said, adding that the accountability court judge would know why he didn’t notice these facts.

© ASSOCIATED PRESS Maryam Nawaz, daughter of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and leader of an opposition party, addresses supporters while leaving her home to attend a rally in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 16, 2020. Pakistani opposition parties are staging a rally in the eastern city of Gujranwala to kick off their campaign against Prime Minister Imran Khan to force him step down over what they say is his failure in handling the nation's ailing economy. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

Maryam contended that the apex court’s “role in the constitution is neither that of the investigator nor that of the prosecutor”. “NAB is bound to conduct the investigations with transparency,” she maintained.

The plea also referred to former IHC judge Shokat Aziz Siddiqi’s address to the bar. “The judge remarked that the chief justice of Pakistan had been approached: we won’t let Nawaz Sharif and his daughter get released till the elections,” the petition quoted judge Siddiqi as saying in the address. According to the plea, Siddiqi’s remarks created doubts that the verdict of the case was biased.

Maryam’s petition stated that former accountability judge Arshad Malik’s video was also a proof that the cases against Sharif family were ‘influenced’.

The petition urged the IHC to take notice of the ‘serious violations’ and nullify the Avenfield Reference verdict while acquitting all the convicts.

Meanwhile, the IHC registrar imposed two objections on Maryam’s petition. The registrar office maintained that Maryam made the same appeal as to that in the main petition challenging the Avenfield reference verdict. Secondly, the petitioner can acquire fresh grounds only with the court’s permission.

The lawyers representing Maryam have been informed about the objections, and a special bench – comprising Justice Amir Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani – will conduct a hearing on the petition today.

 Kathmandu, Oct. 6 -- It's been almost three months since Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba was elevated to the country's top executive position but he is still struggling to appoint all ministers.

During Tuesday's meeting of the four top leaders of the ruling coalition, Nepali Congress leaders claimed that a tentative agreement was made on the allocation of ministries but the leaders of the coalition partners have not yet agreed on them.

Nepal's newly appointed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba addresses the parliament asking for a vote of confidence in Kathmandu on July 18, 2021. (Photo by PRAKASH MATHEMA / AFP) (Photo by PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP via Getty Images)

"Actually there was no agreement today," said a leader close to Madhav Nepal, chairman of the CPN (Unified Socialist). "Though Nepali Congress leaders have said an agreement has been reached, we have not agreed on the allocations yet."

Janata Samajbadi Party Chairman Upendra Yadav said they reached a tentative agreement on the allocation of ministries and it would be finalised by Wednesday evening so that the ministers could be appointed on Thursday. He said the number of ministries for his party would also be finalised on Wednesday.

Yadav had briefed the meeting of his Parliamentary Party at Singha Durbar that his party will get four to five ministries.

One of the members in the five-party alliance of the coalition partners-Rastriya Janamorcha having only one member in the House of Representatives-has announced its plan not to join the government.

According to leaders, the meeting of the coalition partners decided to allot at least four ministries to Janata Samajbadi Party and CPN (Unified Socialist) each and five ministries to the CPN (Maoist Centre) and six to the Nepali Congress.

Currently, the Deuba government has five ministers-three from Nepali Congress-Balkrishna Khand (Home), Gyanendra Bahadur Karki (Law) and Narayan Khadka (Foreign)-and Maoist Centre has two ministers-Janardan Sharma (Finance) and Pampha Bhusal (Energy)-and the state minister for Health Umesh Shrestha from the Congress.

Prime Minister Deuba has been leading 16 ministries.

The Nepali Congress has claimed eight ministries including the prime minister. Congress is laying claim to ministries such as defence; communications and information technology; women, children and senior citizens; health and population; and youth and sports. The party already controls home, foreign and law ministries. However, the Law Ministry will go to the CPN (Unified Socialist).

The CPN (Maoist Centre) will get water supply; land management, cooperatives and poverty alleviation; and education, science and technology ministries. The party already has finance and energy ministers.

However, some ministries including education are also claimed by the Janata Samajbadi and the CPN (Unified Socialist).

The Janata Samajbadi Party has laid claim to physical infrastructure and transport portfolio besides agriculture and livestock development; forests and environment; and federal affairs and general administration. Party leaders are also claiming the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies.

But the prime minister wished to allocate four ministries each to the CPN (Unified Socialist) and Janata Samajbadi Party besides one each state minister to them and six ministries to the CPN (Maoist Centre).

As per a tentative agreement, the CPN (Unified Socialist) will get culture, tourism and civil aviation; urban development; labour, employment and social security; and law, justice and parliamentary affairs portfolios.

Prime Minister Deuba and Maoist Centre Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal are reportedly pressing Madhav Nepal to have a lawyer-probably Govinda Bandi-as the law minister on his party's quota. Currently Congress leader Gyanendra Bahadur Karki is leading the law ministry.

CPN (Unified Socialist) leaders have not yet agreed and have claimed that they would rather remain outside the government if they were not given at least four ministries excluding the law. If the parties could forge an agreement, Law Minister and government spokesperson Gyanendra Bahadur Karki will become the defence minister. But CPN (Unified Socialist) is not happy with the ministries allocated to the party.

"Our chairman [Nepal] will meet Prime Minister Deuba and Maoist Centre chair Dahal to lodge the party's discontent," said a leader close to Nepal asking not to be named.

Lawmaker Metmani Chaudhary of CPN (Unified Socialist) said his party would get five ministries-defence, urban development, youths and sports, culture, tourism and civil Aviation, and industry and commerce.

According to leaders close to the prime minister, the government is preparing to end the ongoing ninth session of the House of Representatives and the tenth session of the National Assembly within a day or two and come up with an ordinance related to the administration of oath to ministers.

 Kristen Stewart has described Princess Diana as "one of the most unknowable people in history".

The 31-year-old actress with portray the late Princess of Wales in upcoming drama 'Spencer' and she has opened up on the amount of research she did to get an understanding of her role.

She told Entertainment Weekly: "There are contradictory materials from the horse's mouth.

© Bang Showbiz Kristen Stewart"She doesn't always say the same thing in every interview, you know? There was a fickle nature, obviously, to a lot of the facts.

"She is, very sadly and very ironically, one of the most unknowable people in history, when all she wanted was to just be closer to people and bare herself."

Kristen acknowledged not everyone will think she's perfected her performance, but she's confident she's tackled the role in the right way.

She added: "There was something just in absorbing her completely over the last six months leading up to this.

"I knew that I had hit some kind of elemental energy. If people have a lot to say about it not being a perfect impression, that's so okay with me."

While the 'Twilight' star was just seven years old with Diana died in a car accident in 1997, she had no doubts about accepting the part.

She explained: "I knew even before I read the script. I was like, 'You're not going to say no to this, because who would you be in that case?'

"I absolutely would have felt like such a coward. Especially given that I'm such an outsider. I'm not from the UK, I don't have any particular investment in the royal family.

"So I was kind of this really clean slate, and then could absorb her in a way that actually felt very instinctive, you know?"

Meanwhile, Kristen recently suggested the spirit of Diana gave her a "sign-off" for her performance.

Asked whether she had ever had a paranormal encounter, she said: “No. But I felt some spooky, spiritual feelings making this movie.

"Even if I was just fantasising. I felt like there were moments where I kind of got the sign-off.”

 (Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg addressed a recent series of negative stories about the company for the first time by saying accusations that it puts profit over user safety are “just not true.”

“It’s difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives. At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted,” he wrote in a note to employees on Tuesday that he also posted publicly.

© Bloomberg Zuckerberg Responds to Claims That Facebook Prioritizes Profit as ‘Just Not True’It came shortly after whistle-blower Frances Haugen, a former employee, testified in a Senate hearing about her experience there and internal research she said showed the company prioritized profit while stoking division. Haugen appeared on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, saying Facebook routinely made decisions that put business interests ahead of user safety. 

“There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” she said. “Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests like making more money.”

Zuckerberg wrote that he was bothered by a narrative that Facebook is not worried about children’s safety. Two Senate hearings over the past week have focused on Facebook’s impact on teens and young children, including Haugen’s testimony.

The Wall Street Journal published internal Facebook research last month, provided by Haugen, that showed Instagram made some mental health issues worse for teenagers who use the product. The company, which was building a version of Instagram for children, has put that project on hold. 

“When it comes to young people’s health or well-being, every negative experience matters,” the CEO wrote. “We have worked for years on industry-leading efforts to help people in these moments and I’m proud of the work we’ve done.”

Facebook doesn’t benefit from content that makes people angry or depressed or make all product decisions to maximize user interactions, Zuckerberg said. When it changed its News Feed algorithm to show more posts from friends and family a few years back, the CEO added, the company did so knowing that people would spend less time on the service.

Zuckerberg ended the note by encouraging Facebook’s workforce and expressing his gratitude for their work.

 President Biden late Tuesday said it is a “real possibility” that Senate Democrats could seek to revise the chamber’s filibuster rules to overcome a Republican blockade on raising the debt ceiling.

Such a major change could give Democrats the ability to stave off a potential, calamitous default roughly two weeks before a critical fiscal deadline — but only if all party lawmakers agree to loosen the Senate’s typical 60-vote threshold in a way some have been disinclined to do for months.

© Matthew Dae Smith/AP President Biden gives a thumbs-up before boarding Air Force One, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Lansing, Mich., after touring the Operating Engineers Local 324 training center in Howell, Mich. (Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal via AP)The debt ceiling refers to the government’s ability to borrow to pay its bills. Lawmakers have until Oct. 18 to raise the cap by a specific amount or suspend it until a particular date — or else the U.S. government could face a crisis so stark that the Biden administration has warned it could thrust the country back into a recession.

Democrats and Republicans agree that the dangers of default are vast. But GOP lawmakers led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have refused to supply the 10 necessary votes for Democrats to overcome a filibuster on a plan to suspend the debt limit in the chamber — part of the GOP’s broader efforts to oppose Biden’s economic agenda.

Earlier Tuesday, McConnell reiterated his belief that Democrats instead should use a process known as reconciliation to address the debt ceiling. The move would allow the party to raise the borrowing cap using a majority, rather than the typical 60 votes required in the Senate, preserving the ability of Republicans to withhold their support.

But Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said repeatedly that reconciliation is not an option for Democrats, since it is “risky” and time-consuming — threatening perhaps to take too long and push the country into default. The Senate is set on Wednesday to consider instead a House-passed measure to suspend the debt ceiling in 2022, the third such measure Republicans are expected to block.

With the standoff only intensifying, Biden on Tuesday for the second time this week lambasted Republicans. “There’s not many options if they’re going to be that irresponsible. … There’s not much time left to do it by reconciliation,” he told reporters.

If the process bogs down because of a filibuster, lawmakers would have even less time. Asked about loosening the rules specifically to address the debt ceiling, Biden replied: “I think that’s a real possibility.”

For Biden, the suggestion itself amounts to a significant political development. The president has been reticent to call for a full repeal of the power available to the minority party, even as Democrats newly in charge of the House and Senate fail to advance long-sought police, election and gun reforms, partly in response to sustained GOP opposition.

Instead, Biden has called for a return to the “talking filibuster,” which requires protesting senators to command the floor for as long as they wanted to hold up debate. Otherwise, he said in July, the elimination of the rule entirely could “throw the Senate into chaos.”

Even as recently as last week, the White House appeared disinclined to pursue a solution to the looming debt ceiling crisis by seeking a change in one of the Senate’s most fundamental rules. Press secretary Jen Psaki said during a briefing in late September that Biden’s position “has not changed on that,” adding only that he was working with Schumer “on a path forward.”

With the debt ceiling, though, the stakes are high: Biden and his top aides have warned that congressional inaction could destabilize the global economy. It could delay seniors’ Social Security checks, for example, and result in rising interest rates that make it more expensive for Americans to own homes. A default could further rattle stock markets domestic and foreign, plunging the United States into another recession, only months after emerging from the last downturn during the darker days of the coronavirus pandemic.

The mere prospect of a default roughly a decade ago sent stocks tumbling, terrified investors and prompted credit-ratings agencies to warn about a possible downgrade. This year, Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, found that it could cost the economy roughly 6 million jobs, eliminate as much as $15 trillion in household wealth and send the unemployment rate surging to roughly 9 percent.

Despite the dire warnings, however, Senate Republicans have blocked two attempts by Democrats to suspend the debt ceiling in recent weeks — as McConnell and his allies argue that they do not wish to support Biden as he pursues trillions of dollars in new economic spending initiatives. GOP lawmakers are expected to deliver a third defeat Wednesday, when Schumer tries to advance a new measure to suspend the borrowing cap. That procedural move requires 60 votes, which Democrats do not have without GOP support.

The prospect of another defeat loomed large over Democrats as they gathered Tuesday for their weekly lunch. Emerging from the private gathering, some party lawmakers said there had been renewed talk about addressing the issue through different means — perhaps by weakening the filibuster so that the usual 60-vote threshold for most chamber activity would not apply to the debt ceiling. In that case, Democrats could rely on their tiebreaking majority, with Vice President Harris casting the deciding vote.

“There’s a lot more conversation because Mitch McConnell is threatening to blow up the economy,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a longtime advocate of the issue. “The level of frustration in the [Democratic] caucus has gone through the roof.”

But tweaking the filibuster requires the full support of Senate Democrats, which has eluded some of the party’s leaders in the past. Two of the party’s most pivotal swing votes, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), each has expressed an unwillingness to rethink the power of the minority to hold up debate in a chamber where historically even one senator can grind policy to a halt.

“I’m not going to say anything about it,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday.

Schumer, for his part, declined to offer any indication as to the exact road ahead.

“We all know that Senate Republicans have manufactured a crisis that threatens to plunge our economy back into recession,” he said at a news conference. “We do not have the luxury of using a convoluted, drawn-out and risky process.”

 The sudden Facebook outage on Monday left hundreds of millions of people around the world without their go-to source for news, current events, recipes and local gossip. The outage crippled not only Facebook and its app, but also Instagram and WhatsApp.

The outage happened around 1 p.m. ET in the United States, and it wasn't restored until five hours later. Facebook engineers at 10 p.m. ET—nine hours after the outage and four hours after restoration—explained the reason behind it.

© Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images In this photo illustration, the Facebook logo is displayed next to a screen showing that the Facebook website is down on October 04, 2021 in San Anselmo, California. Social media applications Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are experiencing a global outage that started before 9 a.m. (P.S.T.) on Monday morning. (

Facebook said it was "sorry for the inconvenience" on its multiple platforms for those who use them for both personal and business reasons.

"The underlying cause of this outage also impacted many of the internal tools and systems we use in our day-to-day operations, complicating our attempts to quickly diagnose and resolve the problem," Facebook engineers wrote Monday night on the social media platform itself.

"Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt."

Services for all the social mediums got restored by 6 p.m., but not before an estimated $6 billion in revenue was lost for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Regardless, the social platform said no user data was compromised, and that the outage was caused from a "configuration change."

"We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change. We also have no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime," Santosh Janardhan wrote on the engineering page.

 The African Union is raising a storm over new rules the United Kingdom will impose on travellers starting next month, with the body arguing that they could brand the entire continent as unvaccinated.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Tuesday demanded an urgent meeting with the UK’s scientific community so they can explain why people vaccinated in Africa will have to follow the rules for the unvaccinated.

Africa CDC demanded mutual recognition of vaccine certificates as a way out of the confusion that it argues can slow or reverse the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

© 2020 Anadolu Agency John Nkengasong, director of African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, holds a press conference on coronavirus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on February 14, 2020. (Photo by Minasse Wondimu Hailu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The UK government announced earlier this month that it will abandon its ‘traffic light system’ from October 4 and progressively start admitting travellers based on vaccine status rather than Covid-19 test results.

But while scrapping that system will end the categorising of countries as either ‘red’ (too risky), amber (moderate risk) and green (safe to come), the UK drew angry reactions for declaring certificates from the entire African continent unrecognised.

It also labelled similar documents from India, one of Africa’s main suppliers of vaccines under the Covax facility, as not yet recognised. Countries in Asia and Latin America are also excluded from recognition.

Different recognitions

On Tuesday, Africa CDC challenged the UK to explain how the same vaccines issued in different regions were receiving different recognitions, even when supplied by the same entity.

The agency raised “deep concern [on] the planned changes to international travel rules in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, communicated by the Government of the UK, which will be enforced starting at 4am on Monday, 4th October 2021.”The UK rules say travellers whose vaccination is not recognised, including but not limited to the AU member states, will have to take additional measures, resulting in a significant financial and social burden.

They must take Covid-9 tests before arrival, self-isolate for 10 days and take two other tests while isolating. These extra measures include two additional tests (pre-departure and “day 8 test” and quarantine for 10 days. However, if they test negative earlier than 10 days, they may be released from isolation.

The UK has not provided any further explanation and the rationale for these new rules, Africa CDC said on Tuesday.

For discriminating against people who have received vaccines through the Covax programme of the World Health Organisation, Africa CDC argued, the UK was raising doubts about its own intention to encourage people to take vaccines.

The organisation said the lack of recognition will make it harder for authorities to convince people to jet jabs. The UK is one of the largest supporters of the Covax programme, donating over $700 million (Sh71 billion) directly for the purchase and distribution of the doses.

London also committed to send about 80 million vaccine doses through Covax, which constitute almost half of the Covid-19 vaccines supplied to Africa to date.

Deepen vaccines hesitancy

“We are deeply concerned that policies and rules such as this carry a risk of deepening vaccines hesitancy across Africa and create distrust in the community,” the AU said. “Given the severe consequences of the rules, the Africa CDC therefore urge the UK government to a) reconsider their decision and b) with the African Union to discuss how to ensure mutual recognition of vaccines provided through its donations.”

The AU believes that this will help avoid further restrictions on the movement of the African population, “which is already impacted by the limited access to vaccines”.

By Tuesday, Africa CDC lamented that just about four percent of the African population have received a Covid-19 jab, against the global trend where four in 10 people have been jabbed at least once.It was unclear whether AU member states backed the collective call for mutual certificate recognition. But officials on the continent have separately called out the UK’s red listing.

“I must say I am very shocked that South Africa continues to but on the UK’s red list, given the progress that we have made in combating the pandemic. We regard this keeping us on the red list, really, as a political punishment of some kind that we do not understand at all,” said Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister for international relations and cooperation, in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

“It appears that the UK is relying on scientific information, they say. We are not sure from which source but we have now arranged that our scientists, the advisory committee as well as our department of health will now meet with the United Kingdom.”

African leaders have used the recent 76th Session of the UN General Assembly to call for fairness and equity on vaccine distribution.

Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta, Samia Suluhu of Tanzania and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa argued in their speeches that the world would be unsafe if some people continue to hog vaccines. Ramaphosa, who recently protested the UK’s refusal to remove his country from the red list said eight in 10 doses have been hogged by the West.

Certificates

In a past interview, UK officials told the Nation that vaccines it donated to Kenya are recognised, only that the two sides have to discuss what the certificates should look like.

London says their red-listing decisions are usually based on ‘scientific research and data’ but could not explain how India, a country that has been grappling with a surge in Covid-19 infections more than any African country, as well as with new variants like Delta and Delta Plus, had been removed from the list if it is true that the decisions are science-based. India’s vaccine certificates were yet to be recognised in the UK, however.“

Decisions to introduce or remove countries from the red list are in direct response to the latest scientific and medical data showing an increased risk to UK public health and community transmission,” a spokesperson from the British High Commission in Nairobi explained.

“As with all our coronavirus measures, we keep the red list under constant review and our priority remains to protect the health of the UK public.”

Last week, UK diplomats across Africa issued local statements seeking to clarify vaccine certificate issues. But they ended up angering officials more by not indicating timelines on recognition.

The UK has, in the alternative, dangled partnerships and vaccine donations, as well as pledging to collaborate in research and genomic sequencing, as it promised with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri).

Manufacture local doses

Meanwhile, AU says the biggest solution should lie in enabling the continent to manufacture local doses, by being permitted to use copyrighted technology.“American taxpayers, European taxpayers, financed some of this intellectual property (IP) and it should be for the common good,” argued Strive Masiyiwa, the AU special envoy on Covid-19, in a virtual press conference last week

“It is not wrong that we say there should be waivers, it was for the common good.“So, we ask for this IP to be made available because it was a great miracle to have these vaccines, now let this miracle be available to all mankind. To be fair, vaccine manufacturers were given restrictions, they are not selling to us, which is why we will now have to solve this by manufacturing our own.”

Africa and other developing regions had fronted a motion at the World Trade Organisation, seeking waivers on an intellectual properties treaty known as TRIPS, to be allowed licence under emergency terms to use the technology from the West.

The motion, moved by South Africa and India, flopped thrice as Western countries refused to endorse it. WTO rules of decision-making require consensus, rather than a secret ballot, meaning that a single no vote invalidates a decision.