Headlines
Biden Issues Executive Orders Nullifying Key Trump Policies on First Day in Office
U.S. President Joe Biden used his first day in office to issue a raft of executive orders undoing some of former President Donald Trump’s marquee policies on climate change and immigration.
Among the 17 executive orders and presidential actions Biden signed on Wednesday were moves to rejoin the Paris climate accord, end a travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries, and halt Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organisation.
“There’s no time to waste,” Biden said before signing executive orders in the White House.
“These are just all starting points,” he added.
Biden made rejoining the climate agreement a key point of his presidential campaign, vowing to undo former Trump’s policy.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the U.S. president’s move.
“Following last year’s Climate Ambition Summit, countries producing half of global carbon pollution had committed to carbon neutrality,” Guterres said.
“Today’s commitment by President Biden brings that figure to two-thirds,” the UN chief added.
Trump, who long railed against the global agreement signed by almost every country, notified the UN of his intent to exit the deal in 2019 and the U.S. formally left in November 2020.
The move also led to a sharp decrease in U.S. contributions to a fund to help poorer nations cope with climate change.
Biden also ended the entry ban on citizens from over a dozen countries, including Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, and Sudan.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a non-profit civil rights organisation, applauded the move calling the travel policy a “cruel Muslim ban that targeted Africans.”
Critics had called the policy – one of the first moves by Donald Trump when he became president in 2017 – a “Muslim ban.”
However, the ban was changed, in part due to legal challenges, and included some non majority-Muslim nations.
Biden has described the policy as discriminatory and an affront to the country’s values.
The president also submitted a letter to UN chief Guterres saying the U.S. intended to stay in the WHO, halting Trump’s withdrawal, which was scheduled for July of this year.
The U.S. will be a “full participant and a global leader” in confronting the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and other public health threats, Biden said in a letter to UN chief Guterres that rescinded U.S’s. withdrawal from WHO.
Biden issued an executive order halting construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, dealing a blow to one of Trump’s signature policy goals meant to keep South American immigrants out of the US.
The president also signed an executive order mandating that people wear masks in all federal buildings and on federal lands in an effort to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
“Wearing masks isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a patriotic act that can save countless lives.
“It’s time to mask up, America,” Biden wrote on the official presidential Twitter account.
Trump had long downplayed the need to wear masks and avoided wearing masks in public even as COVID-19 pandemic killed over 400,000 people during his tenure as president.
As part of his executive order, Biden asked everyone in the U.S. to wear a mask when in public for at least the next 100 days.
Biden’s transition team said earlier that the executive orders were meant to reverse “the gravest damages of the Trump administration.”
The Democrat made the policies cornerstones of his presidential election campaign, seeking to reverse tougher immigration rules, a lax attitude on public health and an aversion to international cooperation on climate change seen under his predecessor.
The president has also sent a bill to Congress to overhaul the country’s immigration system, his team said earlier.
The legislation aims to provide pathways to U.S. citizenship for undocumented people, address the root causes of migration and speed up the reunification of families after children were separated from parents at the U.S. border with Mexico.
Biden has already made it clear he aims to push for another 1.9 trillion dollars in relief and stimulus to help the economy through the coming months of the pandemic.
This will involve working with Congress, where he is likely to meet some resistance to more spending, after the U.S. government has already pumped trillions into the economy since March.
However, job loss data is worrisome and businesses are suffering.
(dpa/NAN)
The Super Eagles’ 2026 World Cup dream suffered a major blow on Sunday as DR Congo advanced to the intercontinental playoff following a dramatic penalty shootout at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat.
Nigeria’s hopes of qualifying ended in heartbreaking fashion, marking the second consecutive year the Super Eagles will miss out on the world stage.
The match ended 1–1 after 120 minutes of regulation and extra time, sending the high-stakes encounter to penalties.
Nigeria initially went ahead through Frank Onyeka in the third minute, but DR Congo equalised in the 32nd minute through M. Elia.
The tension continued into the penalty shootout.
Nigeria’s Calvin Bassey and Moses Simon missed early chances, while Nwabali denied DR Congo’s first penalty.
Akor Adams kept the Super Eagles alive, but DR Congo struck back through Sadique and later scored the decisive fourth penalty, leaving Nigeria trailing 4–3 in the shootout.
The victory sets up DR Congo for a chance to secure one of the final World Cup tickets to the expanded 48-team tournament in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Nigeria’s defeat marked the second consecutive year the Super Eagles will miss out on the world stage.
Both teams had earned their places in the final after dramatic semi-finals.
Nigeria had booked their place in the final with a dramatic 4–1 extra-time win over Gabon in Thursday’s semi-final at the Moulay El Hassan Stadium.
DR Congo also advanced with a 1–0 victory over Cameroon at the Al Barid Stadium the same evening.
The Leopards now await their intercontinental playoff opponent, keeping alive their hopes of reaching the 2026 World Cup, while the Super Eagles’ campaign comes to an agonising end in Rabat.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expelled Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike, its suspended National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, and former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose.
Their expulsion was announced on Saturday at the party’s National Convention in Ibadan, Oyo State.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has insisted that there is Christian genocide ongoing in Nigeria, hence demanding end to the alleged Christian killings.
Speaking on Thursday after an emergency executive meeting of the Fellowship held at its national headquarters in Lagos, PFN President, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, said the body would no longer remain silent while Christians are “targeted, killed, raped, and displaced” across the country.
He said: “There is Christian genocide going on in Nigeria. If we call it by any other name, it will bring Nigeria down. We are crying out to our international friends, beginning with America and Donald Trump. Whatever you can do to help our government put an end to it, come quickly and get it done. When on Christmas Day, Christmas Day was turned a bloody day in Benue State, and hundreds were massacred. And we are to be conducting mass funerals when we are not in open conflict. What do you call that? And this is different from individual cases.
“Let us call a spade a spade. There is Christian genocide ongoing in Nigeria,”Bishop Oke declared.
“Even while we speak, killings are still taking place in Borno, Plateau, and Benue states. When 501 Christians were massacred in Dogon Noma in Plateau, what do we call that? When Christmas Day turned into a bloody day in Benue, with hundreds massacred, what name should we give it?
While noting that the United States President Donald Trump spoke the truth, the PRN President cited the case of Leah Sharibu who was abducted alongside other Chibok girls and has since remained in captivity.
“Like the case of Leah Sharibu. Where is Leah Sharibu? Like the case of Deborah that was lynched and burned alive in Sokoto? What about that? And several of our girls were kidnapped and forced, given out as wives by force without the consent of their parents and their Christian parents. And the Christian parents would not see them for years.And this has been going on. We have been talking and we are not taking it seriously. And it has been going on again and again, until Donald Trump now spoke. And Donald Trump spoke the truth. There is Christian genocide going on in Nigeria.
“Like you will have picked in the news, even since this narrative began, killing was still going on in Borno, in Plateau, in Benue, up until yesterday. What are we saying? When 501 Christians were massacred in Dogonaya in Plateau State, what do we call that? And for no offense other than they are Christians.”
Oke recalled that the Christian community had repeatedly called the attention of the government to the alleged genocide with no decisive action from the authority.
The cleric expressed his backing for President Trump’s intervention, adding that Trump only echoed what Nigerian Christians had been saying for year
“I was part of the team that went to see the immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari. We spoke very strongly about this and the President listened to us, but he completely ignored the main issue we came for, If we came and spoke with such vehemence, with such passion, and then you pick the peripheral matter and left this matter alone, I knew that day that his government was complicit in what was going on,” he added.
Oke alleged that the killings across parts of Nigeria were systematic and targeted on Christians, lamenting that the killings had continued unchecked despite repeated appeals from the Church.
“The evidence is all over the place. There is nothing anybody can say that can whitewash it. It is evil, it is blood shedding, it is mass murder and it is genocide. The time to stop it is now. That is what the church in Nigeria is saying with one voice.
“Christians in this nation must be free to practice their faith in any part of Nigeria as bona fide citizens of Nigeria.
“These armed bandits, Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, ISWAP, all of them using Islam as a cover. We have been living in peace with our Muslim brothers for a long, until this violent Islamic sect came up with an intent to make sure they impose Sharia on all Nigerians,” Oke said.
Bishop Oke called on President Bola Tinubu to decisively overhaul the nation’s security architecture, and ensure justice for victims of religious violence. He questioned why those responsible for notorious attacks—such as the killing of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto and the abduction of Leah Sharibu and the Chibok schoolgirls—remain unpunished.
“The government should prove by action, not words, that it is not complicit,” he said. “When hundreds are buried in mass graves and the whole world sees it, who can deny it? Why should we play politics with the blood of Nigerians?”
The PFN urged President Tinubu’s administration to rebuild trust by ensuring that the security architecture of the country is not infiltrated by those sympathetic to extremist ideologies.
Oke further condemned the government’s rehabilitation of so-called “repentant terrorists,” describing the move as a grave security.
He assured Christians that the PFN would continue to speak out until the killings stop. “We are not going to keep quiet. We will keep raising our voices until justice is done and every Nigerian, regardless of faith, can live in peace. The truth may be suppressed for a time, but it cannot be buried forever,” he said.
The meeting, which drew PFN leaders from across the country, reaffirmed the body’s commitment to national unity, peace, and the protection of fundamental human rights, while urging the media to “side with the oppressed” and report the truth without fear or bias.
