Death toll from Myanmar’s devastating earthquake has surpassed 3,000, with hundreds more missing.

This is as forecasts of unseasonal rain presented a new challenge for rescue and aid workers trying to reach people in a country riven by civil war.

Ekwutosblog reports that the last Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake, one of the Southeast Asian nation’s strongest in a century, jolted a region home to 28 million, toppling buildings, flattening communities and leaving many without food, water and shelter.

Myanmar’s embassy in Japan said on Facebook that on Wednesday, deaths rose to 3,003 with 4,515 injured and 351 missing, while rescuers scramble to find more.

However, conditions could get even tougher for the huge relief effort after weather officials warned unseasonal rain from Sunday to April 11 could threaten the areas hardest-hit by the quake, such as Mandalay, Sagaing and the capital Naypyidaw.

“Rain is incoming and there are still so many buried. And in Mandalay, especially, if it starts to rain, people who are buried will drown even if they’ve survived until this point,” an aid worker in Myanmar said.

The embassy in Japan added in its post that there have been 53 airlifts of aid to Myanmar, while more than 1,900 rescue workers arrived from 15 countries, including Southeast Asian neighbours and China, India and Russia.

According to state television, despite the devastation, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing will leave his disaster-stricken country on Thursday for a rare trip to a regional summit in Bangkok.

The visit is said to be an uncommon foreign visit for a general regarded as a pariah by many countries and the subject of Western sanctions and an International Criminal Court investigation.

The National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) is set to commence the implementation of its space regulation and licensing mandate with N20 billion take-off fund approved by President Bola Tinubu.

The Director-General of NASRDA, Dr Matthew Adepoju, said this on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Adepoju said the regulatory function of the agency as encapsulated in NASDRA Act (2010) had remained unfulfilled since its establishment in 1999.

He spoke against the background of NASRDA stakeholders’ workshop on space regulation scheduled for April 8.
He said on assumption of office he raised a memo to President Bola Tinubu on the need to enforce the regulatory functions of NASDRA.

According to him, this is in line with the provisions of Section 6 and 9 of the laws establishing it, adding that Tinubu eventually approved the take-off fund.

“When I raised that memo stating that our space can no longer be unregulated, Mr President graciously approved the take-off fund of N20 billion few months ago.

“This is to enable us to commence the space regulation and spectrum management in Nigeria.”

Adepoju said the agency was yet to access the N20 billion, adding that release of funds was always subject to its availability.

“Within the framework of what is possible for us to do now, we’ve set up the platform and we are commencing our regulatory and licensing functions.”

He explained that the space sector had three segments, the upstream, midstream and downstream.

Adepoju said the platform for the licensing was ready and open to both public and private sector operators in the space arena.

The licensing, he said, was available for people using and providing space products and services.

He emphasised the need for strict oversight of satellite image providers, geographic information system operators, satellite-based telecommunication and broadcasting services, among others.

He also said that if unregulated, geographical data intelligence could be exploited by non-state actors for illicit activities.

The Director-General further told NAN that the initiative would enhance national security, economic diversification and local content development.

He said it would also generate revenue from sub-sectors such as oil and gas, shipping and telecommunications relied on space products for their operations.

EKWUTOS

A Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), CLEEN Foundation, has lamented the unfairness of plea bargain and its implementation process in the country.

Mr Peter Maduoma, Ag. Executive Director of the organisation, spoke during a media parley with newsmen at the CLEEN Foundation Hall, Innocent Chukwuma House, Ojodu, Ikeja on Wednesday.

Maduoma said that it had become necessary for that section of plea bargain, as contained in the Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL), to be amended and changed for proper justice to be delivered accordingly.

“The plea bargain is very unfair and it is one of the weaknesses I see in the ACJL.

“A situation where somebody has stolen N50 billion and then, through plea bargain, is ordered to pay a certain amount and then after that, the matter is settled.

“This is very unfair and I will like the media to continue to publicise and write on the unfairness of that section of the law until it is amended and changed.

“A law cannot be cast in stone; So, we need to continue to improve on it but that aspect of the ACJL has not yielded much benefit to anybody,” the director said.

Maduoma said that the plea bargain was mostly exploited by security agencies and especially politically exposed people, who after embezzling money, settle to pay back a meagre amount as settlement.

“Thereafter, all charges will be dropped against them; however, what that money would have done and the lives that had been affected negatively by such act, is not replicable.