The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has explained why Nigeria lost its Category 1 Status that disqualified Nigerian airlines to fly into U.S. as required.

This is contained in a statement signed by the Acting Director General, of Civil Aviation, Nigeria, Capt. Chris Najomo, on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to him, Nigeria like most countries must satisfactorily pass the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Programme and attain Category 1 status in order to operate in the U.S.

“The attention of the NCAA has again been drawn to a publication about the purported ban on Nigerian airlines by the United States.

“Due to the wrong impression such news could create, it has become expedient that we put this report in its proper perspective.

“Upon attaining Category 1, Nigerian airlines would be permitted to operate Nigerian registered aircraft and dry-leased foreign registered aircraft into the United States, in line with the existing Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA),” he said.

Najomo recalled that the first time Nigeria attained Category 1 was in August 2010, while the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted another safety assessment on Nigeria in 2014.

He said a further safety assessment was conducted on Nigeria in 2017, after which Nigeria retained her Category 1 status.

The NCAA boss said that with effect from Sept. 2022, the U.S. FAA de-listed Category 1 countries who, after a 2-year period, had no indigenous operator to provide service to the U.S. or carrying airline code of a U.S. operator.

“Also removed from the Category 1 list were countries, who the FAA was not providing technical assistance to, based on identified areas of non-compliance to international standards for safety oversight.

“No Nigerian operator has provided service into the United States using a Nigerian registered aircraft within the 2-year period preceding September, 2022.

“So, it was expected that Nigeria would be de-listed as were other countries who fell within this category. Nigeria was, therefore, de-listed since 2022 and was duly informed of this action in 2022,” he said.

According to him, the de-listing of Nigeria has absolutely nothing to do with any safety or security deficiency in the nation’s oversight system.

Ojomo said Nigeria had undergone comprehensive International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Safety and Security Audits and recorded no Significant Safety Concern (SSC) or Significant Security Concern (SSeC) respectively.

“It is furthermore necessary to add that a Nigerian operator can still operate into the U.S. using an aircraft wet-leased from a country who has a current Category 1 status.

“The NCAA continues to adhere strictly to international safety and security standards and respects the sovereignty of states, including the United States of America, as enshrined in Article 1 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation.

“This provision gives states complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above their territories,” he added.

NCAA boss said the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, had embarked on an aggressive international campaign to empower local operators to access the dry-lease market around the world.

“Which culminated in the visit to AIRBUS in France earlier this year and the MOU signed with BOEING in Seattle, Washington just last week.

“The Honourable Minister has also done a lot of work to make Nigeria comply fully with the Cape Town Convention, which will bring back the confidence of international lessors in the Nigerian aviation market.

“We are confident that with these steps of the Honourable Minister, it is only a matter of time that Nigeria, not only regains, but can sustain its U.S. Category 1 status,” Ojomo said.

A school bus ploughed into a crowd of people outside a middle school in eastern China on Tuesday, killing 11 parents and students, state media reported.

State broadcaster CCTV said the driver “lost control” of the vehicle as it approached the school in Shandong province’s Tai’an city at 7:27 am (2327 GMT Monday).

The bus ran into a group of parents and children on the side of the road, according to CCTV.

“As of now, (the incident) has caused the deaths of 11 people, of whom six were parents and five were students,” the broadcaster reported in an update just after 11:30 am.

It said one other person was in a “critical” condition, while the vital signs of another 12 people were “stable”.

Photos and videos circulating on social media showed people in blood-soaked clothes lying in the road near a hulking grey bus.

Several adults knelt over children sprawled unmoving on the ground, while other people could be heard screaming in the background.

“They’re all dead, it’s so heartbreaking,” a woman’s voice could be heard saying off-camera in one clip of the aftermath of the crash.

“I’d have been killed too if I’d stood there, but luckily I ran away fast,” she said.

AFP was able to geolocate several of the social media photos and videos to the school in Shandong where the crash took place.

The driver was being held by local police and the cause of the incident was “under investigation”, CCTV said.

Many public schools in China reopened for the new academic year this week.

Deadly traffic accidents occur frequently in the country due to lax safety standards and widespread disorderly driving.

In July, police said a vehicle crashed into pedestrians in the central city of Changsha, killing eight people and injuring five.

A 55-year-old suspect living in the area was detained pending an investigation, but it was not clear if the incident was intentional or not.

A French retiree goes on trial Monday accused of recruiting dozens of strangers online to rape his wife after he drugged her into unconsciousness, in a case that has horrified the country.

Fifty other men are also on trial in the southern city of Avignon alongside the main suspect, a 71-year-old former employee at France’s power utility EDF.

They are accused of raping the woman, who, her lawyers say, was so heavily sedated that she was not aware of the abuse.

The trial will be “a horrible ordeal” for the woman, now in her 70s, who does not wish to be identified, said Antoine Camus, one of her lawyers.

“For the first time, long after the fact, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years,” he told AFP, adding that his client had “no recollection” of the abuses which she only discovered in 2020.

The woman could have asked for the trial to be held behind closed doors but didn’t, because “that’s what her attackers would have wanted”, Camus said.

“She is completely determined to face them and her husband, with whom she lived for 50 years but whom she knew nothing about, as she discovered at 68,” the lawyer said.

Police began to investigate the defendant, Dominique P. in September 2020 when he was caught by a security guard secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre.

Examining his computer, police said they found thousands of pictures and videos of his wife, visibly unconscious and mostly in the fetal position.

The images are alleged to show dozens of instances of rape in the couple’s home in Mazan, a village of barely 6,000 inhabitants some 33 kilometres (21 miles) from Avignon in Provence.

– Up to six times –

Investigators also found chats on a site called coco.fr, since shut down by police, in which he recruited strangers to come to their home and have intercourse with his wife.

Police counted a total of 92 rapes, committed by 72 men, of whom 51 were formally identified.

Dominique P. admitted to investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquilisers, especially Temesta, an anxiety-reducing drug.

The abuse started in 2011, when the couple was living near Paris, and continued after they moved to Mazan two years later.

The suspect gave the men strict instructions so they would not wake her up when they abused her during the night.

No aftershave or cigarette odour were allowed, and they had to warm their hands before touching her, and get undressed in the kitchen so they would not accidentally leave clothes behind in the bedroom.

The husband took part in the rapes, filmed them and encouraged the other men using degrading language, according to prosecutors.

No money exchanged hands.

The accused rapists, aged between 21 and 68, included a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, a company boss, and a journalist.

Some were single, others married or divorced, and some family men. Most participated just once, some up to six times.

– ‘Closer to coma’ –

Their defence has been that they simply helped a libertine couple live out its sexual fantasies, but Dominique P. told investigators that they were all aware that his wife had been drugged without her knowledge.

The trial will have to establish to what degree they understood the situation when they had intercourse with the woman whose state, an expert said, “was closer to a coma than to sleep”.

Her husband told prosecutors that only three men left the house quickly after arriving, while all others proceeded to have intercourse with his wife.

Dominique P., who said he himself was raped by a male nurse when he was nine, is ready to face “his family and his wife”, his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro told AFP.

This trial may not be his last. He has also been charged with a 1991 murder and rape, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999, to which he admitted after conclusive DNA testing.

“There is no such thing as a typical rapist profile,” Veronique Le Goaziou, a specialist on sexual violence, told AFP.

“Many people will say he is crazy,” she said about Dominque P. “But that’s in no way certain. Only a tiny number of rapists are diagnosed with a real mental illness.”

Psychiatric evaluations during the investigation have shown Dominique P. to be “a patriarch” and “a manipulator” with a “perverse” personality who used his wife as “bait”.

About 15,000 Nigerian students in Canada are participating in nationwide protests across provinces against impending deportation due to the new policy on the comparative restrictive opportunities for education and work permits.

A total of 70,000 foreign students in various Canadian universities, according to the Canadian Embassy, are mounting pressure on the Justin Trudeau-led government to rescind its immigration decision

In 2021, the work permit for international students under the Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) programme was abolished, and last year, the Canadian government also introduced a two-year cap on international student visas.
Last year, international students accounted for 37 percent of study visa holders in Canada, contributing to existing pressures from the housing crisis, unemployment, and other services. With the cap on student visas, the government expects a 35 percent reduction in the intake of foreign students.

To address this, the Canadian government in June announced that foreign nationals can no longer apply for a post-graduation work permit (PGWP) at the border.

Amid the protests, representatives from the student advocacy group, the Naujawan Support Network, have warned that many graduates could face deportation, following the expiration of their work permits at the end of the year.

The situation has worsened with new provincial policies that have introduced a 25 per cent reduction in permanent residency nominations.

“I spent six years taking risks to come to Canada. I studied, worked, paid taxes, and earned enough Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points, but the government has taken advantage of us,” Mehakdeep Singh, a former international student facing deportation, told City News Toronto.

Similarly, immigrant workers have staged rallies in recent months throughout Brampton, rejecting the claims that they are to blame for local housing and job crises.

A report by City News Toronto stated that approximately 70,000 foreign students are also from Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia.

The United Kingdom has expanded its list of approved companies licensed to sponsor foreign workers on the worker and temporary worker immigration routes.

This development presents new opportunities for interested Nigerians and other foreign nationals seeking employment in the UK.

The updated list, released on Friday, August 23, now includes 119,195 companies across various sectors.

The approved companies span multiple industries, including technology, commerce, education, media, advertisement, and engineering.

To be eligible, applicants must secure a job offer from an approved UK employer, who will sponsor their visa application.

The UK government noted that only approved employers can sponsor foreign workers, and applicants must meet specific requirements to qualify for a Skilled Worker visa.

The Skilled Worker visa route encompasses various categories, including charity workers, skilled workers, creative workers, global business mobility, and international sportspersons.

“The skilled worker route includes charity workers, skilled workers, creative workers, global business mobility: senior or specialist workers, and international sportspersons,” it stated.

“You must have a job offer from an approved UK employer before you apply for a Skilled Worker visa. Approved employers are also known as sponsors because they are sponsoring you to come to or stay in the UK.”
Here is a list of some of the approved companies:
1. McMullan Shellfish
2. (IECC Care) Independent Excel Care Consortium Limited
3. *ABOUTCARE HASTINGS LTD
4. £ ESS LTD
5. @ Architect UK Ltd
6. @ Home Accommodation Services Ltd
7. @ Home Accommodation Services Ltd
8. @ Ur Eaz Ltd
9. @@@ FILER LIMITED
10. [AI] INFINITI LIMITED
11. `Brunswick Stores Limited
12. #NAME?
13. 003 Ltd
14. 007 Taxi Limited
15. 0086 Ltd
16. 00Nation Limited
17. 00Nation Limited
18. 01 ACCOUNTING SERVICES LTD
19. 012 Global Ltd
20. 023 LTD
21. 09 Care Limited
22. 0xA Technologies Ltd
23. 1 ACE TRAINING LIMITED
24. 1 ALS LIMITED
25. 1 AND 1 ROUGAMO LIMITED
26. 1 And 5 Tech Ltd
27. 1 Answer Insurance Services LTD.
28. 1 Bishops Avenue Limited
29. 1 Digitals Europe Limited
30. 1 Eclipse Care Solutions Limited
31. 1 Green Foods Ltd
32. 1 Homecare ltd
33. 1 Indus Limited
34. 1 Key Solution Limited
35. 1 Kings Dental Limited
36. 1 Life London Limited
37. 1 MODEL MANAGEMENT LONDON LIMITED
38. 1 Oak Home Care
39. 1 Oak Leisure Ireland Ltd
40. 1 PhysioUK Limited
41. 1 REPAIR LTD
42. 1 Stop Print Ltd
43. 1 STOP REC LIMITED
44. 10 Europe Limited
45. 10 Europe Limited
46. 10 Squared Ltd
47. 100 Percent Cornwall Ltd
48. 100 SHAPES LTD
49. 100% HALAL MEAT STORES LTD
50. 1000 Trades Limited
51. 1000heads Ltd
52. 100Starlings Ltd
53. 101 A+D Ltd.
54. 101 Harley Street LTD
55. 101 Healthcare ltd
56. 101 Ways Limited
57. 1010 Restaurant @ The Blacksmiths arms
58. 105 West Architects Ltd
59. 1066 PLUMBING AND HEATING LTD
60. 107 Cannon Street Limited
The full list of approved companies can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66c84b0007733cc4df618245/2024-08-23_-_Worker_and_Temporary_Worker.csv

Australia plans to cap foreign student numbers from next year, the government said Tuesday, curbing a multi-billion dollar industry as it faces political heat on immigration.

New international student numbers for university, higher education and vocational training will be limited to 270,000 in 2025, Education Minister Jason Clare told a news conference.

“It will mean that some universities will have more students this year than next year. Others will have less,” Clare said as he unveiled the plan, which will require legislation.

Official data show that foreign students were worth more than Aus$42 billion (US$28 billion) to Australian universities and vocational education centres in 2023.

Australian authorities granted more than 577,000 international student visas in the fiscal year to June 30, 2023.

Clare said the change would mean about the same number of international students starting a course next year as there was before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 2025 breakdown will be 145,000 new foreign students for universities, 30,000 for other higher education providers, and 95,000 for vocational education and training, the government said.

The new limit aims to replace a recent policy of giving priority to students deemed to be at low risk of visa non-compliance — a system that has favoured top-ranked universities while drastically slowing visas for other institutions.

“We acknowledge the government’s right to control migration numbers but this should not be done at the expense of any one sector, particularly one as economically important as education,” said Universities Australia chair David Lloyd.

– ‘Absolutely vital’ –

International students were Australia’s second largest industry after mining, accounting for more than half of the growth in Australia’s economy last year, Lloyd said.

“Every dollar from overseas students is reinvested back into Australia’s universities. Having fewer students here will only widen the funding gap at a time universities need greater support.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this month the industry was “absolutely vital” for Australia.

But he said universities should not be overly reliant on overseas students, in part because of the implications for migration.

About 69 percent of Australian respondents blamed immigration for high house prices, said an Essential poll for The Guardian published on Tuesday.

About the same share of people — 42 percent on each side — described immigration as “generally positive” or “generally negative”, it said.

Net migration to Australia surged 26.3 percent in calendar 2023 to 547,300, official figures show, with 751,500 people immigrating while 204,200 left.

Australia’s government also plans to protect the international education industry from “crooks who try to exploit it”, the education minister said.

More than 150 “ghost colleges” had recently been shut down, Clare said, describing them as “a back door” to let people work in Australia rather than get an education.