Headline

New UK Visa Policy Aimed At Managing Students’ Social Services – Envoy

Published

2 years ago

June 25, 2023

British High Commissioner to Nigeria says the UK government’s new policy on the restriction of foreign student visas is aimed at managing the pressure on social services for scholars.

Montgomery, who said this during an interview with Newsmen in Abuja, explained that the policy was not targeted aimed at discouraging Nigerian students studying in the UK.

According to him, at the moment in the UK, Nigerians desiring to study in the UK have 97 per cent visa approval rate.

He urged Nigerians to see the new visa regime in the UK in a bigger context, a thing which he said is “really a positive for Nigeria and the United Kingdom”.

“Three years ago, there were 20,000 Nigerian students in British higher education institutions, and last year, the number increased to 127,000.

“So, we had a five-fold increase in the number of students from Nigeria coming to UK universities.

“We are delighted that UK universities continue to attract the best and brightest from Nigeria.

“And in the wider context, last year, the UK granted three million new UK visas of various types including students and other visitors.

“Nigerians alone received 325,000 of those 3 million visas.

“So more than 10 per cent of the visas from the UK are to Nigerian citizens which is fantastic.

“It goes back to the fact that the UK and Nigeria have strong people-to-people links.

“The policy change is about people who are doing non-research degrees coming to the UK as undergraduates, or for a one-year master’s degree programme, and who decide to bring their dependents.

“We have had a very significant rise in the number of people coming from all around the world, not just from Nigeria.

“This has caused some strain on the UK.

“Sometimes it is difficult to find good accommodation as a student and there is real pressure on housing and social services for students.

“If you looked at it three years ago, only 1,500 dependants of students were coming to the UK from Nigeria, but now it was 52,000 last year.

“I am just trying to put it in proper context, that this is an adjustment.

“The words that are being used in the media to describe the situation are misrepresenting. We are making an adjustment that enables us to manage the demands on services in university towns and elsewhere.

“Nigerians are very successful in acquiring visas. We have a 97 per cent approval rate and so that is the big context,” Montgomery said.

He expressed the UK’s pride in its research institutes and higher education which, he said, were listed among the top hundred universities in the world.

The higher institutions, he said, are very open to students going to study in the UK.

He expressed the belief that Nigerians stand to gain massively from the international exposure and international networks offered by studying in the UK.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the UK Home Office in May announced that from Jan. 2024, undergraduate and master’s students would no longer be allowed to take their dependents along with them to the UK.

The restriction does not apply to students in research programmes.

Headline

Sweden To Charge 18-year-old Over IS Terror Plot

Published

18 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said Tuesday it intended to charge an 18-year-old man for planning a terrorist act in Stockholm on behalf of the Islamic State group.

According to prosecutors, the planning took place between August 2024 and February 2025.

“We believe the purpose of the preparations was to induce serious fear in the population, in the name of the Islamic State. The criminal act could have seriously harmed Sweden,” Deputy Chief Prosecutor Henrik Olin said in a statement.

Prosecutors did not provide details of the plan but said the man was also suspected of “preparation for serious crimes under the act on flammable and explosive goods and training for terrorism”.

Prosecutors said they planned to file the charges on Thursday and that a press conference would be held the same day.

The young man will also be charged alongside a 17-year-old boy with attempted murder in Germany in August 2024.

Both of them are also suspected of “participation in a terrorist organisation,” according to the statement.

The man was arrested in Stockholm on February 11 and has been in custody since then.

AFP

Headline

US Shutdown Hits 35 Days, Tying Longest In History

Published

18 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, matching a record set during President Donald Trump’s first term, as lawmakers voiced hope over progress behind the scenes to end the dispute.

The federal closure appears almost certain to become the longest in history, with no breakthroughs expected before it goes into its sixth week at midnight — although there were fragile signs in Congress that an off-ramp is closer than ever.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune set the buoyant mood music on Monday when he told reporters he felt “optimistic” that newly energised talks between warring Republicans and Democrats could end in a deal before next week.

The government has been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to pass a bill to keep federal departments and agencies funded past the end of the last financial year on September 30.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think any of us expected that it would drag on this long. We didn’t believe, we couldn’t have imagined,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference arranged to mark the six-week milestone.

“It’s now tied for the longest shutdown in US history. And we didn’t think we’d have to come in here every single day — day after day after day — and repeat the obvious facts to the American people and to put on display every day what is happening here.”

Some 1.4 million federal workers — from air traffic controllers to park wardens — have been placed on enforced leave without pay or made to work for nothing, while vital welfare programs and even paychecks for active-duty troops are under threat.

Both sides remain dug in over the main sticking point — health care spending.

Democrats say they will only provide votes to end the funding lapse after a deal has been struck to extend expiring insurance subsidies that make health care affordable for millions of Americans.

But Republicans insist they will only address health care once Democrats have voted to switch the lights back on in Washington.

While both sides’ leadership have shown little appetite for compromise, there have been signs of life on the back benches, with a handful of moderate Democrats working to find an escape hatch.

A separate bipartisan group of four centrist House members unveiled a compromise framework Monday for lowering health insurance costs.

Democrats believe that millions of Americans seeing skyrocketing premiums as they enroll onto health insurance programs for next year will pressure Republicans into seeking compromise.

But Trump has held firm on refusing to negotiate, telling CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would “not be extorted.”

The president has sought to apply his own pressure to force Democrats to cave, by threatening mass layoffs of federal workers and using the shutdown to target progressive priorities.

Last week his administration threatened to cut off a vital aid programme that helps 42 million Americans pay for groceries for the first time in its more than 60-year history, before the move was blocked in court.

And the president has returned to a familiar playbook of demanding the elimination of the Senate filibuster — the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation — so Republicans can pass government funding themselves.

“Terminate the filibuster now, end the ridiculous shutdown immediately, and then, most importantly, pass every wonderful Republican policy that we have dreamt of for years, but never gotten,” Trump fulminated in an all-caps social media post.

Preserving the filibuster — which senators say protects the voice of the minority — is one of the few issues on which Republicans are willing to defy Trump and radical reform seems highly unlikely.

“The votes aren’t there,” Thune told reporters on Monday.

AFP

Headline

China Backs Nigeria, Warns Against Foreign Interference

Published

19 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

China has urged the international community to respect Nigeria’s sovereignty following a US threat of military action.

The Chinese government reiterated its support for President Bola Tinubu’s administration, commending the government for guiding the country along a development path tailored to its national conditions.

According to a report sourced from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China’s website, the Spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, stated this at a press briefing on Tuesday in Beijing.

She said, “As Nigeria’s strategic partner, China opposes any attempt by foreign powers to use religion or human rights as a pretext to meddle in another country’s internal affairs or impose sanctions and military threats.”

Recently, the US threatened Nigeria with possible military action due to the alleged persecution of Christians in the country.

The United States President, Donald Trump, had threatened to deploy military forces in Nigeria if the alleged genocide against Christians is not stopped in the country.