*New Zealand🇳🇿 Bans🚫 Semi-Automatic, Assault Rifles After👉 Mosque Shootings*

New Zealand will ban military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles under tough new gun laws following the killing of 50 people in the country's worst mass shooting, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.

Ms Ardern said she expects the new laws to be in place by April 11 and buy-back scheme will be established for banned weapons.

“Now, six days after this attack, we are announcing a ban on all military-style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles in New Zealand,” Ms Ardern said.

A lone gunman armed with semi-automatic rifles including an AR-15, last Friday killed 50 people in two mosque attacks in Christchurch.

Nicaragua🇳🇮 Agrees✔ to Free All 👉Opposition Prisoners*

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The Nicaraguan government has agreed to release all opposition prisoners within 90 days in a bid to restart stalled peace talks.

Mediators said the government would free more than 700 people detained since anti-government rallies began last April.

A crackdown on the protests has left more than 300 people dead.

The agreement also called for sanctions imposed on Nicaragua by the US and EU to be lifted.

Luis Angel Rosadilla, a special envoy from the Organization of American States (OAS), told a news conference that President Daniel Ortega's government had agreed to release "all the people detained in the context of the protests".

The process, which opposition leaders said could begin this week, will be monitored by the Red Cross.

*French 🇫🇷Soldiers on Duty for Next👉 'Yellow Vest' ✊Protest*

French soldiers will be deployed Saturday to help guard public buildings, allowing police to focus on dealing with "yellow vest" demonstrators in case of renewed violence in Paris and other cities, the government said.

It was announced separately that Prime Minister Edouard Philippe had decided to put off a planned overseas trip to French Guiana at the weekend to be on hand at home. "Given the special situation concerning public order, the premier decided to postpone his visit," his office said.

Last Saturday, more than 5,000 police officers failed to stop hundreds of violent protesters from rampaging along the Champs-Elysees, burning and looting over 100 businesses in disturbances that lasted more than seven hours.

Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said earlier that the troops will be redeployed from the "Sentinelle" anti-terror operation, which patrols streets and protects airports, train stations, places of worship and other sites. This will allow police forces to "concentrate on crowd control, along with maintaining law and order," he said.

*Mount🏔 Everest: Melting Glaciers 👉Expose Dead Bodies*

Expedition operators are concerned at the number of climbers' bodies that are becoming exposed on Mount Everest as its glaciers melt. Nearly 300 mountaineers have died on the peak since the first ascent attempt and two-thirds of bodies are thought still to be buried in the snow and ice. Bodies are being removed on the Chinese side of the mountain, to the north, as the spring climbing season starts.

"Because of global warming, the ice sheet and glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becoming exposed," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. "We have brought down dead bodies of some mountaineers who died in recent years, but the old ones that remained buried are now coming out."

Officials with the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal (EOAN) said they were bringing down all ropes from the higher camps of Everest and Lhotse mountains this climbing season, but dealing with dead bodies was not as easy.

*Obasanjo Denies👎 Receiving Pay at NOUN, Says🗣 Service is Pro Bono*

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has denied being paid N40,000 as a lecturer at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). 
A national newspaper (not The Guardian) has reported that Obasanjo receives the said amount as monthly salaries for his service as a lecturer.

But a statement yesterday by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, in Abeokuta, said: “Ordinarily, this will have been an unnecessary exercise if it has been the usual shenanigans of the media to sell their newspapers, but the very clear quotation of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdalla Adam, on the headline made this clarification imperative and to set the records straight on His Excellency’s engagement with the university.

“In putting the records in right perspective, His Excellency wishes to draw the attention of the vice chancellor to his letter dated April 12, 2018, which was written to the university’s Registrar, Mr. Felix Edoka, when the Council offered him a part-time appointment as an Instructional/Tutorial Facilitator and Project Supervisor in the Faculty of Arts at the Abeokuta Study Centre.

“The former President affirmed that he has not received any dime either as salaries or otherwise from the university and not planning for such now or forever, as stated in his letter that the appointment was received with “pleasure and duty to give back to others out of what God and NOUN have given me.”

Emerhor Dismisses😒 Omo-Agege as APC Senator-Elect*

Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State, O’tega Emerhor, has declared that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (APC, Delta Central) was at no time the candidate of the party, let alone senator-elect for the ninth National Assembly. 
Emerhor’s reaction yesterday was coming on the heels of several comments on the ruling that upheld the legitimacy of the Chief Cyril Ogodo-led executive as the authentic one in the state.

“The so-called consent judgement they keep building their hope on only dealt with the congress election of wards and council exco and not the primaries of candidates and, in any case, was dealt a deadly blow at the Appeal Court in Benin City and at the Asaba Federal High Court. Omo-Agege knows I’m now the senator-elect,” he said.

Emerhor, in a statement obtained by The Guardian, explained that the mainstream of the APC in Delta “produced the Ogodo-led executive and accommodates over 70 per cent of leaders and members of the party alongside over five governorship aspirants in the state. So, Omo-Agege, as a lawyer, cannot boast that the ruling is of no consequence.”