FRESH 4RM GIM

The biggest trade deal in history was signed Thursday, yoking 12 Pacific rim countries in a US-led initiative aimed at wresting influence from booming China. The ambitious Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) aims to slash tariffs and trade barriers for an enormous 40 percent of the global economy — but pointedly does not include Beijing. “TPP allows America — and not countries like China — to write the rules of the road in the 21st century,” US President Barack Obama said after the pact was signed in New Zealand. The deal — whose birth was fraught by domestic opposition in the US and in other key players, such as Japan — is a key plank of Obama’s so-called “pivot” to Asia, as he seeks to counter the rising power of China.

The Presidency has countered claims in some quarters that President Muhammadu Buhari has not achieved anything in the seven months of his administration. The Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, in a statement on Wednesday highlighted some achievements of President Buhari who took over on May 29 last year. Shehu was reacting to a recent report by the Centre for Democracy and Development which claimed that Buhari had only achieved one out of his 222 tracked electoral promises, representing 0.5 per cent of the promises.

THE Supreme Court yesterday restored the elections of Governor Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom State and his Abia State counterpart, Okezie Ikpeazu, both of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) This was after the apex court held that their appeals against the judgment of the Court of Appeal was meritorious. This is even as there was tension in Taraba State yesterday as Governor Darius Ishaku and his challenger, Senator Jummai Al-Hassan, now Minister of Women Affairs await their turns at the apex court.

Anti-Muslim bias hurts US, must be tackled 'head on': Obama CATONSVILLE: President Barack Obama made his first visit to a US mosque on Wednesday, in an effort to allay the fears of Americans accustomed to pop-culture portrayals of Muslims as terrorists, and to reassure Muslim American youth about their place in the nation. Obama, declaring that attacks on Islam were an attack on all religions, decried the "inexcusable political rhetoric" against Muslims from Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. "We have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths," he said at the mosque outside of Baltimore, which he said had received threats twice in the past year. "When any religious group is targeted, we all have a responsibility to speak up."

Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun Nigeria’s debt burden rose by N1.31tn in one year, the Debt Management Office has said. Official statistics released by the DMO in Abuja on Wednesday showed that the country’s total debt rose from N11.24tn as of December 31, 2014 to N12.6tn at the end of 2015. The N1.31tn increase showed that within a period of one year, the country’s debt rose by 12.1 per cent.   As of June 30, 2015, the country’s debt burden stood at N12.12tn. This means that the federal and state governments grew the country’s debt profile by N480bn in the first six months of last year.