A 63-year-old grandmother jailed in 1996 on a non-violent drug charge has been released from prison after she was granted clemency by President Trump.

Alice Johnson ran towards an emotional reunion with her family after leaving the prison in Pickens County, Alabama.

Her case was highlighted when Kim Kardashian West, who has lobbied for her release, met Mr Trump last week.

The White House said Johnson had been a model prisoner and worked hard to rehabilitate herself.

She was jailed alongside 15 others for taking part in a cocaine distribution ring, and convicted on charges of attempted possession of drugs and money-laundering in Tennessee.

Long battle finally over
Analysis by Jessica Lussenhop, BBC News, Washington
After four years and two presidential administrations, Alice Marie Johnson is finally going home.

I first began communicating with Ms Johnson as she waited to hear whether or not she'd been approved under President Barack Obama's Clemency Initiative in 2014. She easily met all of the criteria, she had a spotless disciplinary record and even her own warden felt that she deserved to go home.

But days before he left office, Mr Obama denied her as well as hundreds of others. She swore to me she would never put her family through this process again - the disappointment was too painful for her two daughters.

Renewed hope came in the unlikely form of a reality TV superstar - Kim Kardashian West, whom Johnson began referring to as her "war angel". Today, the long battle is finally over, though it is more a testament to the arbitrariness of the clemency process than anything else.

According to Ms Johnson's lawyer Brittany K Barnett, it was Kardashian West herself who called to deliver the news to Ms Johnson.

"Overwhelmed with emotion, Alice said it feels like she has been 'resurrected from the dead and she has her life back'."

What did the White House say?

"Ms Johnson has accepted responsibility for her past behaviour and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades," the White House said in a statement.

"Despite receiving a life sentence, Alice worked hard to rehabilitate herself in prison, and act as a mentor to her fellow inmates."

The statement added that the administration believed in being tough on crime but believed in giving a second chance to those who tried to better themselves in prison.

How did Kim Kardashian get involved?

Kardashian West joined what has been a long-running campaign for Johnson's freedom, spearheaded by the clemency foundation CAN-DO, friends and family.

She was first alerted to the issue after spotting a video about the case on social media.

Kardashian West visited the White House with her lawyer, Shawn Holley, and had also linked up with Mr Trump's son-in-law and presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who has been lobbying for prison reform.

In a tweet shortly after the White House announcement, Kardashian West described Alice Johnson's clemency as inspirational.

The presidential pardon power has few restrictions and scant oversight. The checks on it, such as they are, rely on norms and administrative practice without the binding force of law or constitutional strictures.

Donald Trump appears to be realising that the pardon has been a tool underutilised by his predecessors, which has the potential to grab headlines and demonstrate presidential decisiveness.

With a showman's flair for the dramatic, he has turned the pardon process into a media spectacle, entertaining suggestions from celebrities and politicians, and publicly musing about who might receive a presidential benediction next.

Setting aside talk of self-pardons and the implications the more generous use of the power might have for the Russia probe, Mr Trump has - at the very least - once again rewritten how presidents ought to conduct themselves.

This president clearly believes that just because something hasn't been done that way in the past, it doesn't mean he can't do it that way now.

How do you get a presidential pardon?

The US constitution allows the president the "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment".

A president can offer clemency, commutation or a full pardon, even if an individual has not been charged or convicted for federal crimes - but not at the state level.

There are currently about 9,000 clemency petitions left over from the ramp up in applications that occurred under the Obama administration, and according to University of St Thomas law professor Mark Osler, the Trump administration has done little to clear the backlog.

He adds that while he is happy for Ms Johnson and her family, there is an inherent unfairness in the way it was accomplished.

"We seem to have a dual process - one that starts with at the pardon attorney and one where people make a direct appeal to the president," he told the BBC.
"I hope he would look beyond celebrities at the hundreds and thousands of people who are more like Alice Johnson than like Scooter Libby."

At the same time, Mr Osler says that applying for clemency through the US pardon attorney is a "ridiculously bureaucratic" process and that if Mr Trump is interested in making the process faster, that's a good thing.

"I think he should ditch the long process and formalise the short one," Mr Osler told the BBC. "[It would be] far more than President Obama did in the first two years of his administration."

  Other acts of clemency by Trump

The commutation of Alice Johnson's sentence is the seventh act of clemency President Trump has granted since coming into office - and the second following intervention by a celebrity. The others were:

°      Former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, 85, had been convicted of criminal contempt but was
pardoned in August 2017 while awaiting sentencing

°       Sholom Rubashkin, owner of a kosher meat processing plant in Iowa, was convicted of fraud in 2009 and sentenced to 27 years in prison. His sentence was commuted in December 2017

°      Former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier was convicted in 2016 of taking photos of classified areas inside a US submarine and was pardoned in March 2018

°      Scooter Libby , chief of staff to former US Vice-President Dick Cheney, was convicted in 2007 of lying about leaks to the media. He was pardoned in April 2018

°      Boxing's first black heavyweight champ Jack Johnson was convicted in 1913 of taking his white girlfriend across state lines. He was
pardoned in May 2018 after his case was raised by actor Sylvester Stallone

°      Conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza was convicted in 2014 of violating campaign finance laws and sentenced to five years of probation. He was pardoned in May 2018

Japan's PM Shinzo Abe is set to hold a last-minute meeting with Donald Trump, days before the US president meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Mr Abe's visit is part of a surge of diplomacy ahead of the unprecedented summit on 12 June in Singapore.

Few details of the agenda for the Trump-Kim meeting have been confirmed.

When he meets Mr Trump in Washington on Thursday, Mr Abe is expected to push for Japan's security concerns to be reflected.

Also on Thursday, Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan headed to Pyongyang to meet his counterpart Ri Yong-ho.

Pushing Tokyo's concerns

Mr Abe has held regular meetings with Mr Trump since the US president took office.
Once it was announced that Mr Trump intended to meet the North Korean leader - a break with decades of US policy - Mr Abe has been eager to brief him on Japan's concerns.

There are worries in Tokyo that Mr Trump might strike a deal with North Korea that would sideline Japanese interests.

Before departing for the US, Mr Abe said he would "meet President Trump to co-ordinate in order to advance progress on the nuclear issue, missiles and - most importantly - the abductees issue".

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea abducted a number of Japanese citizens to help train its spies in Japanese language and customs.

North Korea has admitted to 13 kidnappings but the real figure is thought to be higher than that.

State news agency KCNA said the issue had been "resolved" and accused Japan of "hyping" the issue in order to harm the denuclearisation process.

Japan also saw North Korea test missiles across its territory in the past year.

Mr Abe's visit is part of a flurry of diplomatic activity in the run-up to the summit, as country's try to ensure their interests are not overlooked.

°     Mr Kim has already had two meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Mr Moon went on to visit Mr Trump in the US.

°      Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Mr Kim in Pyongyang, laying the groundwork for Mr Kim to visit President Vladimir Putin in Moscow later this year.

°      Mr Kim has made two trips to China, meeting President Xi Jinping.

°      Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said he intended to visit Pyongyang.

After an escalation of rhetoric between US and North Korean top diplomats, Mr Trump last month briefly called off the talks.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said North Korea's leader "begged" for their summit to go ahead.

" Kim Jong-un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it , which is exactly the position you want to put him in," Mr Giuliani said at a conference in Israel.

Mr Giuliani, who is acting as lawyer for the US president in the Russia collusion inquiry, said the US was going into the summit in a position much stronger than North Korea.

There was no immediate response from the North Koreans to his comments.

Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali

Minister of Defence, Brig Gen Mansur Dan-Ali
Senator Barnabas Gemade, APC, Benue, had raised a motion under matters of public importance stating that just on Tuesday that seven people were killed and several houses burnt in his senatorial district.

But quickly pointed out that “most disturbing is the fact that upon all that was discussed at the security meeting held on Tuesday what came out from the Minister was that the anti-grazing law should be withdrawn.

He also requested that one minute silence should be observed for the departed souls.

He appealed to his colleagues that the defence minister should withdraw the statement credited to him because the killings started before the enactment of the law.

The presiding officer, Bukola Saraki put the motion to a voice vote and the ays unanimously endorsed it. Details soon….

Nollywood veteran actress, Omotola Ekeinde, has stated that as beautiful as she was while growing up, she was never available to men.

According to her, she did not reveal such details before because she thought it was “narcissistic”.

Posting her picture, she wrote, “Never did this cause I thought it was narcissistic but today I will. It’s okay.

“This lady right here… It’s crazy how you sometimes look back and see things differently, isn’t it. You sometimes wish someone showed you then clearly, what you now see today.

“Dear lady in this picture, I don’t know how you did it, but thanks. Thanks for laying a good foundation that I enjoy today. Thanks for being so strong, so resilient, so focused.

“You were young but not reckless, sweet but not available, sometimes confused but never wandered. You had your own battles but fought them with grace and won.

President Muhammadu Buhari has declared that the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola won the 1993 presidential elections but was denied the office by the then Head of State, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.Coming eight days (May 29) after the country celebrated Democracy Day, Buhari announced, yesterday, that the anniversary would henceforth be marked on June 12 in honour of the late philanthropist.

Babangida annulled the results of the election widely believed to have been free and fair. Abiola died while struggling to actualise the mandate.Buhari said Abiola would be conferred with the nation’s highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), reserved exclusively for Nigeria’s presidents.His running mate in the election, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, would be conferred with the second highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON) alongside Nigeria’s foremost pro-democracy activist, the late Gani Fawehinmi.

In a statement, last night, Buhari said: “For the past 18 years, Nigerians have been celebrating May 29, as Democracy Day. That was the date when for the second time in our history, an elected civilian administration took over from a military government.“The first time this happened was on October 21, 1979. But in the view of Nigerians, as shared by this administration, June 12, 1993, was far more symbolic of democracy in the Nigerian context than May 29 or even October 1

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