'Alarming' rise in rape and abduction from Sudan war, aid agencies say

The conflict between military factions in Sudan has caused a surge in cases of rape and the abduction of women and girls, some as young as 12, aid agencies and officials said.

Teenage girls are being sexually assaulted and raped by armed combatants in "alarming numbers", Save the Children said in a statement on Friday, while the United Nations reported a "marked increase" in gender-based violence.

The war that erupted on April 15 pits Sudan's army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who fell out over plans for a political transition towards civilian rule. Fighting has been concentrated in the capital Khartoum and the western region of Darfur.

While dozens of cases of rape resulting from the conflict have been verified, the Sudanese government's Combating Violence against Women (CVAW) unit estimates that figure may represent just 2% of the total.

"We know that the official numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. Children as young as 12 are being targeted for their gender, for their ethnicity, for their vulnerability," Save the Children's Sudan director Arif Noor said in a statement.

Some parents were marrying off their daughters at a young age to try to protect them from further abuse, he said.

There have also been reports of girls being held for days while being sexually assaulted, and gang rapes of women and girls.

"Health care providers, social workers, counsellors and community-based protection networks inside Sudan have all warned of a marked increase in reports of gender-based violence as hostilities continue across the country," United Nations agencies said in a joint statement this week.

"Reporting violations and getting support is also made difficult, if not impossible, by the lack of electricity and connectivity, as well as lack of humanitarian access due to the volatile security situation."

CVAW also reported an escalation in cases of abduction of women and girls, especially in Khartoum, citing several recent cases for which it said RSF fighters were responsible.

The RSF has not directly addressed accusations of assault and sexual violence by its fighters, but has said that those who commit abuses will be held to account.

The U.N. estimates 4.2 million people are at risk of gender-based violence, up from 3 million before the conflict started in mid-April. Sudan has a population of 49 million.

The U.N. said the risk was especially high when women and girls were on the move, seeking to reach safe locations.

More than 2.9 million people have been uprooted by Sudan's conflict, including nearly 700,000 who have fled into neighbouring countries.

Some women are arriving pregnant as a result of rape, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Reuters

“…impunity becomes the very foundation upon which systems of corruption are built. And if impunity is not demolished, all efforts to end corruption are in vain.” — Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Prize laureate.

In 1949 during a meeting with the American Economic Association, Dr Nourse was a classic “on the one hand—on the other hand” economist. That infuriated the then President Truman, with his failure to present a clear policy for him to adopt. He was tired of listening to consequences of economic decisions that were usually “on the one hand, X is good, but ‘on the other hand, Y will happen.” He wanted a “one-handed economist!”

But that’s the dynamics of economics. Everything seems simple on paper but complex in application and has multiple effects on diverse sectors. Economic decisions are supposed to be well thought out. In the globalised world, there will never be easy-to-adopt scenarios. Unfortunately, politicians are trained to be politicians. They usually opt for what is easier and not necessarily what is logical within a wider context.

Since 2011, several arguments have been pushed for the removal of energy subsidies. The neo-classical proponents have pushed the narrative so hard that all our problems will vaporise once subsidies are eliminated. The debate about corruption has been pushed to the margins. Government has forgotten that it is its responsibility to combat grand corruption in the oil and gas sector, control the borders and ensure efficiency in governance. Since abdicating these responsibilities, especially in the oil and gas sector, the dominant narrative has been to remove subsidies. So, just like how President Truman was looking for a linear solution and didn’t want to listen to the ‘other hands’, let’s highlight some of them.

Government will ‘save’ at least two trillion naira from the removal of subsidies on PMS. We should recall that subsidies have already been removed on all other components of the energy sector, such as electricity, diesel and kerosene, and have been saving trillions from there. The immediate effect will be that headline inflation will rise from 22.2% (April 2023). Food inflation was 24.7% this April, whereas it was 18.37% in April 2022. Statista had projected that this inflation would come down to 15.83% in 2024. With the removal of subsidies on PMS, even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slashed our growth prospects, and the revised projected inflation rate will be at least 25%.

Based on that singular action, the existing incomes of about 10.1 million Nigerians will remain the same but with reduced purchasing power, as food inflation, which accounts for the bulk within Nigeria’s inflation basket, climbed further to 24.45%, owing to increases in the prices of oil and fats, bread and cereals, potatoes, yam, etc.

Effectively, 10 million Nigerians will join the current 130 million already categorised as multi-dimensionally poor. That’s another 10 million people who cannot afford the basics of life. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) generate most of the employment in the country and this single policy of government will drive most of them under. For the major industries, there is a limit to which they can pass on rising energy costs to consumers. The purchasing power is simply not there.

The World Bank thinks an $800 million loan (less $33 million, being payment for consultancies) will bring ‘relief’ to 10 million households. They want to rely on the same social registers that other billions have previously filtered away through. Assuming the registers are true reflections of the information on qualified Nigerians, the relief will come down to about N7,000 per person! We have been down this path a number of times with no meaningful impact.

On the other hand, you have trillions saved from the removal of energy subsidies but with no inflation containment strategy. All that has been contemplated are the usual lazy initiatives. One is to provide buses that will be off the roads within two years and the earlier mentioned cash transfer palliative. These are always the easier things to do. Has any ‘hand’ looked at the importance of transportation on economic development and how a few buses will supposedly cushion the rise of transportation prices by more than 100%? What about the rise of other factors that drive production and industrialisation? These have been the previous prescriptions that soothed the psychological aspect but did little about disposable incomes.

On another ‘hand’, the cost of implementing projects will rise because most of the components usually used are imported. You will be needing more naira to buy fewer dollars. So also is the cost of debt servicing, although this has more to do with the harmonisation of the exchange rate. Foreign exchange is a large part of our budget component. Let us not forget that the Buhari administration left a N77 trillion ($167 billion) debt to local and foreign creditors.

On yet another ‘hand’, salaries will be increased to douse conflict with the labour unions. Aggregate demand will increase, and this is another inflationary pressure. Labour will usually demand what the government can never afford. So what happens? I think the days of abusing the ‘Ways and Means’ grants are over, but salaries will increase with reduced purchasing power. The naira will further weaken, as more of it will chase fewer goods. Let us not forget another hand, which is that cheaper imports affect our balance of trade and generally have negative effects on prices.

On still another hand, with regard to transparency and efficiency, what mechanism has been put in place to utilise the trillions saved effectively? They say it will be put into hospitals and schools. Fine. Will it be through the same system and procurement processes utilised in building previous schools and hospitals, or have changes been made to the system? Multiple sources still report that over 70% of public sector corruption is through public procurement. Corruption is reported to be pervasive in the key service sectors of health and education.

In terms of the spending patterns, what has been the improvement in our education and health sectors in the past decade? Have those two sectors delivered value for the trillions spent so far? Since the government has not provided the data that things have improved in the last ten years, why do we assume that pumping more money into the sectors will automatically improve our education and healthcare?

And another ‘hand’ will argue that you have to reform the civil service for the effective delivery of public goods. Where do you start the reforms from? One hand will say dust up the Oronsanye Report on the rationalisation of agencies. I believe the government can effectively run with less than 30% of its current force. So, it would help if the service is trimmed for efficiency and reduced recurrent expenditure. Then another macro-economic hand rears its ugly face – unemployment and underemployment. Cutting out 70% of the current public servants effectively means removing the livelihoods of 1.5 million public servants, out of the current estimated total of 2.2 million workers. Being an African society, each of those 1.5 million will have at least five persons he or she is benefactor to. So, that is another 7.5 million persons. Anyway, civil servants are a miniscule portion of the general population.

Another hand will emerge that the only way to maintain our national security is to ensure that the private sector gainfully employs those 7.5 million and the other 130 million Nigerians. To engage such a number needs a proliferation of industries to produce at a level lower than imports from China. When the energy cost calculation is done, another hand will argue for introducing energy subsidies to ensure energy security, food security and hence national security! The countries we like to use in our powerpoint presentations all have subsidies in critical sectors that drive both. The UK places a cap on energy costs. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that Germany was to spend €83.3 billion to subsidise energy prices, €43 billion to reduce the cost of electricity and €200 billion on energy support for Euro-area members.

In principle, subsidy is not bad as some have been made to believe. It’s a requisite for economic growth and development. Why ours seems like an enigma is the ‘other hand’ we don’t want to talk about because most are either engaged in it, while others are waiting for their turn to do so. The cancerous hand of corruption! Although it was not in their campaign promise, let us be aware that much may not be achieved until the fingers of that hand are cut off.

An Australian wildlife park claims to have the world’s largest – and possibly oldest – crocodile in captivity, estimated to have lived for 120 years, with plenty more time to go, according to his handlers. 

"Cassius is such a magnificent, beautiful boy, and he’s obviously got a major history to tell us," Sally Isberg, managing director at the Center for Crocodile Research in Australia, said in a video interview shared with Fox News Digital.

"He’s a happy, healthy boy," she added. "He has such a personality. He gets called over to one side of the pen and is just happy to wander over… he’s an absolutely fascinating character."

Captured in 1984 near the city of Darwin and transferred to Green Island a few years later, the crocodile Cassius has lived at the Marineland Crocodile Park for over 35 years. Estimated to have lived at least 110 years, some experts have said Cassius could be as old as 120, which would push the known limits of crocodile longevity.

What makes Cassius so unusual is that he has continued to grow despite his remarkable age: During an annual checkup this year, Professor Graeme Webb determined that Cassius had grown another 13 inches since his previous visit nearly 20 years earlier, now measuring a whopping 17 feet and 11.75 inches.

"He was a big old gnarly crocodile then… crocs of that size are not normal," Webb told MIX 102.3 in Australia, saying that growing at such an advanced age "is unusual for a big croc." 

Webb had determined during his first visit that Cassius was at between 30 and 80 years old, which would mean he could be at least 120, though there is no way to fully determine the croc’s age – especially given his unusual size and growth.

Marineland told Fox News Digital that the annual assessment is "very hands off" as the use of restraints can cause stress due to a heightened fight or flight response common to apex predators. That stress can induce extreme trauma that could take considerable time from which to recover.

"Generally these assessments are done through observation in person and by looking at observation records kept by the keepers," Marineland noted, citing such measures as stool and water samples for more detailed analysis.

The recent assessment for Cassius found him "fine with no immediate cause for concern, and no reason to believe Cassius will not live for years to come." 

Marineland’s founder George Craig often likes to personally feed Cassius and has a "wonderful relationship" with the croc, according to Isberg. 

The oldest crocodile on record was a croc known as Freshie, who made it to 140 in captivity despite being shot twice in the tail and left eye, according to Oldest.org. 

Fox News

Featherless chicken is a relatively new breed of poultry created through selective breeding in order to combat a very common problem – overheating. However, the so-called ‘naked chickens’ have yet to become mainstream.

Commercial broiler chickens are genetically prone to eat more and gain weight very fast which causes their body metabolism to operate at higher temperatures than that of other chicken breeds. Their hearts operate at up to 300 beats per minute, and while the rapid weight gain makes them perfect for the ever-growing meat industry, it also creates a very big problem – overheating. Raising broilers in hot climate regions requires expensive coolers to keep the birds’ temperature in check, but what if there was a more economical way to keep birds cool without using vast amounts of energy? That was the idea that led to the creation of the controversial featherless chicken.

Israeli geneticist and poultry breeding expert Avigdor Cahaner is the man credited for the creation of featherless chickens. Although many speculate that he resorted to some unnatural and unethical genetic modifications, Cahaner has repeatedly clarified that he only did it by selectively crossing a breed with a naturally bare neck with a regular broiler chicken. “This is not a genetically modified chicken, but a natural chicken whose characteristics date back over 50 years,” the Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor said.

Created in the early 2000s, Avigdor Cahaner’s naked chickens got a lot of attention both for their unusual appearance and the touted benefits of the breed, which included, lower feed consumption, faster growth rate, the ability to withstand higher temperatures without the need for coolers, and an evident ease of plucking. However, it’s not all positive with these unusual-looking birds. The lack of feathers makes them more susceptible to parasites, mosquito attacks, skin diseases, sunburns and temperature variations. Plus, the males have trouble mating because they can’t really maintain their balance when flapping their featherless wings.

But the main reason why the naked chicken breed never really took off in the two decades since its creation is that people never really got used to their “unnatural” look. Some have called them “disgusting” and an “example of sick science”, while others claimed that regular chickens suffer enough, and there is no need to create abominations like this that are even more prone to suffering without feathers to protect them from injuries.

A study by Agriallis Magazine has concluded that the acceptance rate of featherless chickens by consumers “will not be successful due to fact of fear of hormonal usage, unusual animals, fear on health impact”.

Oddity Central

Federal government has suspended the import adjustment tax (IAT) imposed on certain vehicles.

Dele Alake, special adviser to the president on special duties, communication and strategy, announced the development to journalists on Thursday at the presidential villa, Abuja.

The IAT which was approved by former President Muhammadu Buhari took effect on June 1, 2023.

Imported vehicles with 2 litres to 3.9 litres engines were required to pay an IAT equivalent to two percent of the value of the vehicle while vehicles with 4 litres engines and above attract IAT of 4 percent of their value.

However, vehicles with engines below 2 litres, mass transit buses, electric vehicles, and locally manufactured vehicles were exempted from the IAT.

In addition to the IAT, the federal government had introduced a green tax made up of excise duty on single-use plastics (SUPs), including plastic containers, films, and bags, at a rate of 10 percent.

The green tax has similarly been suspended.

Alake said the development is in line with President Bola Tinubu’s promise to address business unfriendly fiscal policy measures and multiplicity of taxes.

“Further to his commitment to creating a business-friendly environment, the President has ordered the suspension of the newly introduced Green Tax by way of Excise Tax on Single Use Plastics, including plastic containers and bottles. In addition, the President has ordered the suspension of Import Tax Adjustment levy on certain vehicles,” Alake said.

“As a listening leader, the President issued these orders to ameliorate the negative impacts of the tax adjustments on businesses and chokehold on households across affected sectors. The president will not exacerbate the plight of Nigerians.

“In closing, the President wishes to reiterate his commitment to reviewing complaints about multiple taxation, local and anti-business inhibitions.

“The Federal government sees business owners, local and foreign investors as critical engines in its focus on achieving higher GDP growth and appreciable reduction in unemployment rate through job creation.

“The government will, therefore, continue to give requisite stimulus by way of friendly policies to allow businesses to flourish in the country.

“Tinubu wishes to assure Nigerians by whose mandate he is in power that there will not be further tax raise without robust and wide consultations undertaken within the context of a coherent fiscal policy framework.”

The Cable

The $2 billion, about N1.54 trillion, Kano-Maradi railway line that links Nigeria and Niger Republic will have over 100 bridges and three side camps among other facilities when completed.

The project which is currently being handled by MOTA-ENGIL NIGERIA is expected to be completed in three years.

Speaking with media men at the Port & Cargo Terminal in Lagos, Nuno Colaco, the company’s logistics manager, explained that the project, expected to be delivered in three years, will have over 100 bridges and three side camps among other facilities of a modern railway line. 

Colaco revealed that about 100 kilometres of the project have been paved ahead of the main construction work.

He further said, “It is a 400-kilometre railway, starting from Dutse in Kano and terminating in Maradi in Niger Republic. This is one of the biggest projects to be handled by the Portuguese company.

“We came to Nigeria in 2018 and we are happy that we got this project two years after our arrival. Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa with huge potentials.”

Customs Controller of Tin Can Island, Adekunle Oloyede, who said that there had been a decrease of cargo throughput at the ports, expressed delight at the sheer size of the Mota-Engil import, saying it was evidence that the Nigerian economy was on the rebound.

Daily Trust

Meta is taking on Twitter with a new app. Instagram yesterday announced the anticipated launch of its text-based social networking app, Threads, which allows Instagram users to authenticate with their existing credentials in order to post short updates, including text up to 500 characters; links; photos; and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

At launch, Threads is available on iOS and Android in 100 countries, though not in the EU, reportedly due to concerns around adhering to local data privacy regulations. Users can log in with their Instagram credentials, where their username and verification status will carry over. However, Threads profiles can be customized independently as well.

The app’s existence was first scooped by MoneyControl this March and later confirmed by Platformer. In June, Meta previewed the app to employees during a company-wide meeting. Further leaks offered more details about the app’s target market of high-profile celebrities, influencers and artists, and its planned feature set.

While the Jack Dorsey–backed Twitter rival Bluesky has been growing in popularity in recent months, leveraging its own decentralized protocol, the AT Protocol, Instagram’s new app will soon offer support for ActivityPub — the same social networking protocol used by open source Twitter rival Mastodon, along with other federated apps.

Once that takes effect, Threads will be able to broaden its reach, as Mastodon’s ecosystem engages 1.7 million active users. But we aren’t sure when exactly Threads will deliver on this feature.

“We’re committed to building support for ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, into this app. We weren’t able to finish it for launch given a number of complications that come along with a decentralized network, but it’s coming,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said before launch. “If you’re wondering why this matters, here’s a reason: you may one day end up leaving Threads, or, hopefully not, end up de-platformed. If that ever happens, you should be able to take your audience with you to another server. Being open can enable that.”

However, the choice also puts Threads in competition with other Mastodon clients, including indie apps like Ivory and the Mozilla-funded Mammoth. Flipboard, Medium, and WordPress.com owner Automattic have also invested in the Mastodon ecosystem amid the Twitter exodus. But Meta’s entry into the open decentralized social web has raised concerns that it’s planning to enact an “embrace, extend and extinguish” strategy designed to allow it to dominate in this emerging market, similar to how Google took hold of web-based email.

“Instagram for your thoughts”

We have yet to see whether Threads will catch on, though it’s certainly a great time for Meta to dip its toes into microblogging. It’s worth noting, however, that Meta doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to building successful stand-alone apps.

Over the years, the company has shut down numerous stand-alone apps, including Hello, Moves, Paper, Poke, Camera, Home, Slingshot, Rooms, Riff,Bolt, Lifestage, Groups, Stickered, Moments, Notify, Bonfire, Lasso, Novi and others, including Boomerang, Hyperlapse, Direct, IGTV, and Threads from Instagram, and virtually all its experiments from it internal incubator, NPE team, like BARS, E.gg, Forecast, Collab, Kit, Hobbi, Tuned and more.

To access Threads, users will first need to authenticate using their current Instagram login credentials. The app will then populate with their existing account details, like name, username, photo, and followers. Verification will also roll over to the new app.

This integration gives Instagram’s new app a jump-start in terms of sign-ups — which the company alluded to in earlier leaked marketing materials, where it noted that with “one tap, anyone can follow the accounts they follow on Instagram.”

Beyond the immediate access to your network, another benefit of the app’s Instagram integration is that it will carry over users’ block lists from Instagram. Plus, it operates under the same Community Guidelines as Instagram, making it easier to understand what’s permitted and what’s not. Users will also be able to toggle what audiences they will allow to reply to each of their posts.

Instagram has been experimenting with other ways for users to connect outside of sharing photos and videos to Reels, Stories and Feeds, including with the launch of “broadcast channels” in February 2023, which offered creators a way to more directly connect with followers by posting text, images, polls, reactions, GIFs and more in messages in users’ Instagram inboxes. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since been using the feature to send out product news.

Ahead of the new app’s release, several developers and reverse engineers had been digging into Instagram’s code to discover how it would work, including leaker Alessandro Paluzzi. He found that the app would support 500 characters — less than Twitter’s now 10,000 for paid subscribers, though more than its 280 characters for non-paying users. At one point, he also discovered Meta was calling the app “an Instagram for your thoughts.”

Another source, social media consultant Matt Navarra, had reported in mid-May that Meta was seeking out early adopters to try a pre-release version app with a focus on high-profile influencers and celebrities, like actors, producers, writers, directors, showrunners, athletes and comedians.

Yesterday’s launch was not the first time Instagram has experimented with text-based updates for social sharing. The company last December introduced Notes, a way to leave short, 60-character text posts for friends to see just above their Instagram DM inbox. The feature was updated with support for music-sharing in June. Not to mention Instagram once launched a separate app called Threads, which was kind of like Snapchat. It no longer exists.

Privacy challenges on Threads

When Threads appeared on the App Store for preorder a few days before launch, some users noticed that the app collects a lot of user data. According to Apple’s listing, the Threads iOS app may collect data related to health, finances, purchases, contacts, usage data, browsing history and other sensitive info.

Unfortunately, this data collection isn’t really different from other major social platforms like TikTok and Twitter, or Meta’s own Instagram and Facebook. But with so many apps competing to become the “next Twitter” (if such a thing is even possible), users have more agency to choose a platform that has less dubious privacy practices. Still, Threads has a leg up, since users’ Instagram networks will be built in.

With ongoing privacy concerns among Meta’s family of apps, Threads will not be launching in the EU — at least not for now. The Guardian‘s sources at Meta reportedly delayed the launch due to legal uncertainty around data use under the Digital Markets Act, which passed in March. Meta has reason to be wary of this changing EU legislation; in May, the company was fined around $1.3 billion for exporting European Union user data to the U.S. for processing.

For now, EU users have one less Twitter alternative to choose from. As for those who have access to Threads from the get-go, users now get to decide if they want Meta’s family of apps to take up an even greater slice of their attention.

Tech Crunch

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

US expected to provide cluster bombs to Ukraine

Human Rights Watch has called on Russia and Ukraine to stop using cluster bombs, and urged the US not to supply the munitions to Kyiv, amid reports the Biden administration is poised to include the controversial weapons in a new military aid package.

Russian and Ukraine forces have used cluster bombs, which break apart in the air and release large numbers of smaller bomblets across a wide area.

The bomblets are designed to detonate on hitting the ground, but do not always explode, posing a risk to civilians for years afterwards. The weapons, first used in the second world war, were banned by more than 120 nations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008. Russia, Ukraine and the US have all declined to sign the treaty.

Kyiv has urged members of the US Congress to press the White House to approve sending over cluster bombs. US officials say cluster bombs would be effective for Ukraine against Russian forces in strong defensive positions.

The White House said on Thursday that providing cluster munitions to Ukraine is under “active consideration”, and US officials told Reuters that the administration is expected to announce the new weapons aid package that will include these weapons on Friday.

Ukrainian and Russian forces have used cluster munitions that caused numerous civilian deaths and serious injuries, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday, calling on both sides to immediately stop using the “inherently indiscriminate” weapons.

US officials have claimed that any munitions provided to Ukraine would have a reduced “dud rate”, meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that could later result in unintended civilian deaths.

Ukraine fired cluster munition rockets into Russian-controlled areas in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium last year, causing many casualties among Ukrainian civilians, the rights group said, citing interviews with more than 100 residents, witnesses and local emergency personnel. The Ukrainian attacks killed at least eight civilians and wounded at least 15 civilians in Izium, it said.

The group has previously reported that Russia’s use of cluster bombs in Ukraine resulted in the deaths of scores of civilians, and the United Nations human rights council has also documented the use of such bombs by both sides.

“Cluster munitions used by Russia and Ukraine are killing civilians now and will continue to do so for many years,” said Mary Wareham, acting arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Both sides should immediately stop using them and not try to get more of these indiscriminate weapons.”

Transferring cluster bombs to Ukraine would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians, the group said. It warned that the use of cluster munitions in areas with civilians makes an attack indiscriminate in violation of international humanitarian law, and possibly a war crime.

** Russia and Ukraine announce prisoner exchange

Russia and Ukraine announced a prisoner of war exchange on Thursday involving the return of 45 soldiers from each side.

Russia's defence ministry said that 45 Russian servicemen had been returned from Ukrainian custody, the Russian news agency RIA reported.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential staff, said 45 service personnel and two civilians had been returned to Ukraine.

In a post on the Telegram messaging app, Yermak said some of those freed had fought in Mariupol and the southern city's Azovstal steel plant, and others had fought on the frontline elsewhere.

"Each of them is a hero," Yermak said.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said most of those freed were "seriously injured" and all would undergo rehabilitation.

In a separate post, Yermak said that two children aged six and 10 had been allowed to return to Ukraine following the release of their mother, a military medic, last October.

Russia and Ukraine have periodically exchanged groups of prisoners in the course of the war, now in its 17th month.

Lubinets said that 2,576 Ukrainians have been freed in prisoner swaps since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

NATO, led by the US, plans, manages Ukraine’s military action against Russia — official

NATO, led by the US, coordinates Kiev’s military operations against the Russian Army, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said Thursday.

"Neo-Nazis grabbed power in Ukraine after the bloody coup, organized by the US and its satellites. Pursuing their selfish goals, the US carries out an undeclared war against Russia, using territory and population of Ukraine," he said during a meeting on national security in the Southern Federal District Thursday.

"Today, NATO states, led by the US, continue to fund the terrorist regime in Ukraine, pump it with weapons, provide intelligence, train Ukrainian troops, plan and coordinate military operations against the Russian Army," the official stated.

** Wagner PMC founder Prigozhin currently in Russia, not in Belarus, Lukashenko confirms

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) founder Yevgeny Prigozhin is currently not in Belarus, but rather is located in Russia while his fighters are quartered at their permanent base camps.

"As far as I’ve been informed, as of this morning, the fighters are at their permanent base camps where they have been located since withdrawing from the frontline for rest and recuperation. After Bakhmut (Artyomovsk in Russian - TASS), they withdrew to their camp. That’s where they are located. As for Evgeny Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg. Maybe he went to Moscow, but he is not on Belarusian soil," he said at a meeting with representatives of foreign and Belarusian media outlets.

Lukashenko also said that Prigozhin was not imprisoned. "We talked several times over the phone. I think, yesterday, we had a phone conversation in the afternoon. We discussed the PMC’s further actions," he said, adding that the PMC chief told him that the Wagner fighters will "work toward Russia’s well-being in the future and perform their duty until the end." The Belarusian president said that he had made arrangements to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future to discuss the situation around Prigozhin.

No risks

According to Lukashenko, the relocation of Wagner fighters to Belarus "will depend on the decision made by the Wagner PMC and Russia’s leadership." "If they deem it necessary to deploy a certain number of fighters in Belarus to rest or train, I will carry out my decision," he said.

The Belarusian leader stressed that he did not see any risk in deploying the PMC on Belarusian soil. "I do not think that Wagner would rebel somewhere and turn their weapons against the Belarusian leadership and government. I do not see such a situation today. <...> I absolutely see no risks from deploying the Wagner PMC <...>," the president noted.

"If it becomes necessary to engage them, we will engage them immediately," he said.

In his opinion, Wagner PMC’s fighters and commanders could share their expertise with the Belarusian armed forces. "I mean the military expertise they’ve accumulated," he specified.

If they are deployed in the country, Belarus will conclude a contract with them, Lukashenko added. "If the Wagner PMC is here, they will protect our interests. When they make a decision to be stationed here, a contract will be concluded with them, legal liability, where everything will be spelled out. Then restrictions, limitations will be determined at the level of the law [or a] presidential decree," he explained.

Lukashenko noted that Minsk offered some mothballed Belarusian military bases as housing for the Wagner group but the PMC had its own opinion on this issue and it has not yet been decided.

Position reinforced

Replying to questions about the situation in Russia during Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny on June 23-24, Lukashenko said that, in his opinion, the situation did not weaken Putin’s position. "Don’t even hold your breath for it. There was no vacillation, no weakening; Putin was fully engaged in carrying out his duties," he said.

According to Lukashenko, the situation around the Wagner PMC served to bolster ties between Belarus and Russia.

He also said that, during the mutiny attempt, several aircraft were ready to deploy Belarusian troops to defend Moscow. "The first five or seven planes, I don’t remember anymore, it’s a known fact, landed in Belarus to redeploy a Belarusian special forces brigade near Moscow," he said, adding that in the end, they "did not go anywhere but they were on full combat alert."

Lukashenko did not hold any consultations with other countries over the mutiny. "I knew what to say myself, without any consultations," he said. He noted that he had not interacted with China either and "had it taken place, it would have been with one person only, with [Chinese President] Xi Jinping." "We did not talk and such a conversation was hardly possible even if I had wanted to [have it]," the Belarusian leader added.

The Guardian/Reuters/Tass

I’m not sure what breaks the heart more: her insistence on her innocence or the prospects of a future that now hangs in the balance. For a young adult with a promising future, the emerging facts only suggest one thing: it doesn’t rain, it pours.

Mmesoma Ejikeme was one of the numerous students of Anglican Girls Secondary School (AGSS), Nnewi, Anambra State, who took the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in May 2023.

The first child in a family of four whose father eked out a living as an Okada rider, Mmesoma remained not just the pride of her parents, she was also one of the stars in AGSS, a missionary school handed back to its owners by former Governor Peter Obi in 2009. 

Many public schools across the country were returned to the missions after years of neglect and mismanagement by government. It appears that the very reason they were returned has come back to haunt the new owners. 

“My dream,” Mmesoma told reporters in the thick of allegations this week that she forged her UTME result, “was to become a pharmacist or a medical doctor. And I have always studied and worked hard to achieve it.”

That dream has either taken a fatal blow or may be unravelling after the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) flagged Mmesoma’s result as forged and barred her from exams conducted by the board for three years.

For a country obsessed with politics, it was a surprise that the misery of this young adult and her family toppled political stories on the front pages for days and even drowned the heroics of the World, Commonwealth and African champion athlete, Tobi Amusan, who repeated her 2022 feat at the Diamond League in Stockholm, Sweden.

Instead of draping the national flag and posting Tobi’s photos on timelines like we did last year, the public space morphed into a triangle of controversy covering Mmesoma and her family; her school and the Anambra State Government; and JAMB. 

High on emotions but short on facts and logic, the lynch mob on social media, never short of subjects and objects, has snapped-up the vomit. As usual, it is prosecuting, judging and executing with the virulence and toxicity of snake venom. 

Some of the toxicity has also managed to seep in from a bitter spring of ethnic divisions that left the country deeply divided after the general elections. Yet, this tragedy is neither Igbo nor Yoruba; neither Efik nor Fulfude. It’s a human tragedy.

It does appear that Mmesoma has been duped. Or she may have let herself into something she must now be sorry for. Information from her own video, interviews, and the response of JAMB, tend to show that the “notification of result” in which she claimed she scored 362, was fake.

Apart from taking JAMB’s word for it, I have spoken with six other candidates who took the same May UTME exam with Mmesoma. None of them has a slip that bears “notification of result,” which the examiner, JAMB, insists is one of the marks of the forged result. 

The mix-up in her date of birth – which actually reflected the date of birth of Asimiyu Mariam Omobolanle, the original owner of the slip who took the exam two years ago and scored 138, and the bar code – also suggest strongly that what Mmesoma is showing as her result, was not her result.

Candidates get their results through one of two means: either by SMS or through the JAMB portal. The board has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that both methods are significantly secure. Of course, there are numerous fake sites offering everything from “upgrade” of JAMB scores to “self-service results,” complete with options for grades a la carte. I guess you would find similar Ochanja markets, even for politicians.

Yet, in Nigeria’s forest of desperately failing public institutions, JAMB, especially under Professor Ishaq Oloyede’s watch, has been exceptional. It understands that if the bird has learnt to fly without perching, the hunter must also learn to shoot without missing.

Except if Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo has other assignments for his investigating committee of eight of whom five are professors, it does not require a committee of eggheads to see that either Mmesoma has been duped, egged on by family, or she may have been a willing part of a bigger scam. 

Mmesoma’s travail is not an isolated case or one-of-a-kind. Perhaps, hers has re-echoed because of the ripple effects. She was on her way to winning a scholarship from the state government, after a N3m award by Innoson Motors Chairman, Chief Innocent Chukwuma, when the bubble burst. 

More audacious is Kaduna State-born Gerald Atung, earlier reported to have obtained 380 points in the same exam. Unlike Mmesoma, however, Gerald got his distinction for an exam he neither registered for nor participated in. 

According to JAMB, “Gerald Atung never obtained the 2023 UTME forms not to talk of sitting for the examination.” Miracle? Even a credulous congregation might argue that at least there was water, before it became wine!

How did we get here? As in many things dumb and useless, politicians have managed to lead the way to the collapse of values. When they started throwing money at candidates with the highest cut-off marks in JAMB, instead of investing more in primary education, making public secondary schools more competitive, and state-owned tertiary institutions more skills-driven and science-focused, it was only a matter of time before they would democratise the rat race. Now, we’re reaping the whirlwind. 

Politicians have continued to make a lot of noise about JAMB cut-off scores, even when JAMB has said, time and again, that the idea of cut-off marks is meaningless. Owners of private schools and tutorial/CBT centres also use high UTME scores as a sales gimmick and the fool’s button. 

A candidate is assessed for admission not only on the basis of their UTME score, but also based on their school certificate exam result and their post-UTME score. 

Crucially, other factors such as the general performance for that year, compliance with admission rules (by both the schools and candidates) for the course of study, quota catchment, and availability are also important. The cut-off war is unnecessary and irrelevant. What is the use, for example, of splashing cash on a cut-off hero who fails the school certificate examination? 

As far as UTME goes, Mmesoma’s 249 was a good score and didn’t need padding. With 64 in Use of English; 54 in Physics; 74 in Biology; and 57 in Chemistry, I’m not sure if she would have made it into Pharmacy at the University of Lagos, which was her first choice or the Lagos State University, which was her second. 

But assuming she passes her school certificate examination (and/or the NECO, which she is still taking), she might have been in good stead either for a state university, a federal university in the South East, or one in Delta State, which has no place at all for quota.

Mmesoma’s travail shows that obsession for short-cuts and quick fixes often lead to broken hearts and deeper misery. It’s not about tribe or ethnicity, else Mmesoma would not have chosen all four school choices outside the South East, her native enclave. 

She made the regrettable error of climbing the tree of her ambition beyond the leaf. And sadly, she has landed where there’s no road to medicine or pharmacy and she cannot continue to double down. Life is not over. With help, she can rise again.

JAMB has made its point robustly. It has rightly thrown out the bath water. It should, however, spare the baby.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

Plus: why you should never use the middle stall.

If you have a habit of using the middle stall, we've got bad news for you. You've been toileting all wrong...

You waltz through security, sink a few coffees, do a bit of light shopping, and prepare to find your gate. Suddenly, a deep, dark sensation envelops your insides.

You need the toilet. You head to the nearest bathroom, bracing yourself for all the gross aromas, sights and sounds you are now forced to endure (from someone hacking their lungs up in the sink to someone loudly getting Bali belly before their trip has even begun).

Most people have to navigate this scenario with just their eyes and ears. But now, thanks to a trending TikTok video, we can approach it with science. Or at least, psychology.

"Use the first toilet always. It's cleaner and easily accessible," a recent TikTok video, which has been viewed 12.8k times, suggested.

This travel hack is backed up by boffins, with research indicating the middle stall, due to a phenomenon called "centrality preference," is typically the most used (aka, the grossest).

According to Business Insider, one toilet paper usage study from the 90s found that "Far more people used the middle stalls than random chance would predict - 60 per cent of finished rolls came from the central stalls, with only 40 per cent from the end stalls."

Another theory is that the stall closest to the bathroom door often gets overlooked because it is less private (and so it is often cleaner).

As Mehmet Oz, writing on Sharecare, explains, "Experts theorise that people tend to skip the first stall in favor of stalls farther back to have a little more privacy."

There you have it. Next time you're in an airport bathroom, you know where to go...

Escape