The Lagos State Government has launched an investigation into the demolition of a property belonging to the brother of former presidential candidate Peter Obi, while firmly denying any state involvement in the incident.

Lagos Commissioner for Information Gbenga Omotoso issued a statement rejecting claims that state agencies participated in the demolition, calling Obi’s allegations “disturbing and without facts.”

The Incident

On Tuesday, Peter Obi, who was the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, took to social media to report that his younger brother’s company property in Ikeja, Lagos had been demolished without proper legal authorization.

According to Obi’s account, his brother contacted him after a group of individuals invaded the company premises and began tearing down the building. The former Anambra State governor noted that the court order presented by the demolition team listed “person unknown” as the defendant, raising questions about the legal basis for the action.

While Obi did not directly blame federal or state authorities for the demolition, he mentioned that some individuals at the scene identified themselves as being from “Lagos state” and claimed they were acting under a “safety order.”

Obi suggested the incident might be connected to what he described as ongoing harassment following his participation in the presidential election.

State Response and Investigation

In response to the allegations, the Lagos State Government has directed the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the demolition.

Olajide Abiodun Babatunde, Special Adviser for eGIS & Urban Development who oversees LASBCA, confirmed that the agency had no role in the demolition activity.

Omotoso called on the public to dismiss Obi’s claims, stating that the government remains committed to maintaining law and order throughout the state. He emphasized that the administration would not be deterred by what he characterized as unfounded accusations.

The investigation aims to establish the facts surrounding the demolition and determine what actions, if any, should be taken based on the findings.

Israel halts aid into northern Gaza, officials say, clans deny Hamas is stealing it

Israel has stopped aid from entering northern Gaza but is still allowing it to enter from the south, two officials said on Thursday after images circulated of masked men on aid trucks who clan leaders said were protecting aid, not Hamas stealing it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a joint statement with Defense Minister Israel Katz, said late on Wednesday that he had ordered the military to present a plan within two days to prevent Hamas from taking control of aid.

They cited new unspecified information indicating that Hamas was seizing aid intended for civilians in northern Gaza. A video circulating on Wednesday showed dozens of masked men, some armed with rifles but most carrying sticks, riding on aid trucks.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer told reporters that aid was continuing to enter from the south but did not specify whether any supplies were entering in the north.

The U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates aid distribution sites in southern and central Gaza, said on X that it was the only humanitarian organization permitted on Thursday to distribute food in Gaza.

A spokesperson said the foundation was exempt from a two-day suspension of humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory.

The Israeli prime minister's office and the defense ministry did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The Higher Commission for Tribal Affairs, which represents influential clans in Gaza, said that trucks had been protected as part of an aid security process managed "solely through tribal efforts". The commission said that no Palestinian faction, a reference to Hamas, had taken part in the process.

Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for more than two decades but now controls only parts of the territory after nearly two years of war with Israel, denied any involvement.

Throughout the war, numerous clans, civil society groups and factions - including Hamas' secular political rival Fatah - have stepped in to help provide security for the aid convoys.

Clans made up of extended families connected through blood and marriage have long been a fundamental part of Gazan society.

ACUTE SHORTAGE

Amjad al-Shawa, director of an umbrella body for Palestinian non-governmental organisations, said the aid protected by clans on Wednesday was being distributed to vulnerable families.

There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies after the nearly two-year military campaign by Israel that has displaced most of Gaza's two million inhabitants.

Aid trucks and warehouses storing supplies have often been looted, frequently by desperate and starving Palestinians. Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies.

"The clans came ... to form a stance to prevent the aggressors and the thieves from stealing the food that belongs to our people," Abu Salman Al Moghani, a representative of Gazan clans, said, referring to Wednesday's operation.

The Wednesday video was shared on X by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who claimed that Hamas had taken control of aid allowed into Gaza by the Israeli government. Bennett is widely seen as the most viable challenger to Netanyahu at the next election.

Netanyahu has also faced pressure from within his right-wing coalition, with some hardline members threatening to quit over ceasefire negotiations and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The war began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 others hostage into Gaza.

In response, Israel launched a military campaign that has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, according to local health authorities in Gaza.

At least 118 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since Wednesday, local health authorities said, including some shot near an aid distribution point, the latest in a series of such incidents.

Twenty hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, while Hamas is also holding the bodies of 30 who have died.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia captures village in eastern Ukraine near lithium deposit, Russian-backed official says

Russian troops have taken control of a village in eastern Ukraine which is close to a lithium deposit after fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, a Russian-backed official said on Thursday.

The village of Shevchenko is located in Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions - in addition to Crimea - that Moscow has claimed as its own territory in annexations that Kyiv and Western powers reject as illegal.

The Russian Defence Ministry announced earlier on Thursday that Shevchenko had been taken along with another settlement called Novoserhiivka.

Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Open source mapping from Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian military blogging resource, showed Shevchenko under Russian control.

Soviet geologists who discovered the lithium deposit there in 1982 suggested it could be significant. It sits at a depth that would allow commercial mining, and Russian-backed officials have suggested it will be developed when the situation permits.

"The village of Shevchenko, which is located on the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region, is another settlement that has a lithium deposit. This was one of the reasons why the Ukrainian armed forces sent a huge number of their soldiers to hold it," Igor Klimakovsky, a Russian-appointed official in Donetsk, was cited by the state TASS news agency as saying on Thursday.

The Ukrainian Geological Survey says the deposit is located on Shevchenko's eastern outskirts and covers an area of nearly 40 hectares.

Parts of the Russian press incorrectly claimed in January that the Shevchenko deposit had already been captured, confusing it with the seizure of another settlement of the same name elsewhere.

Lithium is a coveted global resource because of its use in a host of industries and technologies from mobile phones to electric cars. Ukraine has reserves of about 500,000 tons, and Russia has double that, according to U.S. government estimates.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

NATO summit ‘grim sign’ for Kiev – NYT

The recent NATO summit signaled a bleak outlook for Kiev’s hopes of sustained Western support as the US-led bloc turned its attention toward US President Donald Trump, The New York Times has reported, in a feature-style review of the gathering.

NATO chief Mark Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, hosting the event at The Hague, pledged continued support for what he described as Ukraine’s “irreversible path to membership.”

However Kiev’s aspirations were notably absent from the final summit communiqué, which offered only a brief mention of the bloc’s “enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine,” according to the newspaper.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who was invited to the two-day summit, was “not feted as in years past,” the newspaper noted. Nor was he “the center of attention” anymore, it added. A meeting between Trump and Zelensky on the sidelines of the event also failed to produce any “specific promises,” the outlet wrote.

After the meeting, which lasted roughly 50 minutes, Trump denied that the two had discussed a potential ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow, contradicting an earlier statement by Zelensky.

”Ukraine? What’s Ukraine?” Michael John Williams, a former NATO adviser, exclaimed to the NYT. “The Europeans were saying how committed they are to Ukraine… But there was also really an attempt to keep controversial issues off the table. Ukraine wasn’t the front and center discussion it has been.”

 The summit was “choreographed” to address “the security interests of NATO allies – and then comes Ukraine,” Liana Fix, a Europe expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told NYT on Wednesday, published in a separate piece.

”There was no meaningful deliverable for Ukraine,” added Torrey Taussig, a former Biden-era Europe director at the National Security Council.

This year’s meeting marked a sharp departure from last year’s summit, where Ukraine’s NATO membership was on the agenda. This time, NATO members committed only to increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, in response to what they called a “long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security.”

On Wednesday, Rutte told reporters simply that “our aim is to keep Ukraine in the fight today.”

Reuters/RT

The proper thing to do when readers respond to a newspaper article is to respect their right of reply. There were two irate responses to my article last week, “Not the Iran We Thought It Was: What Has Changed in the Persian Gulf.”

One, entitled “Not the Azu We Thought He Was,” by Yakubu Musa, a guest author for 21st Century Chronicle, an online newspaper, and the other, “Basking in the Euphoria of Narrative Origami,” by Mahfuz Mundadu, a friend of one Hassan Karofi, who claimed he is a journalist.

Both articles could have been from the spiteful fingers of one hand. Of particular interest, however, was the second article. It was WhatsApped to me by Karofi on behalf of his friend, a certain Mundadu, whose photo he refused to provide and whose name he faked. He also faked a Kaduna address for his fake friend. Despite the layers of disingenuity, “Mundadu” deserves, if not a right of reply, the courtesy of his or her opinion:

“To read Mr. Azu Ishiekwene’s article ‘Not the Iran We Thought It Was’ is to witness a masterclass in doublethink. That Orwellian art of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind and believing both. To know that Israel is a nuclear power armed to the teeth and yet present it as a trembling David before an Iranian Goliath.

“To remember decades of pre-emptive strikes, assassinations, and occupation, and yet narrate them as self-defence. To bend history into a shape so unfamiliar, it must be admired. We call it narrative origami, and then we present the resulting illusion with a straight face beneath a yam cap.

“Nothing completes the theatre of intellectual mimicry like cultural fabric draped over borrowed imperial scripts. Mr. Azu doesn’t merely distort reality; he stages its semblance. Armed with metaphors, blindfolded by bias, and conducted by the invisible hand of Western hegemony.

“Azu’s article, ‘Not the Iran We Thought It Was,’ reads like a desperate telegram from the last surviving bureaucrat of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Only this time, instead of “Oceania is at war with Eastasia (sic),” we are told “Iran is David (sic); Israel is Goliath,” while the United States, ever the omniscient puppet master, is left conveniently backstage, sipping its habitual cocktail of oil, contracts, and self-righteousness.

“Let us begin with the metaphor. Mr. Azu, in a stroke of Biblical theatre, casts Iran as a Goliath of sorts, towering, terrifying, menacing, and poor little Israel as the shepherd boy of peace with nothing but a sling and a smile. Never mind that this “David” owns an arsenal of nuclear warheads and is bankrolled by the world’s most militarised empire.

“Never mind that this Goliath-sized David has, since 1948, bulldozed villages, murdered children, and claimed the role of eternal victim while hoarding some of the world’s most advanced weapons. It seems Mr. Azu mistook his ‘Testament’ for a press release from the Israeli Ministry of Defence.

“Had I not read the name, I might have thought this piece was penned by a clever intern at Lockheed Martin, fresh off a propaganda boot camp and eager to impress his line manager. But alas, it bears the name of a seasoned editor.

Even though I am not a philosopher, I’ve heard somewhere that lies can be mistaken for wisdom when repeated with sufficient polish, frequency, and decibels. Mr. Azu’s article does not merely repeat lies. It baptises them in footnotes and anecdotes and then dresses them in history. Thereafter, he sends them out to war on behalf of the criminal enterprise of Zionism.

“Now, let us speak of memory, the selective kind. Azu writes of October 7, 2023, as though history were born that morning. He forgets, or pretends to forget, that Netanyahu has been threatening Iran since ‘Fantalo, Garmaho and Sakadali’ were fashionable. He forgets the years of assassinations, sabotage, cyber-attacks, and open incitement. He forgets, like an old man with convenient amnesia, that this conflict was manufactured in laboratories of paranoia long before Hamas fired a single rocket.

“Azu wants us to believe that Hamas is a remote-controlled invention of Tehran, programmed to harass 'innocent' settlers. What he fails to mention, or perhaps deliberately buries under rhetorical debris, is that Israel itself initially nurtured Hamas to fracture Palestinian resistance. Yes, Israel midwifed its own Frankenstein, then turned to the world and screamed ‘monster’!”

“Let us not waste too much ink debating whether Iran is a saint or a sinner. That is not the point. The point is that Azu’s article presents a caricature, a reduction, a fairy tale where the villain wears a turban, and the hero rides an F-35. It is not a critique of policy. It is a bedtime story for geopolitical infants.

“And yet, Mr. Azu expects his readers to clap like trained seals. To swallow each sentence like sugar-coated arsenic. To believe, in 2025, that the same old tricks still fool the world. But alas, the internet has arrived. The children of this generation carry in their palms a library of resistance. The age of monopoly over meaning is over. The age in which we carry our transistor radios around, waiting for Western media outlets to dish out imperialist propagandaas world news, is over.

“It would serve Mr. Azu well to recall that journalism, like history, is not a mirror but a lamp. Its duty is not to reflect the faces but faeces of the powerful and illuminate the oppressed's footprints. Right now, the footprints are red, the trail is long, and the truth bleeds through the white noise of mainstream punditry.

“Let Mr. Azu, if he is so fond of metaphor, visit Gaza and bring back a sling. Let him visit Tel Aviv and count the silos. Let him read the nuclear declarations of Israel, if he can find them, for they are kept like family secrets in dynasties of denial.

“Until then, we the readers, armed with logic, reasoning, and the inquiry of philosophers, shall continue to ask uncomfortable questions, to deflate inflated narratives, and to demand that those who write for the public do so not with fear of favour, but with favour for the truth.

“Mr. Azu, you are not the journalist we thought you were.”

….. Laws of Human Stupidity

In a post on Premium Times, which also published the article, pharmacist, banker, and author, Olu Akanmu, referenced the “Five Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” by Carlo M. Cipolla, and wrote: “Good article by Azu. Iran has truly (surprisingly) been made to look so ordinary. It overrated itself and fails with its Hamas ally, the military maxim that war is not just about your attack, but whether you have the counterforce to neutralise what will be a counterattack to your attack. Can’t but relate Hamas to one of the quadrants of Cipolla’s law of stupidity.”

** Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book, Writing for Media and Monetising It.

Lisa Drayer

When you’re thirsty and in need of a drink, which beverages are best at keeping you hydrated?

Sure, you can always reach for a glass of water— but plain H20 isn’t the most hydrating beverage around, according to a study from Scotland’s St. Andrews University that compared the hydration responses of several different drinks.

The researchers found that while water — both still and sparkling — does a pretty good job of quickly hydrating the body, beverages with a little bit of sugar, fat or protein do an even better job of keeping us hydrated for longer.

The reason has to do with how our bodies respond to beverages, according to Ronald Maughan, a professor at St. Andrews’ School of Medicine and the study’s author. One factor is the volume of a given drink: The more you drink, the faster the drink empties from your stomach and gets absorbed into the bloodstream, where it can dilute the body’s fluids and hydrate you.

Milk is more hydrating than water

The other factor affecting how well a beverage hydrates relates to a drink’s nutrient composition. For example, milk was found to be even more hydrating than plain water because it contains the sugar lactose, some protein and some fat, all of which help to slow the emptying of fluid from the stomach and keep hydration happening over a longer period.

Milk also has sodium, which acts like a sponge and holds onto water in the body and results in less urine produced.

The same can be said for oral rehydration solutions that are used to treat diarrhea. Those contain small amounts of sugar, as well as sodium and potassium, which can also help promote water retention in the body.

“This study tells us much of what we already knew: Electrolytes — like sodium and potassium — contribute to better hydration, while calories in beverages result in slower gastric emptying and therefore slower release of urination,” said Melissa Majumdar, a registered dietitian, personal trainer and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics who was not involved in the study.

Sugar in moderation

But here’s where it gets tricky: Beverages with more concentrated sugars, such as fruit juices or colas, are not necessarily as hydrating as their lower-sugar cousins. They may spend a little more time in the stomach and empty more slowly compared to plain water, but once these beverages enter the small intestine their high concentration of sugars gets diluted during a physiological process called osmosis. This process in effect “pulls” water from the body into the small intestine to dilute the sugars these beverages contain. And technically, anything inside the intestine is outside your body.

Juice and soda are not only less hydrating, but offer extra sugars and calories that won’t fill us up as much as solid foods, explained Majumdar. If the choice is between soda and water for hydration, go with water every time. After all, our kidneys and liver depend on water to get rid of toxins in our bodies, and water also plays a key role in maintaining skin’s elasticity and suppleness. It’s the cheapest moisturizer you’ll find.

While staying hydrated is important — doing so keeps our joints lubricated, helps prevent infections, and carries nutrients to our cells — in most situations people don’t need to worry too much about how hydrating their beverages are.

“If you’re thirsty, your body will tell you to drink more,” Maughan said. But for athletes training seriously in warm conditions with high sweat losses, or for someone whose cognitive function may be negatively impacted by working long hours without beverage breaks, hydration becomes a critical issue.

Can beer and lattes keep me hydrated?

Alcohol acts as a diuretic, which causes you to pass more urine, so when it comes to alcoholic beverages hydration will depend on a beverage’s total volume. “Beer would result in less water loss than whiskey, because you are ingesting more fluid with beer,” Maughan said. “Strong alcoholic drinks will dehydrate, dilute alcoholic drinks will not.”

When it comes to coffee, how well your java hydrates you will depend on the amount of caffeine you consume. A regular coffee with about 80 milligrams of caffeine — roughtly what you would find in 12 oz. of Folgers’ house blend– would be pretty much as hydrating as water, according to Maughan’s research.

Consuming more than 300mg of caffeine, or about 2-4 cups of coffee, could cause you to lose excess fluid as the caffeine causes a mild, short-term diuretic effect. This is more likely to happen with someone who doesn’t typically consume caffeine, and it could be offset by adding a tablespoon or two of milk to your cup of joe.

CNN

Seventeen soldiers have been confirmed dead and at least ten others injured following coordinated attacks by armed terrorists on multiple military bases in northern Nigeria, marking one of the deadliest assaults on the country’s armed forces in recent times.

The attacks occurred on Tuesday in Niger and Kaduna States, targeting forward operating bases in Kwanar Dutse Mariga and Boka areas of Niger State, and another base in neighbouring Kaduna. Security sources described the assault as an ambush carried out with heavy ammunition by hundreds of armed fighters.

According to military and local sources, the fiercest attack took place at the Kwanar Dutse Mariga base, where all 17 fatalities were recorded. A local official, Abbas Kasuwar Garba, who chairs the Mariga district, confirmed that the soldiers were caught off-guard. “They came from nowhere and used heavy weapons to launch the attack,” said a Niger-based army officer.

The Nigerian Army has since broken its silence on the incident, offering more detail about the scale and nature of the assault. Lieutenant Colonel Appolonia Anele, the Army spokesperson, confirmed that over 300 terrorists attempted to infiltrate Bangi community in Mariga Local Government Area before being engaged in a joint ground and air operation by the Nigerian Army and Air Force.

“The operation, which was based on credible intelligence, led to troops engaging about 300 armed bandits in Kwanar Dutse Forest,” said Anele. “The firefight lasted over three hours, after which the Nigerian Air Force conducted precision airstrikes on their withdrawal routes, delivering accurate bombardments on identified terrorist positions.”

Though the exact number of terrorist casualties remains unconfirmed, the military reported multiple blood trails along the escape paths, suggesting substantial losses among the attackers.

Anele also confirmed that ten soldiers were injured and are currently receiving treatment at a military medical facility. “They are in stable condition,” she said.

Northern Nigeria, particularly Niger State, has become a hotspot of overlapping security crises, with both bandit groups and Islamist militants such as Boko Haram and Islamic State affiliates operating in the region. The attackers in this latest incident were reportedly fleeing intensified military bombardment in Zamfara State and seeking new safe havens when they clashed with the troops.

The Army has called on the public to support ongoing counter-terrorism operations by providing timely and actionable information.

Four travelers lost their lives when an explosive device detonated along a major highway in Borno State on Wednesday afternoon, according to local media reports.

The deadly blast occurred around 3:00pm on the Damboa-Maiduguri road, striking a passenger vehicle carrying an undetermined number of occupants. In addition to the four fatalities, several other passengers suffered injuries in the attack.

This incident marks the latest in a series of bomb attacks that have plagued the strategic highway. Just weeks earlier, a similar explosion on the same route claimed seven lives, highlighting the persistent security challenges facing the state.

The Damboa-Maiduguri road remains officially closed to civilian traffic due to safety concerns. Despite this restriction, travelers occasionally use the route under military protection, though Wednesday’s attack demonstrates the continued risks even with security escorts.

Security analysts note that insurgent groups frequently target this corridor, strategically placing explosive devices to deter civilian and military movement along what serves as a crucial transportation link in the state.

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has issued a grave warning to the Federal Government, declaring that Northern Nigeria is “bleeding” under the weight of unrelenting violence and that continued inaction amounts to “criminal negligence.”

The statement follows a horrific attack on June 20, in which over a dozen people were killed when a mob set fire to a bus carrying wedding guests traveling from Zaria, Kaduna State, to Quan Pan Local Government Area in Plateau State. Many of the victims suffered severe burns and injuries in what NEF described as a “brutal massacre.”

In a strongly worded statement released Tuesday by the forum’s spokesperson, Abubakar Jiddere, NEF condemned the attack as a reflection of Nigeria’s deepening security crisis and a collapse of leadership at the highest levels.

“This country is bleeding, and it is bleeding from the North,” the forum declared. “The obligation to protect life and restore order is not a favour the government grants — it is a constitutional imperative. Failure to act now is not just negligence. It is complicity.”

NEF described the targeted attack on innocent travellers as a “premeditated atrocity” and a “crime against humanity,” accusing the Nigerian state of failing its most basic duty: safeguarding human life.

The group painted a bleak picture of security across the region, highlighting widespread suffering:

• North-West: Villages are deserted, and communities are ravaged by mass abductions and killings.

• North-East: Terrorist attacks persist, with no end in sight.

• North-Central: Daily life is haunted by random killings and routine kidnappings.

“What was once sporadic unrest has now mutated into systemic terror,” the statement continued. “This terror thrives under the shadow of impunity and government inertia.”

NEF urged the federal government to act decisively and immediately, warning that failure to address the spiraling violence could lead to deeper instability and further erode citizens’ trust in governance.

“The cost of delay is paid in blood. The time to act is now,” the forum concluded.

President Bola Tinubu has dismissed recent moves by opposition leaders to form a coalition against his government, describing them as “politically displaced persons” desperate for relevance and shelter.

Speaking during a visit to Nasarawa State on Wednesday, where he commissioned a series of infrastructure projects undertaken by Governor Abdullahi Sule, Tinubu ridiculed the opposition’s early preparations for the 2027 general election.

“Those rushing into early politics and forming coalitions are nothing but political IDPs — internally displaced persons,” Tinubu said in a veiled jab at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai, who are reported to be behind the proposed coalition. “Don’t give them a home. The hope is here.”

Last week, the coalition group submitted a letter of intent to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking registration of a new political party, the All Democratic Alliance (ADA), aimed at challenging Tinubu’s re-election.

While stopping short of naming his critics directly, Tinubu warned that he would not stand by while opposition forces attempt to undermine his administration through premature political campaigns.

“I’m not one to sit quietly while some political gangsters try to destabilize the system,” he said. “They’re not forming a coalition to unseat me — they’re forming one to unseat themselves.”

The president also used the occasion to defend his administration’s performance, pointing to what he called measurable progress in economic reforms and public sector efficiency.

“We’ve cut down on waste and brought discipline to governance,” Tinubu said. “Yes, we are facing economic challenges, but I assure Nigerians — the hope is real, and from this moment, you will have no regrets.”

He praised Governor Sule for his development initiatives in Nasarawa and linked the state’s progress to the broader successes of his federal administration.

“Sule is delivering because Tinubu is delivering,” he declared.

Tinubu’s remarks come amid growing political maneuvering by opposition figures seeking to realign ahead of the next election cycle. While critics have accused his administration of economic hardship and insecurity, the president maintains that his reforms will yield long-term benefits and restore national prosperity.