Sudan's warring factions widen conflict across the country

Sudan's two-month long war is extending across the country with the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) clashing in several areas on Friday.

Air strikes and anti-aircraft missile fire hit overnight in the Omdurman and Khartoum, two of the three cities that make up Sudan's wider capital. But the war has in recent days heated up in cities to the west of the capital, in the fragile Darfur and Kordofan regions.

In Al Fashir, capital of North Darfur state, a fragile truce fell apart as the two forces clashed in residential areas.

And in El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan and a transport hub between Khartoum and Darfur, where the RSF maintains significant presence, the paramilitary force clashed with the heavily armed Central Reserve Police.

The worst fighting has been in West Darfur, where militias backed by the RSF razed areas of the city and forced a mass exodus, residents and human rights monitors said. The West Darfur city of El Geneina has been worst hit by repeated militia attacks.

The United States said on Thursday it had suspended talks which had so far presented the only forum for discussions between the two sides, though it only resulted in short, often-violated humanitarian ceasefire agreements.

In recent days, fighting had also picked up between the army and RSF in Nyala, capital of South Darfur and one of Sudan's largest cities. Clashes continued on Friday in the south of Nyala, and a resident said civilians were killed but could provide no further details.

A new front in the fighting is also threatening to open in South Kordofan, where the rebel SPLM-N controls some areas. The army earlier this week accused the force of violating a long-held ceasefire agreement.

The fighting has caused more than 2.5 million to be displaced, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled across the border, including to Chad and Egypt.

It has created a humanitarian crisis with NGOs struggling to provide much needed medical and food aid.

On Saturday, medical aid agency MSF said its operations have been hindered by both parties, including rejected travel permits.

"MSF supplies have been confiscated, while armed groups have looted our facilities and beaten and violently threatened staff," it said in a statement.

Reuters

This $1.6 million unique property in rural Washington, United States, doesn’t look like much from the outside, but its unassuming exterior conceals a stylish and cozy interior.

Most people would call you crazy for even considering spending over one and a half million dollars on four steel grain silos in Odessa, Washington, but these are not your average grain bins. As you can see in the pictures below, three of the four metallic silos are connected, which is unusual for this kind of structure, but that’s only because they make up a modern and spacious living space. The current occupant, a local hunter, reportedly spent $100,000 on the four old silos and then another $500,000 to convert them into this rather impressive summer home, which comes complete with a shooting range and freeze-proof pond.

“This property is perfect for outdoor enthusiasts, from the stocked pond and outdoor shooting range with targets UP to 1 mile, to the fully improved grain bins that make for an ideal entertainment venue,” the Zillow listing reads. “With a state-of-the-art security system equipped with cameras and a smart home management system in place, you can ensure your safety and peace of mind, wherever you are.”

The unique property originally went viral last month, when it was featured on Zillow Gone Wild, a Facebook page dedicated to the wildest, most unusual properties listed on the popular real-estate selling platform. Feedback has been mixed, with some people praising the owner’s originality, and others declaring it a hard pass.

“I actually like it!! Can you imagine how relaxing it would be to sleep here with the rain hitting the roof?” one Facebook user wrote.

“Ahh, yes. All the charm of an underground off-grid industrial bunker with none of the actual security or functionality,” someone else commented.

Located in Odessa, about 75 miles southwest of Spokane, the grain silo home sits on 386 acres of land and includes a bunch of automated features such as lights, heating and cooling, and surveillance cameras, all controlled through a smart-home app.

If you’re thinking to yourself ‘living in a bunch of metal grain silos can’t be very comfortable,’ you should know that a big part of the renovation involved adding a second metallic layer inside the silos and filling the space between them with insulating material to ensure that the temperatures remain bearable both in summer and winter.

According to the real-estate agency handling the property, the current owner doesn’t visit it too much these days, and they want someone else to enjoy it. The place was listed on Zillow back in April, for $1.6 million, and is still waiting for a buyer.

Oddity Central

There's a reason our perception of time changes as we age — but there are ways to make it feel slower.

For many people, 2022 went by in a blink ― doesn’t it feel like it was just January? But for others, especially children, last year’s holidays may seem like eons ago.

There’s a reason why you may feel like the years moved slowly when you were a kid, but zoom by now. Experts say our perception of time greatly changes as we age, which makes certain periods feel like they go by quickly.

“Our perception of days, weeks, years and that kind of time seems to be especially influenced by our perspective: Are we in the moment experiencing it, or are we looking backward on time?” said Cindy Lustig, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. 

She added that the perception of time is also influenced by memory and how much you’ve experienced. For an 8-year-old, a week is a big portion of their life. For an 80-year-old, a week is a much smaller portion of their life, which contributes to the feeling that it went by quickly.

Looking back on time plays into this feeling of acceleration

A day in the life of a retired 80-year-old may feel like it’s going by more slowly than that of an 8-year-old who is busy at school. However, when both people look back on a month or a year, that period of time will seem like it went by faster to the older person.

This is for a number of reasons. For the 80-year-old, their life probably doesn’t look too different than it did when they were 78 or 79, “so, in that case, they’re looking back on fewer events,” Lustig said. “When you’re looking back, the less rich your representation is, the more it’s going to seem like the time went by quickly.”

In other words, our brains lump time together when the days or weeks are similar. So for an 80-year-old who largely does the same thing every day, the year is going to blend together in their mind and feel like it went by quickly. 

The new and exciting things in a day are what make the days and months feel different, and thus set them apart in our minds. 

Changes to your routine can also affect how fast the years seem to go by

“Our brains are designed to record change,” said Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University and the author of the recent book “Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies.”

The many experiences young children have in a day (such as learning new things at school, going to ballet class or visiting a new friend’s house) contribute to the notion that time is more plentiful and more activities can fit into that time. Therefore, when looking back, time may feel slower.

This can apply to adults, too. When we look back on a time period that was filled with lots of new experiences, “we see [a] large expense of events and memories, and that makes it seem like time stretches out ... and it feels very long,” Lustig said. If you’re not introducing new patterns into your life, time can feel like it’s going by much quicker overall.

Some experts think that how our brain absorbs images impacts our perception of time

How we process what we see can also influence how we view time, Bejan said. Our brains are trained to receive many images when we are infants. Because we’re absorbing so many new images as kids, it may feel like months and years are longer.

As adults, “the brain receives fewer images than it was trained to receive when young,” Bejan said. Therefore, we feel like time went by more quickly. In other words, there are physiological factors at play that influence our perception of time ― namely, the older we get, the faster it feels.

While you can’t slow time, you can do things to feel like it’s moving a little slower

Bejan said many older people ask him how they can slow down time, “because everybody wants to live longer [and has] the urge to do more and better things with the time that is available.”

He said one way to do this is to experience things that are new and out of your usual regimen. 

This could mean picking up a childhood hobby (like dancing or violin), taking an overnight trip to a city you’ve never visited or signing up for a cooking class. Learning new things is another good way to make your time feel longer when you look back on your life, he said.

Bejan stressed the adage “variety is the spice of life”: you should get out of your routine and take advantage of the time you have, which will only help make you feel like your year had more time to fill, he said. 

Living a routine-only life makes the year fly really fast, he added.

Lustig noted that being fully engaged and “in the moment” can make those moments seem to last longer. In fact, laboratory studies show that mindfulness exercises can stretch our perception of time, she said. So don’t try to focus on multiple tasks at once. Instead, just focus on the experience at hand.

“None of us know how much time we have, but, interestingly, we do actually have a lot of control over how we experience that time,” Lustig said. “So I encourage everybody to make the most of the time that you’ve got.”

HuffPost

Nigeria's total public debt could rise to 37.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) this year, close to the government's self-imposed 40% limit, the country's Debt Management Office said on Thursday.

The debt office linked the projected rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio from 23.4% in September to new borrowing and a central bank loan-to-bond swap.

"The country's debt stock remains sustainable under these criteria, but the borrowing space has been reduced when compared to Nigeria's self-imposed debt limit of 40%," it said in a report.

Nigeria has said it aims to borrow 8.8 trillion naira ($11.81 billion) in 2023 to cover its budget deficit, and has swapped temporary overdrafts worth 23 trillion naira into long-term bonds this year.

The debt office estimates Nigeria's debt service-to-GDP ratio will reach 73.5% in 2023, exceeding a government limit of 50% due to low revenue collection.

President Bola Tinubu, who took office last month, is embarking on a reform agenda as he seeks to tackle the country's debt burden, low economic growth, double-digit inflation and mounting insecurity.

Nigeria expects restricted access to international capital markets in the near term after Moody's downgraded its credit in January, the debt office said, adding it would seek help from development finance institutions, export and international banks to bridge the gap in external financing.

Nigeria's total public debt was around $103 billion as of September.

($1 = 745.0000 naira)

Reuters

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says plans by the federal government to increase electricity tariff by 40 percent from July 1, 2023, is “insensitive and callous”.

On Monday, the federal government hinted at removing the N50 billion monthly electricity subsidy in the sector owing to the revenue shortfall.

The development is coming a few weeks after the removal of petrol subsidy which now has petrol retail prices skyrocketing.

Reacting to this in a statement issued on Thursday, Joe Ajaero, NLC president, condemned the intentions of the federal government, saying it reflected an organised indifference to the wellbeing of consumers.

“The massive increase is explained away as a response to the over 100 percent increase in the pump price of premium motor spirit. Details reveal a movement in inflation from 16.9 percent to 22.41 percent (threatening to needle 30), and a shift in the exchange rate from N441 to N750,” the statement reads.

“We believe not even these figures are a justification for this reckless proposed tariff increase. The issue of capacity to pay and quality of service delivery are not only germane but superior to any rationalisation by market logic. The service providers, in spite of sundry support, have not been able to meet the threshold of 5,000 megawatts.

“Coupled with this, there have been surreptitious increases without notice in violation of statutes. The inherent risk in the new regime of tariff is that there is no control, implying that by August, consumers will pay new rates.

“The other risk is that by the time other products or service-rendering entities come up with their new prices or rates, the ordinary person would have been compacted into dust. We would want to advise apostles of the market who have called NLC all sorts of names to check their conscience.

“The rate at which they are going is highly combative and combustible. With the contemplation of payment of school fees in tertiary institutions and increases in privately-owned ones in addition to other costs/tariffs on the way, life in Nigeria could truly be Hobbesian.

“The market economies which the market fundamentalists seek to emulate, have in place socio-economic safeguards which we do not have. In light of this, our advice is that this proposed tariff hike should be shelved for our collective safety.”

The Cable

About 80 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises fail before their fifth anniversary due to harsh economic environments, lack of access to capital, and poor business practices, which have stunted growth and transition of micro-businesses, a new report has said.

According to the report titled “Perception Study: Efficiency and Impact of Regulatory Activities of Standard Organisation of Nigeria on  SMEs”, numerous variables currently influence Nigeria’s economic climate and as a result, it is unfavourable and risky for foreign investments.

It further stated that there were obstacles in the Nigerian business environment that act as constraints to the survival of business in the nation, despite the economic expansion and the possibility for economic prospects.

It identified multiple taxations as a major constraint that has negatively impacted many businesses in the country.

The report read in part, “MAN (Manufacturers Association of Nigeria) has spoken out loudly that the Nigerian business environment is now under the oppressive weight of several taxes, which have the potential to bankrupt companies. In a recent survey, MAN discovered that only 39 of the 119 taxes and levies that were authorised under the taxes and levies (Approved list of collection) Act 1998 were really being levied by various levels of government across the three states.

“80 per cent of SMEs fail before their fifth anniversary due to harsh economic environments, lack of access to capital, and poor business practices, which have stunted the growth and transition of micro-businesses, according to the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria in Nigeria.”

The report listed additional difficulties such as the cost of accessing adequate technology, the lack of facilities for research and development, the decline in demand for locally produced products and the increase in demand for imported goods.

“Low formal educational and technical competency of SME owners and staff as well as weak organisational framework, product/service marketing, low information technology utilisation, people management issues, insufficient accounting records, among others, are some significant challenges facing SMEs in Nigeria,” the report read further.

Punch

A witness for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has told the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja that results on all 110 BVAS machines he inspected were deleted.

The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine is an electronic device distributed across the over 176,000 polling units in the country by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the accreditation of voters during the 2023 general elections.

The device was also designed to promptly upload photographic copies of result sheets to the INEC Results View (IReV) portal after result documentation at the polling units.

Atiku disputed the results of the presidential election declared by INEC. He also rejected the results because of INEC’s failure to promptly upload the polling unit results of the election to IReV.

In his petition that he filed at the Presidential Election Petition Court to challenge President Bola Tinubu’s victory, Atiku prayed that he be declared the winner instead. But he alternatively asked for an outright cancellation of the poll for a fresh one to be conducted.

Hitler Nwala, who was subpoenaed to testify as an expert witness for the petitioners, said he inspected and analysed 110 BVAS machines used for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) election.

The witness, led in evidence by the petitioner’s lead counsel, Chris Uche, described himself as a Digital Forensic Analyst.

He said his analysis of the BVAS showed that their results were deleted but that he didn’t know when the deletion was done.

Cross-examination

Under cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, the witness said that he attached a standard exercise device to the machine to arrive at his conclusion.

When asked if he had the authority of the commission to attach an external device to the BVAS machines, the witness answered in the affirmative.

Mahmoud further asked the witness if he was aware that inspecting only 110 machines out of 3,163 that were deployed in the FCT amounted to only 3.4 per cent of the total number of BVAS deployed in the FCT and 0.06 per cent of BVAS deployed nationwide.

The witness told the court that he only compiled the report and didn’t take time to calculate the percentages.

The INEC counsel attempted to give a BVAS machine to the witness to check if the results on them were deleted, as he had said in his report.

The witness, however, said that it would be against the ethics of his profession to collect the BVAS machine in open court to check it.

“It is professionally wrong to access a device that will be used as evidence in a court of competent jurisdiction because it will tamper with the evidence.

“We cannot access the device directly; what we do is extract the evidence and take it for analysis,” he said.

Moreover, the witness told the court that since all the devices had the same model and looked the same on the outside, he couldn’t tell by merely looking at it if it was one of those he inspected.

On his part, counsel for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi, told the witness that neither he nor his team members signed the six-volume forensic report.

The witness, however, insisted that he signed the report and the certificate of compliance.

On his part, counsel for Tinubu, Wole Olanipekun, confronted the witness with a portion of his report where he said that from his inspection of the machines, “nothing was intrinsically wrong with them”.

“Were you in Abuja on the day of the presidential election? If you were not in Abuja, how can you know that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the machines on the day of the election?” the senior lawyer asked.

The witness said he was not in Abuja, so he couldn’t have known if something went wrong with the machines on election day.

Exhibits tendered

After the witness was discharged, the petitioners went further to tender Forms EC8A series from 20 local government areas of Ogun State, 17 local government areas of Ondo State, 27 local government areas of Jigawa State, and 20 local government areas of Rivers State.

The five-member panel of the court led by Haruna Tsammani adjourned the hearing of the petition until Friday.

After the pre-hearing report, Atiku and the PDP are expected to close their case on Friday.

They had asked for three weeks to present their case, which elapsed on Tuesday, but because they had lost three days, one being the June 12 Democracy Day public holiday, the court extended their time by three days.

NAN

Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, on Thursday fielded more witnesses in aid of its petition at the Presidential Election Petition Court.

The petitioners are protesting the outcome of the last presidential elections wherein the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Bola Tinubu as the elected president.

Tinubu contested under the platform of the All Progressives Congress.

During the resumed hearing in the matter, Ugwuoke who was led in evidence by the petitioners’ counsel, Patrick Ikweato, insinuated that the Amazon Web Service could not have shut down as it was the responsibility of the service provider to be up and running.

The AWS was the web host of the INEC Results Viewing portal where the election results were to be uploaded.

Under cross-examination by counsel to the electoral commission, Abubakar Mahmoud, the witness averred that the AWS model has a shared responsibility model between the service provider and the clients.

He maintained that it is the responsibility of the company to guarantee the security of its customers.

Furthermore, Ugwuoke explained that there are three components of shared responsibility between the company and INEC – confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

The witness noted that “availability” remains the responsibility of AWS.

In his words, ”It means it will always be available. It won’t shut down. This is the responsibility of AWS. The cloud trail will explain the availability of AWS infrastructure.”

Under cross-examination by counsel for the APC, Lateef Fagbemi, the witness affirmed that there is a Service Level Agreement between the service provider (AWS) and clients (INEC).

He said the agreement contained details of security features.

The cyber security expert further informed the court that whereas election results ought to be domiciled on the INEC Results Viewing portal, what is seen in some uploads are “incorrect uploads such as a picture of a book rather than a result.”

He insisted that the chances of errors being detected after the deployment of an application are negligible.

However, he said such errors are more likely to be detected at the testing stage of an application.

Punch

Federation Account Allocation Committee says it shared N786.16bn among the three tiers of government for May 2023.

The figure represents an increase of N130.23bn compared to the N655.93bn shared in April 2023, and it is the highest this year and the first increase following a constant decline since January.

FAAC disclosed this in a communiqué issued at the end of its latest meeting in Abuja on Thursday.

The meeting was chaired by the new Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein.

The total amount includes gross statutory revenue, Value Added Tax, Augmentations from Forex and Non-oil Mineral Revenue, and electronic money transfer levies.

The communique read, “The N786.16bn total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N519.55bn, distributable Value Added Tax revenue of N251.61bn, Electronic Money Transfer Levy of N14.37bn, and Exchange Difference revenue of N0.64 bn.”

Federal Government received N301.89bn, the states received N265.88bn, and local government councils got N195.54bn, while the oil-producing states received N22.86bn as derivation (13 per cent of mineral revenue).

A breakdown showed that “Gross statutory revenue of N701.79bn was received for the month of May 2023. This was higher than the N497.46bn received in the previous month by N204.324bn.”

It was noted that from the N519.55bn distributable statutory revenue, the Federal Government got N261.69bn, State Governments received N132.73bn, and Local Government Councils received N102.33bn. N22.8bn was shared to the relevant States as 13 per cent derivation revenue.

Also, “For May 2023, the gross revenue available from the Value Added Tax was N270.2bn. This was higher than the N217.74bn available in April 2023 by N52.45bn.

“The Federal Government received N37.74bn, the State Governments received N125.80bn and the Local Government Councils received N88.06bn from the N251.61bn distributable Value Added Tax revenue.

“The N14.37bn Electronic Money Transfer Levy was shared as follows: Federal Government received N2.16bn, State Governments received N7.189bn and Local Government Councils received N5.03bn.

“From the N0.64bn Exchange Difference revenue, Federal Government received N0.31bn, State Governments received N0.16bn, Local Government Councils received N0.12bn and N0.06bn was shared to the relevant States as 13 per cent mineral revenue.”

Punch

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says Indomie noodles manufactured in Nigeria is safe for human consumption. 

The agency said the noodles do not contain ethylene oxide.

Health officials in Malaysia and Taiwan said they had detected ethylene oxide in Indomie’s special chicken flavour noodles.

Ethylene oxide is a colourless and odourless gas that is used to sterilise medical equipment and plastics. It is said to be a cancer-causing chemical.

Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC director-general, said the agency would begin random sample tests of the noodles from May 2.

Speaking with journalists on Thursday, the director-general said during the probe, samples of chicken flavoured instant noodles of various brands and the seasonings were drawn from the production facilities across the country.

She said the exercise was to ensure that the investigation was robust and cover other instant noodles brands manufactured in Nigeria, besides Indomie.

She said the agency also visited markets and retail outlets in the major cities of Lagos, Abuja, and Kano and drew samples of instant noodles for laboratory analysis.

“The market visits served as surveillance for the presence of the Taiwan and Malaysian special chicken noodles in the Nigerian market,” she said.

“The samples drawn from production facilities and trade were properly packaged and delivered in good condition to our central laboratory, Oshodi, Lagos, where analytical activities commenced immediately in accordance with international standards and methods of analysis.

“The technique using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detector was deployed.

“A total of 114 samples of instant noodles and the seasonings were received.

“We did not only analyze for ethylene oxide and its derivative 2-chloroethanol in the noodles and seasonings; we also analysed for other contaminants such as mycotoxins and heavy metals in the samples.

“Ethylene oxide or its derivative was not found in any of the instant noodles produced in Nigeria and their seasonings.

“The level of mycotoxin and the heavy metals were within the internationally acceptable limit. Therefore, the noodles made in Nigeria are very safe to eat.”

The Cable