WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia attacks Kyiv with waves of drones, missiles

Waves of Russian drones and missiles struck districts across the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Tuesday, damaging an apartment building, sparking fires and injuring up to 16 people, city officials said.

Reuters witnesses said drones swarmed over the capital and they heard what appeared to be missiles overhead. An air raid alert remained in effect more than seven hours after it had been proclaimed.

Other parts of the country also came under attack, including areas outside the capital and the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where the regional governor reported at least four strikes.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that most of the 16 injured were in Solomianskyi district, near the city centre, where a drone damaged the top floor of an apartment building and other non-residential areas.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military administration, noted 12 strikes in five districts. Among the targets was a kindergarten in the city's eastern edge.

"The capital is coming under a combined attack," Tkachenko wrote. "The Russians are deploying missiles and strike drones. There are fires in different districts and emergency crews are at work."

Waves of drones had attacked Solomianskyi district, he said. "This is a very difficult night," he wrote, adding that there had been power cuts in some areas.

Both Ukraine and Russia have launched mass drone attacks in recent weeks as the two sides have held two sessions of direct talks on ending the more than three-year-old war. The talks have produced agreements on freeing prisoners of war and returning the bodies of fallen soldiers, but little more.

"More strikes by Russian drones on residential buildings in Kyiv," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram. "Russia is continuing its war on civilians."

Klitschko reported that a 62-year-old U.S. citizen had died in a dwelling opposite a site where medics were providing assistance. He gave no further details and it was not clear how the man had died.

In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian air defence units had repelled an attack on the city by two Ukrainian drones. The city's airports were briefly closed.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian forces strike Ukrainian army training center, air defense radars over past day

Russian forces struck a Ukrainian military-industrial enterprise, an army training center and air defense radars over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"Operational/tactical aircraft, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian groups of forces struck an enterprise of Ukraine’s military-industrial sector, a Ukrainian army training center, air defense radar stations, assembly and storage facilities and control posts of attack unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition, explosives and materiel depots, and also temporary deployment sites of Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries in 156 areas," the ministry said.

Kiev loses 1,320 troops in all frontline areas over past day - latest figures

The Ukrainian army lost roughly 1,320 troops in battles with Russian forces in all the frontline areas over the past 24 hours, according to the latest data on the special military operation in Ukraine released by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

The latest figures show that the Ukrainian army lost over 230 troops and eight armored combat vehicles in the responsibility area of Russia’s Battlegroup North, roughly 190 troops and a tank in the responsibility area of the Battlegroup West and more than 175 troops and two armored combat vehicles in the responsibility area of the Battlegroup South.

During the last 24-hour period, the Ukrainian army also lost roughly 490 troops and four armored combat vehicles in the responsibility area of Russia’s Battlegroup Center, over 175 troops and an armored combat vehicle in the responsibility area of the Battlegroup East and about 60 troops and two jamming stations in the responsibility area of the Battlegroup Dnepr, the latest figures suggest.

Reuters/Tass

In February, Afrobeats singer Tems won the Grammy for Best African Music Performance. Her achievement underscores the genre’s growing popularity, exemplified by more than 15 billion streams on Spotify. It is also part of a broader cultural renaissance, as Africa’s creative industries – from music and film to fashion – rapidly expand their global reach.

African culture’s rise to prominence could play a major role in the continent’s economic transformation, offering significant opportunities for a large and growing youth population. The creative industries are projected to account for 4% of Africa’s GDP and up to 10% of global creative exports by 2030, creating more than 20 million new jobs.

As I highlight in a new report, the growth of Africa’s creative industries is driven by two major forces: digitalization and demographic shifts. But to unlock the sector’s full economic potential, policymakers must make strategic investments and implement targeted reforms.

Digital innovation is rapidly reshaping Africa’s cultural landscape, creating new pathways to economic development. Increased access to emerging technologies is fueling the rise of digital payment platforms, while social media, streaming services, and online marketplaces are lowering entry barriers for creators and entrepreneurs. AI alone is projected to add nearly $1.5 trillion to the continent’s GDP by 2030, transforming how creative work is produced, distributed, and consumed. Between 2016 and 2022, Netflix invested $175 million in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, reflecting its confidence in Africa’s creative output.

Demographic shifts are equally transformative, as the rapid expansion of Africa’s middle class and consumer base is driving demand for locally produced creative goods. By 2060, the middle class is expected to comprise more than 40% of the continent’s population. At the same time, Africa’s youth population is projected to doubleby 2050, making it the only region in the world with a growing working-age population. In addition to expanding Africa’s domestic markets, this demographic dividend is poised to transform the global cultural landscape, with African creators playing an increasingly influential role.

African policymakers must harness this cultural momentum to advance economic, social, and development goals. Notably, creative industries tend to employ a higher proportion of young people than other parts of the economy. With an estimated 11 million young Africans expected to enter the workforce annually through 2030, targeted investment in these industries could be a highly effective strategy for addressing the continent’s youth unemployment problem.

In sectors like fashion, around 90% of micro, small, and medium-size enterprises operate informally. Formalizing these businesses could boost productivity, broaden access to finance, and foster long-term growth. A more structured creative economy could also advance gender equality, especially in countries like Ethiopia, where women comprise roughly 85-90% of the apparel workforce.

To be sure, significant obstacles must be overcome to realize the sector’s full potential. Africa currently accounts for just 1.5% of the global creative economy and 5% of the world’s cultural and creative-industry jobs, and the sector faces persistent funding gaps, chronic underinvestment, and weak regulatory frameworks. Many African governments allocate less than 1% of their national budgets to creative industries.

Intellectual property protections remain a key vulnerability as well, with UNESCO estimating that 50-75% of African film and audiovisual revenues are lost to piracy. To tackle this challenge, governments must bolster anti-piracy laws and improve enforcement mechanisms. The African Union’s Plan of Action on Cultural and Creative Industries is a step in the right direction, but its success will depend on coordinated national implementation, the development of clear IP guidelines, and more robust institutional capacity.

Alongside IP reform, African governments should adopt business-friendly policies tailored to the unique needs of African entrepreneurs and creators. Given the high levels of informality across the sector, these frameworks must be flexible and inclusive. A prime example is Morocco’s rebate system, which attracted international productions and helped the country’s film industry achieve record profits in 2023.

Access to funding is essential. The financial measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to aid the arts sector provide a useful model for how direct public investment can support creative industries. Strategic investment in digital infrastructure is also critical, especially for creative industries like fashion e-commerce.

National governments should also collaborate with regional and international funders. Encouragingly, the African Export-Import Bank announced last year that it would double its investment – to $2 billion over the next three years – in the Creative Africa Nexus initiative, which connects creative professionals and investors from across the continent.

More broadly, African governments must develop forward-looking policies that accelerate the growth of creative industries. By tapping into the talent, innovation, and entrepreneurial drive of Africa’s youth, the continent has the potential to position its creative economy as a global powerhouse, driving GDP growth, expanding cultural influence, and shaping a future defined by African-led prosperity.

Project Syndicate

MultiChoice Group is testing a weekly subscription model as the pay-TV giant grapples with the loss of 2.8 million subscribers across its African markets.

The company has been running a pilot program in Uganda for seven weeks, with plans to potentially roll out the flexible payment option to other markets within three to six months if results prove successful.

CEO Calvo Mawela explained the strategy during a recent interview with South Africa’s Sunday Times, emphasizing that the weekly model would better match customers’ income patterns in markets where many people earn money daily or weekly.

“This represents a significant shift in our approach,” Mawela said. “We believe that offering weekly passes will provide relief for customers facing financial pressure, similar to how prepaid services transformed the telecommunications sector.”

The company is also exploring modifications to its channel packaging, though Mawela ruled out complete à la carte selection. Instead, MultiChoice is considering a system where subscribers begin with a basic package and can add individual channels as desired.

These strategic changes come after MultiChoice reported substantial subscriber losses in its latest financial results for the year ending March 31, 2025. Nigeria bore the brunt of the exodus, losing approximately 1.4 million subscribers, largely attributed to repeated price increases. The most recent tariff hike of 21 percent has placed additional strain on customers already struggling with economic pressures.

The subscriber decline reflects broader challenges facing the pay-TV industry in Africa, where economic uncertainty and increased competition from streaming services have forced traditional broadcasters to reconsider their pricing and service models.

Trump vetoed Israeli plan to kill Iran's supreme leader, US officials say

President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday.

"Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we're not even talking about going after the political leadership," said one of the sources, a senior U.S. administration official.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said top U.S. officials have been in constant communications with Israeli officials in the days since Israel launched a massive attack on Iran in a bid to halt its nuclear program.

They said the Israelis reported that they had an opportunity to kill the top Iranian leader, but Trump waved them off of the plan.

The officials would not say whether Trump himself delivered the message. But Trump has been in frequent communications with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

When asked about Reuters report, Netanyahu, in an interview on Sunday with Fox News Channel's "Special Report With Bret Baier," said: "There's so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I'm not going to get into that."

"But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we'll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States," Netanyahu said.

Trump has been holding out hope for a resumption of U.S.-Iranian negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Talks that had been scheduled for Sunday in Oman were canceled as a result of the strikes.

Trump told Reuters on Friday that "we knew everything" about the Israeli strikes.

** Israel and Iran trade strikes for a third day and threaten more to come. Over 230 are reported dead

Israel and Iran traded more missile attacks Sunday despite calls for a halt to the fighting, with neither country backing down as their conflict raged for a third day.

Iran said Israel struck its oil refineries, killed the intelligence chief of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and hit population centers in intensive aerial attacks that raised the death toll in the country since Israel launched its major campaign Friday to 224 people. Health authorities also reported that 1,277 were wounded, without distinguishing between military officials and civilians.

Israel, which has aimed its missiles at Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program and military leadership, said Iran has fired over 270 missiles since Friday, 22 of which slipped through the country’s sophisticated multi-tiered air defenses and caused havoc in residential suburbs, killing 14 people and wounding 390 others.

Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, has said this attack — its most powerful ever against Iran — was to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon.

The latest round of talks between the U.S. and Iran on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program had been scheduled Sunday in Oman but were canceled after Israel’s attack.

Iran turns metro stations, mosques into bomb shelters

Claiming to operate almost freely in the skies over Iran, Israel said its attacks Sunday hit Iran’s Defense Ministry, missile launch sites and factories producing air defense components.

Iran also acknowledged Israel had killed three more of its top generals, including Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, the Revolutionary Guard intelligence chief.

But Israeli strikes have increasingly extended beyond Iranian military installations to hit government buildings including the Foreign Ministry and several energy facilities, Iranian authorities said, most recently sparking huge fires at the Shahran oil depot north of Tehran and a fuel tank south of the city.

Those new targets Sunday, coming after Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas field, raised the prospect of a broader assault on Iran’s heavily sanctioned energy industry that remains vital to the global economy and markets.

Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh and other Iranian diplomats shared photos of the Foreign Ministry’s offices and library laid to waste by flying shrapnel.

Iran’s state TV broadcast footage of a dust-covered man carrying a baby away from the ruins of a residential building and a woman covered in blood making panicked phone call from the site of an Israeli missile strike in downtown Tehran. The spokesperson for Iran’s Health Ministry, Hossein Kermanpour, said 90% of the 224 people killed were civilians.

The Washington-based rights advocacy group, called Human Rights Activists, reported a far higher death toll in Iran from Israeli strikes, saying the attacks have killed at least 406 people and wounded another 654. Iran routinely has undercounted casualties in recent crises, such as the 2022 mass demonstrations over mandatory hijab laws after the death of Mahsa Amini.

State TV reported that metro stations and mosques would be converted into bomb shelters beginning Sunday night. Tehran residents told of long lines at gas stations and cars backed up for hours as families fled the city.

Traffic police closed a number of roads outside the city to control congestion. Energy officials on state TV sought to reassure the jittery public there was no gasoline shortage despite the long lines.

Iranian state-linked media acknowledged explosions and fires stemming from an attack on an Iranian refueling aircraft in Mashhad deep in the country’s northeast. Israel described the attack on Mashhad as the farthest strike it has carried out in Iranian territory.

The death toll rises in Israel

Air raid sirens sounded across Jerusalem and major Israeli cities, sending Israelis scrambling to bomb shelters in the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv and the northern port city of Haifa.

The Israeli military reported that almost two dozen Iranian missiles had slipped through the vaunted Iron Dome aerial defense system and struck residential areas.

Early Sunday, Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service reported that at least six people, including a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, were killed when a missile smashed into a high-rise apartment in Bat Yam, a coastal city south of Tel Aviv.

Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven missing in Bat Yam. Residents appeared dazed, staggering through the rubble of their homes to retrieve personal belongings while rescuers sifted through twisted metal and shattered glass in their search for more bodies.

Another four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel, emergency authorities said, while a strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42 people.

The Weizmann Institute of Science, a center for military and other research also in Rehovot, reported “a number of hits to buildings on the campus” and said no one was harmed.

An oil refinery was damaged in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, the firm operating it said. Israel’s main international airport and airspace was closed for a third day.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said if Israeli strikes on Iran stop, then “our responses will also stop.”

Netanyahu says conflict could result in regime change in Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off urgent calls by world leaders to de-escalate.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he said regime change in Iran “could certainly be the result” of the conflict. He also claimed that Israeli intelligence indicated Iran intended to give nuclear weapons to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that it has not pursued a nuclear weapon since 2003.

But Iran has enriched ever-larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have the capacity to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive nuclear talks, said Washington remained committed to the negotiations and hoped the Iranians would return to the table.

The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate the Palestinian militant group Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where war still ragesafter Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.

‘Many months’ to repair nuclear facilities

In Iran, satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. The images captured Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility.

U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to be hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said.

Israel also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said four “critical buildings” were damaged, including an uranium-conversion facility. The IAEA said there was no sign of increased radiation at Natanz or Isfahan.

An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity Sunday in line with official procedures, said it would take “many months, maybe more” to restore the two sites.

Reuters/AP

Israel identifies second hostage whose body was recovered from Gaza last week

The Israeli military on Sunday identified the second of two hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza last week as Aviv Atzili, who was taken captive during Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Last Wednesday, the military said it had recovered two bodies of hostages and identified one of them as Yair Yaakov.

** Israeli military kills 41 people in Gaza, medics say

Israeli gunfire and airstrikes killed at least 41 Palestinians across Gaza on Sunday, local health authorities said, five of them near two aid sites operated by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Medics at Al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza Strip said at least three people were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire as they tried to approach a GHF site near the Netzarim corridor. Two others were killed en route to another aid site in Rafah in the south.

An airstrike killed seven other people in Beit Lahiya town north of the enclave, medics said. In Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 11 people in a house. The rest were killed in separate airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip, they added.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel partially lifted a near three-month total blockade. Scores of Palestinians have been killed in near-daily mass shootings trying to reach the food.

The GHF said in a statement that it resumed food deliveries on Sunday, distributing more than two million meals from its three distribution sites without incident.

The United Nations rejects the new Israeli-backed distribution system as inadequate, dangerous, and a violation of humanitarian impartiality principles.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, said that this week it had facilitated the entry of 292 trucks with humanitarian aid from the United Nations and the international community, including food and flour, into Gaza.

It said the Israeli military would continue to permit the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave while ensuring it did not reach Hamas. Hamas denies Israeli accusations that it steals aid and says Israel is using hunger as a weapon against the Gaza population.

The Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday that at least 300 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,600 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza.

"These are not humanitarian aid, these are traps for the poor and the hungry under the watch of occupation planes," said Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the health ministry.

"Aid distributed under fire isn't aid, it is humiliation," Bursh posted on X on Sunday.

The war in Gaza erupted 20 months ago after Hamas-led militants raided Israel and took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on October 7, 2023, Israel's single deadliest day.

Israel's military campaign since has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people. Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian air attack damaged Boeing offices in Ukraine, FT reports

A building used by Boeing in Kyiv was badly damaged in a recent large-scale Russian air attack, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing six people familiar with the matter and photographs seen by the newspaper.

Russia launched air attacks on Kyiv early last week, using 315 drones and seven missiles in strikes that also hit other parts of the country, Ukraine's Air Force said on Tuesday.

Boeing's building was among the targets hit on Sunday night, the newspaper reported, citing two Boeing employees, three Ukrainian officials and the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.

Despite the damage to its building in Kyiv, there had been "no operational disruption", Andriy Koryagin, deputy general director of Boeing's operation in Ukraine, told the newspaper.

Another official Boeing spokesperson declined to comment to the Financial Times on the attack, except to say that the U.S. plane maker prioritises the safety and security of its employees, none of whom were harmed during the bombardment.

Boeing employs more than 1,000 people across Ukraine, according to the report.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian drone attack deep inside Russia kills one – governor

Ukrainian drone attack in the Republic of Tatarstan in central Russia has resulted in one fatality and multiple injuries, according to the head of the region, Rustam Minnikhanov.

“During the interception of the UAV, debris struck a checkpoint building at an automotive plant in the Yelabuga district, killing a worker. Thirteen people were injured in total, with one in critical condition,” Minnikhanov stated in a Telegram post on Sunday.

The crash triggered a fire at the scene, which was quickly extinguished.

In recent months, Ukrainian forces have intensified drone strikes, targeting both border regions and deeper within Russia. National air defense systems routinely intercept dozens or even hundreds of hostile drones per day, although falling debris continues to pose risks to civilians and infrastructure.

Ukraine has intensified its drone raids since mid-May, when a meeting of negotiators from the two countries took place in Istanbul, marking the first direct talks between Kiev and Moscow since 2022. The attacks peaked during the final week of May, when 2,300 UAVs were shot down, according to the Russian MOD.

Reuters/RT

When he opened the All Nigerian Judges Conference in February 2003, then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Lawal Uwais, who died on June 6, 2025, six days short of his 89th birthday, lamentedthe fact that state chief judges in Nigeria “go begging for funds from their governors”; a practice pioneered by the military. It was part of a wider complaint about the historical legacies of judicial corrosion inherited from military rule. It also reflected the values of a man for whom judicial integrity was a way of life, and an independent judiciary was a constitutional mandate of the highest salience. 

In 1976, Mohammed Lawal Uwais secured a loan from the Nigerian Building Society to enable him build a modest home in Kaduna for his mother, Hajiya Hajara. At that point, Uwais had worked as a judge of the high court for over four years, including a stint as acting chief justice of the north-central (later Kaduna) state. Yet he had only one bank account with Union Bank.

Nearly thirty years later, entering his tenth year as Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Uwais’ office as CJN suffered what looked like a mysterious burglary. The chambers of the chief justice is a sanctuary inside the Supreme Court of Nigeria from where the CJN presides over the judicial shrine. It is one of the most protected spaces in the country. The idea of a burglary on that office is so ordinarily implausible as to make the provenance of such an act easily predicted. 

The burglary coincided rather conveniently with a period of intense judicialisation of the political antipathy between then vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, and his principal, Olusegun Obasanjo, over the latter’s attempt to succeed himself by lifting constitutional term limits that he had sworn to preserve and protect. That political conflict spawned a succession of high-profile cases which ended up at the supreme court, resulting in decisions that constrained the caprice of the president. Entirely characteristic of CJN Uwais, the court, in case after case, handed President Obasanjo a judicial shellacking with neither flash nor flourish.

It later turned out that the convenient burglar appeared to have been desperate to find non-existent material with which to dent the record of an uncompromising CJN and probably afflict him with indelible ignominy. Instead, all that they could find were records indicating that the man had maintained the same bank account for over four decades and with impeccable integrity.

Few would have predicted this turn of events in the relationship between Uwais and the man who preferred him to the supreme court as a sprightly 43-year-old in August 1979. On 11 August 1979, the country had voted in a contentious presidential ballot in preparation for return to civil rule after 13 years and nine months of bloody military rule. Five days later, on 16 August, the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) announced Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) the winner.

The previous day, on 15 August, army general and departing military ruler, Olusegun Obasanjo, appointed two new Justices of the Supreme Court. One was a pharmacist-turned-lawyer and Attorney-General of the Federation, Augustine Nnamani. The other was something of a judicial prodigy, Mohammed Uwais. The following week, Obasanjo also appointed a new CJN in Atanda Fatayi Williams was to oversee the adjudication of the dispute over the 1979 election. 

As attorney-general of the federation, Nnamani had authored the Electoral Act at the centre of the presidential election dispute. That precluded him from sitting on the dispute and catapulted Uwais onto the bench that would ultimately decide the destination of the presidency in 1979.

For Uwais, this guaranteed that his supreme court career would begin at the very deep end. It was a new high in a career that was destined for the very top. He had the good fortune of being born in Zaria, home to some of the most elite schools in the country.

The son of a railway worker from Zaria, Abdullahi Uwaisu and his wife, Hajara, Mohammed Lawal Uwais, was bereaved of his biological father at the age of six in December 1942. When his mother remarried two years later to a headteacher, Mohammed Jumare, Mohammed Uwais acquired a stepfather who inspired his educational pursuits under the watchful eyes of a doting mother. His high school education was at the elite Barewa College, where he was junior to Yakubu Gowon and in the same class and good friends with Gowon’s nemesis, Murtala Mohammed.

A graduate of the Institute of Administration at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Uwais did his vocational legal training at the Inns of Court in London before becoming part of the pioneer set of lawyers graduated by the Nigerian Law School in 1963. 

After his admission to the Nigerian Bar, Uwais returned to his civil service career, this time in the Ministry of Justice, first of the Northern Region, and then of the North Central (later Kaduna) State. Mohammed Bello, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) under whom he worked as State Counsel, became his colleague at the Supreme Court and immediate predecessor in the office of CJN. In the Ministry of Justice of the North Central State, he became Solicitor General and Permanent Secretary in 1971. 

The following year, under the government of his high school senior, Yakubu Gowon, Uwais was appointed Acting Judge of the High Court of the North Eastern State. He was only 36.

In 1975, when his high school mate, Murtala Mohammed, emerged as military ruler after overthrowing Gowon, Uwais was offered the office of Chief Justice of the North Central State but turned it down in favour of a more senior serving expatriate judge, A.W.E. Wheeler. When the military established the Court of Appeal the following year, Wheeler preferred him from Kaduna State to the bench of the new court at 40. When he got to the supreme court three years later, Uwais was only 43. He went on to serve as Justice of the Supreme Court for 27 years, setting a record of apex court durability that is unlikely to be threatened.

When Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999 after another 15 unbroken years of military rule, Uwais had already been in office as the eighth indigenous CJN for four years. He was well-placed to stabilize the judiciary through the teething years of institutional adaptation. 

Uwais spent 11 of his 27 Supreme Court years as CJN, making him the second longest in that office after Adetokunbo Ademola, the first indigenous Chief Justice, who logged a record 14 years in that office until 1972. He instituted and oversaw rigorous standards of judicial discipline and performance. A mere four years into civil rule, by the beginning of 2004, over 20 judicial officers had been relieved of their positions for judicial malfeasance. Under him, the Nigerian judiciary was voted “Man of the Year” in 2005.

Two years after his retirement as CJN, Uwais came out of retirement to head a blue-ribbon panel on electoral reform in Nigeria. His characteristically thoughtful report continues to suffer neglect to the detriment of democratic sustainability in the country. 

Uwais was quietly uncompromising on judicial integrity. In a profound set of interviews with Princeton University in 2009, CJN Uwais underscored the need to eliminate bribery, corruption, nepotism and political interference within the judicial systems. A committed institutionalist with a peerless recall on the evolution of Nigeria’s judiciary, Uwais declined to write any memoirs.

The father of a very senior lawyer and husband to a wife both capable and experienced as a lawyer, Uwais did not nominate any members of his family to the bench. Many of his successors in the office of CJN, who served for less than a fraction of his tenure, were compulsive nepotists in favour of family members with less than marginal qualification or ability.

Current CJN, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, paid tribute at his death to the capacity of Mohammed Uwais to “lead without pretence, and to mentor without fanfare.” He made his earthly exit on Friday, 6 June 2025, entirely in keeping with how he lived his life – without fanfare.

** A professor of law, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Renee Onque

An 87-year-long Harvard study found that social fitness — maintaining your personal relationships and keeping them in good shape — was the No. 1 thing the happiest, longest-living people have in common.

"Invest in relationships, invest in connections and invest in the things you find meaningful," Dr. Robert Waldinger, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, said during an interview at the New York Times Well Festival.

"If you're doing more of that, you're more likely to be happy more of the time. You won't be happy all the time. But happiness is likely to find you more often."

To prove that pouring into your connections doesn't have to be a heavy lift, Waldinger offered up a simple way that the audience at the festival could receive a "dopamine hit" and connect with someone in their lives immediately.

"When I talk about investing in relationships, most people think, 'You know, I am so busy. I have so much going on in my life. How do I make time for this?'"

Here's how you can improve a relationship that you value in just three steps:

1. Take out your phone.
2. Think of somebody who you haven't seen in some time or that you'd like to connect with more.
3. Send that person a text or email, saying, "Hi, I was just thinking about you, and I wanted to connect."

"One of the things we found about people who were what we call socially fit is that they did these small things over and over again. You know, daily, multiple times a day," Waldinger said.

During their commute, they'd call someone, or they'd schedule their workouts at the gym with a friend, he explained. They found ways to intertwine the repetitive tasks in their daily life with social connection.

"When people did that, they stayed more current with more people in their lives. And that built this bedrock of social wellbeing."

CNBC

Israel says missile launched from Yemen fell in Hebron; at least 5 Palestinians hurt

The Israeli military said on Friday a missile that was launched from Yemen towards Israel fell to earth inside the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, adding that no interceptors were involved.

At least five Palestinians, including three children, sustained injuries from the missile's sharpnel that fell in Hebron, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in a later statement.

The incident occurred amid an ongoing Israeli military campaign targeting nuclear sites in Iran that wiped out that country's entire top echelon of military commanders and also killed nuclear scientists.

Yemen's Houthis, who usually claim responsibility for missiles launched towards Israel from Yemen, are allied to Iran.

Reuters