WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Europe to use frozen Russian profits to arm Ukraine, Scholz says

Ukraine's backers will use windfall profits on frozen Russian assets to finance arms purchases for Kyiv, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said following a meeting with his French and Polish counterparts aimed at showing unity after weeks of friction.

At a joint press conference in Berlin, Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, whose ammunition-starved troops face their toughest battles since the early days of Russia's invasion two years ago.

European support has become increasingly key as U.S. President Joe Bidenhas been unable to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress, and much of his foreign policy energy is focused on the war in Gaza.

Scholz said the leaders had agreed on the need to procure more weapons for Ukraine on the global market and to boost the production of military gear, including through cooperation with partners in Ukraine.

"We will use windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in Europe to financially support the purchase of weapons for Ukraine," Scholz said as he listed European Union efforts to increase support for Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called last month for the EU to consider using such profits to "jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine".

The Commission is expected to make a concrete proposal in the coming days.

Some EU member countries such as Hungary have signalled reservations about the idea, according to diplomats in Brussels. But Scholz's comments suggested he is confident that EU countries will ultimately approve the proposal.

Scholz said the leaders also agreed on the need for the Ukraine Defence Contact group - a U.S.-led group of some 50 countries that provide military support to Ukraine - to set up a coalition to provide long-distance artillery to Kyiv.

A proposal to set up a long-range missile coalition had already been agreed in Paris on Feb. 26. It was unclear whether Scholz' comments referred to this and how Germany, which has opposed sending its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, would participate.

Defence ministers from the contact group are set to meet early next week at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany.

Macron reiterated his warning that it was not just Ukrainian but European security at stake.

"We will do everything as necessary for as long as needed so that Russia cannot win this war," Macron said. "This determination is steadfast and implies our unity."

He added that the three leaders had agreed on the need to reinforce support for Moldova, which says Russia is trying to destabilize it through a "hybrid war".

He said the three leaders had agreed to never initiate an escalation with Russia, a possible way to downplay talk of sending Western ground troops to Ukraine, which has irked Germany.

FRICTION BETWEEN SCHOLZ, MACRON

The meeting of the so-called Weimar triangle - Germany, France and Poland - came after weeks of tensions, in particular between Scholz and Macron, that had alarmed officials in Kyiv and across the continent.

A hastily-arranged summit in Paris last month had aimed to give fresh impetus to stagnating Western efforts to help Ukraine repel a full-scale Russian invasion that has entered its third year.

Instead, Macron's refusal to rule out deploying Western troops to Ukraine triggered a dressing down from Scholz.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told Reuters that "indecision and uncoordinated action" among Kyiv's allies was leading to "grave consequences".

"Russia starts to get cocky and begins to believe that it can quantitatively squeeze Ukraine," he said. "Ukraine, in turn, is experiencing a severe shortage of specific resources, primarily shells, and is partially losing the initiative."

Tusk said the meeting on Friday showed "that some malicious rumours that there are differences between European capitals are very exaggerated".

Tusk, who is seeking to revitalize the Weimar Triangle after eight years of nationalist rule in Warsaw, said Macron and Scholz had accepted his invitation to meet again in early summer to present their next joint plans.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

‘We’re not at war with Russia,’ Scholz tells Macron

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced that countries that support Ukraine are not at war with Russia. The statement came as the leaders of Germany, France and Poland met in Berlin on Friday to show solidarity after their recent disagreement over military support for Kiev.

During a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the chancellor stated that the countries stand firmly behind Ukraine and that allied help would continue for “as long as it takes.”

“It is also clear that we are not at war with Russia,” Scholz added.

The statement follows simmering disagreements between Paris and Berlin over possible supply of long-range missiles and deployment of troops on the ground in Ukraine.

Scholz has thus far refused to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine in order to avoid further escalating a conflict with Russia. France, on the other hand, has been delivering SCALP-EG cruise missiles, which are already being used by Ukraine and are roughly equivalent to the Taurus.

Macron’s recent suggestion that the West “cannot exclude” the possibility of sending soldiers to aid Ukraine in its conflict with Russia has also drawn criticism from Germany and other NATO states.

The chancellor and the French president came together before the three-way talks on Friday to clear the air, after weeks in which the two very publicly disagreed over their Ukraine strategy.

Simmering disagreements between the two threatened to undermine cooperation between the allies.

Germany, France and Poland are among Ukraine’s key allies. Germany has become Ukraine’s second-biggest supplier of military aid after the US and is stepping up support this year.

Reuters/RT

Unless we rely on anarchy and total system collapse to push complete political Restructuring, we need a quorum of two thirds, 66%, of votes, but with only about four states being financially viable, it might be a tall order to expect financially dependent states to vote for true fiscal federalism. Therefore it might be wise to address the colonial foundations of the Nigeria economy that has skewed development towards only a few states. Nevertheless, low hanging fruits like State Police demands could be achieved, but things like true representative democracy whereby ethnicities are empowered to vote out states to join congruous states or form their own will require a quorum to push through constitutional amendments.

We tend to forget that Nigeria is a product of European economic imperialism. A business enterprise started by the Royal Niger Company in an Age of Mercantilism when governments used everything including military means to promote merchant business. Therefore before the formal amalgamation of the two existing civilizations - Indigenous African and Afro-Arabic, the European colonists built railways from the innermost hinterland to the seaports to divert the existing civilizational trade routes to a colonial trade route and economy.

The Northern Afro-Arabic civilization was added to the Southern Indigenous African civilization, because the British needed to export Northern resources and dump their colonial manufactures on them. If the French colonization had not been delayed on the River Niger, their plan was to link Hausaland, the most populous Sahel population, to the Senegambia coast by railway, like the Belgians also built a railway from the coast to the interior of the Kongo Basin.

Colonization was basically an economic progression from the slave plantation economics, when after the 1791 Haitian Revolution that they were overwhelmed in numbers, it became clear that they could not continue to import African to American slave plantations to plant crops like sugarcane, cotton, tobacco that had initially been copied from Africa. So their new African colonies were basically national plantation/mining economies designed solely for the benefit of the European colonists.

Political restructuring is necessary to correct the sociopolitical structures that were set up for the efficient exploitation of the people, especially through the overcentralized unitary governance. So, political restructuring must be designed with a focus on economic restructuring from a colonial economy to an integrated industrialized economy to economically empower the people, and not just the political classes seeking power.

Though fiscal federalism is advocated, it would be unfair to restructure to fiscal federalism in a colonial economy whose only financially viable parts were those designed for colonial interests. It is not a coincidence that the two most viable states, Lagos and Port Harcourt, are colonial trade rail terminals and seaports. Since the focus of the colonial economy was on cash crops and minerals only needed by the Western colonial powers, the huge interregional civilizational trade based on food crops and goods were not integrated by rail transport, therefore face huge wastages and low productivity.

It has been advocated that a form of a Marshallian Plan to economically build and integrate large parts of the nation that are down the ladder of the colonial economy. Rather than just pumping money into the states or regions to build their productive capacities, the federal government must lay a template of balanced development by linking and integrating the national economy through building three East-West railways - (Lagos-Calabar, Ilorin-Yola and Sokoto-Maiduguri) that will reintegrate the previous civilizational economics. This will effectively turn the railway designed colonial economy into a railway structured national economy.

Though in Africa, railways were used to establish the colonial economy, railway was the launchpad of industrialization in Europe and especially USA. Therefore not only the direction of railway and where it serves is important in the type of economy being built, also the focus has to be on the economic and industrial multiplier effects of the railway system. Like with USA, where the 1830 to 1850 railroad boom was inspired with the construction of a few main routes that spawned thousands of miles of feeder routes to access the cotton plantations, the three East-West civilizational Routes being advocated, with the two North-South colonial routes, state and private investment would build feeder routes to every nook and corner.

Most important is that the railway complex would bring about industrial multiplier effects as all tiers of gvovernment and private investors will develop iron and chemicals industries to cater for the maintenance of the rails and trains with 30,000 components. Not only would Railways open up agricultural zones, Railways have the highest multipler effects across the economy as every Naira invested or railway job created will create 20 times in investment and employment in other industries. Railways spur growth in logistics, freighting, distribution and other businesses. Agricultural production and supply will multiply a 1,000% due to reduction in spoilage.

Most important is industrialization multiplier effects since Nigerian agriculture already provides 38% of employment and 24% of national income, compared to the 1.6% combined income of Iron and Steel, Plastic and Rubber, Electrical and Electronics that railways and industrialization need to multiply tenfold.

Just like when you empower a dependent person with education and skills, once they start marking money, they want their independence and move out of the house, so would it be the states that will push for fiscal federalism when they are economically empowered to be independent through manufacturing and services.

** Faloye is the author of the Blackworld: Evolution to Revolution and other books, an Economist, media practicioner, cultural activist, President ASHE Foundation and Deputy Publicity Secretary Afenifere.

Ultra-processed foods are linked to 32 adverse health effects including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and Type 2 diabetes.

That's according to a large new study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that adds to growing research on the harms of foods that typically include five or more ingredients and several additives.

Common ultra-processed foods include ice cream, crisps, breakfast cereals, flavoured yoghurts, and biscuits, according to the British Heart Association.

An international team of researchers from Australia, the US, France and Ireland contributed to the umbrella review of 45 analyses that included a total population of 9.8 million participants.

“This is an important review giving us high-level recent data that calls for clear policy discussion and ultimately action to make it clear to the population what foods are ultra-processed and harmful to health," Amelia Lake, a professor of public health nutrition at Teesside University who was not involved in the study, said in a statement.

"This is a live and lively debate but we have strong knowledge around the harmful effects of diets high in fat, high in sugar, high in salt on our health.

“This is good quality research bringing together recent evidence (within 3 years), there are always issues around how dietary data is collected but the authors have reviewed the evidence and graded its quality," she added.

'Harmful to most if not all body systems'

In a linked editorial, Carlos Monteiro, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, wrote that the authors found "diets high in ultra-processed food may be harmful to most—perhaps all—body systems".

He added that these foods are not "merely modified" but often include "chemically manipulated cheap ingredients" such as modified starches, sugars and fats with little whole food.

"No reason exists to believe that humans can fully adapt to these products. The body may react to them as useless or harmful, so its systems may become impaired or damaged, depending on their vulnerability and the amount of ultra-processed food consumed," Monteiro added.

These foods are increasingly becoming part of diets globally, the authors said, making up more than half of daily caloric intake in the US and UK.

"We note the consistent trend linking ultra-processed foods to poor health outcomes is sufficient to warrant the development and evaluation of government-led policy and public health strategies aimed at targeting and reducing dietary exposure to ultra-processed foods," Melissa Lane, the lead author of the study from Deakin University, said in a social media post.

The researchers also assessed the credibility of the analyses' evidence.

They found that the strongest evidence revealed direct links between eating ultra-processed foods and a higher risk of death, cardiovascular disease-related mortality, mental health problems, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

They said that further randomised controlled trials are needed to determine causality, stating that there are several limitations to this type of overall review.

The inclusion of research with different methods of assessing diet for instance leads to "an inevitable measurement bias".

They also pointed out that some ultra-processed foods may present a higher risk than others, but said that overall these foods are consistently linked to a higher risk of chronic diseases.

Euronews

Esther Joseph said she went "almost mad" with anguish when her 13-year-old daughter Precious Sim was kidnapped from a northern Nigeria high school along with other students on July 5, 2021.

In the following days, she tried to go after the kidnappers in the surrounding forest, but soldiers - alerted by fellow community members - caught up with her and brought her back.

In the end, she sold her meagre possessions - including pots, fans and a television set - and enlisted the help of her brothers and in-laws, as well as local church members, to pay a ransom of 2 million naira ($1,256) and secure her daughter's release.

Precious, kidnapped from the Bethel Baptist High School of Maraban Damish in Kaduna State, came home after one month in captivity, Joseph told Reuters.

The 51-year-old street hawker said that she has not fully recovered yet from the ordeal, and her daughter still suffers from panic attacks.

"Sometimes she gets agitated when you turn the light on. She jerks up in her sleep and runs to hold me. Heavy sounds scare her," she said in an interview in the town of Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria.

Kidnappings at schools in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, were first carried out by jihadist group Boko Haram, which seized 276 students from a girls' school in Chibok in Borno State a decade ago. Some of the girls have never been released.

But the tactic has since been adopted by criminal gangs without ideological affiliation seeking ransom payments, with authorities seemingly powerless to stop them.

With Nigeria's economy and poverty levels worsening, abductions have become an almost daily occurrence in recent years.

On March 7, 286 students - some as young as eight - and school staff were kidnapped by gunmen in Kuriga, a town in Kaduna State. Local authorities told Reuters on Wednesday that the captors demanded a total ransom of 1 billion naira, or just over $620,000, for their release. On Monday night, around 60 people were abducted in Buda, in the same state, residents said - bringing the total of those kidnapped across the country in the first two weeks of March to nearly 750, according to Amnesty International.

"Kidnapping for ransom has eclipsed other motivations for abductions, especially political reasons," research firm SBM Intelligence said in a July 2023 report.

Speaking about last week's mass kidnapping in Kuriga, Information Minister Mohammed Idris said on Wednesday that the government position was that security forces should secure the hostages' release without "a dime" paid for ransom. Paying to free hostages has been a crime in Nigeria since 2022 and carries a jail sentence of at least 15 years.

The kidnappings are tearing apart families and communities who have to pool their savings to pay the ransoms, often forcing parents to sell their most prized possessions like land, cattle and grain to secure their children's release.

While Precious returned to school and is now studying international relations in her first year of university, many other kidnapping victims drop out after being released, fearing they might be abducted again.

At least 10.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria, the highest number in the world, according to the U.N. children's agency UNICEF. That is due to insecurity, including abductions and a long-running insurgency in the northeast.

Kidnappings are "a major driver of withdrawal of children from schools in northern Nigeria," said Isa Sanusi, director at Amnesty International in Nigeria.

"No parent wants to go through the horror of having children abducted by ruthless gunmen... On and off, schools are closed due to security concerns and the children end up missing out on education. Because girls are usually raped when abducted, many girls have been withdrawn from schools and married off at an early age."

GUNMEN ON MOTORBIKES

SBM Intelligence estimates that 7,000 people have been kidnapped throughout Nigeria since President Bola Tinubu took office in May.

Successive Nigerian governments have deployed soldiers and bombed suspected hideouts used by armed groups, mainly in Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina states.

But that has not stopped the kidnappings. Gunmen on motorbikes control large swathes of land. Schools in remote rural areas, often unfenced and with minimal, if any, security, are an easy target.

Sanusi said that it was difficult to get accurate figures for school kidnappings. He said that, according to Amnesty's findings, more than 780 children were abducted for ransom in 2021 alone. And as of 2022, more than 700 schools were closed in seven of Nigeria's 36 states.

"Some schools have reopened, while others remain indefinitely closed," Sanusi said.

Emmanuel Audu-Bature, a member of a vigilante group, remembered going to the bush with another vigilante to bring the ransom for his brother-in-law Treasure, 12, to his kidnappers.

"He was the only one left to be released and we had to take the ransom to the forest. In the process we were also kidnapped. After a week they released us, after we too paid a ransom," he said.

Treasure came back home a year later, he said. "We had already given up (hope). But there was this night when my mother-in-law called me and told me: 'Treasure is back'."

($1 = 1,592.9100 naira)

Reuters

Banks in Nigeria have been affected by a damage to submarine cables, causing internet outages in parts of Africa.

The submarine cable cuts, on Thursday, affected subsea cable providers and disrupted internet traffic in major parts of the continent.

According to reports, the damage affected major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, affecting submarine communications cables, including West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3.

The issue is said to be causing downtime across West and South African countries, affecting telecommunications network as well as banks in Nigeria.

In a notice to customers on Thursday, Sterling Bank apologised to customers over the effect of the network disruption affecting transactions.

“We are aware that you may be experiencing difficulties trying to transfer funds, reach our customer care team, or transact via USSD and genuinely apologize for the effect of this on your day,” Sterling Bank said.

“We are fully committed to providing the best service and are working tirelessly to resolve this issue. You have our promise to notify you as soon as it has been fixed.”

Speaking to our correspondent, Rasheed Bolarinwa, president, Association of Corporate and Marketing Communications Professionals of Banks in Nigeria (ACAMB), said the situation impacted connectivity across many banks.

“Yes, it did impact connectivity across substantial number, if not virtually all the Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria as banking operations were substantially affected for most parts of today,” Bolarinwa said.

Bolarinwa said substantial progress is being recorded in gradual resolution of the glitch.

MTN SERVICES AFFECTED BY DAMAGE

MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecommunications provider, also said its services in several West African countries have been disrupted.

In a statement on Thursday, the telco giant said the ongoing disconnection experienced by its customers is due to breaks in multiple major undersea cables.

On February 22, 2024, Bayobab, a pan-African digital connectivity, partnered with MTN Nigeria to land a 45,000km subsea cable in the country.

The cable known as ‘2Africa,’ has its landing station at Mopo-Onibeju Lekki area of Lagos and in Qua Iboe, Akwa Ibom.

2Africa is said to be the longest underwater cable in the world, passing through three continents and 33 countries, several of which are in Africa.

Speaking further, MTN said efforts are being made to resolve the disruption.

“Recognising the critical importance of consistent internet and communication services, we are fully committed to swiftly addressing these disruptions,” MTN said.

“To mitigate the impact on our customers in the affected countries, we are actively working to reroute traffic through alternative network paths and engaging with our consortium partners to expedite the repair process for the damaged cables.

“Leveraging our robust and resilient network infrastructure, we aim to minimise service interruptions and maintain connectivity.

“We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work diligently to resolve this situation.”

In another statement, MTN Nigeria said the network disruption is due to damage to international undersea cables across East and West Africa.

However, Glo 1, owned by Nigeria’s leading digital services company, Globacom, was not affected by the damage and has continued to operate normally. Data users, internet service providers and financial institutions which run on Glo 1 have continued to operate normally.

Industry analysts believe the sturdy nature and resilience of Glo 1 International Submarine Cable is the reason why the damage did not affect the cable.

The Cable

Northern Senators Forum (NSF) has named Abdulaziz Yar’Adua, senator representing Katsina central, as its new chair.

Yar’Adua took over the leadership of the forum following the resignation of Abdul Ningi, now suspended senator representing Bauchi central.

Ningi resigned from the position after the upper legislative chamber suspended him for three months for alleging that the 2024 budget was padded by N3 trillion.

In an acceptance speech on Thursday, Yar’Adua said he was humbled by the decision of the forum to name him as its chair.

The senator described Ningi as an “elder brother” whom he holds “in high esteem”.

“I wish to acknowledge and commend the decent outing and the contributions he made during his tenure,” Yar’Adua said.

“I am aware of the challenges facing the Northern region which include: security, agriculture, education, healthcare, drug abuse and human trafficking. Others are so numerous to mention

“The major objective of the Northern Forum is to promote the interest of Nigeria first followed by development of the North through collaboration with our distinguished colleagues from the South and cooperating with the executive arm of government to ensure that the challenges of the region are attended to.

“We shall therefore work in consultation with our distinguished colleagues to preserve the unity and progress of our dear nation.

“In advancing these noble objectives, I am committed to streamlined activities within the Northern Senators Forum. We shall operate with transparency, accountability, and integrity, upholding the trust placed on us by the electorate.

“Our legislative discourse will continue to be characterized by civility, dignity, and adherence to the rule of law as we fulfill our lawmaking, policy-making, and oversight functions.”

The younger brother of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua expressed confidence that collective efforts of the senators in the forum would lead to “positive change” in the north.

The Cable

Mohood Lekan Balogun, Alli Okunmade II, the Olubadan of Ibadanland, is dead.

The monarch, who ascended the throne of his ancestors two years ago, died at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State, on Thursday.

Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state who announced the king’s death in a statement Thursday night, described Balogun as an epitome of royal excellence and a great achiever, who made great marks on Ibadanland in just a little over two years of his reign.

He expressed his condolences to the Olubadan-in-Council, the Oyo State Traditional Council and the people of Ibadanland and Oyo State, praying to God to grant repose to the soul of the deceased monarch.

He said: “With total submission to the will of God, I announce the passing unto glory of our father, Mohood Lekan Balogun, Alli Okunmade II, the 42nd Olubadan of Ibadanland.

“A mighty Iroko has fallen; Balogun has joined the ancestors.

“In Kabiyesi, Ibadanland had a cosmopolitan and well-experienced Olubadan, who made indelible marks on the sands of history and achieved greatly within a short while.

“On behalf of the Government and good People of Oyo State, I condole with the immediate family of Balogun, the Olubadan-in-Council, the Oyo State Traditional Council and the people of Ibadanland. It is my prayer that God grants repose to the soul of our late monarch.”

Daily Trust

Israeli strikes kill at least 29 Gazans awaiting aid, say Palestinian officials

At least 29 Palestinians were killed while awaiting aid in two separate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said.

In the first incident, Palestinian health officials in the Hamas-ruled strip said eight people were killed in an airstrike on an aid distribution centre in Al-Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Later, at least 21 people were killed and more than 150 wounded by Israeli gunfire at a crowd awaiting aid trucks at a northern Gaza roundabout, Gaza's health ministry said.

In a statement, Israel's military denied attacking aid centres, describing the reports as "false."

"As the IDF assesses the incident with the thoroughness that it deserves, we urge the media to do the same and only rely on credible information," the statement said.

The Gaza conflict has displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million population. Chaotic scenes and deadly incidents have taken place during aid distributions as desperately hungry people scrambled for food.

On Feb. 29, Palestinian health authorities said Israeli forces shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery near Gaza City. Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.

In Deir Al-Balah, also in central Gaza, an Israeli missile hit a house on Thursday, killing nine people, Palestinian medics said. Residents said Israeli aerial and ground bombardments persisted overnight across the enclave, including in Rafah in the south, where over a million displaced people are sheltering.

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The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7 that left 1,200 people killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel's air, sea and ground assault on Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people and wounded over 71,500, according to Gaza health authorities.

Efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist militant Hamas have so far failed. While Israel said it sought a deal that would secure the release of hostages in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinians held by Israel, Hamas insists an agreement should end the war.

Late on Thursday, Hamas said it presented to mediators a comprehensive vision of a truce deal based on stopping what it calls Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, providing relief and aid, the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new Hamas position was based on "unrealistic demands."

With the war now in its sixth month, the U.N. has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one quarter of the population – are on the brink of famine and global pressure has been growing on Israel to allow more access.

Israel denies obstructing aid deliveries into Gaza. It has blamed failures by aid agencies for delays and accuses Hamas of diverting aid. Hamas denies this and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon in its military offensive.

A ship carrying aid was approaching Gaza where the U.S. military plans to set up a dock to enable distribution of up to two million meals a day.

While welcoming aid ships, Palestinian and U.N. officials say maritime deliveries are not a substitute for sending aid through land crossings.

Hamas on Thursday called for an escalation of protests and attacks against Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem on Friday, the first day of Friday prayers in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In a restaurant at a southern Israel junction, a soldier was stabbed on Thursday, Israeli police said. It said the suspected attacker, a 22-year-old from the nearby Bedouin city of Rahat, was shot and "neutralised".

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine official: two Russian border regions are now active combat zones

A senior Ukrainian intelligence official said on Thursday that armed groups he described as Russians opposed to the Kremlin were pressing an incursion into Russian territory and had turned two border regions into "active combat zones".

But the governor of one of the Russian regions hit by the attacks said, after a visit to villages in an area, that hostile troops were no longer there.

Three Ukraine-based groups issued statements saying they were pursuing armed operations in Belgorod and Kursk regions and asking residents to evacuate localities for their own safety.

"Kursk and Belgorod regions are now an area of active combat actions. This is what we confirm," Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for the GUR intelligence directorate, told national television.

"And as stated by the volunteers and rebels, we are talking about Russian citizens who, having no other options, are defending their civil right with arms against the Putin regime."

Vyachslav Gladkov, governor of Russia's Belgorod region, said in an account posted on Telegram that there were no Ukrainian forces in one of the areas that had come under attack.

"I can state that there are no Ukrainian troops on the territory of the region," he wrote in the account posted after midnight local time. "The fighting is taking place outside it."

But Gladkov said the village of Kozinka "was badly hit. The damage is very serious." Residents had been evacuated to places where they were now safe.

Gladkov earlier said that two people were killed and at least 20 injured in attacks by Ukrainian armed forces.

Russian military bloggers had earlier reported that Russian paratroops had been dispatched to Kozinka. Russia's Defence Ministry said it had foiled an attack by the Ukrainian army.

Kursk regional governor, Roman Starovoit, gave few details, but noted on Telegram that "Ukrainian terrorists have not stopped their attempts to bring saboteurs into our territory".

One of the three armed groups, the Freedom of Russia Legion, said on Telegram that in view of the "limited military operation" being conducted in the two regions, it was asking residents of certain towns to leave the area.

A second, the Siberian Battalion, said it had observed "a mood of panic in the town of Grayvoron -- next to Kozinka - with cars queuing to leave.

Two of the groups had reported launching a cross-border incursion earlier this week.

In the past, Russian officials have cast the groups as puppets of the Ukrainian military and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which Moscow says is trying to foment chaos in Russia.

The Freedom of Russia legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps have previously claimed responsibility for other cross-border raids into Russia from Ukraine.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian attempt to break into Russia thwarted

Ukraine lost up to 195 troops and a large assortment of materiel during a failed attempt to enter Russia's Belgorod Region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said in a daily briefing on Thursday.

The attackers had breached the Russian border and were moving towards the village of Spodaryushino, when they were struck by aviation and artillery. Kiev lost five tanks, four armored combat vehicles, three UR-77 mine-breaching vehicles and three military engineering vehicles, Moscow claimed.

Disturbing images circulating on Russian social media purport to show Ukrainian soldiers killed in action during the operation. According to the description in the post, Russia used a TOS rocket system against a group of Ukrainian troops. The multiple rocket launcher uses thermobaric munitions and is designed to attack military personnel in the field.

The Defense Ministry later released footage of attacks against Ukrainian forces, including a clip that appeared to show the same scene as one of the uncorroborated images. In it, some of the Ukrainian soldiers can be seen moving, but appear to be injured.

A separate exchange with Ukrainian forces was reported on Thursday by the governor of neighboring Kursk Region. No specific details about that engagement were immediately available, except that it happened near the border village of Tyotkino.

On Tuesday, three Kiev-backed militia formations armed with heavy weapons attempted to enter Kursk and Belgorod regions. In that assault, the Ukrainian side lost over 230 fighters, seven tanks, three Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and two armored personnel carriers, according to the Russian military.

Reuters/RT

The journey to Kuriga in southern Kaduna, North-west Nigeria, did not start with the kidnap of 287 students last week. In the early 1990s a neighbouring town, Zangon Kataf, was the boiling point. 

About a decade later, the beast of sectarian violence, which had reared its head in Kaduna, surfaced several hundreds of miles away in two major places that have become the epicentres of insurgency: Borno and Yobe States, both in the North-east.

Even though misery travelled southwards aided by Mohammed Yusuf, the itinerant extremist Muslim preacher in Yobe whose activities heightened the rise of extremism in the early 2000s, Yusuf did not entirely pave the way for the mass kidnap in Kuriga last week. 

The incompetence of the security services mixed with rampant poverty in parts of the North and the opportunism of the elite in the region helped in no small way to recruit the bands of misguided and rogue elements that have become a national plague.

That band, mixed with insurgents drifting southward from the Sahel, has been showing up as banditry in some areas, cattle rustling in other areas, and violent extremism elsewhere. In the process, hundreds have been killed, while Borno and Yobe have become Africa’s largest camps of internally displaced persons.

Kidnapping is the latest franchise. It shocked the world when over 200 girls were kidnapped from their school in Chibok and 58 boys killed inside their school dormitory in Buni Yadi, Yobe State. But since then, Amnesty International has documented 13 abductions in Nigerian schools. 

Within 10 days last week, over 500 persons, mostly children, were taken hostage in different states and in separate attacks on IDP camps and schools. 

Days after 200 persons were kidnapped from an IDP camp in Borno State, a school in Kaduna State was the next hunting ground. Two-hundred and eighty-seven students and pupils, with some staff, from the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) Primary School, Kuriga in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State were kidnapped during the school’s morning assembly. 

Politicians, who shed crocodile tears for a living, visit crime scenes like Kuriga twice in their lifetime. They visit unfailingly during election campaigns and then grudgingly – more for the camera – at a time of grief, like this. Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, for example, was in Kuriga on Thursday, shortly after the students were kidnapped. 

It was not a normal visit, like you would visit folks in your neigbourhood who had just suffered a loss. Kuriga or Birnin Gwari, another dangerous neighbouring town, has not been a normal place for years. Four years ago, for example, an NGO, WANEP, reported that 140 persons were abducted and 84 killed by bandits in Birnin Gwari. 

Governor Sani’s visit

Eyewitnesses said on his visit to Kuriga, Governor Sani was prepared as if he was going to a warfront. Only one print journalist and a few others from broadcast stations, chosen by the Government House, were embedded in the governor’s convoy on that trip. Which means with telecommunications cut off, reports from there are second- third- or perhaps, fourth-hand accounts.

Residents of Chikun Local Government, with an estimated population of 550,000, have tried to get used to living under terror. Left largely on their own without government or security, they have accepted the authority of bandits and terrorists. These criminal gangs extort money from residents from N70,000 to N100,000 to have access to their farms. Those in Kidandan, GaladimawaKerawa, Sabon Layi, Sabon Birni and Ruma whose names may not show on your Google map, are also affected.

Yet, these folks might even consider themselves lucky, if luck means paying through your nose to reach your farm. According to news reports, those in other local governments such as Igabi and Giwa, have abandoned their farms to terrorists. Other communities in Kaduna currently under siege are Kaura, Kajuru, and Zango Kataf.

Toll gates of Kuriga

Apart from tolling the farms for cash, illegal miners, using small fry, have also deployed their billing machines. They squeeze farm owners to give up their lands for peanuts, which they then mine for minerals. It’s a criminal enterprise that has been on for years. Like most criminal gangs, the ones in Kuriga have developed their own codes, fees, levies and commissions. 

The decision of these syndicates to turn from extorting farmers and stripping their lands of mineral deposits to kidnapping students for ransom is an indication that kidnapping is paying more. That’s not a surprise. The Africa Report quoted SBM Intelligence that gunmen kidnapped at least 3,620 people across Nigeria between July 2022 and June 2023, with a ransom demand totalling over N5billion. 

What is the government doing about it? And I’m not talking about the state alone; I’m also talking about politicians in Kaduna and Abuja elected to represent these communities. Where, for example, is Jesse David, who represents this distressed community in the State House of Assembly? 

And where is Shehu Balarabe, who represents Birnin Gwari/Gwari Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives? How did they find their way to their constituency during the election campaign but have lost their way back when their people need them most?

Where is the Federal Government, which controls the army, the air force, the police and the state services? How are kidnappers or bandits or terrorists able to mobilise and seize 287 students and teachers from their school in daylight in Kuriga, about 20 minutes’ drive from Birnin Gwari that is supposed to have a military base? 

Imagine, for a moment, the logistics involved in moving 287 persons, most of them children. From infographics published by LEADERSHIP the day after, it would take 144 motorcycles or 57 cars or 21 buses or five 4.8 Embraer-145 planes, to move that number of people.

Yet, for the umpteenth time since 2014, children were kidnapped in their numbers by bandits who still managed to plan, coordinate and execute this evil in an area supposedly cut-off from communications. How, for Christ’s sake, did that happen?

A trillion-naira industry?

Just as shocking for me has been the near total absence of outrage outside Kuriga. It’s this kind of eye-rolling, not-our-business kind of attitude that has brought us where we are: where what shocked the world 10 years ago in Chibok even spawning demonstrations and hashtags, appears incapable of moving the dial today, in spite of its scale and audacity.

Apart the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), and South Sudan, where the savagery of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led to 100,000 deaths, and the abductions of 60,000 to 100,000 children and the displacement of millions, only few countries have witnessed the scale of criminality that Nigeria has witnessed in what is supposed to be peace time.    

It reminds me of Mexico in 2014. That year, also the year of the Chibok Girls, 43 students were kidnapped by a drug cartel and years of agonising search yielded no clues. Until last year, when long after the students had been murdered, investigations revealed that government officials were employees of the cartel. 

According to the New York Times, text messages 

exchanged between the cartel and government officials even found that first responders on the crime scene were on the cartel’s payroll! Which partly explains why it took so long to unravel the crime.

It's heart-wrenching to think that even though we’re told that Kuriga and other affected parts have been cut off from communications, we still hear of the criminals asking for ransom and issuing threats! 

It may be far-fetched to assume official complicity in Kuriga. It’s foolish, however, to think that kidnapping became a trillion-naira industry without support from outside the gangs. Until we thoroughly investigate the kidnappers’ support system and expose and punish the kingpins, we’re wasting time. 

Who knows where this is going to happen next?

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP