Author: damazah@gmail.com

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan The Oyo/Osun Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service has intercepted 573 Nigeria Police Force crests, 92 yards of police camouflage uniform fabric, a pistol, six pistol magazines, a pump-action magazine and 60 detonating cords in its anti-smuggling operations in August 2026. The acting Customs Area Controller of the Command, Deputy Comptroller of Customs Wale Adewole, made the disclosure  yesterday in Ibadan while briefing journalists at the Command’s Operational Headquarters on the revenue performance and anti-smuggling activities of the command. He said the interception of the police-related materials was particularly concerning because of the potential security implications of…

Early voting begins in midterms as cost of living and Iran war loom largeGood morning, and welcome to our US politics live blog. The midterm elections are less than two months away, but some states begin early voting today, marking the start of a crucial stretch of campaigning for control of Congress.Virginia begins early in-person voting, while voters in Minnesota, Idaho and South Dakota can cast absentee ballots in person, as the campaign turns increasingly on the cost of living and the continuing war in Iran.The start of early voting comes at a time of deep angst among many US…

Aviation is always seen as a means of tourism development, as the fact resurfaced this week during the Akwaaba African Travel market, where experts highlighted the need for tourism growth and development, reports Chinedu Eze Aviation and tourism experts, early this week, converged at the 22nd Akwaaba African Travel Market, which ended on September 15, 2026 in Lagos, to deliberate on ways that will further develop the two sectors, which arguably provide the most jobs in many economies after agriculture. The key issues discussed at the meeting, were the promotion of enhanced intra-African travel, regional tourism integration, and domestic tourism…

Rika Antonova has been working in the field of robotics since 2015 and is currently an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge.Her research is focused on, external developing software and hardware that can aid robots to learn complex behaviour.Antonova works with a training system called MuJoCo, owned by Google’s DeepMind since 2021. It’s open-source software, which means researchers can use it for free, and are allowed to tinker with the code.”It is very, very user-friendly. So for research groups or for small start-ups, that’s useful,” she says.She says that Vsim’s approach…

The world’s poorest countries were worst hit by British aid cuts under Keir Starmer’s government, while higher-income countries saw their share of aid increase, new figures reveal.The latest figures released by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show a 6.7% decrease in funding to the least-developed countries and low-income countries, amounting to cuts of £118m.The UK’s overall Official Development Assistance budget in 2025 decreased to 0.44% of gross national income (GNI), compared with 0.5% in 2024, a drop of £987m. Further cuts are expected as part of the plans announced last year by Keir Starmer, who said money would be…

Susan Smith, who worked at Monsanto in Wrexham, said her happy memories of working there have been replaced with fears following the documentary. Susan and her husband Geraint’s home, which they have lived in for 53 years, is separated from the decommissioned Ruabon chemical works by a thin tree line. Geraint was diagnosed with prostate cancer 13 years ago before more recently developing skin cancer, while Susan developed breast cancer when she was 38.While they admit they are not certain that Monsanto was responsible, the documentary has made them question the possible impact of the factory on their family’s health.Susan…

‘I’ll deliver your message, with positive response,’ Jimoh Ibrahim assures Singaporean ambassador The President of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, has invited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to visit Singapore as the country seeks to strengthen its relationship and deepen cooperation with Nigeria. Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim, disclosed this in a statement by the Nigerian Mission House at the United Nations, New York. Ibrahim said Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Burhan Gafoor, visited the Nigerian Permanent Mission House, where he delivered a letter from President Shanmugaratnam inviting Tinubu to Singapore. Gafoor also congratulated Ibrahim on…

A 16-year-old gunman has shot two students dead and injured eight others at a Philippine high school, before killing himself.The two deceased victims were 14-year-old pupils at a school in Banga in the southern province of Mindanao, the local mayor told the BBC.Albert Palencia said four of the injured were in critical condition.The education department said in a statement it was “deeply concerned” by the reported incident which took place on Friday afternoon at Banga National High School.This is the third deadly school shooting in the Philippines since June this year.”Our immediate priority is the safety and well-being of our…

A family lawyer’s reflections on Nigeria’s plural matrimonial system The first time it dawned on me, fully, how complicated marriage is in Nigeria, I was sitting across from a quiet woman in her early forties. She had walked into my office clutching a wedding photograph, an invitation card from the early 1990s, and a bewildered expression. Her husband of twenty-six years had died. His family, gathered in their village for the funeral, had announced that she was not, in fact, his wife. There had been a customary ceremony, yes, but no bride price had been formally received by the elders.…

Cybersecurity researchers have hacked into OpenAI with the help of Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, in the latest example of security issues at the company.A team at a US-based startup compromised multiple OpenAI employees’ ChatGPT accounts, starting a process that enabled them to access their target’s software cache – and potentially more.“The scope of what we could theoretically access was huge,” said researchers at Hacktron AI.Initially, the research team used Claude, which can generate code for hackers, to access ChatGPT accounts via an OpenAI staff discussion forum hosted by the Discourse platform. They then made a harmless “pull request” – an attempt…