Author: damazah@gmail.com

The campaign targets have been high profile.An oil terminal in St Petersburg was hit with drones ahead of Putin’s showpiece economic forum in the city in June. Then there were strikes on a refinery in Moscow itself, creating explosion videos that went viral.Now there’s a confirmed hit on an oil refinery in Omsk, Siberia, 2,500 km from Ukraine’s border. The drone must have flown undetected for many hours, which shows how stretched Russia’s own air defences actually are.Ukraine’s “influence” efforts also include Crimea, the peninsula which Putin seized in 2014 and which is deeply important to him personally.Ukrainian drones are…

The U.S. crashed out of the World Cup round of 16 on Monday, losing 4-1 to a spirited Belgium side in a match that was marred by controversy before kick-off. Belgium took an early lead in the 9th minute via Charles De Ketelaere, but the joint hosts equalized half an hour into the game, with Malik Tillman hammering home. But the stalemate only lasted for two minutes, with De Ketelaere scoring again to restore Belgium’s lead. The European side then notched up a third goal from Hans Vanaken just before the hour mark, before Romelu Lukaku wrapped up the victory with…

The United States of America recently turned 250 years old. What a spectacle! The fireworks were amazing, and millions of proud people celebrated across the nation — even around the world. France lit up the Eiffel Tower; Japan had fireworks. French fighter jets flew above New York City with trails of red, white, and blue — our first major ally streaking our shared colors through the sky. Meanwhile, shameful white nationalists paraded through our nation’s capital. This has always been a country of paradoxes.Our 250th birthday counts back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The declaration was a radical…

Keir Starmer will seek to work with European allies to shore up support for Nato at its summit in Ankara on Tuesday amid concerns that Donald Trump could further destabilise the military alliance with threats over defence spending.Downing Street said the prime minister and other international leaders would be focused on “building a stronger and more European Nato” as they attempt to address the US president’s concerns in the Turkish capital.The UK government has pushed back on pointed criticism from the US ambassador to Nato that “some allies are doing more than others”, with Trump expected to rebuke countries including…

In the last 50 years, Britain has lost an astonishing 73 million wild birds from its landscape, according to the British Trust for Ornithology. Habitat loss, pesticides, disease, cats and the climate crisis mean there are fewer birds than ever before. For children and young people it can be difficult to appreciate the scale of the loss due to a psychological phenomenon called ‘shifting baseline syndrome’, where each generation inherits a degraded version of the environment, and therefore doesn’t notice the overall decline. But Gen Z are bucking the trend. Thanks to social media and the Merlin Bird ID app,…

Folarin Balogun’s red card reprieve appeared to hinder rather than help his country as an out-of-sorts USA side were thrashed 4-1 by Belgium to end the co-hosts’ World Cup dreams.The PR circus following FIFA’s decision to suspend his red card and Donald Trump’s involvement in the supposedly independent process appeared to only galvanise the Americans’ opponents and overwhelm themselves as Belgium left their hosts sleepless in Seattle to set up a quarter-final tie with Spain. The Europeans were particularly dominant before half-time and could have been ahead inside a minute when Timothy Castagne forced Matt Freese into a full-stretch save,…

The Abbey Road Institute, a professional music production school attached to the legendary London studio, is set to open a new Los Angeles campus later this year.  The new outpost will be headed up by Rafa Sardina, the celebrated, Grammy-winning producer and engineer, who’s worked with D’Angelo, Lady Gaga, Plácido Domingo, Alejandro Sanz, Elvis Costello, Rosalía, Stevie Wonder, and many more. The L.A. campus of the Abbey Road Institute will open Oct. 26 and will be located within Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.  While Sunset Gower Studios is primarily known as one of Hollywood’s most storied film production lots, it…

The inclusion of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an agency the presidency claimed did not exist, in the 2026 Appropriation Act, has questioned the integrity of Nigeria’s annual budgets and has also shown that the level of corruption in the country has gone beyond the era of ghost workers syndrome to an era of “ghost” government agency, Ejiofor Alike reports Nigerians recently witnessed another drama, which further portrayed the country as unserious, with the discovery of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), a non-existent federal government agency in the 2026 Appropriation Act. The supposedly non-existent agency had operated from a…

The Education Ministry on Monday published, for the first time, an official director-general’s circular establishing a nationwide policy on the laying of tefillin (phylacteries) in state schools.The directive, formulated following a comprehensive professional review, is intended to replace the varying interpretations adopted by individual school principals, which in recent years have led to disputes and misunderstandings with students and parents.Under the new guidelines, principals of state schools will be required to allow students who wish to do so to lay tefillin on school grounds.To this end, each school is required to establish a clear internal policy to be incorporated into…

For Belgium, Monday’s 4-1 victory over the United States was doubly sweet. They advanced to the World Cup quarter-finals, as well as overcoming what they saw as injustice off the field.The buildup to the match had been tinged with controversy after Fifa had suspended the red card US striker Folarin Balogun was given in the last 32 against Bosnia and Herzegovina. That meant Balogun was free to play against Belgium instead of serving a one-match ban. When it emerged that Donald Trump had lobbied for Balogun’s red card to be overturned, Belgium – and other nations – were outraged: Uefa…