Author: damazah@gmail.com

..PDP, ADC, others kick, say tariff outrageous, exorbitant By Ike Uchechukwu CALABAR — The Cross River State Signage and Advertisement Agency, CRISSAA, has fixed N150 million as the tariff for outdoor campaign advertisements by presidential candidates ahead of the 2027 general elections. Under the new tariff, governorship candidates are to pay N100 million, while senatorial, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly candidates are required to pay N50 million, N25 million and N5 million respectively. The Director-General of CRISSAA, Ubong Sam, disclosed this during an interactive session with the Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC, in Calabar. Sam also directed political…

An angling club has said a fish kill in a County Down river is the “worst environmental event” it has ever witnessed.The Department of Environment (Daera) said 5km of the Kilkeel River in the Mournes area was impacted and they are investigating the incident which took place last week.A spokesperson said trout, eels and lamprey were all confirmed dead.Kilkeel Angling Club said the scale of the destruction was “devastating”.Daera said “no active discharge was found” but “a definite line of enquiry is being followed regarding the source of the pollution”.They added the number of fish killed remains to be confirmed.Kilkeel…

By Enitan Abdultawab Former Super Falcons forward Francisca Ordega has attributed Nigeria’s failure to secure automatic qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup to inadequate preparation for the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. The Super Falcons’ hopes of defending their continental title ended in disappointing fashion after they suffered a 1-0 quarter-final defeat to Cameroon on Sunday, their earliest-ever exit from the WAFCON. Speaking to ESPN after the setback, Ordega was critical of the team’s preparation for the tournament, stressing that proper planning was essential given that World Cup qualification was at stake. “Of course not,” Ordega said…

WTSL, the Silver Lake-backed firm led by Patrick Whitesell, has made a strategic investment in Alex Cooper’s Unwell media company.  The exact figure was not disclosed, but the funding values the business, which includes Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast and other media, at $500 million. The plan is to use the investment to grow the company, including through acquisition.  “Trust has become the ultimate distribution channel and seventy million women a month tune-into Unwell,” Cooper said. “We’re scaling on all fronts, combining nimbleness, social-first premium content, and our understanding of culture to serve this highly influential audience. With WTSL’s backing,…

With 13 political parties fielding candidates for Saturday’s governorship election, the race for the Osun State Government House has entered its decisive phase. Across the state’s 30 local government areas, the candidates are criss-crossing communities, selling their records, programmes and political promises to voters ahead of the poll. Although 14 candidates were initially on the ballot, barely a week before the election, Adesina Adeyemi-Doro, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), withdrew from the contest and endorsed the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Oyebamiji. Mr Adeyemi-Doro will still be on the ballot despite his withdrawal. The contest…

If European states seize vessels with Russian cargo, Moscow will respond in kind ‘wherever necessary’, says Putin.Published On 12 Aug 202612 Aug 2026Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has threatened to seize European vessels if European states follow through on plans to seize more commercial ships with Russian cargo.Putin delivered the warning on Wednesday while on board a Russian cruiser off the Pacific island of Sakhalin, where Russia’s navy was conducting a drill. He said Russia would be ready to carry out its own seizures “wherever we deem it necessary and appropriate,” according to Russia’s TASS news agency.Recommended Stories list of 3…

Funmi Ogundare  Sara Foundation Africa has equipped 700 young Nigerian graduates with workplace-ready skills and referred 696 qualified participants into the candidate pool of the Nigerian Jubilee Fellows Programme (NJFP), following an intensive employability readiness initiative conducted in partnership with the Office of the Vice-President. The Founder, Sara Foundation Africa, Sarah Inem Kalu, disclosed that the initiative, delivered through its Graduate Journey Pathway (GJP), attracted more than 1,000 applications within one week, exceeding its initial target of preparing and referring 500 graduates for the Federal Government’s flagship graduate placement programme. The programme was implemented in collaboration with the Senior Special…

By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, yesterday opened applications for the second cohort of its Regulatory Sandbox Programme, introducing dedicated tracks for virtual assets and data-enabled financial services. Applications open today and close August 31, 2026, with the programme providing a controlled environment for innovators to test new financial products, services, business models and technologies under CBN supervision. The CBN, in a statement signed by Acting Director, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Department, Mrs. Hakama Sidi Ali, said the second cohort would operate under two tracks – the Virtual Asset Service Provider, VASP, Track and…

The AI jobs apocalypse never showed up. Still, jobs are changing and economists expect more to come.The prediction was stark: artificial intelligence advancements would wipe out jobs en masse. “Half” of all entry-level white collar jobs would vanish, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in May 2025. A month later, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, went further, foreseeing the end of “certain job categories”. Companies began citing AI in their layoffs. Workers organized. And students reconsidered their future careers.But a year later, the mass carnage hasn’t shown up. Continue reading…

The Cobra meeting will be attended by ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Home Office, and Department for Health, as well as the Environment Agency.A No 10 spokesperson said the government understood firefighters, farmers and NHS staff were all facing challenges connected to the weather.There has already been one Cobra meeting on heatwaves this year chaired by officials, but this will be the first such emergency session chaired by Burnham.In June, the government under previous prime minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that specialist firefighters would be positioned in key locations across England in response to wildfire…