Author: damazah@gmail.com

On Tuesday morning, 12-year-old Sundus al-Hamamdeh left her home in the Masafer Yatta village of Khirbet al-Fakhit, and went to school.It was the third day of the new school year in the occupied West Bank.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listBut when the sixth-grade student at al-Fakhit Secondary School returned from her classes, the house she had left behind was gone.Israeli forces had carried out a large-scale demolition operation in Khirbet al-Fakhit, destroying homes, livestock shelters, water infrastructure, and solar-power installations.For al-Hamamdeh, her house was more than four walls and a roof. It was her safe space, the place…

Quantum computers remain highly vulnerable to errors and tiny disturbances from their surroundings. The longer a quantum operation takes to complete, the more time there is for those errors to build up. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now developed a method that can perform a broad range of advanced quantum operations more than a thousand times faster. The advance tackles a major obstacle in the field and could help move quantum computing closer to becoming fault-tolerant. Quantum computers could eventually transform areas such as drug discovery, energy technology, cryptography, artificial intelligence, and logistics. Before that can…

On a darkened rooftop in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officers outline the details of their work. These men tell us how they helped develop an AI mapping tool that trawled for phone signals and recommended apartment buildings in Gaza to bomb. Indirectly, they admit, they are responsible for thousands of deaths, but they never spoke up because that wasn’t their place. “My role is technical,” says one. “I’m just a small cog,” says another.NAZA – directed by the Israeli film-makers Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham and produced by the Guardian – is a chilling documentary about a mass slaughter that…

You could argue that photosynthesis, soil bacteria, chlorophyll and germination, by their nature, never go out of style. But somehow, as the news broke this week that Monty Don would step down from Gardeners’ World after 23 years behind the shovel, gardening is having a moment in the sun.On Saturday, New Balance will launch a pair of trainers alongside the jewellery designer Bleue Wickham-Burnham in a campaign fronted by Don himself, photographed shrinking into a bush with a pair of the trainers around his neck. In high fashion of late, the gardener Charlie McCormick became the face of JW Anderson’s…

Trump doubles down again on pledge of $5,000 payments to US adult citizens if GOP retains control of CongressDonald Trump has doubled down – again – on his pledge to give a “Trump dividend” of $5,000 to every US citizen if Republicans win November’s midterm elections.The promise has sparked incredulity and accusations of bribery, with a huge question mark still hanging over its legality – not to mention it comes at a time of extreme concern over the national debt, which exceeded $40tn for the first time last month.In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “When I say something,…

Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan has earned $75,000 (about N100m) after finishing second in the women’s 100m hurdles at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, Hungary. Amusan clocked 12.34 seconds in Friday’s final to finish behind American Olympic champion Masai Russell, who won in 12.22 seconds. Russell’s victory extended her remarkable 2026 season, having earlier broken Amusan’s world record in Zurich with a time of 12.09 seconds. Amusan’s runner-up finish earned her the second-highest prize available in the event, with the individual winner receiving $150,000. World Athletics has put up a record $10 million prize purse for the three-day championship.…

The arrest of a 27-year-old woman over a fake notice claiming that OPay would shut down its Nigerian operations has shifted attention from the viral rumour to the wider risks of misinformation in the country’s fast-growing digital payments industry. The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre said it traced the document to an X account allegedly operated by Hafsat Abubakar after receiving a petition from OPay Digital Services Limited. “On the 31st of August 2026, the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre, NCCC, received a formal petition from OPay Digital Services Limited through the office of the Deputy Inspector-General of…

The MRSA strain, called t016-ST22-MRSA-IV, has a unique pattern of antibiotic resistance; it could resist at least four drugs, including flucloxacillin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, and trimethoprim. Fortunately, there were others to which it was still susceptible, including clindamycin, tetracycline, fusidic acid, co-trimoxazole, and linezolid. MRSA most often plagues healthcare settings, but it’s also known to spread in communities, such as in this case. So-called community-associated MRSA is often linked to crowded settings where people have close contact, such as sports activities, daycares, and prisons. The outbreak reported here was not only the largest MRSA outbreak ever recorded in Ireland, it was…

Edwards, the Labour MP for Rochester and Strood, said: “Parliament has dropped the ball today. “It will be picked up again as it must be, because the law as it stands is simply too cruel and too unjust to be allowed to stand.”Those in favour of a change in the law have said they would try to bring forward legislation again, with Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who introduced the original bill, telling the BBC another attempt could come as soon as next year.Labour MPs Ashley Dalton, Dame Meg Hillier and Jess Asato, who all opposed what they described the…

Governor Dauda Lawal has distributed official vehicles to higher institutions to strengthen the capacity, efficiency, and effectiveness of Zamfara State’s education system. The distribution of the official vehicles was held on Friday at the Government House in Gusau, the state capital. A statement by the Governor’s Spokesperson, Sulaiman Bala Idris, said the vehicles are institutional assets and operational tools to support administration, supervision, accreditation, official engagements, and other legitimate responsibilities of the benefiting institutions. The statement noted that institutions and offices allocated brand-new vehicles are Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State University, Talata Mafara, and Abdu Gusau Polytechnic, Talata Mafara. Other…