Author: damazah@gmail.com

The Central Bank of The Gambia ordered all commercial banks operating in the country to dismiss non-Gambian employees. In a letter dated 19 September, the central bank asked commercial banks to phase out non-citizens who are not on approved expatriate quotas by the end of the year. The letter, signed by the bank’s Second Deputy Governor, Ousman Mendy, was addressed to managing directors of all banks operating in the country, including Nigerian subsidiaries such as First Bank, Zenith, Access, Eco, and the Guaranty Trust Bank. The regulator also directed that the non-citizens dismissed should be replaced with qualified Gambians. It…

Meta is renewing its quest to make virtual reality a thing. At its Connect event on Wednesday, the company announced Meta VR Glasses, its newest entry into the VR market, which will be available next spring starting at $1,299.99. These glasses actually seem quite promising, thanks to a substantially lighter form factor and a host of new entertainment integrations — including (allegedly) IMAX compatibility. Moments before unveiling them, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reminded the audience that the company had decided awhile ago to shift its focus away from the Metaverse and build fewer VR devices until it had real breakthroughs.…

Strikes carried out in southeastern province of Khost cause no casualties, governor’s office says.Published On 24 Sep 202624 Sep 2026Pakistan says it has carried out air strikes on 10 locations in Afghanistan used to store and launch drones, some of which were used in cross-border attacks.The air strikes on Thursday were carried out as tensions grow between the former allies over attacks by armed groups in Pakistan, which triggered their worst fighting in years in February.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listIslamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters who stage cross-border attacks, but Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies harbouring anti-Pakistani armed…

Madeleine Finlay sits down with her co-host and Guardian science editor, Ian Sample, to discuss three science stories from the week, including a study that offers a clue in the age-old debate about whether sex differences are present from birth or a product of socialisation. Also on the agenda is the super El Niño, which is predicted to lead to 450,000 deaths in the next six months, and an answer to why the UK’s meningitis outbreak earlier this year was so big.

The moon is an impostor. Swimming backstroke beneath its surface, I look up at craggy hollows in close relief. White rock undulates in all directions, a forest of peaks rising next to a desert of craters. Every time I trick myself into thinking I’m somewhere celestial, the sound of children splashing brings me back to earth.This is no lunar landscape but Helsinki’s underground swimming hall, excavated from granite bedrock and officially opened in 1993. These days, Itäkeskus uimahalli is one of the Finnish capital’s most visited leisure facilities, welcoming 400,000 people a year. Local people mingle with tourists, I will…

Meta is building a dedicated hardware device for its new Muse AI agent. The product, called Muse Charm, was briefly shown off by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the end of tonight’s Meta Connect presentation. It looks almost like a chunky smartwatch without the strap — just a big screen, plus a little lanyard for carrying the device around.The Muse Charm has a fingerprint sensor on the top right corner that you can press to activate and begin speaking to the agent. There appears to be a small camera on the device as well, plus what looks like at least…

The UK is losing out on annual exports to the EU that could be worth as much as £6.5bn without a deal with Brussels that allows manufacturers to jettison duplicate product testing.In the latest attempt to calculate the loss of trade with the EU after Brexit, the IPPR thinktank said many companies have given up selling goods to the EU or set up subsidiaries inside the trade bloc after successive governments failed to secure a mutual recognition agreement that would avoid the extra administration costs.The thinktank estimated that the absence of such a deal may have cost UK exporters between…

Credit: Peter Greenwood/FolioIn the past three decades, the field of regenerative medicine has advanced rapidly, driven by breakthroughs in areas such as cell therapy, in which specific cell types are transferred into a patient to treat or prevent disease, and tissue engineering, which uses various methods to grow or repair damaged human tissues.Nature Index 2026 Regenerative medicineInduced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can be turned into any cell type in the body, are being used to develop potential treatments for conditions such as autoimmune diseases, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure. As highlighted in a feature article, clinical trials using stem-cell…

At this time of year, baked tomatoes stuffed with rice and surrounded by a packing-chip sea of potatoes are typical all over central and southern Italy, and in many other places besides. So much so that when I see a tray of those wrinkled red caps in a bakery or canteen-like tavola calda (literally, “hot table”), it doesn’t cross my mind that the hollowed-out tomatoes underneath might be filled with something other than rice. It was only when the woman behind the counter was wrapping my two portions of cannelloni and four slices of margherita pizza that another person’s order…

The AI amulet has become a bit of a cliché in the tech industry — devices like Friend have turned the idea of physical AI into little more than an exercise in eye-rolling for many consumers. But that hasn’t stopped Meta from jumping into the arena with its own AI wearable, called Muse Charm, which is designed to give consumers another way to stay connected to its recently launched, and already popular, personal AI agent, Muse. The device, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a “one more thing” moment during the company’s annual Connect event, isn’t ready to ship just…