Author: damazah@gmail.com

Late last week, federal authorities issued a stern warning saying “malicious cyber actors” were targeting water and wastewater facilities in at least seven states across the US. Minnesota appeared to be the hardest hit with 30 of its water systems hit by cyber-attacks, leading to disruptions in the state’s water supply.The problems ranged from low-pressure water flow in people’s homes to some utilities announcing boil-water notices. But there have been no reports of drinking water contamination.“These threat actors are targeting water entities of all sizes,” the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement last Thursday.The agency…

Bioengineering can produce tools for use in cutting-edge cell therapies, among other applications.Credit: Philippe Lopez/AFP via GettyEurope is losing ground in one of the most innovation-intensive sectors in biomedicine and health care: bioengineering1. Many advances in biomedicine are technologically driven, for example, the use of artificial intelligence to predict protein structures and rapid genome sequencing for precision medicine.Bioengineering produces technologies that aim to solve medical problems, by merging methods from mathematics, computation, engineering and biomedicine. Many countries, including the United States1, China, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, understand the power of such research. Yet, the European Union has still not…

Athletes from Nigeria arrive at the opening ceremony of the 23rd Commonwealth Games at the OVO Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, on July 23, 2026. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) By Enitan Abdultawab President Bola Tinubu has congratulated Team Nigeria on its impressive performance at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, where the country secured 24 medals, pledging continued investment in sports development. In a statement issued on Tuesday by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the President described Nigeria’s haul of 10 gold, seven silver and seven bronze medals as proof of the athletes’ resilience,…

Paramount CEO David Ellison said he believes the antitrust litigation filed by 12 states and the Writers Guild of America isn’t about market share but about “whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN.” Ellison, in an op-ed published by the New York Times Tuesday, noted, “There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions.” He reiterated his pledge that CNN would remain independent under a merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery and that its journalists “will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause.”…

Sunbeth Global Concepts Limited has received investment grade national scale credit ratings from two SEC-regulated African credit rating agencies, Agusto & Co. and Intelligence Africa, reinforcing confidence in the company’s financial strength, operational performance and long-term growth strategy.Agusto & Co., Nigeria’s foremost indigenous credit rating agency, regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, assigned Sunbeth an A2 Short-term and Bbb long-term rating. In a separate first-time assessment dated 9 July 2026, Intelligence Africa assigned Sunbeth a BBB+.NG national scale long-term issuer credit rating and an A2 Short-term rating; with a Stable Outlook. According to the agency, the rating reflects Sunbeth’s…

Vanessa Obioha For over two decades, Akinmade Akinrinmade has worked across various industries where decisions have real consequences. From government and healthcare to telecommunications, higher education and startups, he has helped organisations rethink how they solve problems, design products and embrace technology. His career has taken him from Nigeria to Canada, where he has led digital transformation projects for organisations across North America while maintaining a growing interest in Africa’s technology ecosystem. Along the way, one belief has remained constant: technology is only as useful as the problem it is designed to solve. At a time when African startups are…

Bello Abdullahi, the elder brother of abducted chairman of Bungudu Local Government in Zamfara State, Nura Abdullahi, has died from gunshot wounds sustained during a bandit attack. ​On 25 July, bandits raided the chairman’s residence in Bungudu town, abducting him along with two other residents. ​The deceased, a former treasurer in the State Ministry of Finance, was among the residents who rushed to the chairman’s house to assist during the attack. He sustained critical gunshot injuries during the raid. ​Jamilu Bungudu, a media aide to Abdulmalik Zubairu, the federal lawmaker representing the Bungudu/Maru Constituency, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that Mr…

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja  Despite meeting its Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria fell significantly below its budget crude oil production target in the first half of 2026, leaving the country with an estimated output deficit of 38.4 million barrels and a potential gross revenue gap of about $2.49 billion. A THISDAY analysis of data released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) during the period indicated that total liquids production, comprising crude oil and condensates, averaged 1.626 million barrels per day (bpd) between January and June, compared with the budget benchmark of 1.84 million bpd. The figures…

On a sunny July day in Riga, Latvia, a Nato convoy drives down a street lined with kebab shops and a pharmacy. At a downtown intersection, there is the sound of an explosion and the lead tank bursts into flame.These are real streets in Riga – Lāčplēša iela and the downtown corridor of Tērbatas iela. The kebab shops and the pharmacy are on them. The pedestrians who flee after the tank explodes and huddle at a distance are modelled after the population of Riga: some old, some young, some friendly to Nato, others less so.But the entire thing is a…

When Professor Joash Amupitan arrived in Osun State last week, it was not for a routine inspection. Rather, he came carrying a question that has followed him since he was sworn in as INEC Chairman: can a man appointed by a sitting president remain genuinely neutral when that president’s party is on the ballot? Amupitan was appointed by President Bola Tinubu, a fact his critics have never allowed him to forget. For them, the appointment itself is the first line of a story that ends in compromised elections. He has spent his tenure pushing back against that narrative, and the…