Author: Lewis Russel

(Makurdi) In the late hours of Thursday, August 8, 2024, the world was watching the high drama of the Paris Olympics. American pundits were watching Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago Presser. But Akika Tsav, a farmer and resident of Ayati village in Central Nigeria, was watching his world fall apart. Leave Trail of 50 Dead in Benue State Tsav’s peaceful town of Ayati in Benue State, Nigeria, was again heading into mourning. Ayati, a tranquil precinct in Ukum County, Benue State, has been ravaged by wave after wave of jihadist terrorist attacks in recent years. Located 121 miles northeast of…

Au revoir Paris, Hola LA. In a nutshell, that was the just completed ceremony of the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad. It was Tom Cruise leaping off the rim of the Stade de France to take the Olympic flag from LA Mayor Karen Bass and Simone Biles. As the guitar riffs of H.E.R. filled the air, Cruise then exited on a motorbike to deliver the flag to a sunny West Coast. It was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Olympic fixture Snoop Dogg getting into the pre-recorded groove down in Long Beach. It wasn’t telling of the full scope of Los Angeles and no mention was made of Snoop’s…

Russia has reportedly lost a staggering amount of troops over the past 24 hours along with dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles as bloody fighting takes its toll on Vladimir Putin’s men. Russia lost a staggering 1,740 troops in a single day, the highest tally of casualties for Moscow since the start of the invasion in 2022, according to Ukraine. In the previous 24 hours, Ukraine also claimed Russia had lost 30 tanks and 42 armoured vehicles. Death toll and military hardware statistics are difficult to assess with both sides giving different or little information. However, Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed Russia has so far lost an eye-watering…

The head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency warned the country’s leading research universities on Thursday that foreign states are targeting their institutions and imperiling national security. “We know that our universities are being actively targeted by hostile actors and need to guard against the threat posed to frontier research in the most sensitive sectors,” said the deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, who also attended the briefing. The threat requires “further measures,” said the deputy PM, who announced that the government was launching a consultation with the sector so it could “do more to support our universities and put the right…

Ceasefire and divestment calls have spread beyond US campuses, with more expected as Rafah offensive begins. University campuses around the world have been the stage of a growing number of protests by students demanding academic institutions divest from companies supplying arms to Israel. The protests, which first spread across college campuses in the US, have reached universities in the UK, the rest of Europe, as well as Lebanon and India. The students say they are voicing their opposition to, what they describe as, their university’s “complicity” in Israel’s assault on Gaza that has killed more than 34,700 people. Israel said its military offensive was…

Panama’s trade and industry ministry has ordered First Quantum (TSX: FM) to end operations at its Cobre Panama copper mine, according to the company. The ministry sent Cobre Panama a formal advisory that it must “end extraction, processing, refining, transportation, export and sales activities” at the mine. The government order comes after Panama’s Supreme Court ruled last month that First Quantum’s contract to operate the mine was unconstitutional, following months of protests. Cobre Panama, in production since 2019, generated 112,734 tonnes of copper in the third quarter of 2023, contributing $930 million to First Quantum’s overall third-quarter revenue of $2.02 billion. The mine…

A Guatemalan accused of involvement in the killing three years ago of a French NGO director goes on trial Monday even as the motive for the murder remains unclear. Benoit Maria, the Guatemala director of the agriculture and animal health NGO Agronomes et Veterinaires Sans Frontieres (AVSF), was shot in an indigenous area in Guatemala’s northeast in August 2020. The NGO said at the time that Maria, 52, was killed in an ambush. He had lived in Guatemala for more than 20 years, supporting agricultural projects for the indigenous Mayan Ixil communities. The accused in the dock Monday in Quetzaltenango,…

The government of Belize has suspended ties with Israel amid what it terms the “unceasing indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza. Belize announced on Wednesday several measures including withdrawing its agreement for the accreditation of Israel’s Ambassador Designate to Belize. The government also said all activities conducted by Israel’s Honorary Consulate in Belize have been suspended including the appointment of the Honorary Consul. The country has also withdrawn its Honorary Consul in Tel Aviv while also withdrawing its request for accreditation of its Honorary Consul in that country. The government renewed its call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while giving unimpeded…

Toronto, Atlanta (28/11 – 20) A wise old expression intones “Behind every bad borrower is a bad lender”. Like many such cute, amusing aphorisms, it is accurate as far as it goes … but what if? What if a loan approval is held up, then granted, after a couple of phone calls from the office of the Vice President? What if the borrower is a crony or relative of Mr. Big, which is what practically bankrupted Indonesia, when the Soeharto vampire children took out multi-hundred-million-dollar “loans” (wink wink) for projects whose profit-making potential was near zero? What is the potential…

Today, students from Belize City high schools participated in empowerment workshops catered specifically towards males. The sessions were under the MENGage program, an initiative done through a collaboration with the National Parenting Taskforce, the Belize City Council, and UNICEF Belize. The program caters to a hundred male students between the ages of 13 and 18 years old and focuses on issues such as emotional intelligence and mental health. Michael Fritz, youth and Community Development Officer for the Belize City Council, explained how the program is linked to the upcoming celebration of International Men’s Day, being observed on November 19. Michael…