U.S Offers Further Air Support To Afghan Troops Amid Taliban Offensive

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July 25, 2021

Ethiopia’s Amhara region on Sunday called on “all young people” to take up arms against forces from the neighbouring region of Tigray, who claimed to have taken over a town in Amhara for the first time since the conflict began.

The call for mass mobilisation came as a spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the party that controls Tigray, said they had taken the town of Adi Arkay in Amhara.

The spokesperson, Getachew Reda, told Reuters in a text message that TPLF had taken over the town but offered no more detail.

Spokespeople for the prime minister, Ethiopian military, a government taskforce on Tigray and did not return calls seeking comment.

The spokesperson for the Amhara region said he was not authorised to comment on the matter.

War erupted between the Ethiopian military and the TPLF in November. Three weeks later, the government declared victory when it captured Tigray’s capital Mekelle, but the TPLF kept fighting. At the end of June, the TPLF seized back control of Mekelle and most of Tigray after government soldiers withdrew.

In recent days Tigrayan forces pushed into Afar, the neighbouring region to the east, where they said they planned to target troops from the Amhara region fighting alongside the federal military in the area.

Tigrayan forces have also pushed south and have said they will push west in an effort to restore their region’s pre-war boundaries. Western Tigray is currently controlled by Amhara forces, who say the land rightfully belongs to them.

Protests Across Tunisia Target Ennahda Party Over Political Crisis

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July 25, 2021

Police and protesters clashed in several Tunisian cities on Sunday as demonstrators demanding the government step down attacked offices of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that is the biggest in parliament.

Witnesses said protesters stormed or tried to storm Ennahda offices in Monastir, Sfax, El Kef and Sousse, while in Touzeur they set fire to the party’s local headquarters.

The violence came as hundreds of protesters rallied in each of the main cities after a reported spike in COVID-19 cases that has aggravated economic troubles and exposed the failings of a squabbling political class.

The protests, the biggest in Tunisia for months and the biggest to target Ennahda for years, were called by social media activists. No political parties publicly backed the rallies.

In Tunis, police used pepper spray against protesters who threw stones and shouted slogans demanding that Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi quit and parliament be dissolved. There were other big protests in Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid and Nabeul.

The protests raise pressure on a fragile government that is enmeshed in a political struggle with President Kais Saied, as the government tries to avert a looming fiscal crisis amid a weeks-long spike in COVID-19 cases and increased death rates.

The pandemic has hammered the economy which was already struggling in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution that ousted long-time authoritarian leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Public support for democracy has waned amid surging unemployment and crumbling state services.

Mozambique President Says Army Gaining Ground In Insurgency-Hit Region

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July 25, 2021

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi says troops fighting the Islamic State-linked insurgency in its northern province of Cabo Delgado were gaining ground and the enemy was retreating.

Nyusi was addressing the nation on the crisis that was triggered when the insurgents in March attacked the coastal town of Palma, near natural gas projects worth $60 billion that are meant to transform Mozambique’s economy.

He said the insurgency has caused total paralysis in mineral activity, agriculture and infrastructure development in the region.

Nigerian Bandits Abduct Negotiator Over Ransom To Free Students

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July 25, 2021

Armed bandits in Nigeria have seized a negotiator who had been sent to pay ransom money to secure the release of 136 students kidnapped two months ago from an Islamic school in the north of the African nation.

Abubakar Alhassan, director of the Islamic school, said the school and parents have been negotiating with the kidnappers who demanded 30 million naira to release the students from the school in Nigeria’s Niger state.

Alhassan said the school had contributed to a ransom and some parents sold property to raise cash but they said the negotiator, a 60-year-old man from the community, was taken because kidnappers said the ransom he brought was short.

Armed groups have been blamed for a series of raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 1,000 students for ransom since December.

The government has said it would not pay any ransom. President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered security forces to search for the students.

Ibrahim Salihu, father of two of the children abducted by the school in Niger state said they sold most of their properties and used their savings to see their children are returned but after all the effort, they said they did not bring the money as they required.

Kidnappings in Nigeria began with abductions by jihadist group Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province. Now criminal gangs have used the tactic.

Kidnappers released 28 students seized from another school on Sunday, but kept hold of 81 other students.

Gymnastics: Nigeria Misses Out On Quarter-Finals Spot At Olympics

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July 25, 2021

Nigeria’s Uche Eke missed the chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals in the gymnastics event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Saturday.

Competing in the men’s all round artistic gymnastics event, Eke placed 36th with a score of 74.765 which was not enough for a place in the last eight.

The 24-year-old was Nigeria’s sole representative at the on-going Tokyo Olympics.

Earlier on Saturday, Esther Toko could not make it to the quarter-finals in the women’s single repechage 2 in the rowing event, after placing fourth with a time of 9:07.54.

Although, Toko misses out on chances of a medal, she qualifies for the semi-final EF round which will determine her overall ranking in the event.

Also, in the women’s singles in table tennis event, veteran Funke Oshonaike lost 4-1 to Juan Liu of USA in the preliminary stage.

UNICEF Partners Nigeria Govt., 20 Million Youth To Benefit

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July 25, 2021

The Federal Government of Nigeria is set to partner with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) to empower 20 million Nigerian youth by 2030.

The initiative tagged: “Generation Unlimited” and is to be inaugurated on Monday in Abuja, is targeted at 20 million persons between the ages of 10 and 24 out of the nation’s 65 million young people.

Peter Hawkins, the Country Representative of UNICEF in Nigeria, said this in an interview in Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital on Sunday.

According to him, the initiative is also being replicated in many other countries with 1.8 billion young people targeted around the World.

With specific reference to Nigeria, Hawkins said that the Generation Unlimited programmes were aimed at developing the capacity of young Nigerians to be better positioned as leaders of tomorrow.
He said that if the youths were not equipped with the right skills, especially in view of the ongoing digitisation of the World, they would be unable to bring value to the future of Nigeria.

The UN representative added that such initiatives would also help in turning the youth away from drugs or crime.

“Nigeria has 65 million people between the ages of 10 and 24, so young people of Nigeria are more importantly the future. That generation would shape the future of Nigeria.

“What Generation Unlimited is trying to do is to first act as a platform between the government, the United Nations and the International Community and the private sector.

“Out of the 65 million young people, Generation Unlimited is trying to help 20 million of those over the next 10 years to step over the generation that they are in to be able to meet their own ambitions and be valuable commodities in Nigeria.

“What is going to define the future of any country, particularly Nigeria is the digital platform – access to data, access to digital information.
“It is not only expanding the digital platform but expanding young people’s access to that platform.

“There are initiatives like School-2-School connectivity, looking at how we can bring digital learning into the schools, communities and ensure that young peoples’ skills around digital platforms come to the fore,” he said.

He pointed out that other areas include education skills on the one hand and employability and entrepreneurship on the other hand.

Hawkins said that UNICEF was particularly focused on connection between the skills and opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship, trying to develop the skills that jobs require.

Hawkins added that the last part was engagement of the young people not only to understand what they want to do but also to create an environment where they are contributing to the future of this country as a voice.

“Already, over the past year, we have been engaging with 450,000 young people through different initiatives around the country.

“There is a massive prospect in this country to engage young people. So in summary, Generation Unlimited is trying to help 20 million young people to achieve skills and jobs with digital platform being the main conduit for many of these jobs and skills.

“On Monday, Nigeria’s Vice President will inaugurate the Generation Unlimited Nigeria, this is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate a vision for the young people of Nigeria and give them the opportunity to engage in what happens in Nigeria in the future.

“There are many initiatives at the moment currently ongoing, especially around skills development, education a live skills learning.

“What we are trying to do at Generation Unlimited is to allow the platform of all of these to go to scale, using different initiatives to trigger off other initiatives to reach the 20 million that we want to reach in the next 10 years,” he said.

The UNICEF Representative listed some of its partners to include: GIZ, EU, USAID, Unilever, Microsoft, Tony Elumelu Foundation, and MasterCard, amomg others, adding that they were open for partnerships with institutions and the private sector.

Today In History – July 25 – Benito Mussolini Dismissed As Italian Premier

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July 25, 2021

306 Constantine I is proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops

1814 English engineer George Stephenson introduces his first steam locomotive, a travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher

1943 Benito Mussolini dismissed as Italian Premier and arrested on the authority of King Victor Emmanuel III

1944 World War II: Operation Spring – one of Canada’s bloodiest days, 18,444 casualties and 5,021 killed

1997 Scientists announce the first human stem cells to be cultured in a laboratory using tissue taken from aborted human embryos

Jul 25 in Film & TV
1946 At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team

Jul 25 in Music
1965 Bob Dylan is booed by sections of the crowd at the Newport Folk Festival for performing with an electric guitar, beginning of folk-rock

Jul 25 in Sport
1999 86th Tour de France: Lance Armstrong wins 1st of 7 consecutive Tour de France titles but is later disqualified for drug cheating

Do you know this fact about today?
Ajinomoto Co. is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), patents a process for manufacturing it.

Excavations Reveal Remains of Fortified Wall From Biblical First Temple Period

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July 25, 2021

Archaeologists were left on the verge of tears when excavations in the ancient city of Jerusalem exposed the remains of a fortified wall from the biblical First Temple period.

The First Temple period (1200 to 586 BC) describes one of the most thrilling but enigmatic periods in the Holy Land’s history. Although the Bible paints a vivid picture of life in Jerusalem during the time of the First Temple – Solomon’s Temple – very little archaeological evidence has survived of this holy structure.

According to the biblical account, the temple was toppled in 586 BC after an army of Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem.

The invading forces razed the city to the ground, plundered its riches and drove many of its people into exile or captivity.

A passage in the Bible’s 2 Kings 25:9 reads: “He burned the house of the LORD, the kings’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.”

And yet, recent excavations in the City of David have unearthed fortifications and artefacts with tantalising links to this biblical period.

The City of David encompasses parts of a Palestinian and Israeli village, believed to be the oldest parts of Jerusalem dating to the Iron Age.

Archaeologists in the City of David National Park have uncovered a missing fragment of Jerusalem’s eastern wall, which was destroyed by the Babylonian invaders.

The wall’s remains were found near the Temple Mount, the contested centre of spiritual life in Jerusalem.

Measuring just 16ft (5m) across, the wall was one of many discoveries made on the site, including ancient artefacts and ruins of homes.

Most importantly, however, the discovery proves the ancient city of Jerusalem was surrounded by an impressive, fortified wall.

Fragments of the fortifications have been found in the 1960s and 1970s but they were disconnected and assumed to be part of separate structures.

Upon figuring out the significance of the discovery, one of the archaeologists was overcome with emotion.

Dr Filip Vukosavovic of the Ancient Jerusalem Research Center, who coordinated the dig, was quoted by Jerusalem Post, saying: “When we exposed the first part of the wall, an area about one metre per one metre large, I immediately understood what we had found. I almost cried.”

According to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the fortification protected the ancient city during “the time of the kings of Judah” until the city was toppled 2,600 years ago.

The IAA announced in a Facebook post: “The excavations uncovered remains of the destruction, however, not all was destroyed and parts of the walls were found still standing.

“The new exposure connects two previously excavated sections on the eastern slope.

“Remains of the destruction were also found in the building next to the wall and inside the rows of storage, jars were discovered that were broken when the building burned and collapsed.”

Archaeologists have dated the jars to the final days of the Kingdom of Judah – the Iron Age kingdom that ruled over the Southern Levant after the unified Kingdom of Israel broke apart.

Even more intriguingly, the jars’ handles were stamped with characteristic rosette-shaped impressions.

Near the uncovered wall, the archaeologists also unearthed a Babylonian stone seal depicting a figure standing before the Babylonian deities Marduk and Nabu.

The excavations also revealed a clay seal – bulla – bearing the name “Tsafan”.

The discoveries are being prepared for exhibition later this year.

The IAA said: “These exciting findings will be presented this October at the Israel Antiquities Authority’s annual conference ‘New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region’.”

Muslims Leader Ahmad Amadi Denounces Islam, Converts to Christianity

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July 25, 2021