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Biden Drops Trump Attempt To Ban Tiktok, Wechat

By
Elizabeth Williams
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U.S President Joe Biden on Wednesday withdrew a series of executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok, and ordered a Commerce Department review of security concerns posed by those apps. This report produced by Jillian Kitchener.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of TikTok and WeChat – and ordered a new review of security concerns posed by those apps and others.

Last summer, former President Donald Trump had attempted to block new users from downloading the apps, and ban other technical transactions, that Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat both said would effectively block the apps’ use in the United States.

The courts halted Trump’s orders, which never took effect.

Trump had claimed that TikTok – which has over 100 million users in the United States – and WeChat posed national security concerns, arguing that users’ personal data could be collected by the Chinese government.

TikTok and WeChat have denied the allegation.

Biden’s executive order directs the Commerce Department to make recommendations, within 120 days, to protect U.S. data acquired or accessible by companies controlled by foreign adversaries.

Biden’s new order also directs Commerce to “evaluate on a continuing basis” any transactions that (quote) “pose an undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security or resiliency of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States.”

A White House official said a separate U.S. national security review of TikTok launched in late 2019 remains ongoing.

Pompeo Says F-35 Sale To UAE Was ‘Critical’ To The Abraham Accords

By
Elizabeth Williams
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U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II’s from Hill Air Force Base returned to Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, to rejoin the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing on Nov. 16, 2019 for their second combat deployment. The F-35 is a stealth, 5th generation fighter, multirole combat aircraft designed for ground attack and air superiority missions. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Joshua Williams)

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has told an Israeli newspaper that the deal for the US to sell F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates was an integral part of last year’s Abraham Accords.

For months, Israeli, US and Emirati officials publicly denied that the arms deal was part of the negotiations that brought about the normalization deal between Israel and the UAE last year. But Trump officials acknowledged at the time that the agreement put Abu Dhabi in a better position to receive such advanced weaponry, and a source with direct knowledge of the talks told The Times of Israel that both the US and Israel knew that the arms deal was “very much part of the deal.

12 Jewish Democrats Call On Ilhan Omar To Clarify Remarks On US, Israel, Taliban

By
Elizabeth Williams
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Twelve of the 25 Jewish Democrats in the US House of Representatives said the grouping of the United States and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas in remarks about pursuing war crimes prosecutions gives “cover to terrorist groups,” and called on their colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota to clarify her earlier statements.

“Equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided,” said the statement released late Wednesday and spearheaded by Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois. “Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredits one’s intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice.”

“The United States and Israel are imperfect and, like all democracies, at times deserving of critique, but false equivalencies give cover to terrorist groups,” the statement continued. “We urge Congresswoman Omar to clarify her words placing the US and Israel in the same category as Hamas and the Taliban.

The statement came after a meeting of the unofficial Jewish Democratic caucus earlier in the day that discussed the tweet Omar posted on Monday.

“We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity,” she wrote. “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”

South Africa To Amend Power Regulations To Boost Supply – Ramaphosa

By
Precious Obazee
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President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that South Africa will exempt power generation projects of up to 100 megawatts from licensing requirements, increasing the threshold 10-fold as it looks to urgently stabilise a national grid hard hit by power cuts.

Ramaphosa made the announcement amid the latest round of rolling blackouts by power utility Eskom, which has struggled to provide consistent supply to Africa’s most industrialised economy.

He said in a televised briefing that the reform is expected to unlock significant investment in new generation capacity in the short and medium term, enabling companies to build their own generation facilities to supply their energy needs.

The president said the move will exempt power generation projects of up to 100 MW in size from licensing requirements with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA).

Ramaphosa added that generation projects will still need to obtain a grid connection permit which he said will increase the available supply of energy to Eskom, allowing it to proceed with an intensive maintenance programme aimed at fixing its ailing infrastructure.

In April, South Africa said it would change the licensing threshold for small-scale power generation projects to 10 MW from 1 MW, a boost to firms, anxious to curb their reliance on struggling state utility Eskom, but industry experts had hoped for more.

Ramaphosa said the amendment will be published within 60 days.

Bill To Convert Navy University Passes Second Reading

By
Precious Obazee
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A bill seeking to convert the Nigeria Navy University known as Admiralty University, Ibusa, Delta State, into a conventional university, has passed second reading on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Presenting the Bill before the passage, sponsor of the bill, Yusuf Adamu Gagdi from Plateau State said the passage of the bill into law will grant the institution full legal status to operate without any hindrance.

Gagdi said “This Bill seeks to establish the Admiralty University of Nigeria, Ibusa as conventional university with selected programmes, limited and focused faculties to promote scholarship, research and other means of advancement of knowledge and its practical application to military hardware and software, and provide an opportunity of acquiring a higher and liberal education in Nigeria.”

The lawmaker said the University would offer courses in military policy, logistics and strategy, as well as basic and applied sciences and arts.

Other areas are engineering, environmental and social sciences, education, agriculture, medical sciences, and any other field of study approved by the Senate of the University.

Gagdi, who is the Chairman House Committee on Navy said the institution would also provide special training courses whether leading to university distinctions or not for such persons as may be prescribed, conduct research in any field as may be prescribed or directed, arranging conferences, seminars, workshops and like activities and performing any other function as may be conferred on it by Statute.

The objective will be to provide facilities for teaching, learning and training in order to ensure that students  obtain the advantage of a higher and liberal education.

It will also promote research and other means of advancement of knowledge and its practical application to military hardware and software, encourage and promote scholarship and conduct research in selected fields of learning and human endeavour including entrepreneurship skills.

University of Jos Chapter Of ASUU Directs Lecturers To Boycott Postgraduate Activities

By
Precious Obazee
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Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Jos chapter, says that its members will henceforth boycott all postgraduate activities in the institution.

Chairman of ASUU in the university, Associate Prof. Lazarus Maigoro, stated this in a notice of withdrawal issued on Wednesday in Jos.

He said that the decision was premised on the refusal of the university management to implement the sharing formula that would take care of payment of the lecturers taking courses at postgraduate level, as approved by the university’s council in 2016.

Maigoro said that the union had, in August 2015, written to ASUU President and copied the school management, reminding them of the issue, adding, however, that nothing had since been done on it.

In a statement seen by journalists, Maigoro said “Our National Executive Council (NEC), at its meeting of May 27, held at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Akwa, approved the request of our branch to withdraw all services from PG programmes, with effect from June 20.

“The approval was granted due to refusal of the university to implement the Council- approved 2016 PG sharing formula for paying teaching of PG courses, which is a product of the 2016 MoU which our union signed with the university management.

“By this notice, our members will not participate in teaching and supervision of theses and dissertations, examinations, seminars, defence of any kind, whether at PG school, faculties, departments and units, mark scripts, compile PG results and so on.

he added that all members are hereby directed to comply, as sanctions shall be applied on any violator.

Maigoro said that a special monitoring committee had been constituted to ensure compliance by members, toward attaining what he described as “critical welfare issue”.

Queen Elizabeth Presented With Duke of Edinburgh Rose In His Memory

By
Angel Gimalo
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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth has been given a rose named after her late husband Prince Philip to mark what would have been his 100th birthday on Thursday, Buckingham Palace said.

Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, died on April 9, just two months short of his landmark birthday after more than seven decades of marriage to Elizabeth, who is now 95.

The Palace said that last week Elizabeth had been presented with a Duke of Edinburgh Rose – a newly bred pink commemorative rose – in his memory.

It has since been planted at the rose border of the East Terrace Garden at the queen’s Windsor Castle home to the west of London, where she has spent most of her time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and where her husband died.

“Whilst being very poignant, it was a delight to give Her Majesty The Queen … the Duke of Edinburgh Rose to mark what would have been (his) 100th birthday and to remember his remarkable life,” said Keith Weed, President of the Royal Horticultural Society.

A royalty from the sale of each rose will go towards the Duke of Edinburgh Award Living Legacy Fund, supporting a scheme for young people that Philip set up and which now operates in more than 130 countries.

New Dinosaur Species Discovered In Australia, One Of World’s Biggest

By
Angel Gimalo
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Scientists have confirmed the discovery of a new dinosaur species in Australia, one of the largest found in the world, more than a decade after cattle farmers first uncovered bones of the animal.

The plant-eating sauropod lived in the Cretaceous period between 92 million and 96 million years ago when Australia was attached to Antartica, according to a research paper published.

Paleontologists estimated the dinosaur reached a height of 5-6.5 metres at the hip and 25-30 metres in length, making it as long as a basketball court and as tall as a two storey building.

That makes the new species the largest dinosaur ever found in Australia and puts it in the top five in the world, joining an elite group of titanosaurs previously only discovered in South America.

“Discoveries like this are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Queensland Museum curator and palaeontologist Scott Hocknull.

Paleontologists have named the sauropod “Australotitan cooperensis”, combining “southern titan” with the name of a creek near where the first of the creature’s bones were found in 2006 on a cattle farming property in Eromanga in Queensland state.

The confirmation of the new species marks a seventeen-year long journey to first unearth and then compare the bones of “Cooper”, as the dinosaur is more informally known, to other finds.

Dinosaur bones are enormous, heavy and fragile, and are kept in museums around the world, making scientific study difficult.

The team from the Eromanga Natural History Museum and the Queensland Museum used new digital technology for the first time to 3-D scan each bone for comparisons.

“To make sure Australotitan was a different species, we needed to compare its bones to the bones of other species from Queensland and globally,” Hocknull said. “This was a very long and painstaking task.”

Robyn Mackenzie, who was mustering cattle with her husband Stuart on their property when they discovered the bones, founded the Eromanga Natural History Museum to house the find.

A swath of further discoveries of dinosaur skeletons in the area, along with a rock-shelf believed to have been a sauropod pathway, are still awaiting full scientific study.

“Palaeo Tourism has been huge globally so we’re expecting a lot of international interest when our borders re-open,” said Mackenzie, now a field paleontologist.

Volcano App To Reunite Families After DR Congo’s Eruption

By
Angel Gimalo
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0

A 24-year-old Congolese, Shukuru Victoire, and his small team have just set up a tool called “Volcano alert bracelet”, which is a bar-coded and connected to a mobile application that allows the displaced population to stay in touch and find their lost children during the volcanic eruption of Mount Nyiragongo.

“In the moments of moving from Goma to these different areas many families got separated from their children and many parents lost their children during the eruption.

We as developers and solution thinkers from Goma thought of designing an application that would allow these families to find their children without going through the media without going through a lot of information, but through your application and the bracelet with the barcode,” Shukuru Victoire, ‘Volcan App’ developer said.

Volcan alert bracelet with its interactive mobile system and barcode bracelet have also helped in the fight against fake news during the volcano’s eruption and allows people to stay informed about future volcanic evolution.

Several parents in Goma are now using the application to trace their lost children

The ICRC, which is involved in the search for children who became separated from their parents during the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano, has also joined the initiative to find these lost kids.

According to the ICRC and UNICEF, more than a hundred children became separated from their parents when the Nyiragongo volcano erupted on 22 May 2021. To date, many of them have still not been reunited with their parents.

Togolese Farmers Turn To Drones For Better Yields

By
Angel Gimalo
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0

Taking to the sky, this drone leaves for a precise mission on a plantation in Kovié, a town located 40 km north of the Togolese capital, Lomé.

By flying over these plantations, technicians on site have a number of objectives, including to collect data to help in soil fertilization.

The drones are also used by technicians to detect diseases and propose appropriate treatments. The modern approach is a relief to local farmers.

”Their way of spraying is better than our way. We need to walk through the crop to do the spraying, which damages the commodities because we walk on the rice. But they do not touch the field because everything is done in the air. We prefer their method”, said producer, Carlos Sanve.

The company known as E-Agri Sky was birth at E-Agri Business, an approach to modernize agri-business.

At this certification center, young people come from all over the continent come to get online or in-person training in digital agriculture.

”I would say that Africa is a bit behind in the use of these digital tools. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t say that it is a delay but it is a lack of will. I used to watch movies and see just white people doing it and I thought when can we get there?

But since we got into it, we’ve seen that we’ve done really good. We have encountered difficulties but we adapt these digital tools to our African context”, said E-Agri Sky Coordinator, Pascal Tsekpui.

Agriculture in Togo represent 86% of rural households and contributes 40% of the national wealth. That’s nearly 4 million farmers out of a population of 7 million inhabitants.

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