Chinese firefighters have managed to douse a massive blaze that swept across large swathes of the country’s southwestern forests over the past several days, local media reported on Sunday.

Having engulfed a large portion of forestland in Yunnan province, the wildfire was successfully extinguished late on Saturday after over 100 hours of firefighting.

No deaths or injuries were reported as a result of the flames, the firefighting headquarters in the city of Yuxi confirmed, according to the report.

The fire broke out on Tuesday in Jiuxi Town in Yuxi’s Jiangchuan District and quickly spread to nearby areas.

More than 4,000 people took part in the firefighting efforts after local residents were evacuated to safety.

The Nigerian Navy (NN) has sustained presence of her capital ships at sea as well as directed operations bases to enhance efforts to dominate their Areas of Operations, In response to recent spike in piracy in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG).

The Director of Information, Nigerian Navy, Commodore Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, said this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja.

Ayo-Vanghan said the spate of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) within the last 10 years reduced to an all time low in 2022.

He said that while concerted efforts were being made to reduce piracy within the GoG to its lowest minimum, two unfortunate incidences were recorded within the region in the last three weeks.

According to him, the first incident which involved the hijack of Motor Tanker (MT) MONJASA REFORMER, occurred on March 25 at a location144 nautical mile (nm) West-South-West (WSW) of Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo.

He said it was later discovered that the pirates abducted six crew members from the vessel.

“The second incident involved the hijack of MT SUCCESS-9 about 306 nm SW of Abidjan Fairway Buoy (FWB), Cote d’Ivoire on April 10.

“It is pertinent to state that the NN vectored Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) GONGOLA to rendezvous MT MONJASA REFORMER in company of NNS KANO and a French Warship to escort the vessel to Lome, Togo.

“The NN has equally continued to employ her surveillance infrastructure to monitor shipping activities within the nation’s maritime environment and will continue to exploit intelligence to track activities of criminals, to maintain sanctity of the Nigerian Maritime Environment (NME).

“To this end, the NN enjoins all seafarers to continue to carry out their legitimate businesses without fear,” he said.

The naval spokesman said that no incident of piracy had occurred within NME, adding that the area remained safe for maritime and economic activities.

He gave assurance that NN would continue to sustain credible presence to deter any form of criminality.

“In securing the NME and GoG in general, the NN appreciates the efforts of international partners under the Coordinated Maritime Presence arrangement as well as the support of other maritime stakeholders that play other roles in the collective security of the GoG,” he added.

As many as 27,994 Saudi families have benefitted from Sakani’s housing options and financing solutions offered electronically by the program in the first quarter of 2023.

Last month, 10,606 Saudi families benefitted from the program, of which 9,089 families were allotted their first homes.

From January to July 2022, the number of families benefiting from the program reached 87,467.

This development comes amid joint efforts to elevate housing affordability in the Kingdom to achieve the objectives of the Housing Program, one of the Saudi Vision 2030 programs.

Founded in 2017 by the Saudi Ministry of Housing and the Real Estate Development Fund, the Sakani Program aims to increase the proportion of Saudi households that own a house to 70 percent by 2030.

The core aims of the Sakani Program are to enable homeownership in the Kingdom by creating new housing stock, assigning plots and homes to citizens and providing financing for their purchases.

The program reached out to people over multiple channels such as Twitter, Whatsapp Business and its website. It offered services, including real estate consultancy, tax certificates, quotes from financial agencies and issuance of electronic land records, to name a few.

The program also offers facilities such as the electronic issuance of building permits and financing.

Ongoing initiatives implemented by the government, including access to finance and regulations standardizations, are reforming the housing market and improving access for Saudi families, according to a report from PwC Middle East.

The report stated that Saudi Arabia’s housing demand stood at 99,600 houses in 2021 and is expected to increase by more than 50 percent to reach 153,000 homes by 2030.

Last September, the Kingdom offered 2,957 free plots for eight housing schemes under the Sakani Program distributed across five regions: Riyadh, the Eastern Province, Madinah, Makkah and Asir

Maunsell Sea Forts were in the past army and navy towers built in the estuaries of the Thames and Mersey Rivers during the World War II, and are part of the United Kingdom.

As they are located off-shore, they appear to be a bizarre-looking structures which had an important part in the war against Germany.

Their short but very intense life, at the moment are left to disarray, and after their abandonment in the late 1950s, they were used for some other activities like pirate radio broadcasting, declaring an independent new country/principality etc.

The Forts were built in 1942, and designed by Guy Maunsell, from where the Sea Forts take their name.

There were/are four Naval Forts which are Rough Sands (U1), Sunk Head (U2), Tongue Sands (U3), Knock John (U4). Built between February and June of 1942, these forts housed 120 mean each, mostly below the waterline.

These structures were built onshore and sunk into their position offshore. The naval forts were single structures that had seven floors. Each fort had Bofors guns and a radar.

Today, from these Sea Forts, only two have survived the harsh time they had, out of which one is the home of the self-proclaimed Principality of Sealand.

The army forts were designed for anti-aircraft defense, which were larger installations comprising seven interconnected platforms.

There were three forts that were placed in the Mersey estuary (Queens AA Towers, Formby AA Towers and Burbo AA Towers), and three in the Thames estuary (Nore (U5), Red Sands (U6) and Shiverin Sands (U7)).

These Army Forts looked more futuristic, and each fort consisted of a central control tower linked to six “satellites”. Out of the three army forts situated in the Thames estuary, the Nore Army Fort was closest to the shore.

This army fort is the only one that no longer exists as it was badly damaged during the 1950s and was demolished by 1960.

The Red Sands Army Fort is different a little bit, since it is made up of seven forts that were linked by walkways, which had to be removed later because they could have collapsed. There is an on-going effort to restore the Red Sands army forts because they are considered to be in the best condition.

As a very important line of defense for the British Isles, after the war they were put under maintenance, but soon after they lost any strategic importance, and nowadays they serve as a proof of the past, and being occupied from time to time.