Month: May 2024

Prince Harry and Meghan arrived in Nigeria to support the Invictus Games, helping wounded veterans, including Nigerian soldiers in a 14-year battle against extremists.

Invited by the military, the royal couple landed in Abuja early Friday 10TH May, said defense spokesman Brig. Gen. Tukur Gusau.

Connect with wounded soldiers

Harry and Meghan will be meeting with wounded soldiers and their families in what Nigerian officials have said is a show of support to improve the soldiers’ morale and well-being.

“This engagement with Invictus is giving us the opportunity for the recovery of our soldiers,” Abidemi Marquis, the director of sports at Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, told reporters on Thursday.

Harry served in Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter copilot gunner, after which he founded the Invictus Games in 2014 to offer wounded veterans and servicemembers the challenge of competing in sports events similar to the Paralympics.

Couple’s itinerary

During their stay, they will attend basketball and volleyball matches and will meet with local non-governmental organizations in Abuja and Lagos that are receiving support from them.

Meghan will also co-host an event on women in leadership with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organization, according to their spokesman Charlie Gipson.

The news of Meghan’s visit excited some in Nigeria where her life and association with the British royal family is closely followed.

Impact of the game

The Nigerian military has touted the Invictus Games as one that could help the recovery of thousands of its personnel who have been fighting the homegrown Boko Haram Islamic extremists and their factions since 2009 when they launched an insurgency.

“Eighty percent of our soldiers that have been involved in this recovery program are getting better (and) their outlook to life is positive,” Marquis, the military’s sports director, said.

“The recovery program has given them an opportunity to improve their personal self-esteem, to improve their mental health and emotional intelligence.”

Heavy rains in eastern Congo led to floods, affecting over 470,000 people, according to the World Food Program.

Overflowing rivers and lakes destroyed crops, blocked roads, and displaced villagers, with climate change cited as a cause.

One farmer told WFP that he was struggling to feed his family of six after losing his crops to floods, and was living in a temporary shelter with other families displaced by the inundation.

The WFP report said the people impacted by the floods are also vulnerable to diseases, often having no option but to wash clothes and kitchen utensils in cholera-contaminated water. In some areas, farmers are sheltering with their cattle, further increasing the risk of disease.

WFP also said that it lacked the resources needed to respond to the needs of people in areas impacted by the floods.

Africa has been hard hit by extreme weather in recent days. In Kenya, 257 were killed by flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains and 55,000 were displaced according to a government announcement Wednesday.

TikTok will begin labelling content created using artificial intelligence when it’s uploaded from outside its own platform.

The move announced on Thursday, May 9, aims to address concerns about misinformation proliferating on the popular social media platform.

“AI enables incredible creative opportunities, but can confuse or mislead viewers if they don’t know the content was AI-generated,” the company said in a prepared statement.

“Labelling helps make that context clear—which is why we label AIGC made with TikTok AI effects and have required creators to label realistic AIGC for over a year.”

Illuminating the AI Landscape

TikTok said that it’s teaming with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity and will use its Content Credentials technology.

The company said that the technology can attach metadata to content, which it can use to instantly recognize and label AI-generated content. TikTok said its use of the capability started Thursday on images and videos and will be coming to audio-only content soon.

Over the upcoming months, Content Credentials will be attached to content made on TikTok, which will remain on the content when downloaded. This will help identify AI-generated content that’s made on TikTok and help people learn when, where and how the content was made or edited. Other platforms that adopt Content Credentials will be able to automatically label it.

Leading the Charge

TikTok said it’s the first video-sharing platform to put the credentials into practice and will join the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative to help push the adoption of the credentials within the industry.

“Our users and our creators are so excited about AI and what it can do for their creativity and their ability to connect with audiences.” Adam Presser, TikTok’s Head of Operations & Trust and Safety told ABC News. “And at the same time, we want to make sure that people have that ability to understand what fact is and what is fiction.”

The announcement initially came on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday.

TikTok’s policy in the past has been to encourage users to label content that has been generated or significantly edited by AI. It also requires users to label all AI-generated content where it contains realistic images, audio, and video.

A Boeing 737 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister and footage from a passenger that showed the aircraft on fire.

“Our plane just caught fire,” wrote Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a post on Facebook that showed passengers jumping down the emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the aircraft. In the background, people can be heard screaming.

Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighbouring Mali, late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.

The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest.

No other details were immediately available. Boeing did not respond to a request for comment.

Aviation Safety Network

The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks airline accidents, published photos of the damaged plane in a grassy field surrounded by fire suppressant foam on X, formerly known as Twitter.

One engine appeared to have broken apart and a wing was also damaged, according to the photos.

ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to promote safe air travel and track accidents.

Kenya’s President William Ruto has declared Friday a public holiday to mourn the 238 people who have died due to ongoing flooding.

The president on Wednesday said the day will be observed by national tree planting activities to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

Kenya, along with other parts of East Africa, has been overwhelmed by floods. More than 235,000 people are displaced and living in dozens of camps.

President Ruto also announced the reopening of schools countrywide, after two weeks delay due to heavy rains that have destroyed hundreds of schools.

The government had said more than 1,000 schools were affected by the heavy rains and flooding and set aside funds for renovations.

The metrology department in its daily weather forecast has continued to predict moderate to heavy rainfall in most parts of the country.

The government is in the process of forcefully evacuating people living in flood-prone areas and those near rivers and dams as water levels in the country’s major hydroelectric dams rise to “historic levels”.

This week, the government bulldozed houses in informal settlements of Mathare and Mukuru in the capital Nairobi and the president promised evicted families the equivalent of $75 to relocate after a deadline passed to evacuate amid deadly rains.

A multi-disciplinary rescue team, including sniffer dogs, continued the search on Tuesday night for the over 30 people still trapped under the rubble on a construction site in the South African city of George.

Seventy-five people were there when the multi-storey apartment complex they were building collapsed on Monday afternoon.

At least 7 of them have been declared dead.

But will well over 30 hours since the accident occurred, and many of those taken to hospital in a serious condition, the death toll is likely to rise.

Race against time

Colin Deiner, head of the provincial Western Cape disaster management services, said the search-and-rescue operation would likely take at least three days.

“We are going to give it the absolute maximum time to see how many people we can rescue,” Deiner said at a press conference. “It is very, very difficult if you are working with concrete breakers and drillers close to people.”

Earlier in the day, Deiner said some of the workers had limbs trapped under concrete and couldn’t move.

“Our big concern is entrapment for many hours, when a person’s body parts are compressed**.**So, you need to get medical help to them. We got our medics in as soon as we possibly could,” he said.

Deiner said a critical part of the rescue operation came when they ordered everyone to remain quiet and shut off machinery so they could listen for any survivors.

“We were actually hearing people through the rubble**,”** Deiner said.

Investigations begin

Family and friends of the workers had gathered at the nearby municipal offices and were being supported by social workers, the George municipality said.

Authorities were starting investigations into what caused the tragedy, and a criminal case was opened by police, but there was no immediate information on why the building suddenly collapsed.

CCTV footage from a nearby home showed the concrete structure and metal scaffolding collapsing at 2.09 p.m. Monday, causing a plume of dust to rise over the neighborhood.

Alan Winde, the Premier of the Western Cape province, said there would be investigations by both the provincial government and the police.

The provincial government has appointed a structural engineering firm to determine the cause of the collapse and who is responsible.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa released a statement offering his condolences to families of the victims and also called for investigations into the cause of the collapse.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently hosted his counterpart from Sierra Leone, Timothy Kabba, in Moscow for discussions aimed at enhancing bilateral ties.

During the meeting, Kabba extended congratulations to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his reelection victory and subsequent inauguration.

“Today I am very pleased to be here to help deepen and strengthen cooperation between our countries. And I would like to congratulate President Vladimir Putin on his confident victory and his inauguration today and wish him and all the Russian people further prosperity.”

Lavrov characterized Sierra Leone as Russia’s longstanding and dependable partner in Africa. He revealed plans to expand diplomatic outreach by opening new missions on the African continent, with Freetown being a priority for this year. Lavrov emphasized the importance of translating decisions into action, indicating active steps toward this objective.

“(We plan to) open new diplomatic missions on the African continent, including in Freetown. In Freetown, we expect to do it this year, before the end of this year. All the necessary decisions have been made, it is necessary to implement them, which is a practical task, and we are working on it.”

Furthermore, the Russian minister highlighted potential collaboration in peaceful nuclear energy. This included discussions about the prospect of constructing a nuclear power plant in Sierra Leone.