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As Israel increases its ground operation in Gaza, the last remaining internet and mobile connections have gone dark.

For more than three weeks, Gaza has faced an almost total internet blackout. The cables, cell towers, and infrastructure needed to keep people online have been damaged or destroyed as Israel launched thousands of missiles in response to Hamas attacking Israel and taking hundreds of hostages on October 7. Then, this evening, amid reports of heavy bombing in Gaza, some of the last remaining connectivity disappeared.

In the days after October 7, people living in Gaza have been unable to communicate with family or friends, leaving them unsure whether loved ones are alive. Finding reliable news about events has become harder. Rescue workers have not been able to connect to mobile networks, hampering recovery efforts. And information flowing out of Gaza, showing the conditions on the ground, has been stymied.

As the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding its ground operations in Gaza this evening, internet connectivity fell further. Paltel, the main Palestinian communications company, has been able to keep some of its services online during Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack. However, at around 7:30 pm local time today, internet monitoring firm NetBlocks confirmed a “collapse” in connectivity in the Gaza Strip, mostly impacting remaining Paltel services.

“We regret to announce a complete interruption of all communications and internet services within the Gaza Strip,” Paltel posted in a post on its Facebook page. The company claimed that bombing had “caused the destruction of all remaining international routes.” An identical post was made on the Facebook page of Jawwal, the region’s biggest mobile provider, which is owned by Paltel. Separately, Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian organization, said on X (formerly Twitter) that it had lost contact with its operation room in Gaza and is “deeply concerned” about its ability to keep caring for people, with landline, cell, and internet connections being inaccessible.

“This is a terrifying development,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy manager focusing on the Middle East and North Africa at the digital rights group Access Now, tells WIRED. “Taking Gaza completely off the grid while launching an unprecedented bombardment campaign only means something atrocious is about to happen.”

A WIRED review of internet analysis data, social media posts, and Palestinian internet and telecom company statements shows how connectivity in the Gaza Strip drastically plummeted after October 7 and how some buildings linked to internet firms have been damaged in attacks. Photos and videos show sites that house various internet and telecom firms have been damaged, while reports from official organizations, including the United Nations, describe the impact of people being offline.

Damaged Lines
Around the world, the internet and telecoms networks that typically give web users access to international video calls, online banking, and endless social media are a complicated, sprawling mix of hardware and software. Networks of networks, combining data centers, servers, switches, and reams of cables, communicate with each other and send data globally. Local internet access is provided by a mix of companies with no clear public documentation of their infrastructure, making it difficult to monitor the overall status of the system as a whole. In Gaza, experts say, internet connectivity is heavily reliant on Israeli infrastructure to connect to the outside world.

Amid Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza, physical systems powering the internet have been destroyed. On October 10, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which oversees emergency responses, said air strikes “targeted several telecommunication installations” and had destroyed two of the three main lines of communications going into Gaza.

Prior to tonight’s blackout, internet connectivity remained but was “extremely slow and limited,” Access Now’s Fatafta says. People she has spoken to from Gaza say it could take a day to upload and send a few photos. “They have to send like 20 messages in order for one to go through,” Fatafta says. “They are desperately—especially for Gazans that live outside—trying to get through to their families.”

“Every time I try to call someone from family or friends, I try to call between seven to 10 times,” says Ramadan Al-Agha, a digital marketer who lives in Khan Yunis, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip. “The call may be cut off two or three times,” he told WIRED in a WhatsApp message before the latest outages. “We cannot access news quickly and clearly.” People in the region have simultaneously faced electricity blackouts, dwindling supplies of fuel used to power generators, and a lack of clean water, food, and medical supplies. “It is a humanitarian disaster,” Al-Agha says.

Connectivity in Gaza started to drop not long after Israel responded to the October 7 Hamas attack. Rene Wilhelm, a senior R&D engineer at the nonprofit internet infrastructure organization Ripe Network Coordination Center, says based on an analysis of internet routing data it collects that 11 Palestinian networks, which may operate both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, began to experience disruption after October 7. Eight of the networks were no longer visible to the global internet as of October 23, Wilhelm says. Ahead of this evening’s blackout, there was around 15 percent of normal connectivity, according to data from Georgia Tech’s Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project. That dropped to around 7 percent as reports of the blackout circulated.

One office belonging to Paltel in the Al Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City has been destroyed in the attacks, photos and videos show. Floors have been destroyed and windows blown away in the multistory building, and piles of rubble surround the entrances. (It is unclear what equipment the building housed or how many floors Paltel occupied.) Another internet provider, AlfaNet, is listed as being based in the Al-Watan Tower. The company posted to its Facebook page on October 8 that the tower had been destroyed and its services have stopped, with other online posts also saying the tower has been destroyed.

Multiple Palestinian internet and telecoms firms have said their services have been disrupted during the war, mostly posting to social media. Internet provider Fusion initially said its engineers were trying to repair its infrastructure, although it has since said this is not continuing. “The network was destroyed, and the cables and poles were badly damaged by the bombing,” it wrote on Facebook. JetNet said there had been a “sudden disruption” to access points. SpeedClick posted that the situation was out of its control. And HiNet posted that it has “no more to offer to ensure” people could stay online following “the attacks and destruction our internet servers have suffered.”

Across Paltel’s network on October 19, according to an update shared by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 83 percent of fixed line users had been disconnected, with 53 percent of sites providing fixed line connections also being offline. Half of the company’s fiber optic internet lines in Gaza weren’t operational, the update says. The connectivity disappeared this evening, according to Paltel’s Facebook post, which says there has been a “complete interruption” of all its services. Paltel, AlfaNet, Fusion, and SpeedClick could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment.

Lost Connections

In recent years, governments and authoritarian regimes have frequently turned to shutting down the internet for millions of people in attempts to suppress protests and curtail free speech. Targeting the communications networks is common during conflicts. During Russia’s war in Ukraine, its forces have decimated communications networks, tried to take over the internet, and set up new mobile companies to control information flows. When Hamas first attacked Israel on October 7, it used drones to bomb communications equipment at surveillance posts along the borders of the Gaza Strip.

Monika Gehner, the head of corporate communications at the International Telecommunication Union, says the body is always “alarmed” by damage inflicted on any telecommunications infrastructure during conflicts. The ITU, the United Nations’ primary internet governance body, believes “efficient telecommunication services” are crucial to peace and international cooperation, and its secretary-general has called for respecting infrastructure in the Middle East, Gehner says.

Officials in Israel have consistently claimed they are targeting Hamas militants within Gaza, not civilians, while responding to the Hamas attacks, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry within Gaza has said more than 7,000 people have been killed there and released a list of names. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces did not respond to WIRED’s questions about internet disruptions within Gaza.

Hanna Kreitem, a senior adviser for internet technology and development in the Middle East and North Africa at the Internet Society, an open internet advocacy nonprofit, says Palestinian firms have a “big reliance” on Israeli internet firms. “Palestinians are not controlling any of the ICT infrastructure,” says Mona Shtaya, a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. Mobile networks in the Gaza Strip rely on 2G technologies. Al-Agha, the digital marketer, shared a screenshot showing mobile internet speeds of 7.18 kilobytes per second; average mobile speeds in the US in 2022 were 24 megabits per second, according to mobile analytics firm Statista.

“The internet is vital in times of war in crises,” says Fatafta, the Access Now policy manager, who adds that there can be “terrible consequences” linked to connectivity blackouts. The UN’s OCHA said rescue workers have had a harder time “carrying out their mission” partly due to the “limited or no connection to mobile networks.” Al-Agha says he has lost some clients due to the disruptions. The lack of connectivity can obscure events that are happening on the ground, Fatafta says. News crews have told WIRED they have footage from the ground but are “losing the story because of the internet.”

Kreitem says that a lack of electricity and access to the equipment will have made an impact on top of any physical damage to communications networks. “We don’t know how many of the people that actually operate these networks are still alive,” Kreitem says. “The network operators are part of the world there, there’s no place for them to run. They are as affected as any other person.”

The man accused of murder in connection with the gang-feud slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur a quarter of a century ago was back in a US court Thursday.

Duane “Keefe D” Davis, 60, was charged last month over the killing, despite not being the man wielding the weapon in Las Vegas in 1996.

Thursday’s hearing was intended to be an arraignment, after the original hearing was delayed.

But defense attorney Ross Goodman asked for the case to be postponed again, saying that although he was there to represent Davis, he had not been formally hired.

“I’m going to give you two weeks, but in two weeks we’ve got to get this case moving,” District Judge Tierra Jones told him.

At the arraignment, Davis will be expected to enter a plea to the charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

Davis has long acknowledged his involvement in the slaying, boasting he was the “on-site commander” in the effort to kill Shakur and Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight in revenge for an assault on his nephew.

Under Nevada law, anyone who aids or abets a murder can be charged with the killing, in the same way that a getaway driver can be charged with bank robbery even if he never entered the bank.

Shakur, the best-selling hip-hop artist behind hits such as “California Love,” “Changes,” and “Dear Mama,” was a major star in the world of rap when he was gunned down on September 7, 1996. He was just 25.

He was signed to Death Row Records, an outfit associated at the time with Los Angeles street gang Mob Piru, which had a long-standing beef with the South Side Compton Crips — a group in which Davis was a key figure.

Prosecutors said last month that what happened on the night of the killing had been largely understood for many years, but they had not had sufficient admissible evidence to advance the case.

That began to change when Davis, reportedly the only person in the car that night still alive, published an autobiography and spoke about the crime for a TV show.

President Bola Tinubu has appointed Ola Olukoyede as the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Ajuri Ngelale, the presidential spokesperson made this known in a statement on Thursday.

Olukoyede is billed to serve for a term of four years, upon confirmation by the senate.

Below are key things to know about the new EFCC boss:

Olukoyede was born in Ikere-Ekiti on October 14, 1969.

The new anti-graft agency chair is an indigene of Ekiti State.

He is an alumnus of Lagos State University; University of Lagos; Institute of Arbitration ICC – Paris, France and University of Harvard (Kennedy School of Executive Education).

He is an experienced lawyer specialised in compliance management, corporate intelligence, and fraud management.

Olukoyede has extensive experience in the operations of the EFCC, having previously served as Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman (2016-2018).

He is a Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).

He served as EFCC Secretary under former President Muhammadu Buhari from 2018 to 2023.

The Federal Government Thursday began opening bids from 47 companies for the supply of 1.25 million electricity smart meters funded by the World Bank’s $155 million loan.

The bid opening is part of the Federal Government’s National Mass Metering Programme started in 2021 with the supply of one million meters in “phase -0”. The phase-1 of the project however failed to kick-off as the N200 billion funds expected from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, failed to materialise.

This prompted the World Bank intervention of a $500 million loan for the phase-2 with the balance $345 million going directly to the electricity distribution companies, DisCos, to fund the expansion of the distribution networks across the country.

Speaking at the opening of the bids in Abuja, the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Veihejen expressed the commitment of the Federal Government to provide meters for all electricity customers and estimated billing in the Nigerian electricity market.

According to her, “The Federal Government of Nigeria is committed to delivering reliable and cleaner electricity to Nigerian people and businesses. We are embarking on reforms that will improve the performance of Distribution Companies as we continue our trajectory to cost reflective tariffs. In the first step to fulfilling our campaign promise to end estimated billing, we are launching phase two of the ambitious National Mass Metering Programme.

“The phase involves procuring 1.2 million pre-paid meters, with the procurement process set to begin this month, ending estimated billing which Nigerians have complained about for decades and ensuring cost reflective tariff etc”, Veihejen stated.

Also speaking on the programme, the Assistant General Manager, World Bank PIU, Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, Engr. Tukur Musa Bamalli, explained that the first set of meters under phase-2 are expected by June next year.

Engr. Bamalli explained that “we are procuring 1.25 million meters funded by the World Bank to supply the smart meters to the eleven distribution companies in order to end estimated billing. The loans became effective in February 2023. The contracts will be signed very soon.

“The NMMP is in three phases, phase 0, 1 and 2. This is under phase 2 of the mass metering programme funded by the World Bank for $155 million”.

He explained that local companies would be given special consideration as they are allowed “to bid up to 15 percent higher than the foreign companies for the lots available”.

He expressed optimism that the entire 1.25 million meters would have all been supplied by the first quarters of 2025.

The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has set January 1 as the deadline for private-sector partners of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to activate pending passport offices abroad.

While appearing on Channels TV Politics Today on Wednesday, Tunji-Ojo stated that the contractors have until January 1, 2024, to activate foreign passport offices, adding that it’s a part of the backlog of passports in most countries.

His words: “Incidentally, that service – the passport front office – is actually in the contract signed by the NIS with some service providers over a time ago but, up until now, not yet activated. And I have told them, ‘By January 1, God bless you, if you do not activate these services.

“What we’re looking at, for example, in Canada: for a start, we should have about three, four offices. We might not, at this particular point in time, be able to say, ‘We want to spend money to open all these things’ but we can partner with the private sector.

The minister also stated that failure to activate the offices would result in the contractors not being able to carry out their contracts.

“And you will not hold millions of Nigerians in the diaspora to ransom by not being able to provide them the service you ought to provide.”

10 certifications that are in high demand and offer lucrative salaries
Securing a high-paying job in 2024 is a goal many aspire to achieve. In the ever-evolving landscape of the professional world, staying ahead often involves acquiring the right certifications. These not only validate your skills but also signal to employers that you’re committed to staying current in your field. So, buckle up as we explore 10 certification courses that are poised to be key players in the job market of 2024, promising not just employment but well-compensated opportunities.

1. Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)- This certification is highly sought after in the field of information security. It demonstrates expertise in designing and managing an organization’s overall IT security. According to PCMag, CISSP professionals can make an average salary of $162,347 per year.

2. Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)- CISM certification is focused on information security management. Certified professionals are responsible for designing and engineering security protocols and managing overall IT security for organizations. Skillsoft reports that CISM professionals can make an average salary of $162,347 per year.

3. Project Management Professional (PMP)- The PMP certification is globally recognized and demonstrates expertise in project management. PMP-certified professionals are responsible for leading and managing projects in various industries. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), PMP-certified professionals earn a median salary of $120,000 per year.

4. Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)- CSM certification is for professionals involved in agile project management. ScrumMasters facilitate the implementation of Scrum practices in teams and organizations. According to PayScale, Certified ScrumMasters earn an average salary of $103,000 per year.

5. Certified Data Professional (CDP)- CDP certification is designed for data professionals who work with big data and analytics. It demonstrates proficiency in data management, analysis, and visualization. The salary for CDP-certified professionals can vary depending on the specific role and industry, but it generally offers high earning potential.

6. Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)- CEH certification is for professionals who possess the skills and knowledge to identify vulnerabilities and secure computer systems against cyber threats. CEH-certified professionals can work as ethical hackers, penetration testers, or information security analysts. The salary for CEH-certified professionals can vary but is generally lucrative.

7. Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)- CCSP certification validates expertise in cloud security architecture, design, operations, and service orchestration. Cloud computing is a rapidly growing field, and CCSP-certified professionals are in high demand. According to PayScale, CCSP professionals earn an average salary of $125,000 per year.

8. Certified Financial Planner (CFP)- CFP certification is for professionals in the financial planning industry. It demonstrates expertise in areas such as investment planning, retirement planning, tax planning, and estate planning. The salary for CFP-certified professionals can vary but is generally competitive.

9. Certified Nursing Anesthetist (CRNA)- CRNA certification is for nurses specializing in anesthesia. CRNAs provide anesthesia services in various healthcare settings and are well-compensated for their expertise. According to Nurse.org, the average salary for CRNAs is $203,090 per year.

10. Certified Salesforce Administrator- Salesforce is a widely used customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and the demand for certified Salesforce administrators is high. Certified administrators manage and customize Salesforce for organizations. The salary for certified Salesforce administrators can vary depending on experience and location but is generally lucrative.

Residents and rescue workers in the devastated Libyan city of Derna are struggling to cope with the thousands of corpses washing up or decaying under rubble.

This is happening after a flood that smashed down buildings and swept people to sea.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and other aid groups urged authorities in Libya to stop burying flood victims in mass graves, saying these could bring long-term mental distress to families or cause health risks if located near water.

A UN report said more than 1,000 people had so far been buried in that manner since Libya, a nation divided by a decade of conflict and political chaos, was hit on Sunday by torrential rain that caused two dams to burst.

Thousands were killed and thousands more are missing.

“Bodies are littering the streets, washing back on shore, and are buried under collapsed buildings and debris.

“In just two hours, one of my colleagues counted over 200 bodies on the beach near Derna,” Bilal Sablouh, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) forensics manager for Africa, told a briefing in Geneva.

Ibrahim al-Arabi, health minister in Libya’s Tripoli-based western government, told Reuters he was certain groundwater was polluted with water mixed up with corpses, dead animals, refuse, and chemical substances.

“We urge people not to approach the wells in Derna,” he said.

Mohammad al-Qabisi, head of Derna’s Wahda Hospital, said a field hospital was treating people with chronic illnesses needing regular attention.

He said there were fears waterborne diseases would spread, but no cholera had been recorded so far.

Swathes of Derna, centrepoint of the destruction in Libya’s east, were obliterated when the dams above the city broke, and the flood that swept down a usually dry riverbed brought down whole residential blocks while families were asleep.

The International Organization for Migration mission in Libya said more than 5,000 people were presumed dead, with 3,922 deaths registered in hospitals, and over 38,640 were displaced in the flood-stricken region.

The true death toll could be far higher, officials say.

“We should be afraid of an epidemic,” 60-year-old Nouri Mohamed said, at a bakery offering loaves for free. “There are still bodies underground … Now there are corpses starting to smell.”

The U.N. health agency together with the ICRC and International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies called for burials to be managed better.

“We urge authorities in communities touched by tragedy to not rush forward with mass burials or mass cremations,” Kazunobu Kojima, medical officer for biosafety and biosecurity in the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said in the statement.

It called for individual graves, demarcated and documented, saying that hasty interments could lead to mental anguish for families as well as social and legal problems.

The bodies of victims of trauma from natural disasters “almost never” posed a health threat, it said, unless they were in or near fresh water supplies since corpses may leak excrement.

A doctor in Derna said this week that photos were being taken of unidentified bodies before burial, in case relatives could identify them later on.

Thursday’s UN report said more than 1,000 bodies in Derna and over 100 in Al Bayda, another coastal city hit by flooding, had been buried in mass graves.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, which has a team of 100 in Libya, said dead body management was the most pressing concern.

“I’ve heard from my team that there are mass graves where rescue workers were appealing: ‘Don’t bring us food, don’t bring us water, bring us body bags’,” the NRC’s Ahmed Bayram said.

A son of Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, who was arrested after a bloody firefight with Mexican authorities earlier this year, has been extradited to Chicago.

He is expected to face sweeping narcotics trafficking charges.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez, 32, is reputed to have taken over the powerful Sinaloa cartel after his father’s arrest seven years ago.

He is one of four El Chapo sons, nicknamed the “Chapitos,” charged in an indictment unsealed in Chicago earlier this year.

Of the sons, Guzman Lopez, who is known as “El Raton,” or “The Mouse,” was the only one in custody.

He was captured in Culiacán, Mexico in January after an intense battle that left 10 soldiers and 19 suspects dead, according to news reports.

Guzman Lopez, who was being held in Mexico pending extradition proceedings, was flown to Chicago on Friday afternoon, according to a law enforcement source.

He could make an initial appearance at the Dirksen US Courthouse as soon as Monday.

A lawyer for Guzman Lopez was not listed on the court docket as of Friday.

Guzman Lopez was among 28 reputed members of the notorious Sinaloa cartel charged as part of a multi-jurisdictional fentanyl-trafficking investigation unveiled in April.

Attorney General Merrick Garland; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram; and other top federal prosecutors, including acting Chicago U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual launched the investigation.

In outlining the charges, Garland described the violence of the Sinaloa cartel and how its members have tortured perceived enemies, including Mexican law enforcement officials.

In some cases, cartel members also have fed victims, some still alive, to tigers owned by Guzmán’s sons, Garland said.

The Chicago indictment, which was filed under seal in January, alleged Guzman Lopez assumed day-to-day control of the cartel after his father’s arrest in 2016.

The indictment accuses the sons of orchestrating the shipment of thousands of pounds of cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs into the U.S. by boat, plane, and other means.

Guzman’s other sons charged in Chicago, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, remained at large as of Friday.

The indictment was filed as part of the same case originally filed in Chicago in 2009 against El Chapo himself as well as many of his top henchmen, which is widely considered the largest narcotics case ever brought in Chicago.

Those charges alleged the Sinaloa cartel used jumbo jets, submarines, and tunnels to smuggle massive amounts of drugs into the U.S., much of which was later distributed in wholesale quantities in Chicago.

The cartel members then laundered billions of dollars in proceeds back to Mexico.

Among the cartel’s top distributors were Pedro and Margarito Flores, twin brothers who rose from the obscurity of the Little Village neighborhood on the West Side to working directly for El Chapo before cutting a secret cooperation deal with the government.

The twins’ decision to cooperate with federal authorities in 2008 culminated with Pedro Flores testifying against El Chapo at his trial in New York in December 2018.

El Chapo was convicted in New York in 2019 and is serving a life sentence at a maximum security federal prison in Colorado.

The indictments announced in April, meanwhile, differed significantly from previous investigations by including allegations that the cartel is now trafficking fentanyl, a synthetic narcotic 50 times more potent than heroin.

Nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2021.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says most of the fentanyl trafficked in the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel.

In addition to cartel leaders, the indictments also charged Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl.

Others charged in the cases include those accused of running drug labs and providing security and weapons for the drug trafficking operation, prosecutors said.

In announcing the cases, Garland said the charges “describe in detail how the Sinaloa Cartel operates — without respect for human rights, for human life, or the rule of law.”

Two of the defendants were accused of testing the potency of the cartel’s fentanyl on victims while they were tied down, Garland said.

In another instance, cartel members “experimented on a woman they had been ordered to shoot,” injecting her instead with fentanyl until she overdosed and died, he said.

In another allegation contained in the charges, after an addict died testing a batch of the cartel’s fentanyl, one of the defendants sent the batch to the United States anyway, Garland said. (tca/dpa/NAN)

Vice President Kashim Shettima has emphasised the need for international cooperation towards combating global challenges.

The Director of Information, Office of the Vice President, Mr Olusola Abiola, in a statement, said Shettima, stated this while addressing World leaders at the ongoing G77+China Leaders’ Summit, in Cuba.

Shettima also spoke to an assembly of Heads of State and Government, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Gutteres and delegates from over 100 countries from the global South.

The vice president also emphasized the need to be focused on leveraging cooperation or partnership to find realistic solutions to global challenges.

Shettima said: ” We must always remember that cooperation is our compass and the most realistic path towards maximizing the opportunities and resolving challenges before us.

” We must not allow geopolitical tensions in any corner of the world to deter us from forging a collective and mutually advantageous path forward, a roadmap of shared prosperity and progress.”

He, therefore, expressed Nigeria’s commitment to tow the path of partnership with member states of the G77+China towards addressing global challenges.

Shettima said: ” Allow me to reiterate Nigeria’s commitment to partnering with our fellow member nations of the G77 and China.

” We shall champion initiatives that harness the potential of science, technology, and innovation to confront economic challenges, particularly within the global south.”

On the theme of the summit, ” Current Development Challenges: The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation,” Shettima underscored the prominent role played by science, technology and innovation in resolving challenges from the past to the present.

” Throughout history, science and technology have shaped the course of nations.

“The phases of the Industrial Revolution, from the first to the fourth, and from mechanization to automation, have determined the prosperity of those nations.

” It is crucial to acknowledge that the developing world found itself at a disadvantage in the earliest phases of these transformations, struggling to compete fairly as these revolutions swept across the globe,” he added.

The vice president told his audience that Nigeria was contributing its own share in leveraging science, technology and innovation to resolving challenges such as COVID-19 and the climate crisis.

Shettima said: ” Nigeria understands that the key to advancing innovation in science and technology lies in fostering a vibrant knowledge economy and facilitating the unrestricted exchange of ideas.

” This is the reason why across the globe, one would be hard-pressed to identify a premier institution, even within the most developed nations, where a Nigerian, trained at home, is not contributing significantly.

” Whether as a tech innovator or a medical specialist, in the noble pursuit of improving the human condition.”

On the efforts of the Nigerian government to combat Covid-19 using science and technology, Shettima said that the pandemic, while being a tragic chapter, served as a catalyst for “our brilliant minds in Nigeria to rejuvenate their pursuits in the fields of science and technology.

” Our scientists have successfully positioned our nation as a prominent global hub for mRNA vaccine production, a milestone currently in progress.”

Shettima extolled the contributions of the youtha in the nation’s quest for science, technology and innovation advancement.

He also emphasised that Nigeria’s demographic advantage was not limited to the absence of an aging population. Nigeria stands as a beacon of youthful talent and innovation.

He added: ” These young citizens are not only dedicated to integrating human elements into the evolving technological sphere, but their efforts also extend to diverse fields.

” Ranging from telemedicine to the automation of agriculture, all with the aim of making our daily lives more seamless.”

On climate crisis, the vice president opined that the climate crisis around the globe too had dominated Nigeria’s agenda and prompted youthful innovators to engage in crafting solutions.

He said: “This fervent commitment has resulted in the establishment of start-ups like the Climate Action Africa (CMA) Labs.

“It is a hub dedicated to addressing diverse challenges posed by climate change, including severe droughts, flooding, and the escalating agricultural complexities.”

Shettima, while stressing the imperative of global partnership, warned, “the stakes are high. If we fail to act now, the prevailing trend could imperil our attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

In his welcome speech at the opening of the summit, the President of Cuba and Chair of G77+China, Miguel Diaz-Canel lamented the precarious situations faced by developing countries who are member-states.

He said that science, technology and innovation had only benefitted developed countries while the global South was largely still facing very serious development challenges.

The president, therefore, called for collective wisdom to address the challenges.

Also, the United Nations (UN) Sectetary-General, Antonio Gutteres, acknowledged that there were development problems confronting developing countries.

He promised that the UN system would continue to work with the G77 and China to proffer solutions to these challenges.

Suspected cultists have killed a year-one student of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Anambra State

The student, identified as Uche Joevita Chigozirim, was allegedly hit by a stray bullet fired by the cultists at a place called Miracle Junction in the Anambra State capital.

A fellow student who narrated the incident said: “This girl, Uche Joevita Chigozirim, a 100-level Student of the Faculty of Health Science, was killed by a stray bullet shot by suspected cultists at the popular Miracle Junction. This is the insecurity situation we are facing in the Unizik environment and the state government is not doing anything to improve the situation.

“The IG of Police should help us with a checkpoint around Ifite area of Unizik because we are tired of complaining to the state government. It’s now a culture we are almost used to and it is really sad”.

The lifeless body of the deceased student was still lying at the scene and covered with banana leaves at press time yesterday.