Author: David Great

Cricket will feature as one of five new sports at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, organisers announced Monday. A vote of the International Olympic Committee’s session in Mumbai approved cricket, together with baseball/softball, flag football, squash and lacrosse. The IOC’s executive board last week accepted a proposal by LA organisers for Twenty20 cricket, the sport’s shortest format, to be included along with the four other new events. But the final choice still had to be voted on Monday at the IOC session in Mumbai, one of the global centres for cricket, as India hosts the men’s 50-over Cricket…

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned Monday to Israel after talks in six Arab states, hoping to coordinate efforts against Hamas while finding ways to alleviate Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. Just four days after he paid a lightning visit to Tel Aviv to show solidarity, Blinken landed back in the city and was expected to meet leaders in Jerusalem as Israel prepares a major ground operation in the Gaza Strip. “I want an opportunity to share everything that I’ve heard — that I’ve learned — over the last few days visiting with our other partners and to talk about the…

The Lagos State Government has shut down a private hospital in Ago-Okota, Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area, for accepting unscreened and unlabeled blood and giving it to uninformed patients. Dr. Bodunrin Osikomaiya, the executive secretary of the Lagos State Blood Transfusion Service (LSBTS), announced this in a statement issued on Sunday by Tunbosun Ogunbanwo, the State Ministry of Health’s Director of Public Affairs. According to Osikomaiya, the Lagos State Blood Transfusion Service (LSBTS) sealed the health facility in collaboration with the state Health Facilities Monitoring and Accreditation Agency after receiving a report from a concerned resident. “Following the tip-off, and after…

President Bola Tinubu will preside over the administration’s second Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, barring any last-minute changes. Recall that on May 29, President Tinubu succeeded Muhammadu Buhari, and on August 21, the new Ministers were sworn in at the State House Conference Hall in Abuja. The President, the Vice President, who presides over council meetings in the President’s absence, and the Ministers make up the FEC, the government’s decision-making body. The Chief of Staff to the President, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the Head of the Federation’s Civil Service, the National Security Adviser (NSA), and…

Israel resumed the water supply to southern Gaza, Energy Minister Katz said Sunday, as one million people have evacuated the north of the Strip to escape a massive air assault. “This will push the civilian population to the southern (part of the) Strip,” Katz said in a statement, a week after Israel had stopped supplying water to the entire territory as part of a “complete siege” on the Palestinian enclave. He said the decision to resume the supply was taken after talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan earlier said…

More than one million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip in the last week, the UN said Sunday, after sustained Israeli bombardment and warnings about a ground attack against Hamas commanders. Israel declared war on the Islamist group last Sunday, a day after waves of fighters broke through the heavily fortified border and shot, stabbed and burned to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians. Seven days of relentless bombing targeting those who masterminded the attack have flattened neighbourhoods and left at least 2,450 people dead in the Gaza Strip, the majority ordinary Palestinians, the health…

Palestinian health officials in the Gaza Strip have resorted to storing bodies in ice cream freezer trucks because of risks and lack of space Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi criticises Israel: “The reaction went beyond the right to self-defence, turning into collective punishment.” Palestinian authorities say death toll in Gaza rises to 2,450 Hamas’ armed wing said it fired 20 rockets from Lebanon on two Israeli settlements while Hezbollah said it targeted barracks in Israel’s Hanita with missiles and had inflicted casualties. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to “demolish Hamas” as his military prepared to move into…

The Borno Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, September 28, 2023 secured the conviction and sentencing of Goni Muhammad and Seidu Seriki Hamani to seven years imprisonment, for offering fake gold belonging to former First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan to their victims. They were arraigned on May 16, 2022, before Justice Aisha Kumaliya of the Borno State High Court, Maiduguri, on two- count charges bordering on conspiracy and obtaining under false pretence to the tune of N 26, 492,000 (Twenty Six Million, Four Hundred and Ninety Two Thousand Naira only). One of the counts reads:…

Men of the Lagos State Taskforce have apprehended Saheed Abdulahi, a notorious land grabber, popularly known as ‘Ibile’, who operates in the Ibeju-Lekki and Epe axis of the state. The taskforce, led by its chairman, CSP Shola Jejeloye, made the arrest in the early hours of Saturday following a series of complaints and petitions written to police authorities by residents, communities, and landowners about Ibile’s high degree of bestiality and crude manner of operation when trying to dislodge legal occupants from their legitimate property. Addressing journalists at the headquarters of the taskforce, Jejeloye described Ibile as a repugnant entity not…

Israeli military says will continue to allow Gazans to evacuate south, hundreds of thousands have already relocated One dead in attack on Israeli village near Lebanon border Israeli military declares a zone within 4 km of Lebanon border off-limits Blinken says meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “very productive” The Israeli military said on Sunday it would continue to allow Gazans to evacuate south and hundreds of thousands had already moved, as its troops readied for a ground assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in retaliation for unprecedented attacks. Israel has vowed to annihilate the militant group Hamas…