Author: Opalim Lifted

The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has urged politicians in Nigeria to stop weaponising insecurity against their opposition in office. Okonjo-iweala spoke before a room filled with lawyers at the Eko Hotel & Suites in Lagos during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Sunday. The former Nigerian finance minister delivered a keynote address entitled, ‘A Social Contract For Nigeria’s Future’. “We cannot have socio-economic development without security. We certainly cannot have security without development,” the WTO chief said. “We all know that security has been…

Australia gave millions of workers the legal right to “disconnect” on Monday, allowing them to ignore unreasonable out-of-hours contact from employers, to the distress of big industry. People can now “refuse to monitor, read, or respond to” their employers’ attempts to contact them outside work hours — unless that refusal is deemed “unreasonable”. The law is similar to those of some European and Latin American countries. Unions welcomed the legislation, saying it gave workers a way to reclaim a work-life balance. “Today is a historic day for working people,” said Michele O’Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.…

Gunmen shot and killed at least 22 people in southwest Pakistan on Monday, after forcing them out of vehicles and checking their ethnicity, government officials said, in an attack claimed by separatists. The attack was carried out by dozens of militants early Monday in the district of Musakhail in the impoverished Balochistan province, where security forces are battling sectarian, ethnic, and separatist violence. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most active militant separatist group in the region, claimed responsibility for the shootings in a statement emailed to AFP. The buses, vans, and trucks were stopped one after the other on…

Noni Madueke’s hat-trick gave Chelsea their first Premier League victory of the season as they beat Wolves in a pulsating and chaotic encounter. Chelsea took the lead after 98 seconds when Cole Palmer’s inswinging corner was inadvertently flicked on by Matheus Cunha and an unmarked Nicolas Jackson nodded in at the back post. Jackson stoked an already feisty Molineux crowd with his celebrations – and Wolves rallied on the field. Rayan Ait-Nouri’s dazzling run set up Cunha and the livewire Brazilian equalised with a crisp low finish from inside the box, before appearing to goad Chelsea’s players. Palmer then restored…

Senior Liverpool players in the final year of their contracts must perform well to secure future deals at Anfield, new manager Arne Slot said ahead of Sunday’s Premier League home game against Brentford. Captain Virgil van Dijk, forward Mohamed Salah, and England international Trent Alexander-Arnold are on deals which expire at the end of the season. Chelsea offer Sterling to Aston Villa, Liverpool offer £63m for Branthwaite “The only thing I have to do – this is what I do with all of them – is to bring the best out of them,” Slot said in an interview with Sky…

Billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, is to appear in court Sunday after being arrested at a Paris airport for offences related to his popular messaging app, sources told AFP. Russia has accused France of “refusing to cooperate” following the arrest of the 39-year-old Franco-Russian billionaire at Le Bourget airport on Saturday night. Durov had arrived from Baku, Azerbaijan, one source close to the case said. France’s OFMIN, an office tasked with preventing violence against minors, had issued an arrest warrant for Durov in a preliminary investigation into alleged offences including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organised crime and…

Operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) have arrested an investigative journalist, Adejuwon Soyinka. Soyinka, who is the Regional Editor of The Conversation Africa, was arrested at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on Sunday. A distress message sent by one of his friends stated that Soyinka was picked up shortly after arriving from the United Kingdom, Punch media reported. The friend in the message said no reason was given for his arrest and Soyinka had been held incommunicado. The message read, “Adejuwon Soyinka has been detained by officers of the Department of State Security at the Muritala…

The Acting Governor of Niger State, Yakubu Garba, has called on the Federal Government to urgently redeploy military forces to the Alawa community under bandits attack in the Shiroro Local Government Area of the state.  The community was recently overrun by armed bandits. The federal government had withdrawn troops from the area five months ago, a decision that has left the community vulnerable to incessant attacks by bandits Governor Garba’s appeal came in the wake of a fresh devastating attack on Wednesday, where 13 farmers were brutally killed while working in their fields on the outskirts of the Alawa community.…

Ipswich Town have signed forward Jack Clarke from Championship side Sunderland on a five-year contract, the newly promoted Premier League club announced late on Saturday. Financial details of the transfer were not disclosed by either club, but English media reported that Ipswich paid Sunderland 15 million pounds ($19.8 million) for the 23-year-old. Jack Clarke has scored 28 goals in 114 appearances for Sunderland. He was initially loaned from Tottenham Hotspur and made a permanent move to Sunderland in 2022. Clarke is Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna’s 10th signing in the close-season. “Kieran McKenna really sells the club and the journey it’s…

Harry Kane can finally end his trophy drought as Vincent Kompany has changed the mood at Bayern Munich, says Germany legend Lothar Matthaus. England captain Kane scored 36 Bundesliga goals in his first season at Bayern but his team finished a disappointing third, 18 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen. Thomas Tuchel departed at the end of the 2023-24 season with a year left on his contract and Kompany has since taken charge after leaving Burnley, who were relegated from the Premier League. Kompany’s first league game in charge is on Sunday when Bayern go to Wolfsburg (14:30 BST), with Harry…