Africa

Der Schock nach dem tödlichen Hai-Angriff in Australien ist gross. Opfer Sandra T. war eine leidenschaftliche Sportlerin und zuletzt als Richterin im Schwimmen tätig. Ihr Verein trauert und spricht der Familie sein Beileid aus.

Euronews: A török hatóságok arról számoltak be, hogy két, az úgynevezett orosz "árnyékflottához" köthető és a nemzetközi szankciós listán szereplő olajszállító tartályhajó kigyulladt pénteken (11. 28.) a Fekete-tengeren, a Boszporusz-szoros közelében. A mentési műveletet a azonnal megkezdték. A legénység biztonságban van.

The unexpected re-appearance of the famed Florentine Diamond rekindles Austria’s reckoning with the Habsburgs 

Szaunázni önmagában is páratlan élmény, Komáromban pedig igazán különleges hangulattal párosul, hiszen a Holt-Vág partján kialakított panorámaszauna lenyűgöző kilátást nyújt. A helyszín októberben már a harmadik szezonját indította, és az időjárástól függően akár áprilisig is fogadja a vendégeket.

Analysts instead blame criminal gangs for the kidnapping of more than 250 schoolchildren last week.

Written by David Kemp.

The ability of generative AI (‘GenAI’) to generate plausible text, images, music and computer code in response to human prompts is impressive. GenAI promises huge productivity gains in many domains, and large amounts of financial and political capital are staked on its success. Nevertheless, the current generation of models exhibit well-publicised weaknesses that might not simply disappear by using more data and processing power or smarter training. This paper looks at those limitations, and the lower-profile alternative approaches to AI that could overcome them and even provide the EU with a competitive advantage.

Since the unveiling of ChatGPT in 2022, we have witnessed what many commentators consider to be the most rapid adoption of new technology in recent times in virtually all segments of society. One cannot fail to be impressed by the speed at which it can produce outputs that some say can be ‘PhD-level’.

At the same time, there is growing awareness that these algorithms often produce plausible but demonstrably false outputs (‘hallucinations‘) or outputs that are inconsistent with logic, maths or ‘how the real world works’; they regurgitate problematic biases present in their training data and cannot provide a reliable explanation of how the outputs were derived. ‘GenAI-optimists’ believe that accuracy and tractability will emerge through scaling up the data and processing power available and adding external (human or automated) processes to fine-tune the models. ‘GenAI-pessimists’, on the other hand, point to the fact that finding solutions to the above problems is slowing down, strongly suggesting that the approach is reaching its limits. In addition, the very high energy and resource consumption of the infrastructure necessary for training and running these ‘brute force’, data-driven applications is putting pressure on already stretched supplies. Given the several trillions of private and public capital invested, now and over the next few years, in the geopolitically strategic race for an ‘all-purpose’ artificial general intelligence (AGI), it is worth asking where GenAI’s limits lie and what other approaches might be explored to put Europe at the forefront of AI innovation.

Potential impacts and developments

GenAI models, in essence, generate a multi-dimensional map of statistical relationships in the training data between ‘tokens‘ – digital representations of linguistic, graphical, musical or other data. The models can then be prompted to produce new combinations of text, images, music, etc. that are consistent with those relationships. In contrast to traditional statistical regression analysis, these models contain billions of parameters and make almost no assumptions about the form of the relationships between tokens. This gives GenAI its enormous advantage in finding the subtle, multivariate patterns that allow it to output plausible text, code, music, images, etc. in response to prompts.

The flip side of this underlying design, however, is that GenAI (like traditional statistical regression) is prone to mistaking ‘noise’ in the training sample for meaningful patterns and producing bizarre results when it is applied to data outside the training set. In addition, pure GenAI trades transparency of ‘reasoning’ for power: a printout of the billion-parameter map of relationships provides no explanation. This is a problem for the required ‘human in the loop’: how can one have confidence in the result if no one knows exactly how it was reached?

Clearly, these design weaknesses limit mission-critical uses of AI. Scaling GenAI does not appear to eliminate these problems, all the while adding additional problems linked to resource usage. Ideally, we would make the most of the powerful pattern detection that GenAI offers, and overcome some of the limitations of a purely data-driven approach. This requires boostingresearch into ‘hybrid’ approaches which, like the human brain, leverage GenAI’s pattern extraction and matching abilities using built-in, explicit models of efficient reasoning strategies and the real world, as well as strategies formaintaining and developingthose models. These approaches provide a reality check to improve the reliability of GenAI’s probabilistic outputs. They are also more efficient (algorithmically and energetically) as they directly encode readily available, fundamental knowledge rather than requiring everything to be extracted by brute force from the data. Finally, the use of explicit representations and strategies allows their reasoning to be inspected.

Neuro-symbolic approaches, such as IBM’s neuro-symbolic concept learner, combine GenAI with explicit rules for symbolic reasoning (for logic, abstraction and generalisation) to enhance reasoning and explainability. Embodied AI – such as Meta’s Habitat – involves training agents in virtual or physical environments where they are designed to learn through perception, action and feedback, promoting causal learning and the development of sensorimotor intelligence. Cognitive architectures, such as Soar, ACT-R and OpenCog, include explicit models of human cognitive processes, integrating perception, memory, learning, planning and reasoning in a modular way. This enables continuity of learning, goal-directed behaviour and long-term memory. World model learning approaches such as DeepMind’s MuZero, Ha & Schmidhuber’s world model agents and DreamerV3 focus on training agents to derive compact, predictive models of their environment to support causal reasoning, generalisation and efficient planning. Finally, it must be underlined that, regardless of the underlying technology, the pursuit of artificial general intelligence is not necessarily the most efficient route to useful applications. Artificial specific intelligence (AI approaches focused on a specific domain, such as the Nobel prize-winning, protein-folding algorithm, AlphaFold2) gives more reliable and transparent results by combining the subtle pattern detection at which GenAI excels with explicitly encoded, domain-specific knowledge.

Anticipatory policymaking

The reliability issues mentioned above call into question GenAI’s ability to deliver the ‘trustworthy and human centric AI … pivotal for economic growth and … [preserve] the fundamental rights and principles that underpin our societies’, as promised in the AI continent action plan. Most AI initiatives from the European Commission have so far concentrated on the implementation of GenAI rather than on research and development of alternative and complementary AI approaches. The €700 million flagship GenAI4EU programme, for example, states its aim as being to ‘integrate generativeArtificial Intelligence (AI) in Europe’s strategic sectors, and keep their competitive edge’. Consequently, most of the calls for projects focus on applying GenAI in particular sectors and providing the data and computing power it needs. The pursuit of artificial general intelligence has attracted an enormous amount of political and economic interest, potentially to the detriment of equally interesting and possibly more efficient and effective alternatives, including those mentioned above.

To best serve the EU’s goals of competitivity and innovation in AI, EU policy and funding could be targeted more directly to support the wholevalue chain of alternative and complementary approaches to GenAI.It is also important to actively further domain-specific AI (artificial specific intelligence)applications alongside GenAI. This can be achieved through proactively promoting such projects for existing funding programmes and by policy guidance in the next multiannual financial framework and the Competitiveness Fund for Digital Leadership.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘What if generative AI is reaching its limits?‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

The war is being fuelled by regional powers and the US president may have some leverage over them.

The war is being fuelled by regional powers and the US president may have some leverage over them.

Senegal's prime minister and Nigeria's former leader say they do not believe the military takeover was genuine.

Zambia's government is accused of 'hypocrisy' as fallout from ex-president's death deepens.

The defendants were accused of attempting a coup - but human rights groups say the trial was politically motivated.

Her resignation comes as a South African allegedly recruited to fight in Ukraine recounts the horrors of war to the BBC.

Pendant trois ans, la commune bâloise de Bettingen a cru percevoir des millions de francs supplémentaires. En réalité, il s’agissait de pertes.

Le beau temps de vendredi sera de courte durée. Dès dimanche, les précipitations reprendront avec une limite pluie-neige qui descendra jusqu’à 900 mètres.

L’homme équipé de raquettes à neige est tombé dans le lac partiellement gelé. Un conducteur de train a donné l’alerte.

Le conseiller national genevois MCG Daniel Sormanni demande une intervention de la Confédération à l’ONU. Reporters sans frontières applaudit.

When the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to designate 25 May as World Football Day. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 28 2025 (IPS)

The 193-member General Assembly, the UN’s highest policy-making body, routinely designates ”International Days” and “World Days’” on a wide range of subjects and events – from the sublime to the ridiculous: described as “a sudden shift from something grand and awe-inspiring to something silly and unimportant”.

The commemorations range from the International Women’s Day and the International Day to Combat Islamophobia to the International Moon Day and World Bicycle Day (not forgetting World Tuna Day, World Bee Day, International Day of Potato, World Horse Day, World Pulses Day and International Day of the Arabian Leopard).

According to the UN, the world body observes 218 international days annually (and counting).

One of the first designations came from the UN General Assembly’s declaration in 1947 that 24 October should be celebrated as United Nations Day, the anniversary of the adoption of the UN Charter that founded the Organization.

Since then, UN Member States have proposed more than 200 designations, presenting draft resolutions to the General Assembly so the entire membership, representing 193 nations, can vote.

But a new resolution aimed at revitalizing the work of the General Assembly “notes with concern the significant increase in the number of proposals to proclaim international days, weeks, months, years or decades”.

The resolution decides, on a trial basis, to put on hold consideration of new proposals for international days, weeks, months, years and decades during the eighty-first and eighty-second sessions.

The resolution also requests the President of the General Assembly, effective from the eighty-first session in 2026, to group all proclamation requests for international commemoration into a single resolution per agenda item, where each proposed commemoration contains its own operative paragraph focused on its establishment.

The upcoming International Days in March 2026 include:
1 March – World Seagrass Day
1 March – United Nations Zero Discrimination Day
3 March – International Day for Ear and Hearing Loss
3 March – World Wildlife Day
5 March – International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness
8 March – International Women’s Day
10 March – International Day of Women Judges
15 March – International Day to combat Islamophobia
20 March – International Day of Happiness
20 March – French Language Day
21 March – International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
21 March – World Poetry Day
21 March – International Nowruz Day
21 March – World Down Syndrome Day
21 March – International Day of Forests
21 March – World Day of Glaciers
22 March – World Water Day
23 March – World Meteorological Day
24 March – World Tuberculosis Day
24 March – International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights
25 March – International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery
25 March – International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members
30 March – International Day of Zero Waste

The list for December includes:
01 Dec – World AIDS Day
02 Dec – International Day for the Abolition of Slavery (A/RES/317(IV)
03 Dec – International Day of Persons with Disabilities (A/RES/47/3)
04 Dec – International Day of Banks (A/RES/74/245)
04 Dec – International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures (A/RES/79/293)
05 Dec – International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development (A/RES/40/212)
05 Dec – World Soil Day (A/RES/68/232)
07 Dec – International Civil Aviation Day (A/RES/51/33)
09 Dec – International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime (A/RES/69/323)
09 Dec – International Anti-Corruption Day (A/RES/58/4)
10 Dec – Human Rights Day (A/RES/423 (V)
11 Dec – International Mountain Day (A/RES/57/245)
12 Dec – International Day of Neutrality (A/RES/71/275)
12 Dec – International Universal Health Coverage Day (A/RES/72/138)
18 Dec – International Migrants Day (A/RES/55/93)
18 Dec – Arabic Language Day
20 Dec – International Human Solidarity Day (A/RES/60/209)
21 Dec – World Meditation Day (A/RES/79/137)
21 Dec – World Basketball Day (A/RES/77/324)
27 Dec – International Day of Epidemic Preparedness (A/RES/75/27)

Newspaper headlines reflect the abductions of girls and others in Nigeria’s northern states. Credit: Hussain Wahab/IPS

By Hussain Wahab
ABUJA, Nov 28 2025 (IPS)

On the morning of 17 November 2025, darkness cloaked Maga town in the Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area, Kebbi State, until gunfire shattered the silence. It was around 4 am when armed attackers stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, firing into the air to terrify residents before heading to the staff quarters. There, they killed two, including Hassan Yakubu, the school’s Chief Security Officer and then abducted 26 female students.

Two later escaped, said Halima Bande, the state’s commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education. This brazen raid came less than 72 hours after the killing of Brigadier-General Musa Uba in an ambush by the insurgents.

A rescue mission by Nigerian soldiers to intervene in Kebbi’s abduction was itself ambushed and injured by the insurgents, heightening fears that such violence is spiraling beyond the reach of conventional security responses.

Since then, 24 girls have been released, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu announced.

Abubakar Fakai, whose nine nieces are among the 26 abducted schoolgirls, told IPS that his family and the entire community have been plunged into unbearable grief.

A father of four of the kidnapped girls, Ilyasu Fakai, is still in shock. Almost every household in the close-knit village has been affected. For more than a week they received no credible information about the girls’ condition or whereabouts, Abubakar said.

“Every night we try to sleep, but we can’t, because we keep thinking of the girls lying somewhere on bare ground, scared and cold. These are teenage girls, and we fear for their dignity and their lives. We just want the government to rescue them quickly and reunite them with us. This pain is too much for our community to bear,” he told IPS.

The Kebbi raid was one of several mass abductions that occurred within days of each other.

At least 402 people, mainly schoolchildren, have been kidnapped in four states in the north-central region—Niger, Kebbi, Kwara and Borno—since 17 November, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

Call to Authorities

“We are shocked at the recent surge in mass abductions in north-central Nigeria,” OHCHR Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said in Geneva.

“We urge the Nigerian authorities—at all levels—to take all lawful measures to ensure such vile attacks are halted and to hold those responsible to account.”

A day after the Kebbi incident, a church was attacked in Eruku, Kwara; two were killed and about 38 abducted during a live church session. State Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, in a statement, said President Bola Tinubu deployed an additional 900 troops to the community.

In Niger State, a St. Mary’s School in Papiri was also attacked on Friday, November 21, and 303 boys and girls, plus 12 teachers, were abducted; only 50 are said to have escaped as of Sunday, November 23. This number surpasses the number of girls kidnapped in Chibok, prompting an international “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.

The same day, militants launched another deadly attack in Borno State. The list is not exhaustive, underscoring how Nigeria’s overlapping insurgency and banditry crises are converging in devastating ways.

Insurgency a Threat to Food Security

The rise in insurgent attacks is threatening regional stability and causing a spike in hunger, according to the the World Food Programme (WFP)

The latest analysis finds nearly 35 million people are projected to face severe food insecurity during the 2026 lean season from June to August—the highest number ever recorded in the country.

Insurgent attacks have intensified this year, the UN agency said.

Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, reportedly carried out its first attack in Nigeria last month, while the insurgent group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) is apparently seeking to expand across the Sahel region.

“Communities are under severe pressure from repeated attacks and economic stress,” said David Stevenson, WFP Country Director and Representative in Nigeria.

“If we can’t keep families fed and food insecurity at bay, growing desperation could fuel increased instability with insurgent groups exploiting hunger to expand their influence, creating a security threat that extends across West Africa and beyond.”

Human-rights activist Omoyele Sowore drew national attention to the lawlessness in a viral post.

A Long Shadow Over Schools

Human-rights activist Omoyele Sowore drew national attention to the lawlessness in a viral post.

These recent incidents are not isolated—they are part of a deepening national crisis that has targeted schools for more than a decade. According to Save the Children, 1,683, schoolchildren have been kidnapped in Nigeria from April 2014 through December 2022. UNICEF similarly reports that over 1,680 schoolchildren have been abducted within that period and according to a SBM report, 4,722 people were abducted and N2.57 billion (about USD 1.7 million) was paid to kidnappers as ransom between July 2024 and June 2025.

These statistics reflect both past challenges and an enduring failure—despite Nigeria’s endorsement of the Safe Schools Declaration, the protections promised on paper have not reached many of its most vulnerable schools.

Experts and analysts say these incidents reflect a broader model: criminal gangs and insurgents are increasingly seeing schoolchildren as high-value targets. This surge underscores a chilling truth: educational institutions, especially in rural and poorly guarded areas, are no longer safe havens. They are strategic targets.

“This has now become a national and international discussion, giving Nigeria a very bad name,” said Colonel Abdullahi Gwandu, a conflict expert, in an interview with IPS, criticizing the government’s failure to anticipate such attacks and the slack competency of security forces, putting not only education but every sphere of the nation in mayhem.

Trauma, Trust, and Retreat

In the wake of the Kebbi abduction, fear rippled across communities. Uncertain of their children’s safety, parents in Maga and nearby areas rushed to withdraw their daughters from schools. Community leaders responded with grief and prayer. Maga’s traditional ruler announced a special prayer gathering, calling on God to bring the girls home safely.

Habibat Muhammad, a youth advocate, said it concerned her that these trends put the education of girls at risk.

“When you train a girl child, you train a nation but how do you train a nation when girls who should be sitting in class are dragged out of their hostels by people who have learned to exploit government negligence?”

She said many rural girls’ schools lack basic security infrastructure: trained guards, perimeter fencing, early-warning systems and proper lighting. She argued that this absence of protection contrasts sharply with the layered security given to public officials or financial institutions. “Education must be treated as a national priority, not a soft target,” she told IPS.

Why the State Can’t Seem to Stop Attacks

Security experts and community voices agree that the Kebbi attack exposed major systemic flaws. Gwandu described the incident as a stark reminder of how fragile rural school security has become. He noted that the deliberate killing of a school security officer signals a shift in tactics: attackers are now targeting authority figures in addition to students. He stressed the need for a more intelligence-driven strategy and urged the military to take firmer action. “

The Northwest Division, headquartered in Sokoto, should be given full authority and resources to respond quickly and aggressively by combining human intelligence with AI to track bandits and their informants while addressing poverty and poor education to reduce criminal recruitment, Gwandu said.

Beyond immediate security, he argues, the government must tackle root causes: poverty, lack of education, and widespread youth unemployment make banditry and kidnapping more appealing for disenfranchised young people.

The Cost Beyond the Kidnapping

Dr. Shadi Sabeh, an educationist and the vice-chairman of the Iconic University, argues that closing these wounds must be central to Nigeria’s recovery strategy.

“We have to be there for our children. Guidance and counselling are almost absent in our education system.” he calls for trauma-informed curricula, peer support groups, bravery training, and sustained mental health services within schools to help students cope, heal, and reclaim their futures. This highlights the need to keep youth productive.

“A hungry man is an angry man and an idle hand is a devil’s workshop.

Jeariogbe Islamiyyah Adedoyin, Vice President of the School of Physical Sciences, added a more personal plea.

“No child should ever have to go through something like that just to get an education. Our girls deserve to learn without fear. She said when schools are no longer safe, the future of the nation is at risk.”

What the Government Is Doing—And Why It’s Not Enough

In response to the crisis, authorities have initiated both immediate and longer-term measures. Short-term responses include deployment of troops to high-risk regions like Kebbi and Niger, search-and-rescue operations involving military, police, and local vigilantes, closure of some schools deemed vulnerable and public condemnation from religious and political leaders.

However, high levels of poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy, and lack of parental care make marginalized youth vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups and defeat these efforts.

A legal expert, Waliu Olaitan Wahab, told IPS that the roots of insecurity in northern Nigeria run far deeper than the activities of Boko Haram, herdsmen, or bandit gangs. He described the crisis as multifaceted, arguing that decades of neglect by northern elites have created a system where millions of children grow up without support, opportunity, or protection—making them easy targets for recruitment.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Heavyweight Jeamie TKV and his father share a most fascinating family story shaped by poisoning, plots and presidents.

Heavyweight Jeamie TKV and his father share a most fascinating family story shaped by poisoning, plots and presidents.