Good morning. A man left a generous $3k tip during the #TipsForJesus social media trend. Three months later, he is demanding it back. The restaurant says they are suing.
Equatorial Guinea. President Obiang Mbasogo has unexpectedly become the latest leader to abolish the death penalty. The last sanctioned execution that took place in the authoritarian Central African country was in 2014. Obiang, 80, has spent more than 43 years in power, a world record when excluding monarchies.
South Korea. Prosecutors have requested that Interpol issue a red notice against Terra and Luna founder Do Kwon, alleging the disgraced crypto mogul isn’t cooperating with investigators. Accused of fraud and under investigation by the SEC, Kwon was believed to be in Singapore, though police there say he is not in the city-state.
Movies. A massive leak over the weekend containing 90 videos of footage from Grand Theft Auto VI was confirmed to be legitimate by its publisher, Rockstar Games. The game, reportedly at least two years away from being finished, appears to feature a woman protagonist for the first time. The hacker has threatened to leak more data soon.
Europe. The U.K. may join the new "European Political Community," which meets for the first time in October. The group aims to increase cooperation between the 27 existing EU member states and other countries outside the bloc. The non-EU countries that have been invited include the U.K., Ukraine, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Iceland, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
1792 Monarchy abolished in France
In Revolutionary France, the Legislative Assembly votes to abolish the monarchy and establish the First Republic. The measure came one year after King Louis XVI reluctantly approved a new constitution that stripped him of much of his power.
NIGERIA
The Story
The House of Representatives has said it is intervening in the lingering dispute between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
What kind of intervention?
The Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, disclosed this on Tuesday after the National Assembly returned from its two-month annual break. Gbajabiamila said he has already summoned a meeting of the stakeholders involved in the dispute, including the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed; Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Chris Ngige; Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu; and ASUU's leadership.
What's the House bringing to the negotiations?
Gbajabiamila said the parliament is committed to doing everything possible to end the crisis. "Our agenda is to explore whatever options there are for parliament to help resolve the present crisis so that our children can return to school", he said. While acknowledging that "the government has a role in ensuring that our nation’s young people get a quality education that allows them to compete and thrive in the 21st-Century knowledge economy", Gbajabiamila noted that government funding has proven to be inadequate for the country's education sector.
"Evidence abounds that the current framework of government-sponsored tertiary education is no longer working as it should and hasn’t worked for a long time. Our immediate goal is to do everything to get our children back to school. However, the time has also come to begin a candid assessment of the current system and to consider all available options for complete reform. We owe this to our children and to our nation’s future", the Speaker said. Source
EUROPE
The Story
The BBC was contacted last week by a Vietnamese couple who said they carried out a destructive cyber-attack against the UK-based Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) "for fun".
For fun?
Yes, but that was after their initial attempt at a ransomware attack was foiled by the company's IT team. "Our attack was originally planned to be a ransomware but the company's IT team kept isolating servers before we had a chance to deploy it, so we thought to have some funny [sic]. We did a wiper attack instead," one of the hackers told the BBC. It had significant impact on the operations of IHG, which operates about 6,000 hotels globally, including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Regent brands.
Why did they contact the BBC?
The attention, perhaps. Identifying themselves as TeaPea, they contacted the BBC on Telegram, providing screenshots of the company's internal Outlook emails, Microsoft Teams chats and server directories as confirmation of the hack. The images in the screenshots were confirmed by IHG as genuine. The hackers gained access to the company's databases through an easily found and weak password, Qwerty1234(a combination of the first six letters and first four numbers on a computer keyboard).
How did it affect the company?
Customers reported widespread problems with booking and check-in. In response to the complaints, IHG told customers that the company was "undergoing system maintenance". But it could do that for only a day, because by noon the following day, it told investors that it had been hacked. "Booking channels and other applications have been significantly disrupted since yesterday," the company said in an official notice to the London Stock Exchange. Source
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EUROPE
The Story
Monday's funeral of Queen Elizabeth’s II was one of the biggest diplomatic gatherings in decades. Leaders of almost 200 countries and territories, including roughly 90 presidents and Prime Ministers, flew in to attend. Many of them did not get the royal treatment, however.
How do you mean?
Japan’s Emperor and other Heads of State arrived at the funeral on buses. But that’s due to the immense security challenge. With all those powerful people in attendance and 1 million people visiting London, the UK had to deploy its biggest security detail since WWII. 10,000 police officers were on duty (and that’s only the uniformed ones), snipers were eyeing the throngs from rooftops, and a special unit had its focus on people who may be dangerously “fixated” on the royal family. And that's not all.
What more?
Most of the UK economy shut down. Schools, banks, sporting events, and many retailers - including McDonald’s - shut down after the government declared Monday a bank holiday and encouraged companies to give their workers a day off. Heathrow Airport in London announced it would change ~15% of its flights for Monday so that the airplane noise wouldn’t interfere with the funeral proceedings. But coming at a time when the UK economy is hurting, the disruption caused by the queen’s funeral irked many Brits.
Weren't they all celebrating their departed Monarch?
With many Britons struggling financially due to rising inflation and skyrocketing energy costs, there has been questions over the cost of the funeral to taxpayers, particularly among those who are not fans of the monarchy. People have expressed their annoyance about nationwide traffic jams, school closures, and retail closings. For instance, people have expressed frustration that their non-emergency medical procedures and appointments were postponed. As the daughter of a man whose dentist appointment was canceled told PA Media, “It’s abhorrent to ask people like himself to lose their teeth for an unelected head of state in the 21st century.” Source
KNOWLEDGE
Quora Question: What facts about Canada do people not believe until they come to Canada?
Swapna Simham
I am originally from a tropical country, and when I immigrated to the Great White North five years ago I found a lot of things amazing and unbelievable. I will list out a few of them:
Students to block Abuja airport, Kaduna road today
Kukah: I paid N30m ransom for my priests
‘It has no nutrition’ — FG to ban ‘ponmo’ to revive leather industry
We’ll raise minimum wage to meet current realities, says FG
NDLEA seizes biggest cocaine bust in its history - ‘worth N194bn’ in Lagos
Uganda confirms Ebola outbreak after patient dies
UN chief says world ‘in peril and paralysed’ as summit convenes
Iran confirms first deaths in protests over Mahsa Amini’s death
‘Gigantic mistake’: Biden warned China’s Xi over aiding Russia
Japanese man sets himself on fire over Abe’s state funeral
INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY
Internship at ECOWAS
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) launches the immersion internship program for young graduates in ECOWAS institutions. The program is open to young graduates from the ECOWAS Member States, aged 35 years or less.
ECOWAS was set up to foster the ideal of collective self-sufficiency for its member states. As a trading union, it is also meant to create a single, large trading bloc through economic cooperation.
Application Deadline: September 28, 2022. APPLY HERE
FEATURE
“I just bought this bundle yesterday. How has it finished?’’ is now a common question among the millions of smartphone users in Nigeria today. While there have been tons of smartphone upgrades recently – better refresh rates, improved connectivity, alongside a plethora of enhancements – they seem to tag along an increasingly significant problem: rapid data consumption. With the alarming rates at which we use data bundles, it’s rather pertinent to know the cause.
There are several reasons why your smartphone consumes more mobile data these days. You could either be using social media platforms a lot, streaming HD content regularly, or turning on your hotspot for others to use...
The best new chefs of 2022. Food&Wine
Why does thinking hard make us feel tired? Nature
20 historical myths everyone believes. MSN
The Queen's funeral in pictures. BBC
Inside Libya's secret jail: 'Being alive is a miracle'. BBC
TRIVIA
THAT MUST BE PAINFUL LOL
ARCHIVE
Written by Seun, Mercy, Kingsley, and Tosin.
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