Mob Beat And Burn Body of Female Student For Allegedly Insulting Prophet Mohammed

 NIGERIA: A female student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education (SSCOE) Sokoto simply identified as Deborah was allegedly beaten and burnt to death on allegations of blasphemy today Thursday, May 12.

Deborah, who is said to be residing with her parents in Old Airport Road area of Sokoto metropolis, was accused of insulting Prophet Muhammad (SAW), during a hot argument with her colleagues in school.

”She was having an argument with some of her schoolmates over their ongoing examination and when she was asked how she managed to pass her exams, she said it was Jesus. She was asked to withdraw the statement and apologise which she refused.

The school security intervened, and took her to their post but they were overpowered by students after which she was killed in the process. After killing her, her body was burnt on the school premises”a source said.

Addressing newsmen at Government House in Sokoto, the Commissioner of Information, Isah Bajini Galadanchi, said the state government has ordered security agencies to investigate the incident to ascertain its remote causes. It also ordered the immediate closure of the college.

“It has come to the notice of Sokoto State Government, the unfortunate incident that took place at the Shehu Shagari College of Education (SSCOE) Sokoto in which a Student of the College, lost her life.

The Government has ordered the immediate closure of the College.

Already, the State Governor, Rt Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal has directed the Ministry of Higher Education, and relevant Security agencies in the State to commence investigations into the remote and immediate causes of the incident and report back to the Government.

Meanwhile, Governor Ammu Waziri Tambuwal has called on the people of the State to remain calm and maintain peace, as the Government would take appropriate actions on the findings of the investigations by the relevant authority” Galadanchi said

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U.S. Groups Urge Social Media Companies To Fight ‘Big Lie,’ Election Disinformation

 Social media companies including Facebook (FB.O), Twitter , YouTube and TikTok must act now to blunt the effect of false information – including Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that his 2020 defeat was the result of fraud – in this year’s U.S. midterm congressional elections, rights groups said on Thursday.

Social media platforms backed away from policies designed to fight election disinformation after the 2020 presidential race won by Democratic President Joe Biden, more than 100 advocacy groups, led by Common Cause, said in a letter to social media executives.

A surge of disinformation then led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Trump and that disinformation continues to multiply, they said, citing research and public reporting.

“High-profile disinformation spreaders and other bad actors are continuing to use social media platforms to disseminate messages that undermine trust in elections,” read a letter sent to chief executives and signed by more than 100 groups lead by Common Cause.

“Candidates are using the Big Lie as a platform plank to pre-emptively declare voter fraud in order to dispute the results of the 2022 election,” they wrote. “This is damaging American democracy by undermining faith in the integrity of our elections.”

The letter, also sent to the CEOs of Google (GOOGL.O), Instagram LLC and Snap Inc (SNAP.N), urged the companies to take steps, including prioritizing fact-checking and providing real-time access of data to external researchers and watchdogs.

Priority must be given to fighting the “Big Lie” that voter fraud cost Trump the White House in 2020, the letter said.

The groups also sought greater transparency on political advertisements, enforcement practices and algorithmic models.

Others that signed include voting rights and election integrity groups as well as the Center for American Progress, the League of Women Voters, Greenpeace, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Arab American Institute.

Source: REUTERS

DNT NEWS

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Apple loses position as world’s most valuable firm

 Apple has lost its position as the world’s most valuable company amid a broad sell-off of technology stocks.

Saudi Arabian oil and gas producer Aramco has reclaimed the top spot from the iPhone maker for the first time in almost two years.

Investors have been selling shares in technology firms as they move into what they see as less risky assets.

Bitcoin, other major cryptocurrencies and digital assets have also continued to fall sharply.

Shares in Apple fell by more than 5% in New York on Wednesday to end the trading day with a stock market valuation of $2.37 trillion (£1.94tn).

That meant it lost its position as the most valuable company in the world to oil and gas producer Aramco, which was valued at $2.42tn.

It is the first time that Aramco has held the top spot since 2020. Shares in energy producers have risen this year as the cost of crude oil and natural gas have gone up.

Meanwhile Apple’s shares have fallen by almost 20% since the start of the year after a sell-off in technology stocks.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq closed 3.2% lower in New York on Wednesday after official data showed that US inflation remained near a more than 40-year high.

Rising prices have been the single biggest threat to the recovery of the global economy as it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Central banks around the world have responded to the problem by raising interest rates, which has triggered a move out of riskier investments over concerns that the higher cost of borrowing will slow down economic growth.

On Thursday, Japan’s SoftBank Group reported a record loss of $26.2bn at its Vision Fund business as the value of its technology investments slid.

The loss was a stark contrast to a year ago when the company posted record annual profit.

Since then a number of companies SoftBank has stakes in, including ride-hailing firms Didi and Grab, have tumbled in value.

The move out of what are seen as risky assets also helped to push the price of Bitcoin below $27,000.

The world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency has now lost about 60% of its value since hitting a record high in November last year.

Ether, the digital coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, also fell sharply again and has now lost more than 40% of its value in the last week.

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Google Translate Includes 10 More African Languages Including Ewe

 If, up to now, you’ve ever been stumped by something written in Krio or Ewe or Tigrinya then, unlike for more than 100 other languages, Google Translate was not going to help you out.

But that’s just changed as Google has announced the addition of 24 languages – including 10 spoken in Africa – to this function.

The new African languages are:

-Bambara – spoken in Mali

-Ewe – spoken in Ghana and Togo

-Krio – spoken in Sierra Leone

-Lingala – spoken in large parts of central Africa including the Democratic Republic of Congo

-Luganda – spoken in Uganda and Rwanda

-Oromo – spoken in Ethiopia

-Sepedi – spoken in South Africa

-Tigrinya – spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia

-Tsonga – spoken in South Africa

-Twi – spoken in Ghana

Several other African languages were already available, including Amharic, Hausa and Somali.

In the past, the software used to translate as well as learn how to improve the interpretation relied on being fed material that had already been translated.

There is a large and growing amount of text in the more widely spoken and used languages – but this is not the case for many others.

Google has said that these new additions rely on novel software which does not require reference to previous examples.

Google Translate’s research scientist Isaac Caswell told the BBC that this work was part of “expanding coverage to many communities who were very much overlooked not just by Google but other technologies in general”.

But will the translations be accurate? Many polyglots have up to now noted problems with the languages already available.

“For many supported languages, even the largest languages in Africa that we have supported – say like Yoruba, Igbo, the translation is not great. It will definitely get the idea across but often it will loss much of the subtlety of the language,” Mr Caswell admitted.

With the new languages, he said, it would be no different. But the people who helped in the research said it was a good place to start.

“Some of the Krio [speakers] said, ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.’

“In the end, we have to make the call. And my impression from other people I have talked to was that it was a very positive thing for them.”

Source: BBC

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United States passes one million Covid deaths

 The US has passed more than one million Covid-related deaths, says the White House.

President Joe Biden said the country was marking “a tragic milestone” and each death was “an irreplaceable loss”.

It’s the highest official total in the world – although the World Health Organization believes the true death toll may be much higher elsewhere.

The US has also recorded more than 80 million Covid cases, out of a 330 million population.

The first confirmed case was reported on 20 January 2020, when a man flew home to Seattle from Wuhan in China.

The 35-year-old survived, after 10 days of pneumonia, coughs, fever, nausea and vomiting. But deaths began to be reported just a few weeks later.

In the two years since, death rates have ebbed and flowed as waves of the virus swept across the country – reaching highs of more than 4,000 a day in early 2021.

Public health experts give several reasons for the high US death toll – including high rates of obesity and hypertension, overworked hospital systems, some vaccine hesitancy and a large older population.

The US has seen the number of daily reported deaths spike on several occasions, often coming as new variants spread across the country.

The first wave – the initial pandemic – saw highs of more than 2,500 daily reported deaths in April 2020, about eight months before the first vaccines were rolled out in December.

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