Elon Musk Sells $6.9bn Of Tesla Shares As Twitter Lawsuit Looms

 Tesla boss Elon Musk has sold another 7.92 million shares in the electric car maker, worth around $6.88bn (£5.7bn).

The sales took place after the firm’s annual shareholder meeting last week, regulatory filings show.

Mr Musk says he needs the money in case he is forced to buy Twitter for $44bn.

The multi-billionaire is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the social media platform after saying last month he would pull out of a deal to buy it.

The latest transactions were carried out on 5, 8 and 9 August, according to six filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

After news of the share sale was made public Mr Musk responded to a tweet asking whether he had finished selling Tesla shares with “yes”, adding that he needed the money in case he was forced to buy Twitter and was unable to secure some of the funding for the deal.

“It is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” he said.

Asked by another user whether he would buy Tesla shares again if the Twitter takeover does not take place Mr Musk also responded “yes”.

In July, Mr Musk said he planned to walk away from his bid to buy Twitter, prompting the company to sue him.

The world’s richest person has accused the company of withholding information about fake accounts.

Last month, a US judge ruled that Twitter’s lawsuit against Mr Musk should go to trial in October.

Twitter hopes that the court will order Mr Musk to complete the takeover at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.

Mr Musk has countersued Twitter, although the details of that lawsuit have not been made public.

Also in July, Twitter said that between April and June it had spent $33m on the proposed deal.

It also said its number of monthly daily users had risen to 237m – but it reported a net loss of $270m, which was worse than expected.

Meanwhile, Tesla revealed last month that it had offloaded 75% of its Bitcoin, which was worth about $2bn at the end of 2021.

The company made waves last year when it revealed a major investment in the world’s biggest cryptocurrency.

Tesla said it bought traditional currencies with the $936m proceeds of its Bitcoin sales.

…………………………………………………………

Congo Arrests Opposition Leader Kabund

 Former right-hand man of Democratic Republic of Congo’s president and now opposition leader, Jean-Marc Kabund, was arrested on Tuesday, his lawyer said, during controversy over a remark about his onetime boss.

The former vice president of parliament and current lawmaker had a falling out with President Felix Tshisekedi earlier this year, after which he launched his own political party.

He has been under investigation in recent weeks on charges that authorities have not specified.

His lawyers say he is accused of contempt of the head of state after a speech calling him “a danger”.

Kabund’s lawyer Henriette Bongwalanga said he was arrested on Tuesday after a hearing at the attorney general’s office.

“They did not respect the procedure. Today they came after the hearing and (arrested) him despite his (parliamentary) immunity,” she said.

The justice ministry could not be reached for comment and a spokesperson for the government declined to comment.

A police source said Kabund had been taken to Makala Central Prison in Congo’s capital Kinshasa.

Kabund was a leading figure behind Tshisekedi’s rise to power and their fallout has highlighted emerging fault-lines in the country’s leadership. This could spell uncertainty for the future of the ruling Sacred Union coalition as the 2023 presidential election nears, political analysts have said. read more

In a statement about the proceedings last week, Kabund said the investigation against him was proof that Congolese institutions were being exploited to serve political interests.

“Fighting the Tshisekedi regime is an absolute necessity for me, no matter the price to be paid,” he wrote on Twitter.

………………………………………………………

Africa To Back Infantino Bid For Fifa Re-Election

 African football will support Fifa president Gianni Infantino in his re-election bid next year, the Confederation of African Football president Patrice Motsepe has said.

Caf officially endorsed the candidacy of Infantino at its general assembly in Tanzania on Wednesday, with Motsepe reiterating support from the confederation itself and also on behalf of member associations to “our brother based in Europe”.

Re-elected unopposed as president of football’s world governing body in 2019, Infantino is set to stand for a third term at the 73rd Fifa congress next year.

“We discussed at the executive committee meeting that in recognition of the huge contributions, commitment and the track record that you’ve built in terms of improving African football, all 54 member nations have taken a resolution to vote for you (Gianni Infantino) for re-election,” said Motsepe.

“He has shown so much commitment and love to football in Africa. I’ve been honoured whilst visiting about 30 nations over the last year, to hear the people who love football on the African continent as well as the presidents of football in all of the 54 African nations.

“They’ve said that the work Gianni Infantino has done, the visible improvements and the contribution to African football is greatly appreciated.”

No other candidate has yet declared an interest in standing in the Fifa elections against Infantino, who was first elected president in February 2016.

The 52-year-old Swiss-Italian took to the stage in Tanzania to thank Africa for its support and pledged his continuous backing to the game on the continent.

He then joined Motsepe for the launch of Africa’s new Super League, which is scheduled to start in the 2023-24 campaign.

Back in January, the Fifa boss came under severe criticism for comments referencing African migrants dying at sea when talking about the reforms to football’s calendar.

……………………………………………………………

Sierra Leon: VP Jallow invokes 3pm curfew to counter growing civil unrest

President Julius Maada Bio still yet to be heard from on his trip to the United Kingdom

Since Monday Sierra Leonians have taken to the streets protesting against living conditions that the blame on their government.

Fueling this discontent is Sierra Leonian social media critic based in Belgium who has achieved popularity peddling conspiracy theories against the government.

Last week President Julius Maada Bio traveled to the United Kingdom on a private visit and is being accused of taking 97,000 British Pounds Sterling of the nation’s money with him.

The resulting civil unrest beginning Monday August 8, 2022 forced Vice President Mohammed Juldeh Jallow to announce a 3pm curfew.

In addition to the curfew, internet service to the entire country was also shut down momentarily but has reportedly been restored.

So far there has been no statement from President Bio from the United Kingdom.

The global economic crisis is putting immense pressure on the leadership of various countries with Sri Lankans forcing their president to flee the country after taking over the presidential palace.

Such events tend to have “copy cat” versions in other countries as frustrated citizens believe they can also follow the same path to unseat their respective governments

DNT News with Correspondence reports from John Henry Coker

…………………………………………………………

Sequencing West Africa’s “Yam Belt” For Food Security

 Stacks of hairy yams line a market in Ibadan, where traders haggle over quality and price before loading them into cars for the last mile to Nigerian consumers. Nearby, a man navigates heavy traffic with a hand cart piled high with the tubers.

Yams – pounded into paste, ground into flour, boiled or fried – provide sustenance and livelihoods across West Africa. But growing conditions across the “yam belt” from Guinea to Cameroon are deteriorating just as prices of other staples soar.

Vendor Adewale Elekun said farmers in Nigeria are already finding life harder than in the past, when soil was good and the land fertile.

“Today the quality of the soil has faded,” he said, amidst the bustle of the market.

Elsewhere in Ibadan, a transit and tech startup hub 130 km (80 miles) northeast of Lagos, molecular geneticist Dr Ranjana Bhattacharjee says she hopes to change things for the better by helping to create hardier and more adaptable plants.

She is working at the city’s International Institute of Tropical Agriculture to complete whole-genome sequencing of around 1,000 yam samples – work she says paves the way for moves to ensure future crops are more adaptable to a changing climate.

“If you want to make an improvement in crops, then you have to do genome sequencing to understand the genes of your targeted traits like disease resistance (and) quality,” Bhattacharjee said.

The need to boost locally grown crops is particularly acute because of global food price rises since some major producing countries decided to export less food and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine blocked that country’s grain and sunflower seed exports.

Yams, bigger than their unrelated north American namesake, symbolize prosperity, wealth and even fertility in West Africa.

Sequencing their genomes could help West African farmers, who grow some 90% of all yams worldwide, improve their yield and keep it high, said Bhattacharjee, adding once the results are published, others will work on applying them.

“That will then ultimately lead to food security, not only in Nigeria but also in West Africa where the yam is being grown,” she said.

Source: Reuters

…………………………………………………………

Conjoined Twins Separated With The Help Of Virtual Reality

 Brazilian twins who were joined at the head have been successfully separated with the help of virtual reality.

Three-year-olds Bernardo and Arthur Lima underwent surgeries in Rio de Janeiro, with direction from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

The teams spent months trialling techniques using virtual reality projections of the twins, based on CT and MRI scans.

It was described by surgeon Noor ul Owase Jeelani as “space-age stuff”.

It was one of the most complex separation processes ever completed, according to the charity which funded it – Gemini Untwined – which Mr Jeelani founded in 2018.

He said that, for the first time, surgeons in separate countries wore headsets and operated in the same “virtual reality room” together.

The twins had seven surgeries, involving more than 27 hours of operating time in the final operation alone, and almost 100 medical staff.

‘Man-on-Mars stuff’

Speaking about the VR aspect of the surgery, Mr Jeelani told the PA news agency: “It’s just wonderful. It’s really great to see the anatomy and do the surgery before you actually put the children at any risk.

“You can imagine how reassuring that is for the surgeons.

“In some ways, these operations are considered the hardest of our time, and to do it in virtual reality was just really man-on-Mars stuff.”

He said that previously unsuccessful attempts to separate the boys meant their anatomy was complicated by scar tissue, and he was “really apprehensive” about the risky procedure.

Mr Jeelani said he was “absolutely shattered” after the 27-hour operation, where he took only four 15-minute breaks for food and water, but it was “wonderful” to see the family feeling “over the moon” afterward.

He added that, as with all conjoined twins after separation, the boys’ blood pressures and heart rates were “through the roof” – until they were reunited four days later and touched hands.

The twins are recovering well in hospital and will be supported with six months of rehabilitation.

Life-changing

This was Mr Jeelani’s sixth separation procedure with Gemini Untwined, after previously operating on twins from Pakistan, Sudan, Israel and Turkey.

He led the procedure alongside Dr Gabriel Mufarrej, head of paediatric surgery at Instituto Estadual do Cerebro Paulo Niemeyer in Brazil.

Dr Mufarrej said the hospital where he works has been caring for the boys for two-and-a-half years, and their separation will be “life-changing”.

“Since the parents of the boys came from their home in the Roraima region to Rio to seek our help two-and-a-half years ago, they have become part of our family here in the hospital. We are delighted that the surgery went so well.”

Bernardo and Arthur, at almost four years of age, are the oldest craniopagus twins – that is twins with a fused brain – to have been separated.

According to the charity, one in 60,000 births results in conjoined twins, and only 5% of those are craniopagus.

……………………………………………………………

US invests $280bn in high tech to compete with China

 US President Joe Biden has signed a law committing $280bn (£232bn) to high tech manufacturing and scientific research amid fears the country is losing its technological edge to China.

The investments include tax breaks for companies that build computer chip manufacturing plants in the US.

Business groups have long pushed for more government support, citing the need to reduce reliance on China.

A global shortage of microchips increased the urgency of their calls.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said the bill was a “game changer” that would ensure American leadership and prosperity in the next century.

“Authoritarians were cheering for us to lose and hoping we sit on our hands,” he said. “By enacting the CHIPS and Science Act we are making clear we believe another great American century lies on the horizon.”

The US currently produces roughly 10% of the global supply of semiconductors, which are key to everything from cars to mobile phones, down from nearly 40% in 1990.

The country is not alone in its investments in the industry.

The European Union this spring said it would commit more than €40bn to boost production of computer chips, while China has also been boosting its investments in science and technology.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington had opposed the semiconductor bill, calling it reminiscent of a “Cold War mentality.”

In addition to the chip investments, the bill directs about $200bn to agencies such as the National Science Foundation, aiming to boost investments in fields like robotics and wireless communications.

Mr Biden called it a “once in a generation” investment and said it was already yielding growth in the US, pointing to plans from Micron to spend $40bn on memory chip manufacturing, a project expected to create 40,000 jobs.

It is the latest accomplishment for the White House, which also recently clinched a deal to advance a sweeping plan to combat climate change.

Unlike that plan, which was opposed by Republicans, this bill was supported by both parties, despite marking a large expansion of the role of the US government into a domain often left to the private sector.

…………………………………………………………