Day: August 2, 2024

Former school principal and Ohangwena Education Director Isak Hamatwi has cautioned learners to avoid the temptation of temporary pleasures and instead, focus on their education.

Hamatwi was speaking during an awards ceremony for the Onamutai Circuit held at Eloolo in the Okaku Constituency of the Oshana Region. He told the learners that temporary pleasures such as bunking lessons, failing to do homework, arriving late for school, disrespecting teachers, or indulging in toxic and harmful behaviours like drinking alcohol or smoking will not take them anywhere.

‘These pleasures do not last and can derail your wellbeing in the future,’ he said, noting that they should prioritise their education, which will provide them with a fulfilling future and the chance to become the best version of themselves and their families, community, and the country at large.

Meanwhile, Onamutai education inspector Josefat Haimbala said the circuit has 24 public schools, which include pre-primary to Grade 11 and one private school
offering pre-primary to Grade 7.

Haimbala added that the circuit has four clusters to ensure that education is accessible and managed efficiently.

For the 2024 academic year, the circuit is accommodating 10 941 learners – 5 305 boys and 5 637 girls.

The Onamutai Circuit awarded the best-performing learners, teachers, and clusters in the 2023 academic year in various categories.

The awards, held at Eloola Combined School in the Oshana Region, were aimed at celebrating the hard work and determination of each individual.

A total of 119 learners, 30 teachers, and 14 schools from the circuit received awards.

Source: The Namibia News Agency

Striking video game voice actors and motion-capture performers held their first picket on Thursday in front of Warner Bros. Games and said artificial intelligence was a threat to their professions.

‘The models that they’re using have been trained on our voices without our consent at all, with no compensation,’ ‘Persona 5 Tactica’ voice actor and video game strike captain, Leeanna Albanese said.

Video game voice actors and motion-capture performers called a strike last week over failed labour contract negotiations focused on AI-related protections for workers.

This marks the latest strike in Hollywood after union writers and actors marched on the picket lines last year with AI also being a major concern.

‘I think when you remove the human element from any interactive project, whether it be a video game or TV show, an animated series, a movie, and you put AI in replacement for the human element, we can tell! I’m a gamer, I’m a digester of this content,’ British ‘Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone’ a
ctor Jeff Leach said.

The decision to strike follows months of negotiations with major videogame companies including Activision Productions, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive, Disney Character Voices and Warner Bros Discovery’s WB Games.

However, major video game publishers including Electronic Arts and Take-Two will likely stave off a big hit from the strike due to their in-house studios and the lengthy development cycles for games, analysts have said.

The strike also brings with it a larger call to action across Hollywood as people in the industry advocate for a law that can protect them from AI risks as well.

‘There’s not a larger national law to protect us, so the NO FAKES Act is legislation to protect our identities, protect our personhood on a national scale as opposed to on a state level,’ Albanese said.

The NO FAKES Act, a bipartisan bill in Congress which would make it illegal to make an AI replica of someone’s likeness and voice without their permission, has gained support from
the SAG-AFTRA Performers Union, the Motion Picture Association, The Recording Academy and Disney.

From Grammy-winning artist Taylor Swift to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running in the 2024 presidential election, leaders in entertainment and beyond say deep fakes created from AI are a pressing policy matter.

‘Everybody in this country needs protection from the abusive use of AI,’ Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA said.

Source :News Agency of Nigeria

As part of efforts to promote the importance of exclusive breastfeeding, no fewer than 1,800 mothers converged from different local government areas of Niger State North Central Nigeria to breastfeed their babies simultaneously to commemorate the 2024 World Breastfeeding Week.

The event, themed ‘Closing the Gap: Break the Record, Break Barriers: Breastfeeding Support for All,’ was organized by the Niger Ministry for Primary Healthcare in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

In her remarks, Gerida Birukila, Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Kaduna, said the event was an attempt to break the world record for the highest number of lactating women breastfeeding simultaneously.

‘We are not just gathered to break a world record; we are here to make history and send a powerful message to the world on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding,’ she said.

Birukila, who was represented by Mrs. Grace Odeyemi, UNICEF Consultant in Niger, said exclusive breastfeeding rates had remained low at 16
percent according to the Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2021).

She noted that many mothers face cultural, social, and practical barriers that prevent them from breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of a child’s life.

She said the event aimed to break barriers that hinder mothers from practicing exclusive breastfeeding and to create awareness about its importance.

She added that the effort was to achieve the World Health Assembly’s target for exclusive breastfeeding and go beyond the 50 percent target.

In her address, Hajiya Fatima Bago, Wife of the Niger Governor, called on everyone to provide support through education, resources, or breastfeeding-friendly workplace environments for mothers.

Bago, represented by Hajiya Jummai Abubakar, Wife of the Niger SSG, announced the donation of 100 bags of rice to the first batch of 100 women to support them and their families.

Also, Dr. Bello Turku, Commissioner for Secondary and Tertiary Health, said the aim was to showcase the need
to improve support for mothers to practice optimal breastfeeding.

He said the Federal Ministry of Health, Niger government, in collaboration with UNICEF and other partners, came up with the initiative to achieve a world record for lactating women breastfeeding simultaneously.

One of the mothers, Malama Saratu Usman, pledged to educate other mothers in her community on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding.

Source :News Agency of Nigeria

Nigeria’s Anuoluwapo Opeyori is out of the men’s Olympic Badminton event after falling 0-2 to the world’s number six, Li Shifeng of China.

The 17-21, 17-21 defeat was Opeyori’s second loss in the Group N of the men’s singles event.

The loss also ended his hopes of progression to the knockout phase.

Thursday’s loss by the Nigerian followed Wednesday’s defeat to Tobias Kuenzi of Switzerland at Le Chapelle Arena.

Badminton followers, however, expect the two-time Olympian and Team Nigeria’s General Captain to bounce back stronger in future events, having taken valuable lessons from his Paris outing.

Source :News Agency of Nigeria

Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has inaugurated the consequential adjustment committee on minimum wage, charging members to look at all the variables and design an agreement that caters for the interest of the workers, other segments of the society, and considers issues of development.

The committee members were inaugurated at the council chambers of the Government House, attended by top government officials, labour leaders, and representatives of the organised private sector in the state.

‘The setting up of this committee sets out the process for the implementation of the national minimum wage in Kwara State. Following a legislative backing by the National Assembly, the President has recently approved N70,000 as the new minimum wage. We welcome the development in Kwara State. But the law means more than just paying N70,000 to the lowest ranking worker. It involves working out the maths on how this affects the take home for senior workers on different cadres,’ the Governor said.

‘This multi-st
akeholder committee is therefore tasked to critically look at all the indices and arrive at workable consequential adjustments for all cadres of workers.

‘I trust that this committee of senior government officials, reasonable labour leaders and organised private sector will consider all the variables and balance the need for decent salary adjustments with the important need to have something left for development and other strata of the society. In other words, we should arrive at an agreement that is durable, meets the legitimate needs of all, and takes into account the overall interest of our state.’

Proactiveness

State Head of Service and Chairman of the Committee, Mrs Modupe Susan Oluwole commended the Governor’s proactiveness in constituting the committee.

‘Recently, the President signed the 70,000 national minimum wage into law, and our Governor, being proactive, constituted this noble committee within 72 hours,’ she said.

The HOS was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Establishment and Trainin
g, Alhaji Muhammad Ibrahim.

AbdulRazaq prioritises workers’ welfare, she explained, saying the committee would be diligent and clear-headed in its work.

The Governor had recently announced the 18-person committee which comprises commissioners, bureaucrats, labour leaders, and private sector players.

Source :News Agency of Nigeria

According to the country’s information technology regulator, Turkey has barred access to social media network Instagram without specifying why or for how long. The suspension also rendered the platform’s mobile app inaccessible.

The move follows comments on Wednesday by Turkish communications official Fahrettin Altun, criticising the platform for what he called its decision to block condolence posts on the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, a key official of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

‘This is censorship, pure and simple,’ Altun, the communications director of the Turkish presidency, said on X, adding that Instagram had not cited any policy violations for its action.

There was no immediate comment from Instagram parent Meta Platforms Inc. on either the ban or Altun’s remarks.

Turkey’s Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) published the August 2 decision on its website.

Source :News Agency of Nigeria