The mother of an Italian teenager set to become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint has told of her “great joy” as she portrayed her son as an otherwise ordinary boy who enjoyed video games and pets.

Carlo Acutis – whose computing skill helped him spread the message of the Catholic Church and earned him the nickname “God’s Influencer” – died from leukemia in 2006 aged 15.

A second miracle attributed to Acutis has been recognized by Pope Francis, paving the way for him to be made a saint. Candidates normally need to have two miracles attributed to them before they can be canonized.

“As I did: you too can become holy” she said. “Nevertheless, [with] all the media the technologies it seems sometimes that holiness is something that belongs to the past. Instead, holiness is also something nowadays in this modern time.”

She said her son was bought a PlayStation when he was eight, but limited himself to one hour a week of gaming as he was wary that it could become addictive and that he knew the “dangers of the internet”. Along with his computing and gaming, Carlo played the saxophone, enjoyed soccer, loved animals and would make short, humorous films of his dogs.

Ms Salzano said her son used his computer skills “not to do things for earning money or to become famous but to spread the Gospel [the message of Jesus Christ], to help people,” and was “full of joy.”

While he had similar interests to other kids, the soon-to-be-saint was unafraid to stand out from the crowd.

His mother said that the age of nine the youngster spent time helping the homeless in Milan and giving his pocket money to those sleeping on the streets. She explained that he insisted on only having one pair of shoes, so he could save money to help the poor.

He was also unafraid to stand up for the victims of bullying and resist peer pressure. According to Nicola Gori, author of ‘Carlo Acutis: The First Millennial Saint’ and the postulator (guide) of his sainthood cause, Acutis once defended a girl from India who was targeted for wearing a sari, and he was known at school for his “cheerfulness, energy, generosity.” He was devoted to Saint Francis, the saint renowned for poverty, humility and care for creation, and the pope’s namesake.

Acutis became ill in early 2006 and was later diagnosed with Leukemia: he died on October 12. At his funeral two days later, a large crowd gathered with many of them immigrants to Italy and those belonging to a variety of religions. Devotion to Carlo quickly began to spread across the world, and his story was taken up by several Catholic youth groups.

Ms Salzano hopes the canonization will either be later this year or next year.

I was lucky enough to catch an awesome glimpse of the northern lights from my own home this month when the biggest solar storm to reach Earth in two decades made auroras visible at latitudes much farther south than usual.

Despite living in the light-filled streets of central London, my smartphone camera picked up a green haze and a pulsing sheet of purple and pink light. Capturing the moment was an unforgettable experience and one that I had thought would involve expensive travel to the northernmost reaches of our planet.

The storms that create spectacular auroras such as those I witnessed originate from the sun’s dynamic magnetic field, an astrophysical enigma that scientists this week came closer to unraveling.

Solar update

Figuring out how the sun’s magnetic field works will help scientists improve the forecasting of space weather, which dazzles night sky watchers but can disrupt GPS and communication satellites.

The sun’s looping magnetic field lines, which form a tangled web of structures more complex than those on Earth, are difficult to study directly. To grasp what’s going on, scientists create mathematical models.

A new model, which took more than a decade to develop and required a NASA supercomputer to conduct the detailed calculations, found that the sun’s magnetic field is generated much closer to the surface than previously thought.

The team believes its model is more accurate because it accounts for a unique solar feature.

A long time ago

A single gold earring found in the ruins of a 2,000-year-old building in the Pyrenees is a clue to how a devastating fire may have started. The inferno consumed the wooden structure, situated in an Iron Age settlement called Tossal de Baltarga, and killed six animals penned in a stable.

Archaeologists believe the fire was deliberate. Had it been accidental, the building’s owners likely would have released the livestock and returned after the fire died down to retrieve their hidden gold, which was concealed in a jar.

The arsonists may have been an invading army under Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who led troops against the Roman Republic, according to the new study.

The fates of the people who used the building are unknown, but the excavation uncovered telling details of the lives of an Iberian people called the Cerretani.

Sky watch

The builders of Stonehenge placed the huge stones that make up the prehistoric monument in line with sunrise and sunset on the longest and shortest days of the year, revealing an intimate understanding of the sun that’s still palpable today.

But does the 4,500-year-old site in southwest England — and potentially other megalithic monuments around the world — also align with the moon?

The idea that Stonehenge has a lunar link first gained ground in the 1960s. However, the concept hadn’t been systematically explored — until now.

This summer, archaeologists are using the lunar standstill, a little-known phenomenon that happens every 18.6 years, to investigate.

Across the universe

Space scientists have observed the edge of a black hole — an area known as the “plunging region” — for the first time.

Andrew Mummery, lead author of a new study on black holes and a research fellow at the University of Oxford, compared it to “the edge of a waterfall” at the end of a river, where orbiting material from nearby stars plummets into the abyss.

In the plunging region, matter can no longer stay in orbit and instead hurtles into the black hole. But unlike at the black hole’s event horizon, or surface, light can still escape at this point.

The study’s findings, which Albert Einstein predicted, could help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of black holes.

Wild kingdom

Corvids — the group of birds that includes crows, ravens and jays — are famously smart. One corvid species may even be capable of something researchers refer to as “mental time travel.”

This type of recollection enables the mind to recall a seemingly unimportant bit of information that you didn’t consciously commit to memory — for instance, remembering what you had for lunch yesterday.

Researchers working with Eurasian jays trained to find food hidden under cups said these birds may be capable of the feat of memory.

In the experiment, which involved decorated cups, the jays were able to remember what a particular cup looked like, even after the cups were rearranged and a time delay.

And in other corvid news, crows can count up to four, the latest research has found.

Explorations

Dive into these mind-expanding stories.

— Thomas Midgley Jr. was a gifted American inventor who made a lasting mark on history. However, his ingenious solutions created even bigger problems.

— Microplastics have been found in human testicles, underscoring the urgent need for more research to understand what role plastics may play in driving infertility.

— An Austrian winemaker has uncovered hundreds of mammoth bones in his cellar, a discovery that one expert labeled an “archaeological sensation.”

Don’t go just yet: NASA has announced the latest on the much delayed Boeing Starliner crewed mission.

At least 20 people are dead after a fire broke out at an arcade in the western Indian city of Rajkot on Saturday, local officials said.

The police commisioner of Rajkot, Raju Bhargava, told broadcaster ANI that the fire is now under control and rescue operations remain underway.

“We are trying to retrieve as many bodies as possible. As of now, around 20 bodies have been recovered and they have been sent to the hospital for further investigations,” Bhargava said.

The Chief Minister of Gujarat state Bhupendra Patel said that a special investigation team is being set up by the Gujarat state government to investigate.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed sorrow for the incident in a post on X.

“The fire tragedy in Rajkot has saddened us all. In my telephone conversation with him a short while ago, Gujarat CM Bhupendrabhai Patel Ji told me about the efforts underway to ensure all possible assistance is provided to those who have been affected,” he said.

At least two people have been killed and 33 injured after a Russian strike hit a large hardware store in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, according to officials.

A further 11 people remain missing, all employees at the shopping center, according to authorities.

Officials have said there were nearly 200 people inside the building when the strike occurred.

“The air raid siren went off and some people managed to get out of the building, roughly 100 people. However there were still people inside the building,” Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said Saturday in an interview on national television.

“Specialized services are responding to the scene. All injured are being provided with assistance,” Syniehubov earlier said. “There is not a single military object nearby,” he added.

The two men who died were employees of the hypermarket, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Oleksandr Filchakov, said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike a “brutal attack” in a post on X.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that “significant amounts of flammable materials” inside the hypermarket are making firefighting “complicated,” adding that there is also a possibility of the fire spreading further to nearby warehouses.

“At the same time, there is a constant threat of repeated enemy shelling,” Klymenko said.

The attack comes as Russian forces continue to advance in the Kharkiv region after crossing the northern border earlier this month and opening a new front in the conflict.

Seven people were killed in Russian strikes on the city Thursday, after locations including a printing house were targeted.

After Saturday’s attack, Zelensky reiterated that “if Ukraine had enough air defense systems and modern combat aircraft, such Russian strikes would have been impossible.”

“That is why we are appealing to all leaders, to all states: we need a significant strengthening of air defense,” he said.

“This is a task that must be accomplished and can only be done together with the world. Every day we call on the world: give us air defense, save people. Every single withheld decision on support means the loss of our people,” Zelensky added.

Meanwhile, at least two people were killed and at least 10 injured as a result of a Ukrainian strike on a Russian village in the Belgorod region, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Saturday.

Among the injured is an 8-year-old boy, he said, adding, “all victims had shrapnel wounds in various parts of the body.”

As a result of the strike, a private residential building caught fire, and about 20 other buildings and 23 cars sustained damage. “All operational services are working on site,” Gladkov said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The disaster hit the remote village of Kaokalam, about 600 kilometers (372 miles) northwest of the capital Port Moresby, at approximately 3 a.m. local time on Friday, leaving a scar of debris that humanitarian workers say is as big as four football pitches.

Tsaka said on Saturday that the landslides impacted about 3,900 people.

Humanitarian group CARE Australia said, citing local authorities, that “over 60 homes have been destroyed, and at present, all members of these households remain unaccounted for.”

Serhan Aktoprak, head of mission for the International Organization for Migration in the country, described the scale of the human catastrophe.

“Every minute that passes is basically decreasing our hopes and increasing our frustrations.”

Emergency responders were deployed to the site, but rescue efforts have been hampered by damage to a main highway, which limited access to affected areas, according to Tsaka.

“The impact area is huge, 150 meters of the road is gone and the landslide area is very active – moving debris and moving rocks – which is making it difficult for our first responders,” he said, adding the debris is about 6 to 8 meters (around 20 to 26 feet) deep.

CARE Australia said the obstruction “will likely take considerable time to clear.”

“While the area is not densely populated, our concern is that the death toll could be disproportionately high,” it said.

A Pacific nation home to around 10 million people, Papua New Guinea is rich in resources. But its economy has long trailed those of its neighbors, and it has one of the highest crime rates in the world.

Hundreds of tribes are spread across the country’s remote and often inaccessible terrain. But its vast and diverse mountainous landscape, as well as a lack of roads, has made it difficult and costly to upgrade basic services like water, electricity and sanitation.

NASA has launched the first of two research satellites to measure how much heat is lost to space from the Arctic and Antarctica.

The shoebox-size satellite lifted off Saturday at 7:42 p.m. local time (3:42 a.m. ET) aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s launch complex in Mahia, New Zealand. The company confirmed the satellite’s successful deployment at 8:35 p.m. local time (4:35 a.m. ET).

The climate science mission, known as Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment, or PREFIRE, aims to improve scientists’ understanding of how water vapor, clouds and other elements of Earth’s atmosphere trap heat and keep it from radiating into space.

The data gathered will inform climate models and hopefully lead to better predictions of how the climate crisis will affect sea levels, weather, snow and ice cover, NASA said.

Earth absorbs a lot of energy from the sun in the tropics regions. Weather and ocean currents move that heat energy toward the poles, where the heat radiates upward into space. Much of that heat is in far-infrared wavelengths and has never been systematically measured before, NASA added.

PREFIRE is composed of two CubeSats fitted with specialized miniature heat sensors. The launch date for the second satellite will be announced shortly after the launch of the first satellite, NASA said.

Once they’re both launched, the two satellites will be in asynchronous near-polar orbits — passing over a specific spot at different times, looking at the same area within hours of each other.

Doing so should allow the satellites to collect data about phenomena that take place on a short time scale and require frequent measurements — such as how the amount of cloud cover affects the temperature on Earth beneath it.

Alderney, a quiet British island in the English Channel known for its outstanding natural beauty, was once the site of the only Nazi camps on British soil – and a hell on Earth for its thousands of inmates.

A fresh inquiry, ordered by the UK’s Special Envoy for Post Holocaust Issues, Eric Pickles, and led by a panel of experts, has sought to determine the exact death toll of prisoners and laborers on Alderney, while also bringing an end to the conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding the island.

The findings were published on Wednesday and determined there were a greater number of deaths than initially documented following liberation, but found no evidence of a “mini-Auschwitz.”

The inquiry also explored why the Nazi perpetrators – most of whom evaded justice – never stood trial in Britain.

Stretching for three square miles, the island was occupied by the Nazis for most of World War II. During that time, three forced labor camps and a concentration camp called Lager Sylt were built.

Nearly eight decades later, the fingerprints of Nazi occupation are still visible on the picturesque island, including bunkers, anti-tank walls and the notorious Water Lane tunnels constructed by the occupying forces to store munitions and fuel.

According to its tourist board, the residents of Alderney – which has a population of just over 2,000 – gather once a year in May for a memorial service to commemorate the island’s victims.

Described by Pickles as housing the “most westerly concentration camp in the Third Reich,” questions over the scale of horror that occurred on the island have persisted among locals as well as internationally – and the exact number of dead has never been clear, until now.

The Channel Islands were the only British land the Germans occupied during World War II. Unlike Jersey and Guernsey – the other Nazi-occupied islands – Alderney was evacuated of nearly all of its residents, meaning the island does not have extensive war-time records.

According to Pickles, the lack of records has led to unsubstantiated claims being made about Alderney and the war crimes that took place there.

“Claims of mass murder that anywhere else would be checked carefully have been accepted at face value,” Pickles – who has stressed the importance of historic accuracy regarding the Holocaust – said.

“Third- or fourth-hand testimonies of atrocities, without any supporting evidence, are given as a fact… What happened on Alderney was bad enough with its brutality, sadism and murder, without the need for embellishment.”

‘Unvarnished truth’

Following the island’s liberation from the Nazis, official figures from a post-war investigation put the death toll at 389.

This figure has long been disputed. Historians, members of the Jewish community and members of the public have estimates ranging from hundreds to several thousand.

Speculation has also been rife that the true scale of what happened on the island may have been deliberately concealed by the British government.

The inquiry denies such theories. It found that the number of deaths in Alderney is unlikely to have exceeded 1,134, with a more likely range of deaths being between 641 and 1,027.

In addition, at least 97 people died and one disappeared during transit to and from the island.

The estimated minimum number of prisoners or laborers sent to Alderney throughout the German occupation stands between 7,608 and 7,812, the panel found.

Alderney’s camps, according to the inquiry, shared many of the traits of those in mainland Europe. Laborers were kept in atrocious conditions and forced to work long hours carrying out dangerous construction work. They were subject to beatings, maiming, torture and in some cases executions.

The inquiry found that there is “no evidence” for arguing that many thousands of victims died.

Assertions that Alderney housed an extermination center and constituted a “mini-Auschwitz” are also untrue, the panel found.

“Prisoners were treated appallingly, and life was cheap, but Alderney did not house a ‘mini-Auschwitz’; there was no extermination centre on the island,” Pickles said.

He added, “Anyone who claims so has never visited Auschwitz or understood the extent of the Nazi’s death factories in Eastern Europe.”

Pickles believes overestimated death tolls at the hands of the Nazis can be damaging and play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.

“At a time when parts of Europe are seeking to rinse their history through the Holocaust, the British Isles must tell the unvarnished truth,” he said. “Numbers do matter. It is as much of a Holocaust distortion to exaggerate the number of deaths as it is to underplay the numbers.”

He added, “Exaggeration plays into the hands of Holocaust deniers and undermines the six million dead. The truth can never harm us.”

‘Egregious injustice’

A separate section of the inquiry focused on the failure to prosecute war crimes committed in Alderney, something that it described as an “egregious injustice.”

This was due to the British government’s decision to hand the case over to the Soviet Union after World War II as the majority of victims were Soviet citizens.

Research conducted by Anthony Glees, an academic and adviser to Pickles, found there had been a “succession of cover-ups” on the part of the British government, which handed all Alderney’s files of evidence over to the Soviet Union via the United Nations War Crimes commission on September 12, 1945.

From there, the USSR decided to “do nothing with the evidence,” according to Glees, meaning that the majority of perpetrators who had systematically tortured and in some cases murdered their victims escaped trial.

Glees believes that this has deliberately been hidden from public view by the British government. He is calling on the government to issue an apology.

“It seems scarcely understandable that Britain, of all countries, declined to try Nazi war criminals for appalling atrocities committed on British soil against citizens of some 30 nations,” he said.

“Instead, the British authorities passed all the evidence that they had carefully collected in the so-called ‘Alderney Case’ to the USSR… despite the USSR not having requested it and so, apparently, directly contravening Britain’s international treaty obligations.”

According to Glee, the lack of trials of Alderney’s war criminals has meant that justice was denied to victims and their families.

Pickles, meanwhile, said the fact that the perpetrators never faced British justice is a “stain on the reputations of successive British governments.”

Facing a crowd of journalists, inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. poured a lead additive over his hands and then proceeded to inhale its fumes for about a minute. Unfazed, he said, “I could do this every day without getting any health problems whatsoever.”

Soon afterward, Midgley needed medical treatment. But the act would have dire consequences beyond his own well-being.

The year was 1924, and Midgley, then a chemical engineer for General Motors, had pulled the stunt to support his most recent, lucrative finding: a lead compound called tetraethyl lead. Added to gasoline, it solved one of the biggest problems the automotive industry faced at the time — engine knocking, or tiny explosions in car engines due to the low quality of gasoline that resulted in an annoying sound and potential damage. Lead helped, but at great expense, because the substance is highly toxic to humans, especially children.

Midgley would go on to leave his mark in history with another destructive invention, also a solution to a problem: the need to replace the noxious and flammable gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning. He found that CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, were an ideal substitute and harmless to humans. However, they turned out to be deadly to the ozone in the atmosphere, which blocks dangerous ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancers and other health problems, as well as harming plants and animals.

One hundred years after that stunt before the press in 1924, the planet is still recovering from the ill effects of both of Midgley’s inventions. The ozone layer will need another four decades to heal fully, and because leaded gasoline was still sold in parts of the world until 2021, many continue to live with the long-term effects of lead poisoning.

Yet Midgley — whose story will be told in an upcoming movie developed by the writer of the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street” — was hailed as a hero for decades.

An inventor from his early days

Born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, in 1889, Midgley had a penchant for finding useful applications for known substances early on. In high school, he used the chewed bark of the slippery elm trees to give baseballs a more curved trajectory, a practice professional players would later pick up.

He was known to carry with him at all times a copy of the periodic table, his main tool in the search for the substance that would mark his breakthrough invention.

The task of addressing the issue of engine knocking fell to Midgley while he was working at General Motors in 1916.

“It was the dawn of the automobile era in the United States, and Ford had developed the Model T, which was not very powerful,” said Gerald Markowitz, a history professor at the City University of New York. “GM joined with Standard Oil and DuPont to try to develop more powerful engines, and in order to do that they needed to solve the problem of the engines knocking with the fuel that they had at the time.”

Under the direction of Charles Kettering, another influential American inventor and head of research at GM, Midgley worked his way through thousands of substances — including arsenic, sulfur and silicon — in a quest to find one that reduced knocking when added to gasoline. He eventually landed on tetraethyl lead, a lead derivative that was marketed simply as Ethyl. Leaded gasoline first went on sale in Dayton, Ohio, in 1923 and eventually spread throughout the world.

Lead is highly poisonous, with no safe level of exposure, and can impair development in children, causing decreased intelligence and behavioral disorders, according to UNICEF. An estimated 1 million people a year still die from lead poisoning, according to the World Health Organization.

The toxicity of lead was already well-known when Midgley added it to gas, but that didn’t stop Ethyl from becoming a commercial success.

“There were alarms that were raised, because lead was known as a toxin,” Markowitz said. “But the position of the industry was that there was no proof that lead coming out of the tailpipes of cars was going to injure people. And it was that lack of proof that ultimately led the surgeon general not to take action after a public health conference in 1925.”

However, workers in Ethyl manufacturing quickly experienced ill effects.

“It was really the fact that the people working in the labs producing tetraethyl lead were getting sick that created a crisis,” Markowitz said. “They would literally go insane as a result of their exposure to lead.”

Midgley went as far as pouring Ethyl over his hands and inhaling it during that 1924 news conference in an attempt to quench fears.

But in reality, he was also getting poisoned.

“He definitely wrote in a letter in January of 1923 that he had a touch of lead poisoning, and he did have lead poisoning for the rest of his life,” said Bill Kovarik, a professor of communication at Radford University in Virginia. “It doesn’t really go away when you get that much lead in your body. It is a serious, long-term disability.”

Punching a hole

Just years after the invention of Ethyl, Midgley — again spurred by Kettering — turned his attention to developing a nontoxic, nonflammable alternative to refrigerant gases such as ammonia, which were used in appliances and air conditioners at the time, leading to a series of fatal accidents in the 1920s.

He came up with Freon — a derivative of methane, composed of carbon, chlorine and fluorine atoms — the first CFC. In another public demonstration, in 1930, Midgley inhaled the gas and blew out a candle with it, a move designed to show its safety.

Freon, as well as subsequent CFCs, became commercial successes, and made air conditioning adoption shoot up in the United States. After World War II, manufacturers started routinely using CFCs as propellants for all sorts of products, including insecticides and hair spray.

It was the mid-1970s, three decades after Midgley’s death, before the damage from his two inventions became publicly known. CFCs had punched a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica; if left unchecked, the hole would have expanded to the point of eventually threatening all life on Earth.

As a result of continued industry pressure, leaded gasoline was not phased out in the United States until 1996 and slowly thereafter throughout the world. The last nation to get rid of it, Algeria, still sold it until 2021, and lead additives continue to be used in aviation fuel. A 2022 study estimated that half of the current US population had been exposed to dangerous levels of lead in early childhood, but the damage to the world’s collective health is harder to quantify.

In 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed to phase out CFCs from 1989 until 2010, after which they were banned. (CFC emissions have been rising again recently, a sign that they may still be produced illegally.) The hole in the ozone layer is on the mend and will likely heal in the next half–century in a rare environmental win.

“The very sad truth is that we don’t know especially the number of children who have been adversely affected,” Markowitz said. “There is no safe level of lead in a child’s body. We’re talking tens of millions of children, hundreds of millions of children over a half-century or more that have been affected adversely, their life chances diminished from lead dust as a result of the exhaust gases that got into the ground or into the streets.”

A tragic death

Midgley’s life ended under tragic circumstances. After contracting polio in 1940, he became severely disabled and devised yet another invention: a machine that would lift him out of bed and into a wheelchair autonomously, via strings and pulleys. But on November 2, 1944, he became entangled in the machine and died of strangulation.

For a long time, it was believed to have been the ultimate irony — the inventor dying by his own invention. But the reality may be even darker, according to Kovarik.

“The official cause of death was suicide,” he said. “He had a tremendous sense of guilt. The industry told him he was brilliant. But he did stuff that in hindsight was pretty irresponsible. The lead poisoning could have contributed to his psychosis.”

Midgley received several awards and honors in the late stages of his life. The Society of Chemical Industry awarded him the Perkin Medal in 1937; the American Chemical Society gave him the Priestley Medal in 1941 and elected him as president in the year of his death.

A biographical memoir from the National Academy of Sciences, written by his mentor Kettering in 1947, contains nothing but praise and ends by saying that Midgley left behind “a great heritage to the world from a busy, a diversified, and a highly creative life.”

History has other examples of inventions that turned out to be unwittingly deadly, such as TNT, which was originally developed for use as a yellow dye and not used as an explosive until decades later. Midgley is unique in having developed two such inventions, but although it’s tempting to see him as an environmental villain, experts say his role was more akin to a cog in the machine.

“He was just an employee,” Kovarik said.

Markowitz agrees. “This was corporate-sponsored research,” he said. “Had it not been Midgley, I’m sure it would have been somebody else who would have come up with these solutions.”

Striving for growth and innovation at all costs was reflective of the conception of progress in the first half of the 20th century, Markowitz added. “Only with the environmental movement that started in the 1960s and 1970s did we begin to consider what the consequences of technological progress could be,” he said.

“That has had a really sobering effect, but up through the 1950s there were very few voices questioning the idea that progress was our most important product.”

Nigeria’s oil-rich Rivers State has a unique opportunity to emerge as a beacon of progress, replacing hopelessness with hope, according to former Apex Bank governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

At the same time, Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara has highlighted the state’s efforts to create a more vibrant, investment-friendly environment, aiming to reassure investors of the requisite return on their investments.

Located in the Niger Delta region, Rivers State is a key oil-producing area in Nigeria. It hosts several major oil companies and boasts several oil wells.

Despite its vast oil wealth, the region has faced oil theft and sabotage over the years and suffers from a high unemployment rate.

Building an investor’s paradise

However, Fubara emphasized that his administration is taking measures to re-industrialize the state and bring back numerous production factories that had shut down operations.

During the two-day Rivers State Economic and Investment Summit (RSEIS), themed “Rivers Emerge: Advancing Pathways to Economic Growth and Sustainability,” held at the Dr. Obi Wali International Conference Centre in Port Harcourt, Sanusi delivered a keynote address where he called for better management of the state’s resources.

“With rich abundant land, abundant resources, and natural resources, as well as the strategic location of the state, Rivers can be one of the best investors paradises, not just in Nigeria but in West Africa if the right things can be done,” Sanusi said.

The Emir of Kano stressed that a prosperous future relies on the capacity of state institutions and the quality and skills of its population.

He drew comparisons with countries like Japan, Singapore, Germany, Australia, and Rwanda, which have thrived without significant natural resources, attributing their success to good governance, innovation, and education.

Fubara highlighted the various measures taken to make Rivers State a destination for all categories of investors.

“We have already implemented certain policy initiatives and reforms, including the prompt allocation and issuance of land titles and certificates of occupancy to prospective investors and a moratorium on State taxes and levies on new businesses. We are also working on the harmonization of state and local government taxes to eliminate double taxation and the imposition of multiple levies on investors,” he said.

Fubara also announced a N4 billion (over $2.7 million) matching fund loan scheme with the Bank of Industry Limited for small, micro, and medium-scale businesses to drive financial inclusion and enhance the growth and development of these businesses.

‘Oil is not a curse, the curse is the leaders’

Sanusi pointed out that while countries like Russia, the UAE, and Norway have benefitted from their natural resources, their success also hinges on visionary governance and strong institutions. He argued that resources can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on leadership. “Oil is not a curse; the curse is the leaders we have had,” he said.

Fubara detailed further initiatives, including providing hundreds of hectares of land for projects like a multi-billion-naira aluminum rolling mill and collaborations with international firms to develop the state’s agricultural potential.

He emphasized the importance of reviving abandoned agricultural projects and infrastructure, saying he would set aside about $10 million for these efforts this fiscal year.

Governor Fubara highlighted the investment opportunities across diverse sectors, including oil and gas, agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality, tourism, education, ICT, healthcare, infrastructure development, glass products, garments production, and power generation and transmission.

With over 40% of fertile cultivable landmass, Rivers State has the potential to significantly contribute to national food security through commercial investments in mechanized agriculture and agro-processing industrial value chains, he said.

In his keynote address, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu, said that due to the prevalence of poor governance in Nigeria, the abundant human and natural resources in the country have not been sufficiently harnessed to achieve the desired prosperity.

He particularly advocated for the implementation of well-meaning policies to dismantle barriers to doing business while promoting transparency and building investor confidence.

Moghalu added that, alongside developing requisite skills among the people and building enduring critical infrastructure, the foundation for good and competent governance should be assured to make the foreign direct investment (FDI) sought truly beneficial to the country.

Sanusi concluded by highlighting the importance of investing in human capital and creating an education system that meets contemporary labor market demands.

He called for an end to corruption in the judiciary, sensible tax policies, and the development of a skilled workforce to reduce dependence on foreign expertise.

He urged Rivers State to aspire beyond being a recipient of federal allocations to becoming a commercial and industrial hub where citizens enjoy a decent standard of living.

The air at the Ukrainian military recruitment office where a 30-year-old hairdresser is being interviewed is filled with anxiety. The man has no military experience and is unsure whether any of his skills would be useful. At one point, the recruiter jokingly suggests that he might be able to give everyone a nice haircut.

Under Ukraine’s new mobilization law, which came into effect on May 18, Ukrainian men are now facing a choice: Comply and face the possibility of being sent to the frontlines, or try to evade and risk penalties and condemnation.

The hairdresser has chosen to pre-empt the choice and volunteered, becoming one of six men to be interviewed at the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion’s recruitment center in Kyiv that day. The office is housed in an ordinary residential building, hidden from the outside world. Inside though, the walls are decorated with photos and big banners showing the logo of the battalion, a drawing of three teeth-baring wolves inside a stylized Ukrainian trident. The unit’s recruitment slogan is “Everyone will fight” and the recruiter’s laptop is covered in stickers, one of them saying “Your pack is waiting for you.”

Ukraine has made no secret of the urgent need to recruit more people as it tries to defend itself against the Russian aggression. While the government doesn’t reveal the number of dead and wounded, estimates made by experts speak of hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides of the conflict since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

One Ukrainian commander who asked not to be named for security reasons said the personnel shortages are having devastating effects on the battlefield.

Making the case for a new mobilization, Yurii Sodol, the commander of the Joint Forces of Ukraine’s military, told Ukrainian lawmakers last month that Russian troops outnumbered Ukrainian “seven to 10 times” in eastern Ukraine.

This lack of personnel is putting immense pressure on those who are already serving.

“The war is still going on and mobilization is essential. People who have been fighting for two years are tired. Some are going crazy,” said Yaroslav Galas, who is currently serving with the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.

To make the recruitment process more efficient and more transparent, the new law requires all Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 to register with the military and always have their documents on them.

However, only men aged 25 to 60 are subject to mobilization under the new law. The lower limit has been slashed by two years from 27 years, but it’s unlikely to make much difference because of Ukraine’s demographic challenges.

High emigration and low birth rates in the 1990s and 2000s mean there are far fewer people currently in their 20s, compared to those in their 30s and 40s.

Women who have medical or pharmaceutical qualifications must also register with the military, although they are not required to serve.

The new rules have been controversial – the draft law was amended more than 4,000 times during the approval process.

‘Desire to fight’

It is unclear how many people will end up being called up. Late last year, the leader of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People faction in parliament said the military was looking for an extra 500,000 servicemen and women. But the Commander-in-Chief of Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said recently that any increase in numbers would likely be significantly lower.

Some military officers are already questioning whether it will work. Their main worry is that they’ll end up with units full of men who are only there because someone forced them to be.

“We still want people to join voluntarily. Because there is a big difference between someone who was drafted into the army and someone who went to defend their homeland,” said Dmytro Kulibaba, a soldier with the 114th Territorial Defense Brigade.

Galas said that many people are worried that if they get drafted, they will be automatically sent to the frontlines – which he said is not the case.

“If you are a specialist, for example, who in civilian life was engaged in IT, accounting, project management, even cooks, clerks, then the Armed Forces also need you … and you can also make a fairly large contribution to the common victory by joining the Armed Forces,” he said. “We have a separate drone unit who are a little further away from the frontline. People who are good at electronics, even those who like to play computer games, will quickly master this specialty.”

‘Sense of camaraderie’

“I had been preparing for this for about a year or six months. I talked to my friends who are serving, I asked them about everything,” the 35-year-old said, explaining that his goal was to find a unit that would be a good fit for him.

He said agreeing to serve was a clear choice for him – despite some of his loved ones trying to steer him away from it.

“You think about all the options when you must make such a decision. How can I look my son in the eye when I say that I was somewhere (else)? I don’t know, it doesn’t work for me. I made a moral and ethical decision for myself. And then I had to decide with whom I would (feel most comfortable) serving with,” he said.

“It scares people away,” he said. “They don’t know what is happening in the combat brigades and it needs to be explained to them.”

He said that despite the initial worry, many soldiers adapt well to their new life, giving an example of a young IT specialist who was mobilized within the past few months.

“Once he joined this team, he saw that life in an infantry unit is not what civilians imagine. Yes, it is dangerous and difficult. But good people are there, and the bad ones don’t stay. There is a sense of camaraderie. And this is important,” he explained.

The IT man had impressed his commanders immediately, he added.

“He did very well during his first combat mission in Robotyno, holding positions 400 meters away from the Russians. He not only withstood assaults but also took prisoners,” he said.

But not everyone is able to adjust to the realities of life on the frontline. The commanding officer who asked to remain anonymous spoke of another problem with the mobilization, saying that in recent times some recruits have not received the training they need to withstand the pressure.

“The infantry being sent to the frontline needs to be given special training to make them real professionals. Because they come in here, drop their weapons, and run away from their positions,” he said.

“There must be motivation for the current military and those about to serve. We cannot use the methods used in Russia or Belarus – catching and imposing – this will not help. It will only lead to people running away and giving up their positions,” he added.

Running away

“I think I’d be more useful making money and bringing dollars to the country than digging trenches or guarding military facilities,” he added.

He said he believes Ukraine doesn’t have enough weapons to militarily reclaim territory seized by Russia in the war. The only way forward, he said, is a political agreement that would lead to Ukraine regaining its land.

The man said that if he was to receive a draft notice, he would leave the country.

“I don’t want to leave; I know that things are not so beautiful and sunny in Europe. But if I had to choose between going to war or going abroad, I would choose abroad, I would pay a bribe. My life comes first. And I realize that there is a very high chance of being killed,” he said.

The soldiers who are currently serving have little patience for men like this one, who say they can’t join the fight.

“Soldiers who go on leave or for treatment, who are exhausted … of course that (seeing other men) drinking coffee in coffee shops, going to restaurants, pumping their biceps and (saying they were) ‘not born for war’ make soldiers angry,” Galas said.

Unless they obtain a special permit, men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been forbidden from leaving Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion and last month, the government suspended consular services for men who are not registered with the military.

Some are willing to risk everything trying to escape. The Border Service said that since the start of the full-scale invasion, the bodies of 32 men have been found in the Tysa River on the border with Romania and Hungary.