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Meet Nigerian Joshua Beckford, Youngest Person To Attend Oxford University

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Joshua Beckford gained worldwide recognition as the youngest person ever to study at Oxford University.

The youngster was admitted at age six (taking part in courses which were part of an online learning platform for gifted children) and gained distinctions in both Philosophy and History.

When Beckford’s father, Knox Daniel, wrote to Oxford University advocating for his son’s admission, it was a bold move to challenge the conventional age limits for a programme aimed at children aged eight to 13.

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His record remains unmatched, with the next youngest Oxford student being at least two years older at the time of admission.

By 10 months old, Beckford could already identify letters and numbers. At age two and a half, he could read fluently using phonics and had begun learning Japanese and some Mandarin.

READ ALSO: Meet Nigerian Neurotech Who Built Computer That Can Smell Explosives

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Aspiring to become a neurosurgeon, Beckford has already demonstrated remarkable medical knowledge. Using the Microsoft Surgery Simulator, he has mastered complex surgical procedures, including cataract removal, hernia repair and leg fracture correction. His proficiency with surgical instruments showcases his extraordinary abilities beyond his years.

Beyond medicine, Beckford is multi-talented, excelling in art, Information Technology (IT), sports and foreign languages.

In 2017, Beckford was named Positive Role Model of the Year at the UK’s National Diversity Awards.

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The Illumination Foundation of North Carolina also listed him among the Top 30 Most Extraordinary People worldwide who have made societal impact.

Beckford serves as an ambassador for the Boys Mentoring Advocacy Network (BMAN), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to mentoring young boys and adolescents in Africa. Within BMAN, he holds the role of Low-Income Families Education (L.I.F.E) Support Ambassador across six countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and the United Kingdom where he was born.

READ ALSO: Meet 36-Year-old Okolo, First Black Woman To Earn PhD In Aerospace Engineering

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Joshua Beckford also serves as the face of the National Autistic Society’s Black and Minority (BME) campaign. Diagnosed with high-functioning autism himself, he helps to spread the campaign’s mission.

In 2019, Beckford and his father travelled to Nigeria to launch a live mentoring session, delivering a keynote speech at the University of Lagos before an audience of nearly 5,000 people. Their visit was to raise funds for building a secondary school in Kaduna State, providing education to children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

According to a statement on UNILAG’s website, the proposed school was to include classrooms, an administrative block, a laboratory, an ICT Centre and an agriculture green garden and was to be named Joshua Beckford Community School.

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UK Is A Home, Not Hotel, Kemi Badenoch Tells Immigrants, Starmer’s Govt

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UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has slammed Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government over its immigration policy, declaring that Britain is “a home, not a hotel.”

Badenoch accused Labour of weakening the country’s borders and enabling mass automatic citizenship.

In a 1:11-minute video posted on her official X account on Friday, Badenoch claimed Labour’s proposed reforms could allow up to two million immigrants to automatically qualify for British citizenship starting next year.

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READ ALSO:Badenoch Unveils Strict UK Immigration Plan, Targets 150,000 Yearly Deportations

“From next year, two million immigrants can automatically claim British citizenship. Two million people! That’s nearly twice the population of Birmingham. That’s massive,” Badenoch said in the video.

Badenoch noted that the Conservative Party has introduced a deportation bill to bring immigration down.

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Among the measures she endorsed in the video were deporting all foreign criminals, mandatory age checks, no more pretending to be kids, tougher visa rules and salary thresholds, disapplying the Human Rights Act to immigration cases, and no more abusing human rights laws to judge deportations. Make asylum support repayable, and no permanent right to stay in the UK if you’ve relied on benefits.

READ ALSO:Badenoch Slams UK’s Palestine Recognition Decision As ‘Absolutely Disastrous’

Until that’s law, we won’t fix this. Labour should adopt it now. It’s time to get tough. That’s what the Conservatives’ Deportation Bill delivers, and we’re going to go further. Our country is a home, not a hotel. And if we don’t defend it, no one else will.”

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In the caption that came with the video, she tweeted, “Labour has blocked every single measure we’ve put forward to cut immigration and stop abuse of the system.

“Now they’re pushing one half-arsed proposal — it’s weak; it won’t work. It’s time they stopped playing games and backed our Deportation Bill.”

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King Charles To Pray With Pope Leo In Historic Vatican Visit

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King Charles III will on Thursday meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and make history as the first head of the Church of England to pray publicly with the pontiff for five centuries.

The 76-year-old monarch, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England, arrived in Rome on Wednesday evening with his wife, Queen Camilla, for what Buckingham Palace described as a “historic” state visit.

It will be Charles’s first meeting with Leo since the US-born pope took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, following the death of Pope Francis.

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The royals will arrive at the Apostolic Palace at 10.45am (0845 GMT) for private talks with the pope.

READ ALSO:King Charles III To Visit Vatican Next Week

The king and queen will then join an ecumenical service at midday (1000 GMT) in the Sistine Chapel led by Pope Leo and the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, currently the senior cleric of the Church of England.

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Broadcast live by Vatican media, it will be the first time a reigning English or British monarch has prayed publicly with a pope since English king Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534.

Triggered by the pope’s refusal to annul the king’s marriage so he could marry another woman, the schism made the monarch head of the separate Church of England.

Thursday’s service, held beneath Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling frescoes, will be centred on conservation and protecting the environment, a cause championed by Charles.

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READ ALSO:King Charles To Knight David Beckham For Football, Charity Work

It will bring together Catholic and Anglican traditions, with the choir from the Sistine Chapel joined by that from Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, one of the king’s residences.

– Schism –

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The religious break between London and Rome remains, even if there has been a significant rapprochement in recent decades.

In 1961, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the split.

The law was changed in 2013 so that marrying a Catholic would no longer disqualify someone from becoming monarch — although they still have to be a Protestant themselves.

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The rapprochement is important because “Anglicanism was born in reaction to the Catholic Church, and therefore in opposition,” said Hyacinthe Destivelle, a French priest and member of the Vatican’s dicastery (department) for promoting Christian unity.

READ ALSO:King Charles III To Visit Vatican Next Week

This is no longer the case, despite “theological differences in recent decades”, he told AFP.

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Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England — the mother church of the world’s 85-million-strong Anglican community — ordains women and allows priests to marry.

Sarah Mullally was recently named the first female archbishop of Canterbury, the Church’s top cleric, although she has yet to officially take up her post.

– Royal Confrater –

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Charles and Queen Camilla are also set to take part in a service at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, one of four major papal basilicas, which has historic links with the English crown.

READ ALSO:Police Bust Child Trafficking Syndicate In Rivers, Rescue Babies

The king will be made a “Royal Confrater” of the basilica and presented with a specially designed seat for use by him and future British monarchs.

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Charles has visited the Vatican several times and met privately with Pope Francis on April 9, just days before the pontiff’s death.

The king sent his son and heir, William, to the funeral and his brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Leo’s inauguration mass.

The visit comes as the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee, a year-long event held every 25 years, which has drawn millions of pilgrims to the Vatican.

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It also comes at a delicate time for Charles, following new revelations about his brother Prince Andrew, who is mired in a scandal surrounding late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew announced on Friday that he would relinquish his title as Duke of York, reportedly under pressure from Charles. He had already stepped back from royal duties in 2019.

AFP

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One Dies As Woman Trying To Kill Cockroach Sets House On Fire

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South Korean police have stated that a woman in her 20s set her apartment building on fire while trying to kill a cockroach with an improvised flamethrower.

Local media reports that the woman attempted to burn the insect using a lighter and a flammable spray, saying she had used the same method before. However, items in her home caught fire on Monday, spreading to other parts of the building.

Police in the northern city of Osan said they will seek an arrest warrant for the woman, who could be charged with accidentally starting a fire and causing death by negligence.

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READ ALSO:Lagos Fire Service Rescues Woman From 60-foot Well In Ikorodu

According to the BBC, one of the woman’s neighbours, a Chinese national in her 30s, died while trying to escape the blaze. The victim lived on the fifth floor of the building with her husband and their two-month-old baby.

When the fire broke out, the couple opened their window and called for help. They handed their baby to a neighbour on the adjacent block before attempting to escape. The husband managed to climb over, but the woman fell from the window. She was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead hours later.

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Police said they believed the couple tried escaping through the window because thick smoke from the fire had blocked the stairway.

READ ALSO:Senate Approves Life Imprisonment For Child Defilement Convicts

The building houses commercial shops on the first floor and 32 residential units from the second to fifth floors. Eight other residents also suffered from smoke inhalation.

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Using blowtorches or homemade flamethrowers to kill cockroaches has become a trend on social media. In 2018, an Australian man set fire to his kitchen while attempting to exterminate cockroaches with a similar device.

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