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Meet ‘Omeife’ NIgeria And Africa’s First Human-like Robot Which Speaks Five Languages

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The Nigerian Government has launched Africa’s first humanoid ‘Omeife’ to boost Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technological development in Nigeria and Africa.

Director General National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA Kashifu Inuwa who represented the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, who was to serve as proxy for the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, unveiled Omeife in Abuja.

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The Vice President noted that the federal government would ensure the project’s success and urged other stakeholders to support the Omeife project and develop new ones.

Inuwa said: “We are living in an exciting time of advanced technological advancement, where the science fiction of yesterday are becoming the reality in products and services of today,”

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Vanguard reports that Omeife, the first African humanoid robot was developed by the Uniccon Group led by Chucks Ekwueme.

Explaining the features, Ekwueme said the humanoid has a real-time understanding of its surroundings, including active listening and the ability to focus on a specific conversation thread as it occurs.

He also noted that Omeife can speak eight languages besides English, including Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, French, Arabic, Kiswahili, Pidgin and Afrikaans, TechCabal reports.

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Speaking on whether Omeife can frown or show expressions of sadness, Ekwueme added: “No, I don’t think we want it to do that even it is possible”

But he explained that what really underscores the Africanness built into Omeife is its ability to speak each language with a native accent, pitch and vocabulary, with detailed pronunciations of words, sentences and even phrases.

He noted: “African politeness values are also entrenched in their social interaction functions.”

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Ekwueme also stated that Omeife pays attention to a specific person to keep the conversation alive and chooses its words carefully—sieves out words, phrases, sentences and expressions that are not polite in African cultures.

This particular attribute makes it safe to interact with kids”

What the future holds for Omeife, Uniccon Group CEO added that Omeife’s learning pipeline helps it improve and understand new things from conversations, and it can also recall and understand old concepts better with new information.

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He continues: “Omeife also has terrain intelligence in that it knows its own ground level and stability on the floor, which helps it navigate on non-flat surfaces and maintain good balance.

It also has a position awareness feature and a grip sensor that allows it to size, understand shape, and how to hold things with its hands.”

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Serbia Indicts Ex-minister, 12 Others Over Train Station Tragedy

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Serbian prosecutors filed an updated indictment on Tuesday against 13 people, including a former minister, over a fatal railway station roof collapse that has triggered a wave of anti-government protests.

The prosecution said all those indicted, among them former construction minister Goran Vesic, face charges of “serious crimes against public safety” over the tragedy that killed 16 people last November.

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“The indictment proposes that the Higher Court in Novi Sad order custody for all the defendants,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The roof collapse at the newly renovated station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, became a symbol of entrenched corruption and sparked almost daily protests.

READ ALSO:FG Panel Indicts AFN In Ofili’s Paris Olympics Omission

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Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad initially filed an indictment at the end of December, but judges returned it in April, requesting more information.

The accused were released or placed under house arrest following the decision.

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The prosecutor’s office said it had complied with the judge’s request and had now completed the supplementary investigation.

READ ALSO:NDLEA Arrests Indian Businessman, 3 Others Over Alleged Trafficking Of N3.9bn Tramadol

The prosecutor specialising in organised crime and corruption in Belgrade is leading a separate, independent investigation into the tragedy.

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That investigation is focused on 13 people, including Vesic and another former minister, Tomislav Momirovic, who headed the Construction Ministry before him.

In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched a third, separate investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds for the station’s reconstruction.

AFP

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Kazakhstan Bans Forced Marriage, Bride Kidnapping

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Kazakhstan has banned forced marriages and bride kidnappings through a law that came into effect Tuesday in the Central Asian country, where the practice persists despite new attention being paid to women’s rights.

Forcing someone to marry is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Kazakh police said in a statement.

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These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have also been outlawed.

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Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police said.

There are no reliable statistics of forced marriage cases across the country, with no separate article in the criminal code prohibiting it until now.

A Kazakh lawmaker said earlier this year that the police had received 214 such complaints over the past three years.

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The custom is also present in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where it mostly goes unpunished due to indifferent law enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

READ ALSO:California Lawmakers Approve Ban On Face Masks For Authorities

The issue of women’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media attention in 2023 following the murder of a woman by her husband, a former minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

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“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Tokayev said last year.

AFP

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Russia Arrests Woman For Detonating Bomb On Railway

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Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it had arrested a woman in her fifties accused of detonating explosives in a bid to sabotage the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The suspect was allegedly working on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB said, in the latest incident of alleged covert activity during the countries’ conflict.

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In August 2025, following the instructions provided by the adversary, the suspect manufactured a homemade explosive device from publicly available components, placed it on the railway tracks and triggered it,” the Russian agency said.

READ ALSO:Russia Hits Ukraine With ‘Massive’ Deadly Overnight Strikes

“She recorded the moment of the explosion on her mobile phone camera and sent the footage as a report to the handler to receive a reward.”

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The statement did not name the suspect but said she was born in 1974 and carried out the alleged attack in eastern Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region.

The FSB warned Russians that it was monitoring social networks and online messenger services such as Telegram and WhatsApp for evidence of Ukrainian services recruiting Russians to carry out sabotage.

READ ALSO:Again, Russia Claims Another Village In Ukraine’s Region

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Separately, the agency told state news agency TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months for transporting explosives on behalf of a “pro-Ukrainian” group.

A resident of the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, had, the FSB said, established contact through the Telegram app with a banned “terrorist organisation”.

He allegedly retrieved explosives from a cache on the orders of this group before waiting for “further instructions”, according to the same source cited by TASS.

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He was jailed by a military tribunal.

AFP

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