Headline

Senegal Govt Cuts Internet As Riots Erupt Over Sentencing Of Opposition Leader

Published

11 months ago

June 5, 2023

Editor

Senegal’s government has disconnected access to mobile internet services in certain areas as riots rocked the country over the sentencing of the popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko to two years in jail.

A statement from the government on Sunday said there was deadly rioting in which “hateful and subversive” messages have been posted online, hence, the need to cut internet services.

According to Reuters, Senegal has been hit by three days of violent protests in which 16 people have died, one of its deadliest bouts of civil unrest in decades.

Last week, the government limited access to certain messaging platforms, but many people were able to bypass the outage with the use of virtual private networks that hide the location of the user.

It extended the outage on Sunday to include all data on mobile internet devices in certain areas and at certain times, the statement said.

The message, however, did not reveal the areas that were affected or at what times, but residents across Dakar said they were unable to access the Internet without a wifi connection on Sunday afternoon, a time of day when protests have generally started to gather steam.

“Because of the spread of hateful and subversive messages…mobile Internet is temporarily suspended at certain hours of the day,” the statement said.

On Thursday, Sonko was sentenced on Thursday and the jail term if upheld could prevent him from running in the February presidential election, and this has resulted in violence.

Protesters have also been angered by President Macky Sall’s refusal to rule out running for a third term. Senegal has a two-term presidential limit.

Internet cuts to stifle dissent are common in Africa and date back to the 2011 Arab Spring when rulers in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya sought to control the spread of information. Since then Gabon, Gambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others have done the same at times of instability.

Headline

Google To Offer AI-generated Answers In Search Results

Published

1 hour ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

Google has announced it would introduce AI-generated answers to online queries made by users in the United States, in one of the biggest updates to its search engine in 25 years.

“I’m excited to announce that we will begin launching this fully revamped experience, ‘AI overviews,’ to everyone in the US this week,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said at an event in California on Tuesday, May 14.

Google’s search results will feature an AI summary at the top of the page before the more typical unfurling of links.

The AI answers generated by Google’s Gemini technology will offer succinct summaries of what it found on the internet with links to the online sources that supplied the information.

“You can ask whatever’s on your mind or whatever you need to get done – from researching to planning to brainstorming – and Google will take care of the legwork,” said Google Search team boss Liz Reid.

The change comes as Google feels growing pressure from AI-powered search engines like Perplexity, and from the rumors that OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is building its own AI search tool.

Searches through AI chats have also appeared on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with users able to get information from the web without Google.

The change will soon spread to other countries, Pichai added, making it accessible to more than a billion people.

Headline

College Volleyball Player Killed In US Nightclub Shooting

Published

1 hour ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

Albany State University volleyball player Mariam Creighton has been tragically killed in a nightclub shooting in Atlanta.

Atlanta Police Department said on Tuesday, May 14, that the incident happened around 2:28 AM on Sunday, May 14, when officers responded to shots fired at the Elleven45 establishment.

Six people were shot, two of whom were pronounced dead at the scene, Creighton and 20-year-old Nakyris Ridley.

The police department said in a statement;

“Preliminary investigation indicates the shooting occurred during a physical dispute at the location that escalated to gunfire.”

Creighton was a member of the ASU Golden Rams volleyball team, and was one semester from graduating from the HBCU with a biology degree.

Her family said she was at the club on Sunday celebrating her niece’s birthday. “It’s just senseless,” Creighton’s sister, Tiffany, said. “My sister was just out having a good time, and now our lives are just altered forever.”

Headline

Nigerian Burnt To Death In Bangkok Car Crash

Published

2 hours ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

A 35-year-old Nigerian man identified as Daniel was burnt to death in a car accident in Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok’s Prawet Police Station, confirmed the identity of the Nigerian national in a statement on Tuesday, May 14, 2024,

Daniel, whose Thai wife came to confirm his identity with the police, died on Saturday, May 11, when his car crashed into a road median and caught fire.

This serious road accident occurred at 5:30 a.m. on a three-lane road near Soi Phatthanakan 53/1, Suan Luang Subdistrict and District, Bangkok.

When officials received the report and arrived at the scene, they found a gray Toyota Vios with Samut Prakan province license plates overturned and engulfed in flames, blocking the middle of the road.

The officers spent about 10 minutes spraying water to extinguish the fire, but the car was completely damaged by the flames.

At that time, rescuers had to use cutting and prying equipment to remove the driver’s body from the wreckage and send it to the Police Hospital for an autopsy. They found a document with a front-facing photo of a foreign man.

Eyewitnesses stated that they saw the car driving at high speed in the far right lane before losing control and crashing into the road median.

The car spun and hit a palm tree with such force that it flipped over and ended up on its roof in the middle of the road.

At that moment, good Samaritans tried to pry open the door to help the unconscious driver, but before they could pull him out, sparks ignited, and the car quickly caught fire.