Pocket News Nigeria

The Iran women’s team face the uncertain prospect of returning home after a 2-0 defeat by the Philippines ended their Women’s Asian Cup campaign. Sara Eggesvik and Chandler McDaniel scored the goals on the Gold Coast on Sunday night. It was the Philippines’ first win of the tournament, but they will need other results to go their way to qualify as one of the two best third-placed sides. Iran finish fourth in Group A and are eliminated despite some heroic saves from their goalkeeper, Raha Yazdani. Their third loss came after the players and coaches sang the national anthem, displaying a military salute before the match. It was the second time they had sung the anthem in the tournament after they decided not to before their opening game against South Korea last Monday. Iran’s state television called them “traitors” for not singing, saying the team were “the pinnacle of dishonour” because it came less than 48 hours after the US-Israel assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. O...

The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that it eliminated Abu al-Qassem Baba’iyan in an airstrikes,in Tehran, describing him as the head of the military office of Iran’s Supreme Leader and a senior figure involved in coordinating military activity against Israel. According to the IDF, the Israeli Air Force carried out the strike on Saturday based on “precise intelligence from the IDF Intelligence Directorate.” The military said Baba’iyan also served as chief of staff of the emergency command of headquarters, known as Khatam al-Anbiya. The IDF said Baba’iyan “was responsible for coordinating between the Iranian terror regime’s various force employment organizations to execute operations against the State of Israel and emergency operations.” The military described his role as linking senior Iranian military bodies involved in planning and directing operations. Baba’iyan had recently been appointed as the designated chief of staff for the office following the killing of Moha...

By Farooq Kperogi I have said far more about Daniel Bwala’s sensational Al Jazeera rhetorical incineration than I am inclined to, and honestly wanted to move on, but his ludicrous, self-indicting post-interview ego defense has drawn me in again. I will isolate only the most egregious alibi he invoked to explain away his embarrassing lies, contradictions, inconsistencies, and lack of basic decency to admit the truth. He says he should have been told in advance that his past criticisms of Tinubu would come up in the interview so he could “prepare himself.” That is a remarkable confession. In journalism, interviews are not take-home exams where guests receive the questions beforehand, rehearse answers and stroll in to recite them like memorized lines in a secondary school debate. If that were the standard, every interview would sound like a badly rehearsed stage play, or what my friend and former colleague Crispin Oduobuk used to call a “stand-and-deliver” performance. The ent...

Boko Haram Guns Down Over 40 Nigerian Soldiers Including Lieutenant Colonel In Brutal Attack Over 40 Nigerian soldiers have been confirmed killed during attacks by militants of the Islamic State-backed faction of Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād, in Borno state. SaharaReporters had on Friday exclusively reported how the terrorists simultaneously attacked four military bases in Konduga, Mainok, Jakana, and Marte town between 10 pm on Thursday night and 3 am on Friday. They reportedly fired at the military facilities sporadically, causing numerous casualties. The gunmen also came in different groups and could not be counted. Giving an update on Saturday, multiple sources told SaharaReporters that more than 40 corpses of dead soldiers have been recovered. Among those killed was a senior officer identified as Lieutenant Colonel SI Iliyasu. Iliyasu, who is the Commanding Officer ...

By Farooq A. Kperogi I barely know Daniel Bwala. He came to the forefront of national media attention in 2022 because of his impassioned opposition to the choice of Kashim Shettima as Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s running mate. But beyond his public break from the APC, he came across to me as a voluble, ignorant and opportunistic careerist, not because of his stance on Tinubu’s choice of a Muslim running mate, but because of what struck me as his facileness and self-seeking obsessions. His dramatic volte-face from being a virulent Tinubu critic to a fawning, vicious Tinubu battering ram has proven that my hunch about him was accurate. Yet I felt sorry watching him eaten alive by Mehdi Hassan on Al Jazeera on Friday, March 6. He willingly participated in the detonation of what remained of his credibility before the world. In the process, he did incalculable reputational damage to the Tinubu government he is paid to protect. What viewers saw on Mehdi Hasan’s Head to Head was the specta...

President Donald Trump told CNN Friday morning that Cuba “is going to fall pretty soon.” “Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash in a phone interview when touting US military success in his second term. “They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco (Rubio) over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after 50 years,” he added. “I’ve been watching it for 50 years, and it’s fallen right into my lap because of me, it’s fallen, but it’s nevertheless fallen right into the lap. And we’re doing very well,” he continued. A day earlier, Trump said at the White House that it’s only a “question of time” before American Cubans can return to their home country, appearing to say that’s next on the administration’s agenda after the ongoing war with Iran. “He’s doing some job, and your nex...