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Video Of Actress Annie Idibia Spraying Musician Wasiu Ayinde At A Recent Event

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News_Naija

Edutech Leaders Urged To Prioritise Humanity With Tech

Global education technology stakeholders have been called upon to ensure that human interaction remains at the heart of learning, even as Artificial Intelligence and other digital tools reshape education. This appeal was made at the National Consultative Working Group Roundtable on Edtech in Nigeria, recently in Lagos, where the Founder and Director General of Rhealyz Global Empowerment Initiative, Dr Eritiade Shida, led discussions on the need to harmonise human influence with technological progress. The event, titled ‘Harmonising Human Interaction and Technology: Bridging the Digital Divide for Inclusive Education, Education,’ focused on addressing concerns that excessive reliance on technology could erode the human element in education, especially for marginalised communities. Shida stressed the importance of maintaining a balance between technology and human interaction in education. “We are living in a technological age, but we must ensure that technology serves humanity, not the other way around. The brain must still work! We cannot solely rely on AI; we need a balance to ensure that the human element remains at the core of education and development,” she said. She added that Rhealyz Africa, in collaboration with global and local partners such as the German Corporation, Global Campaign for Education, Tech4Dev, and Tech Society, is working on a policy document to promote a more human-centred approach to technology integration. These recommendations will be shared with governments and stakeholders at both national and international levels to guide future education policies. Shida reassured attendees that the initiative would not be a one-time event but part of a larger movement to shape the future of education in Africa. “We are building a community of educators, technologists, and stakeholders across the globe to ensure these conversations continue beyond today. A virtual edition of this event will also be held to engage those who could not attend physically, extending the impact across the African continent,” she explained. Meanwhile, Executive Secretary of the Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board, Moronke Azeez, highlighted how vocational education is also adapting to the digital age. She shared how over 8,000 students in Lagos East were forced to stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting a shift toward integrating digital tools into technical education. Azeez noted that students are now using interactive boards, computers, robotics, and applications like AutoCAD to gain digital literacy and enhance their employability. “We cannot afford to remain passive as the world evolves. Our students must gain skills that match the demands of modern industries, where technology is now at the heart of operations,” she said. However, she acknowledged challenges such as infrastructure limitations, digital literacy gaps, and cybersecurity concerns, which must be addressed to ensure equitable access to technology-driven education.

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Worldnews

Stocks Soar: Why Trump Faces Scrutiny Over Tariff Pause Timing

Trump’s sudden 90-day tariff pause which caused stock index gains has prompted concerns about insider trading. Trump pauses tariffs globally, surged tariffs on China to 125 percent United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday paused steep tariffs on the US’s trading partners barring China, instead imposing a blanket 10 percent tariff on goods imported from these nations and territories. The 90-day pause came within 24 hours of the duties taking effect. The pausing of most additional tariffs, which had roiled the stock market, sent US major stock indices soaring to one of their biggest single-day gains since World War II, even though they remain nearly 11 percent below their February 19 peak under Trump. Three hours before he announced the pause, Trump encouraged investors to buy stock. In the aftermath, Democrats have accused Trump of market manipulation, using his announcements to first crash stocks before creating a short window when those who bought shares would gain dramatically. Trump’s allies have denied the charge, but his critics are now calling for Congress to investigate him. So what happened, could the market whiplash have benefitted investors who listened to Trump, and why has this angered some Democrats? Trump announced the three-month reprieve from the tariffs on Wednesday, amid negotiations with more than 75 countries to reduce the levies on their goods, he said. The US president said all the countries that had not retaliated against his tariffs would only face a 10 percent blanket tariff until July. He suggested his pause was strategic – to reward those countries that agreed to work towards a deal with him. “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting yippy, you know,” Trump explained when asked why he announced the pause while speaking to reporters. Trump announced these tariffs on April 2, ranging from 12 percent to 50 percent, on about 60 trading partners that he claimed were guilty of imposing disproportionately high levies on US imports. These tariffs took effect on Tuesday. Additionally, Trump had announced – also on April 2 – a flat 10 percent tariff on products coming from almost all other trading partners of the US. These tariffs came into force on April 5. The tariff pause does not apply to China. On April 2, which Trump dubbed “Liberation Day”, China was hit with a 34 percent tariff on top of an existing 20 percent tariff. This set off a sequence of tit-for-tat actions by China and the US, each raising tariffs on the other. China has, as of now, imposed an 84 percent tariff on US products. Trump, meanwhile, has increased the levy on Chinese goods to 125 percent. In the week that followed the announcement, the US’s three major stock indices – the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq – dropped by more than 5 percent. This was the biggest stock market decline in the US since 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The US Treasury bond market came under selling pressure. The 10-year benchmark government bond yield, which moves inversely to its price, fell after Trump announced the tariffs. On Thursday, the Treasury yields started to drop. No. The tariff pause does not apply to China. On the April 2 “Liberation Day”, China was hit with a 34 percent tariff on top of an existing 20 percent tariff. This set off a sequence of tit-for-tat actions by China and the US, each raising tariffs on the other. China has, as of now, imposed an 84 percent tariff on US products. Trump, meanwhile, has increased the levy on Chinese goods to 125 percent. All other countries and territories – including those which the US has a trade surplus with, or a free trade agreement with – have still been hit with a 10 percent tariff rate. Quite the opposite. Before announcing the pause, Trump and his close aides had repeatedly held that the tariffs would not be paused or rolled back. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNN last week: “I don’t think there’s any chance that President Trump’s going to back off his tariffs. This is the reordering of global trade.” On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described a news report suggesting the possibility of a 90-day pause in tariffs as “fake news”. But about four hours before Trump announced the pause in tariffs, he posted on his Truth Social platform, saying: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” After Trump’s later pause announcement, the S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of 500 leading US companies, surged 9.5 percent. This marked one of the biggest one-day gains in 80 years for the index. The Nasdaq also jumped by 12.2 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew by nearly 3,000 points. This means that investors who listened to Trump’s Truth Social advice and bought into the market yielded large returns. On the other hand, investors who sold assets during the market drop before the tariff pause, lost money. “The pause was and is controversial because it came after a week of the administration promising, over and over, that a pause would not happen, that negotiations would not happen, that the rates were there to stay,” Veljko Fotak, an associate professor of finance at the University at Buffalo School of Management, told Al Jazeera. “Of course, there were cracks even beforehand—the messaging was never 100 percent consistent—and, yet, the bulk of it was ‘tariffs are permanent.’ The pause undercut a lot of the people who are supposedly in charge as well—they seemed to be caught off-guard and unaware of the policy change,” said Fotak, whose areas of expertise include stock markets. Democrats have accused Trump of deliberately creating market fluctuations by flip-flopping between imposing and lifting tariffs. They want Trump to be investigated for market manipulation, the act of deliberately misleading free-flowing markets for profit. California Senator, Democrat Adam Schiff, posted on X, saying “these constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading”. Schiff questioned: “Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” In a separate post, the senator released a video of himself reiterating his suspicions about whether Trump’s inner circle “illegally profited” from the stock market swings. “Congress must find out,” he wrote. Is Donald Trump's inner circle illegally profiting off of these huge swings in the stock market by insider trading? Congress must find out. pic.twitter.com/ZZGX99PtFE — Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) April 9, 2025 Suspicions about investors knowing about Trump’s pause plan before he made the announcement were also fuelled by the fact that Nasdaq call volumes spiked less than 20 minutes before Trump announced the tariff pause. Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reposted screenshots showing the call volume spike in an X post. “Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,” she wrote. “It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.” Trump’s trade representative Jamieson Greer was testifying to a House of Representatives committee when Trump made the announcement. Democrat Steven Horsford, a Nevada congressman, asked Greer why he had not disclosed the decision to pause tariffs. “I don’t disclose my conversations with the president, Sir,” Greer responded. “If it was a plan, if it was always the plan, how is it not market manipulation?” Horsford said. Greer responded, saying this was not market manipulation, and the Trump administration was instead “trying to reset the global trade system that has offshored all our factories.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...