A group of senior Gabonese military officers appeared on national television in the early hours of Wednesday and said they had taken power, minutes after the state election body announced President Ali Bongo had won a third term.

Appearing on television channel Gabon 24, the officers said they represented all security and defence forces in the Central African nation. They said the election results were cancelled, all borders closed until further notice and state institutions dissolved.

Loud sounds of gunfire could be heard in the capital Libreville, a Reuters reporter said, after the television appearance.

There was no immediate comment from the government of the OPEC-member nation. There were no immediate reports on the whereabouts of Bongo, who was last seen in public when he cast his vote in the election on Saturday.

"In the name of the Gabonese people ... we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime," the officers said in a statement.

As one officer read the joint statement, around a dozen others stood silently behind him in military fatigues and berets.

The servicemen introduced themselves as members of The Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. The state institutions they declared dissolved included the government, the senate, the national assembly, the constitutional court and the election body.

If successful, the coup would represent the eighth in West and Central Africa since 2020. Coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger have undermined democratic progress in recent years.

Last month, the military snatched power in Niger, sending shockwaves across the Sahel and sucking in global powers with strategic interests at stake.

Tensions were running high in Gabon amid fears of unrest after Saturday's presidential, parliamentary, and legislative vote, which saw Bongo seeking to extend his family's 56-year grip on power while the opposition pushed for change in the oil and cocoa-rich but poverty-stricken nation.

A lack of international observers, the suspension of some foreign broadcasts, and the authorities' decision to cut internet service and impose a night-time curfew nationwide after the poll had raised concerns about the transparency of the electoral process.

Gabon foiled an attempted military coup in January 2019 after soldiers briefly seized the state radio station and broadcast a message saying Bongo, who had suffered a stroke months earlier, was no longer fit for office.

The situation was restored hours later after two of the suspected coup plotters were killed and others arrested.

IN POWER SINCE 2009

The Gabonese Election Centre said earlier on Wednesday Bongo won the election with 64.27% of the vote and that his main challenger, Albert Ondo Ossa, had come in second place with 30.77%.

Bongo, 64, who succeeded his father Omar as president in 2009, had contested against 18 challengers, six of whom backed Ondo Ossa in an effort to narrow the race.

The government has said the web blackout and curfew are necessary to prevent the spread of fake news and to protect public safety. Bongo's disputed 2016 election win provoked violent protests that saw the parliament building torched.

His team have rejected allegations of fraud by Ondo Ossa and his opposition alliance after a vote marred by numerous polling stations opening several hours late.

The alliance Alternance 2023 also reported other alleged irregularities including that ballot slips for its candidates had not been deployed correctly in some areas. Reuters could not independently verify the claim.

The European Union was not invited to observe this election. EU monitors previously questioned the validity of Bongo's narrow victory in the 2016 presidential vote.

On Monday, media watchdog Reporters without Borders (RSF) voiced concern about the internet block and Gabon's temporary suspension of broadcasts by French international news outlets RFI, France 24, and TV5 Monde.

"RSF denounces a series of attacks on press freedom and information pluralism, facts likely to compromise (the) general election's transparency," it said in an online post.

The opposition has disputed both of Bongo's previous electoral victories, citing fraud. He first came to power in a 2009 vote following the death of his father Omar Bongo before being re-elected in 2016.

Reuters

In July 2018, Muhammadu Buhari, the president of Nigeria at the time, boarded a gleaming new train linking the capital city, Abuja, with its airport. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Buhari hailed the system as “evidence that we are a government that delivers on its promises.”

Five years on, that promise looks empty. Train cars are locked away at a depot. Cavernous stations fully equipped with escalators, ticket offices, cameras and scanners stand empty, overseen by bored security guards. The faux leather couches in the VIP area are covered in bird and bat droppings. “It’s an abandoned project,” says Rowland Ataguba, an adviser to the government on rail strategy. “Quite clearly there was no plan on how to run the operations before they built it.”

The $823 million Abuja Light Rail—the first of its kind in West Africa—was closed in March 2020, ostensibly to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, it’s remained shuttered, and there’s been scant progress toward a resumption of service on the 27-kilometer (17-mile) line. Meanwhile, Nigeria is spending $50 million a year paying down the project’s $500 million in loans from the Export-Import Bank of China. “The current situation is a mystery for the next minister to unravel,” says Nasir El-Rufai, who as minister in charge of the capital area signed the contract to build the railway 16 years ago.

The idea was to reduce congestion, helping the city avoid the polluted, traffic-clogged fate of the country’s commercial hub, Lagos—the capital until Abuja, a city newly carved out of the savannah in central Nigeria, opened for business in 1991. From the time planning started in the 1970s, Abuja was always meant to have urban rail, but it wasn’t until 2007 that China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. won the contract for the first leg, and it took another half-decade for the government to secure sufficient funding.

The line was intended to be the first of a half dozen in a 290-kilometer network that would connect the city to the satellite towns where many workers live. Instead, it’s become a lesson in how not to create a mass transit system, says Mohamed Lawal Shaibu of Envicons Teams Ltd., an urban planning consultant in Abuja. The problem, Shaibu says, is that the train serves areas with little demand. “It has been very terribly executed,” he says. “The line basically avoided where people are, where people live, where people go.”

At one end lies the airport, a place where most people who can afford to fly typically arrive by car. At the other end is an isolated area of the so-called Central Business District, where the road in front of the station is more often filled with herders driving cattle to grazing land than anyone headed to or from work. Out back is scrubland where people fleeing violence in the north of the country have built shacks. An additional 18 kilometers of track was built toward the suburbs but never saw any service.

The first section was conceived about two decades ago as an airport link to bolster the capital’s bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. But after Abuja lost out to Glasgow, local officials stuck with the plan rather than adapting it to create a system that might better serve residents, according to Tonami Playman, an independent researcher who studies African public transport. “Politicians just want something to ribbon-cut and don’t care what kind of utility the infrastructure will provide,” he says.

During the 20 months the line was open, a maximum of four trains a day made the 40-minute trip between the city and the airport in each direction, making just one stop in between while breezing through five other stations. The system failed because it was “neither a high occupancy nor a high frequency service,” according to a report prepared for Japan’s development agency in 2019, which estimated daily ridership at fewer than 1,000 passengers, compared with a forecast of 34,000.

Mohammed Bello, the minister who ran the capital area under Buhari, said in October that he was working “toward the imminent resumption of operations.” That didn’t happen. Bello left his post in May when Buhari retired, and the newly elected president, Bola Tinubu, waited until Aug. 16 to name a successor. Neither Tinubu’s office nor the capital administration replied to questions about the railway.

The new minister in charge of the capital region, Nyesom Wike, on Aug. 23 toured the line and vowed that trains would be back on track within eight months. And the city has signed a $6.6 million deal with the Chinese construction company to complete repairs. The project’s defenders say once the system starts running at full throttle—whenever that might be—it will boost development along the route, and starting with a line through more densely populated areas would have been more expensive.

The main reason for the ongoing closure is damage suffered during the shutdown, according to the state-owned company appointed to run the system in May. A project manager involved in the railway says thieves have stolen crucial equipment such as communications cables, copper wiring and signaling gear, and repairing or replacing that will take at least six months once work begins.

The plan is to integrate the train with a revamped public bus service that will ferry passengers from stations to their final destinations. Until then, though, the 3.8 million residents of the fast-growing city, and millions more who live nearby, are left with few options beyond the thousands of rickety shared taxis and minibuses that ply the streets and highways.

Nigeria is notorious for grand infrastructure projects that are ill-conceived, never completed or quickly abandoned. The Ajaokuta steel mill, for instance, has swallowed $7 billion since the 1970s without ever producing a sheet, rod or coil. The government has committed billions of dollars to restoring four oil refineries that have barely produced any fuel in more than a decade. And just a couple of miles from the train’s city terminus, the 170-meter-tall Millennium Tower—intended to be a cultural complex topped with a revolving restaurant—remains unfinished 17 years after construction began.

Any significant further investment in the rail project in the near term, either providing the needed subsidies for the existing line or constructing the next one, remains unlikely. Nigeria’s government spent almost all its revenue last year on debt service, and going back to Chinese lenders is getting increasingly difficult, as the government and banks there become less generous in the face of growing domestic challenges. Six years ago the Abuja administration awarded China Civil Engineering a $1.5 billion deal to build the second phase of the train system, intended to serve busier areas, but adequate funding has yet to be lined up, leaving the project in deep freeze. “Signing a contract is one thing,” says Najeeb Abdussalam, head of the city’s public transit agency. “Raising the money is another.”

Bloomberg

Crude oil theft may have cost the country a whopping N1.9tn revenue loss in July.

The estimation was arrived at following a pronouncement by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, last week when he led a presidential delegation to inspect oil and gas facilities at Owaza in Abia and Rivers State.

Ribadu said Nigeria was losing 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily due to activities of oil thieves and pipeline vandals.

He added that the country had the capacity to produce 2 million barrels of crude oil per day.

“It is unfortunate that few individuals would steal our common resources, and in the process cause unbelievable loss to the nation, communities and the people,” Ribadu said.

“Nigeria has the capacity to produce two million barrels of crude daily, but we are currently producing less than 1.6 million barrels due to theft and vandalisation of pipelines.’’

“So, we’re talking about 400,000 barrels of crude oil going to waste, with few criminals and economic saboteurs not even getting much out of it,” he said.

Checks on data provided in the August report of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries showed that the country’s July crude oil production, as provided by direct sources such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, was one million barrels per day.

According to OPEC August report, Nigeria’s crude grade, Bonny Light, against which all other crude grades produced by the country were priced, was sold for $80 per barrel in July. The exchange rate against the dollar was also at N777/$1 in July.

This estimation brings total revenue loss to crude oil theft to N1.9tn in July alone.

Punch

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says it has commenced the implementation of value-added tax (VAT) on automobile gas oil (AGO), also known as diesel, imported into the country.

The service made this known in a memo, dated July 28, 2023, sent to all importers and agents of diesel.

The memo was titled, ‘Request for Charge of Value Added Tax (VAT) on Automobile Gas Oil (ago) or Diesel Imported into the Country’. 

The communication, signed by PC Chibuoke (DC admin) on behalf of the area controller, Area I, Port Harcourt; made reference to a “headquarters circular No. NCS/T&T/T/899/217/VOL.I of 27 July 2023 on the above subject matter”.

“I am directed to inform you that henceforth, Value Added Tax (VAT) is to be charged on Automobile Gas Oil (AGO), and Procedure Code 4900 000 shall be used on all importations of AGO,” the memo reads.

The service added that no importer of diesel is allowed to use “additional Code 409 in their declaration”.

In 2020, the federal government began the implementation of the Finance Act, which stated that a 7.5 percent VAT would be charged on diesel costs.

The development means that the price of diesel, which has been surging, may reach unprecedented highs — further worsening the plight of Nigerians and manufacturers.

In July 2023, the price of a litre of the product increased to N794.48 a litre, compared to N774.38 per litre in the corresponding period last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The Cable

Foreign investment in Nigerian stocks fell last month to its lowest level since President Bola Tinubu’s reforms that sparked a massive rally in the equities market, new data from the nation’s bourse show.

The total amount of stocks bought by foreign investors plunged to N9.45 billion from N22.72 billion in June, according to data from the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX).

Stocks worth N31.09 billion were offloaded by foreigners in July, compared to an outflow of N23.02 billion in the previous month.

Foreign inflow into Nigerian stocks had jumped more than seven-fold in May to N27.51 billion, its highest level since December 2021, as the market soared on the last two trading days of that month following the announcement of petrol subsidy removal by Tinubu on May 29. That month, the market posted its first net inflow this year as the outflow was N9.65 billion, up from N4.80 billion in the previous month.

The subsidy removal was followed by a foreign exchange reform that led to a large devaluation of the naira in mid-June.

“The uncertainty in the FX market may have led to the exit observed in July,” Ayodeji Ebo, managing director/chief business officer of Optimus by Afrinvest, told BusinessDay. “In addition, profit-taking may also be a major factor for the pull-out.”

Foreign participation in the equities market had increased to 11.51 percent in May from 4.43 percent in the previous month. It fell to 11.25 percent in June and 5.77 percent in July, the NGX data show.

The total transactions executed by Foreign investors fell by 11.37 percent in July to N40.54 billion (about $52.58 million) in the previous month, while domestic deals rose 83.50 percent to N662.44 billion.

BusinessDay had reported in February that for the first time in five years, foreign investors bought more Nigerian stocks than they sold in 2022.

The net foreign inflow came as foreign investors were forced to reinvest their dividends and sales proceeds into securities because they could not get dollars to repatriate their funds.

The latest data from the NGX explains foreign portfolio investors’ (FPIs) sentiments about the Nigerian capital market, hence the urgent need to provide confidence by increasing FX earnings in the medium to long term, Ebo said.

“We expect to see more FPIs in fixed income as yields improve, especially OMO bills,” he added.

On 10 August, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) auctioned its first OMO bills since December 29, 2022.

Analysts at Cordros Securities Limited said in an August 15 note that the move represented one of the short-term fixes for the CBN to attract FPIs into the FX market amid concerns that the Treasury bills yields were too low to attract foreign investors.

They expressed cautious optimism that active OMO operations with competitive interest rates would complement recent FX reforms, even as they raised concerns over “a bifurcation of interest rates where rates are high for foreign investors (OMO bills) but low for domestic investors (Treasury bills) following the Debt Management Office’s efforts to keep borrowing costs low”.

“Moreover, bringing back OMO as a tool for attracting foreign investors takes us back to the unorthodox monetary policy era. It will come at a considerable cost to the CBN’s balance sheet,” the analysts added.

Bismarck Rewane, managing director of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, said the Nigerian stock market lost 1.43 percent in the last week of July following a 25 basis-point hike in the monetary policy rate and the release of underwhelming half-year earnings by some Nigerian companies.

The central bank raised its benchmark interest rate in July for the eighth consecutive month to 18.75 percent from 18.50 percent.

The NGX gained 5.53 percent in July, down from 9.38 percent in the previous month, with investors gradually exiting equities “for attractive fixed income yields”, Rewane said in his presentation at the Lagos Business School Breakfast Meeting this month.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said in its latest country report on Nigeria that the CBN’s unification of the country’s multiple exchange rates in June led to the sharpest devaluation of the naira in history.

The new exchange rate was classed by the central bank as a ‘managed float’, but there are inconsistencies in application to a more liberal currency regime as foreign-exchange access restrictions still apply to an array of imports, according to the EIU.

“This will unnerve foreign investors, and a backlog of foreign-exchange orders the CBN failed to clear before opening up the market and deeply negative real interest rates will keep liquidity tight,” it said.

Businessday

Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, the West African nation’s biggest miller, reported its first loss in about four years as naira’s depreciation increased the company’s cost of servicing overseas loans.

The Lagos-based company reported a loss of 10.2 billion naira ($13.2 million) in the three months to June 30, compared with a profit of 5.63 billion naira a year ago, according to a regulatory filing. The firm posted a foreign-exchange loss of 22.5 billion naira.

“Without the devaluation of the exchange rate, the operating profit would have increased by 52%,” Flour Mills said.

Six of the nation’s biggest companies announced a combined loss of $385 million early in the year after revaluing overseas loans and letters of credit following the naira’s 40% plunge. Nigeria’s government in mid-June allowed the currency to weaken as part of measures to attract overseas inflows and help revive the struggling economy.

Flour Mills said its finance costs doubled to 16.63 billion naira. Revenue rose 34% to 456.38 billion naira.

Still, the company’s shares surged 10% as of 2.30 p.m in Lagos, heading for their biggest gain since March 2021. Trading volume was seven times the average for the time of the day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Flour Mills look relatively undervalued compared to other food companies, Ayodeji Ajilore, analyst at ARM Investment Managers in Lagos said by phone. “Also, investors think the risk of foreign exchange (loss) has materialized for the company; so they don’t expect it to degenerate.”

Bloomberg

Chicago State University has locked its X microblogging handle from the general public as Nigerians intensify pressure on President Bola Tinubu’s controversial certificate from the institution.

With a padlock icon appearing on the account, a check by Peoples Gazette on Monday showed that only “confirmed followers” of the institution could see its tweets now, contrary to how it was before.

A notification telling the general public that the institution had locked its X handle from the general public reads: “These posts are protected. Only confirmed followers have access to @ChicagoState’s posts and complete profile. Tap the ‘Follow’ button to send a follow request.”

The Gazette could not verify why the institution allowed only its confirmed followers access to its timeline while restricting the general public from its content.

Chicago State University has yet to respond to the Gazette’s request seeking comments on the development, coming amid heated debates among Nigerian cybernauts on Tinubu’s academic records, with many calling out the institution on X.

Earlier in August, Atiku Abubakar requested court approval to subpoena Tinubu’s files domiciled with CSU because he believed the documents would clarify glaring inconsistencies in the president’s background, including publicly available documents that suggested the institution, in the 1970s admitted a female student bearing Bola Tinubu born on March 29, 1954.

In pushback against Abubakar’s legal move, which could expose his academic record, Tinubu also filed a motion to prevent a federal court in the United States from releasing his academic records to his principal opponent in the 2023 presidential election.

The institution had claimed that a clerk was responsible for irregularities that characterised a certificate the school reprinted in Tinubu’s name, according to court filings seen by The Gazette.

Amid the legal tussle in the U.S., Abubakar on Sunday mocked Tinubu, asking him to reveal how he obtained a degree from Chicago University without attending primary and secondary schools.

Atiku’s tweet sparked widespread reactions seeing the “AskTinubu” trend of X microblogging app on Sunday as Nigerians discuss Tinubu’s academic records.

PG

Burhan discusses Egypt mediation offer in talks with Sisi

Had ruled out negotiated deal with RSF foe the day before

Civilians caught in crossfire, dozens killed in Nyala

Sudanese military ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan met his Egyptian counterpart on Tuesday in his first trip abroad since the April outbreak of war in Sudan, a day after rejecting calls for fresh negotiations.

The two discussed President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's offer to mediate the conflict during a short meeting in the coastal city of El Alamein, an initiative Burhan said he welcomed, according to an Egyptian presidency statement.

On Monday, Burhan said the regular army he leads would vanquish the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and never sign a deal with them, dashing new hopes of talks to end a war that has plunged Sudan into overlapping humanitarian crises.

The visit represents the first time Burhan has left Sudan since the April 15 start of the conflict, which broke out amid discord over plans to integrate their troops into a single force as part of a transition to democracy.

Burhan is also expected to visit Saudi Arabia, which along with the United States had held meetings with the two sides that yielded ceasefire pacts that were all violated in short order.

In brief comments from El Alamein, Burhan said he wanted to end the war, but did not mention the possibility of talks.

"We ask the world to take an objective and correct view of this war. This war was started by a group that wanted to take over power, and in the process it has committed every crime that could come to mind," Burhan said.

The RSF has been accused of looting homes and raping dozens of women, according to activists and victims, and of ethnic warfare that has driven out hundreds of thousands of residents of El Geneina in West Darfur.

The RSF has denied the accusations but said that any of its fighters found involved in abuses would be brought to justice.

Two Egyptian security sources said that while the RSF had also said it welcomed the Egyptian initiative, which includes a call for a months-long ceasefire, it had appeared reluctant to take any further steps.

"The PR advantage is with Burhan," said a Western diplomat, adding that although Western nations see both sides of the conflict as belligerents, Burhan's appearances outside Khartoum would shore up his status.

Both the regular army and RSF have been accused of fighting in residential areas and indiscriminately firing heavy weapons, resulting in hundreds of civilians killed in the capital and other major cities. They both deny the allegations, accusing each other of targeting civilians.

In Nyala, capital of South Darfur and one of Sudan's most populous cities, fighting has cut off phone networks, electricity and humanitarian aid for weeks, with tens of thousands of residents trapped.

In one incident documented by medical aid agency MSF and local residents, about two dozen people, including multiple members of several families, died when caught in crossfire while hiding under a bridge on Aug. 23.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian drones attack Russian air base near Estonia

Ukrainian drones swept across Russia in overnight attacks that destroyed military aircraft and disrupted air traffic, Russian officials said early on Wednesday, hours after the funeral service for Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Attacks by unmanned aircraft were reported in Pskov, Bryansk, Kaluga, Orlov and Ryazan regions as well as the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, Russian officials said.

The most significant attack appeared to be in Pskov about 660 km (411 miles) north of the Ukrainian frontier, near the borders with Estonia and Latvia, where Russian officials said four Il-76 military transport planes were damaged.

Ukraine has stepped up its drone war in recent months, often hitting targets deep inside Russian territory in support of a ground offensive that is meeting stiff resistance on the southern and eastern front lines.

Footage published by Pskov's governor on the Telegram messaging app shows smoke rising from a large fire as the sounds of sirens and an explosion ring out. Other reports on Telegram channels showed anti-aircraft systems in action around the city, which is just 32 km (20 miles) east of the Estonian border.

"According to initial assessments, nothing serious has occurred but it is hard to determine that at night. If everything is in order, the airport will resume normal operations on Thursday," Governor Mikhail Vedernikov wrote on Telegram, adding that there were no injuries.

Tass news agency, quoting emergency services, said four Il-76 transport aircraft, long the workhorse of the Russian military, were damaged at the military airfield. Two of the planes "burst into flames", it added.

Russian military and defence officials said three Ukrainian drones were shot down over southern Bryansk region, one over central Orlov region and one over Ryazan region south of Moscow. The airspace around Moscow's Vnukovo airport was closed briefly, Tass reported.

A Russian aircraft also destroyed four Ukrainian fast-attack boats carrying up to 50 paratroopers in an operation on the Black Sea, the military said.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

MORE US AID

The drone attacks came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new package of military assistance to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in Feb. 2022.

The package includes additional mine-clearing equipment, missiles for air defence, plus ammunition for artillery and small arms, Blinken said in a statement.

Ukraine is using vast amounts of ammunition in some of the heaviest fighting of the war as its presses its summer counter-offensive in the south and east, where Russian forces are deeply entrenched.

On Tuesday the Russian mercenary chief Prigozhin was buried in a leafy cemetery on the outskirts of St Petersburg, six days after he was killed in an unexplained plane crash north of Moscow.

Prigozhin, two top lieutenants of his Wagner group and four bodyguards were among 10 people who died when his Embraer Legacy 600 private jet crashed in unexplained circumstances on Aug. 23.

He died two months after staging a brief mutiny against the Russian defence establishment, in the biggest challenge to President Vladimir Putin's rule since he rose to power in 1999.

Moscow says it is investigating the crash and has denied any involvement, but in Washington White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre gave her strongest statement yet about the possibility that Putin directed the killing.

"We all know that the Kremlin has a long history of killing opponents," she said. "It's very clear what happened here."

Russia informed Brazil's aircraft investigation authority that it would not probe the crash of the Brazilian-made Embraer (EMBR3.SA) jet under international rules "at the moment", the Brazilian agency told Reuters on Tuesday.

Russia’s aviation authority is not obligated to follow international investigation protocols as the flight from Moscow to St Petersburg was domestic.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Washington is waging war on Russia ‘to the last Ukrainian’ – Moscow

The US government has announced another round of military aid for Ukraine worth $250 million, including artillery shells, air defense munitions and mine-clearing equipment, among other gear. The latest weapons transfer comes as Kiev attempts a wave of attacks on Russian cities as part of its straggling summer offensive.

The State Department outlined the new lethal aid on Tuesday, noting that Ukraine would receive additional munitions for the HIMARS rocket system, AIM-9M air defense missiles, Javelin and other anti-tank weapons, as well as 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition.

Russia’s embassy in Washington later condemned the weapons transfer as “the height of hypocrisy,” saying US officials “will not give up the concept of fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.”

The embassy went on to connect the aid to recent comments by US Senator Mitt Romney, who declared that American assistance to Kiev was helping to “weaken” both Russia and China at a bargain price, calling the aid “the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done.”

“Without a second thought, [Romney] said bluntly that ‘the United States is diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money. We are losing no lives in Ukraine,’” the embassy continued. “His words dot the i’s and cross the t’s. The lives of citizens of other countries do not matter much.”

Drawn from existing stockpiles, the new $250 million arms package brings direct US military aid to Kiev to more than $43 billion since the conflict with Russia escalated last year. Despite significant support from Western sponsors, however, Ukrainian forces have struggled to reclaim territory in their much vaunted summer counteroffensive.

Though Kiev is aiming to capture a swath of land toward the Azov Sea coast in hopes of severing Moscow’s land bridge into Crimea, behind the scenes US intelligence officials have raised doubts about its chances for success, according to the Washington Post. Instead, officials believe Ukraine will fall “well short” of its “principal objective.”

Amid lagging efforts to reclaim land, Ukrainian forces have increasingly turned to strikes further into Russian territory, including a series of attempted drone bombings in Moscow in recent weeks. Early on Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses continued to intercept UAVs, and had repelled several coordinated attacks across five different regions.

** Russian MOD claims destruction of Ukrainian landing force

A Russian Navy attack jet has sunk four boats transporting a force of Ukrainian commandos, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced early on Wednesday.

“At around midnight on August 30, a naval aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed four military speedboats carrying a landing force of Ukrainian special operatives, numbering up to 50 men, in the waters of the Black Sea,” the Russian Defense Ministry statement said, without giving a more precise location.

Earlier this month, Moscow published a video of a Russian military jet destroying a Ukrainian speedboat off the coast of Snake Island, near Odessa.

The watercraft was identified as a Willard Sea Force boat, sold to Kiev a decade ago by the US-based Willard Marine. Ukraine had purchased several versions, capable of carrying anywhere from six to 26 troops each.

Last week, Ukrainian military intelligence claimed to have landed a group of commandos on the coast of Crimea, to raise a flag on the country’s independence day. The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the alleged incident, while some Russian social media reported the destruction of a Ukrainian raiding party in a firefight with local security forces.

Ukraine continues to claim Crimea, even though its residents had overwhelmingly voted to return to Russia in 2014, following the US-backed coup in Kiev.

Reuters/RT

It was a fairly regular day on the ward for Canberra hospital infectious diseases physician Sanjaya Senanayake, until a neurosurgeon colleague called him and said: “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe what I just found in this lady’s brain – and it’s alive and wriggling.”

The neurosurgeon, Dr Hari Priya Bandi, had pulled an 8cm-long parasitic roundworm from her patient, prompting her to call on Senanayake and other hospital colleagues for advice about what to do next.

The patient, a 64-year-old woman from south-eastern New South Wales, was first admitted to her local hospital in late January 2021 after suffering three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats.

By 2022, her symptoms also included forgetfulness and depression, prompting a referral to Canberra hospital. An MRI scan of her brain revealed abnormalities requiring surgery.

“But the neurosurgeon certainly didn’t go in there thinking they would find a wriggling worm,” Senanayake said. “Neurosurgeons regularly deal with infections in the brain, but this was a once-in-a-career finding. No one was expecting to find that.”

The surprising discovery prompted a team at the hospital to quickly come together to uncover what kind of roundworm it was and, most importantly, decide on any further treatment the patient might require.

“We just went for the textbooks, looking up all the different types of roundworm that could cause neurological invasion and disease,” Senanayake said. Their search was fruitless and they looked to outside experts for help.

“Canberra is a small place, so we sent the worm, which was still alive, straight to the laboratory of a CSIRO scientist who is very experienced with parasites,” Senanayake said. “He just looked at it and said, ‘Oh my goodness, this is Ophidascaris robertsi’.”

Ophidascaris robertsi is a roundworm usually found in pythons. The Canberra hospital patient marks the world-first case of the parasite being found in humans.

The patient resides near a lake area inhabited by carpet pythons. Despite no direct snake contact, she often collected native grasses, including warrigal greens, from around the lake to use in cooking, Senanayake said.

The doctors and scientists involved in her case hypothesise that a python may have shed the parasite via its faeces into the grass. They believe the patient was probably infected with the parasite from touching the native grass and transferring the eggs to food or kitchen utensils, or after eating the greens.

Senanayake, who is also an infectious diseases expert based at the Australian National University, said the patient needed to be treated for other larvae that might have invaded other parts of her body, such as the liver. But given no patient had ever been treated for the parasite before, care was taken. Some medications for example could trigger inflammation as the larvae died off. Inflammation can be harmful to organs such as the brain, so they also needed to administer medications to counteract any dangerous side-effects.

“That poor patient, she was so courageous and wonderful,” Senanayake said. “You don’t want to be the first patient in the world with a roundworm found in pythons and we really take our hats off to her. She’s been wonderful.”

The patient is recovering well and is still being regularly monitored, Senanayake said, and researchers are exploring whether a pre-existing medical condition that caused her to be immunocompromised could have led to the larvae taking hold. The case has been documented in the September edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals.

Senanayake said the world-first case highlighted the danger of diseases and infections passing from animals to humans, especially as people and animals start to live more closely together and habitats overlap more.

“There have been about 30 new infections in the world in the last 30 years,” he said.

“Of the emerging infections globally, about 75% are zoonotic, meaning there has been transmission from the animal world to the human world. This includes coronaviruses.

“This Ophidascaris infection does not transmit between people, so this patient’s case won’t cause a pandemic like Covid-19 or Ebola. However, the snake and parasite are found in other parts of the world, so it is likely that other cases will be recognised in coming years in other countries.”

Infectious diseases physician Prof Peter Collignon, who was not involved in the patient’s case, said some cases of zoonotic diseases may never be diagnosed if they are rare and physicians don’t know what to look for.

“Sometimes, people die with the cause never being found,” he said.

“It’s worth taking care when encountering animals and the environment, by washing foods thoroughly and cooking food properly, and wearing protection like long sleeves so you don’t get bitten,” he said.

The Guardian, UK