Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place ~ 2 Corinthians 2:14.

Introduction

Deep inside the heart of every normal person on earth is a passionate desire to fulfill the purpose for which he is created. That passion unknowingly forms the basis of the bulk of our intentional prayers unto God, and that’s the cry of destiny: a cry for that one thing that is worthy of your one life.

Once you discover it, and avoid all distractions, removing whatever clogs your mind and giving it all it takes, you will certainly rise unobstructed to become an outstanding man/woman upon the earth.

Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "We succeed in life as in war, only as we are able to identify a single, over-riding objective, and then bend all other considerations to that one thing."

If I may ask, what’s the one thing that overrides all other considerations in your life? What noble purpose captures your spirit? What deep resolve beats in your heart? What great decision has won your full allegiance in life? That one thing, ladies and gentlemen, is what defines what you’ll eventually become on earth!

Certainly, you were created to fulfil a definite purpose. You belong to a well-defined place in life. You were separated from your mother’s womb unto a definite plan of God. You were not destined for shame but for His glory.

In the generic sense of it, all the followers of Jesus are destined to glorify God, and to reign with Christ on earth. Indeed, your destiny is that of glory that doesn’t fade (Romans 8:29-30)! This is not based upon us, but rather upon Christ. Even our future glory is hinged upon His glory.

Gleaning from Hebrews 2:5-13, we can see very clearly the radiant and the resplendent beauty of the believers’ destiny in Christ. Meanwhile, whereas this glorious destiny was once ruined by sin, it has now been fully reclaimed by Jesus Christ. He got right what Adam got wrong!

Today, God always causes us to triumph in Christ, making us strong to overcome through Christ and making it possible for Christ to lead us to victory. This is made possible through the redemption package (Galatians 3:13-15; Colossians 1:12-14).

However, our destiny must be unbarred and unlocked for us to be truly triumphant on our journey of life! Friends, let’s dress up and go up with our destinies in the hands of God our Maker. It’s time for total triumph in Christ!

The Brutal Challenges of Destiny

In life, there are many enemies that specialize in warring against the rise of destiny, and to be ignorant of this fact is to have chosen to dwell longer than necessary on the sad wings of destiny, or to have resigned to lifelong toil and frustration.

Truth is, the path of destiny has many turns – up turns and down turns. Ditches are on both sides, and potholes are plenty with mounds of debris inconveniently strewn all about.

Yes, there are days when you happily walk with a company of kind and passionate pilgrims, who lift your spirit with renewed aspiration, but there are also occasions when you walk the lonesome valley of life all by yourself, alone! These are the inevitable variables of life, forcefully interacting and constantly aiming to re-condition destinies here on earth.

Thankfully, the Christian man, who truly follows Christ up to Calvary's mountain, is on the path that leads ever forward. Yes, we’re on the triumphant trudge, and the unmistakable tones of victory attend our every move, for each move is always onward and ever upward (Isaiah 40:31). Alleluia!

The Beauty of Triumphing In Christ Jesus

To triumph means to be victorious over the challenges and the enemies of our destinies. It also means to surmount barriers and obstacles on the paths of our callings or assignments in life.

Meanwhile, triumph is usually much wider in context than victory! Whereas victory simply refers to the final defeat of an enemy (or an opponent), triumph denotes a victory that is especially noteworthy because it is decisive, significant or spectacular.

In ancient Rome, a triumphal trail was usually a solemn, glamorous and public honour conferred on a victorious general. It was always a reward of national honor for a final and decisive victory, which included a magnificent procession through the city.

Paul referred to this kind of triumph in 2 Corinthians 2:14. Our triumph in Christ implies not only victory, but also an open manifestation of it. This triumphant state of honour and dignity is made possible specifically for those who are born of God in Christ Jesus (1 John 4:4; 5:4).

No doubt, there is excellent beauty in triumph, and we must all go for it in our journeys of destiny. The “overcomers” sit with Christ in glory and honour (Revelation 3:21-22). They also walk in the perpetual light of God (Revelation 21:24-26).

Friends and brethren, we must always position ourselves well enough for this sure triumph in Christ. The place you stand and the way you stand always determine how you will withstand the enemies and the challengers (Ephesians 6:10-16).

As a child of God, you’re fully secure in Christ because of His finished work on your behalf (Revelation 12:11). Stand firmly in Him and in His righteousness. Let your faith be constantly active to appropriate the blessings, always remembering that true and total triumph are possible only in Christ Jesus!

No one can really fathom the glorious life that awaits us as the redeemed people of God if we only hold tight unto Him by faith (John 16:33). No matter the challenges, tribulations or trials, they will always result in glory if we only keep ourselves safe in His loving grip. You won’t miss this, in Jesus Name. Amen. Happy Sunday!

** Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

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God says in the Bible: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5:22-24).

Wives must submit to their husbands because God is the husband of Jesus, and Jesus submits to God. Wives must submit to their husbands because Jesus is the husband of the believer, and the believer must submit to Jesus as the bride of Christ. These spiritual relationships provide the templates for the relationship between wives and husbands.

Marriage is not man-made; neither is it subject to human design. God is the author of marriage. Marriage was made in heaven. The greatest marriage of all is that between God the Father and Jesus the Son. Theirs is the supreme love story; one that is eternal and everlasting.

The relationship between God and Christ is like the relationship between husband and wife. God is two persons (the Father and the Son) united in their love and marriage.

Creation of Marriage

Since the godhead is a marriage between God the Father and God the Son, God created man also as a marriage of two people, male and female. Accordingly, the Bible records that the Father says to His beloved Jesus: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27).

Thereby, when God created man in His own image, He created marriage. He also created a family relationship. Like God who is two in One, Father and Son, Adam was created as a human hermaphrodite. Adam was two-in-one. He was male and female combined.

As a result, Adam and Eve were married at creation. Eve was in Adam and Adam was in Eve: “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them ‘man.’” (Genesis 5:1).

“God created them male and female; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” (Genesis 5:2).

He called their name Adam means Adam and Eve were called Adam. They were two people in one body, married to God.

From Good to Bad

Six times at the beginning of creation, God surveyed His works and declared it was good. After God created man, His positive assessment went up another notch: “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31).

But soon thereafter came a seeming contradiction: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” (Genesis 2:18). 

How did something God said was “very good” become “not good?” Did God suddenly realise as an afterthought that it is not good for man to be alone? Did God only discover belatedly that Adam needed a wife?

The truth is that Adam was not supposed to have a wife. God was with Adam, so he was not alone. Adam was supposed to be single but married to God. All the companionship Adam required was supposed to come from God, the intended “husband” of Adam: “For your maker is your husband; the LORD of hosts is His name.” (Isaiah 54:5). 

Failure of Adam

God is man’s first love. But Adam was carnal and not spiritually minded. Adam did not understand that he who has God is never alone. God is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24). The everlasting promise of God to man is: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5). Jesus repeats this. He says to His disciples on His resurrection: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).

Thus, Pope John Paul 2 said: “When God-Yahweh speaks the words about solitude, it is in reference to the solitude of “man” as such, and not just to that of the male.” Adam’s solitude or loneliness was not caused by the lack of woman. It was caused by his carnality. Like Israel who rejected God and insisted on having a king, Adam sought companionship in flesh and not in spirit. He desired someone that is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. (Genesis 2:23).

God’s answer to Adam’s loneliness was to bring different animals to Adam: “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” (Genesis 2:19-20).

Finally, God separated Eve from Adam, literally pulling her out of his ribs. This satisfied Adam, who declared ecstatically: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2:23).

Human marriage is therefore an attempt to unite Adam and Eve back together through the sexual congress. But even after such partial reunion, both husband and wife together must be re-married to God.

Adam’s Blunder

God gave specific instructions to Adam about life in the Garden of Eden: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17). 

But instead of listening to God, Adam listened to Eve, his wife, and ate the forbidden fruit. In effect, Adam forgot that God is his first love. He preferred Eve to God. This preference proved to be disastrous, and it led Adam astray. 

Once Adam allowed another relationship to take pre-eminence over his relationship with God, leading him to disobey God, his intimacy with God was lost. Once he ate the forbidden fruit, he sinned and became a sinner by nature. As such he died. He died spiritually immediately, and he began to die physically. Because of Adam’s sin, death entered the human race. 

Like begets like. Adam was a son of God. But since he became a sinner before Eve conceived a child, every human being descended from Adam became sons of men instead of sons of God. Thus, Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. But Adam’s offspring was born in the image and likeness of Adam:

“When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them “man.” When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.” (Genesis 5:1-3). CONTINUED.

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The simple number solves a notoriously complicated problem.

A duo of mathematicians just solved a 15-year-old problem.

They found an answer to how many numbers you need to fill an infinite grid under specific conditions.

The answer: a simple 15.

15: That’s the answer to an incredibly complicated math problem recently solved by a two-person team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Usually, big, complicated math problems that are hard to solve have big, complicated answers that are almost equally hard for the layperson to understand. But not this one. This one is just … 15.

The question, originally posed in 2008, went as such: If you had an infinite grid of squares—like a sheet of graph paper that went on for eternity—and you wanted to fill it with numbers that had to be more-than-that-number squares apart, what is the minimum number of different numbers you would need? This is called the “packing coloring” problem.

And it had this caveat—repeating numbers’ distance “apart” refers to something called their “taxicab distance,” meaning you only squares between numbers in straight lines along paths made of right angles. So, for example, two 1s could not be right next to each other, because their “taxicab distance” would only be one square. But they could be diagonal from each other, because their “taxicab distance” would be two—one to the side and one up or down. The same rule goes for all the other numbers. Their “taxicab distance” from their nearest repeat had to be one more than their value.

Confused yet?

If so, it’s fair. After all, the problem took top mathematicians over a decade to solve, and it wasn’t possible without a lot of computing power and a fair amount of creativity.

According to a Quanta Magazine article, the duo who solved the problem— CMU grad student Bernardo Subercaseaux and CMU professor Marijn Heule—originally managed to narrow the list of potential answers down to just 13, 14, or 15. But that group of answers had already been achieved by another team a few years before, and Subercaseaux and Heule wanted a true answer, not a range of possibilities. So, they turned to powerful computers. Especially because, in order to rule out a potential answer, they had to make sure they tried every single combination of number placements.

Unfortunately, that takes a lot of time to do, even for a highly advanced and extremely powerful computer. So, the researchers got creative. They figured out that, for the sake of this problem, symmetrical answers are the same. Mirroring the whole grid wouldn’t change the result, but it would double the amount of work the computer had to do. So, they implemented the “don’t worry about symmetrical results” rule and were able to rule out 13, leaving just 14 and 15 on the table.

But every time the number tested got bigger, the computer process took a whole lot longer. So, even with the “don’t worry about symmetrical results” rule in place, the computation to test 14 was going to take too long for the satisfaction of Subercaseaux and Heule. In addition, University of Colorado mathematician Alexander Soifer told Quanta Magazine that the duo didn’t just want to brute-force the problem, but wanted to “solve it in an impressive way.”

Subercaseaux and Heule eventually realized that if they had the computer examine chunks of space together instead of each individual square, the calculation became a lot more efficient. So, they divided the space up into plus signs built from 5 squares, and had the computer check each plus sign for red flags instead of each square.

And in just a little while, the computer ran it’s experiment and threw a flag on 14. Leaving only 15 as an option and 15 as the answer. All that work, and all that programming, and all that creativity for a simple 15.

You’re probably not going to run into an infinite grid that needs filled under very specific conditions in real life, but solving problems like this isn't always about making the most real-world-applicable discovery. Sometimes, it really is more about the journey than the destination.

 

Popular Mechanics

Chief of Defence Staff and service chiefs, who were retired by President Bola Tinubu, on Monday, June 19, 2023, are to get bulletproof Sport Utility Vehicles, personal aides, guards and other perks of office, including generous allowance for medical treatment abroad as retirement benefits.

The affected senior military officers are the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor; Chief of Army Staff, Faruk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff, Awwal Gambo; and Chief of Air Staff, Isiaka Amao.

The Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers of the Armed Forces of Nigeria 2017 (revised), which was exclusively obtained by Saturday PUNCH and marked as “Restricted”, listed the benefits of the retired Generals upon leaving the respective services.

Section 11.8 of the HTACOS 2017, a revised version of the HTACOS 2012, listed the benefits of a retiring CDS and service chiefs to include one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the service and to be replaced every four years; Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle; and five domestic aides made up of two service cooks, two stewards and a civilian gardener.

Each of them is also entitled to an Aide-de-Camp/security officer; special assistant of a lieutenant/captain or equivalent, or personal assistant of the rank of warrant officer or equivalent; and nine standard guards of nine soldiers.

The immediate past CDS and service chiefs are also entitled to three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts to be provided by the appropriate military units/formations as the need arises; and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.

They are also to retain all military uniforms and accoutrements to be worn for appropriate ceremonies, as well as personal firearms. However, such firearms shall be retrieved by the relevant services upon the death of the beneficiaries.

Section 11.19 of the HTACOS 2017 also listed the retirement benefits of a Lieutenant General for the Nigerian Army, Vice Admiral for the Navy and Air Marshal for the Air Force to include two Peugeot 508 cars, or one Toyota Land Cruiser, two cooks, two stewards, four residential guards, one service orderly, two service drivers, free medical treatment in the country and abroad to the tune of $20,000 yearly.

Meanwhile, many Major Generals and equivalence in the Navy and Air Force are expected to apply for voluntary retirement latest by Monday following the appointment of a new CDS and service chiefs by the President.

In the HTACOS, however, the retirement benefits for a Major General in the Army, Rear Admiral in the Navy and Air Vice Marshal in Air Force, who are two-star officers, include one Peugeot 508, a cook, a steward, two residential guards, one service orderly, one service driver, free medicals in Nigeria and abroad to the tune of $15,000 per year.

Their one-star officers who are Brigadier Generals, Commodore and Air Commodore upon retirement are entitled to one Peugeot 408, a service driver, two residential guards, one service orderly and free medicals locally and abroad to the tune of $10,000 each.

For Colonels, Captains and Group Captains in the Army, Navy and Air Force, respectively, each of them is expected to go with a Peugeot 301 or another car of the same value and free medical cover in the country.

The harmonised conditions of service, however, provided that for Major Generals, Brigadier Generals, Colonels and their equivalents in the Navy and the Air Force, all the benefits could be monetised for the retiring officers.

In comparison, the 2012 version of the HTACOS made provisions for one security car to be maintained by the respective service and replaced every four years; retention of all military uniforms and accoutrements to be worn for appropriate ceremonies, as well as personal firearms, which shall be retrieved by the relevant services upon the death of the beneficiaries; three domestic civilian aides (cook, gardener and steward), or cash in lieu; Aide-de-Camp/security officer; six standard guards; one service driver; and one service orderly for retiring Generals, CDS and service chiefs in Section 09.17.

Saturday PUNCH gathered that the HTACOS was reviewed in 2022 in accordance with the five-year review period, but it was not signed due to rumblings that the senior generals were taking good care of themselves at the expense of the rank and file.

It was learnt that to become operative, the HTACOS would be signed by the CDS with the permission of the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

The current HTACOS in use specifies that the CDS and service chiefs must be four-star Generals and can hold the positions for a continuous period of two years and that the Commander-in-Chief can extend such appointments for another period of two years from the date of the expiration of the initial two-year period.

However, Section 11.09 leaves the tenure of the CDS and service chiefs open and at the discretion of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, stating, “The foregoing notwithstanding, the President, C-in-C reserves the prerogative to extend the tenure of a CDS/service chief irrespective of his age or length of service.”

Former President Muhammadu Buhari relied on this provision to retain the services of Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai; Chief of Naval Staff, Ibok Ekwe Ibas; and Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar, who were appointed in 2015 but were not replaced until January 2021 even though there were calls for them to be sacked based on the rising insecurity in the country.

 ‘Too many generals’

A former spokesman for the Nigerian Air Force, Group Captain Sadeeq Shehu (retd.), said the country had too many generals, which he noted had led to difficulties in appointing service chiefs in the military.

Shehu stated this on Friday in an interview with Arise TV, which was monitored by one of our correspondents.

He said, “The retirement is going to include the Generals in the Army, Air Force and the Navy. What is important is not the effect that this retirement will have on security, because we have enough Generals. If these people go, they will be replaced.

“However, it is important to note that it is not normal for the military anywhere in the world to retire about 100 Generals, and by my own estimate, we have close to 133 Major Generals in the Army, Rear Admirals in the Navy and Air Vice Marshals in the Air Force, that are leaving. We also have to remember that this is not the first time. When the last set of service chiefs retired in 2022, we had another batch of about 100 who left.

“The issue here is when you look at the money that is spent on training these people, whether it is foreign courses or the ones here, the experience we are losing and the money we are wasting on these people and then telling them to go is not good for the national economy.

“On the individual level, I must put the premise that our President and Commander-in-Chief, according to the constitutional requirement in Section 217, has the right to appoint service chiefs and the constitution does not tie his hands that in appointing service chiefs, he must pick either the most senior or the middle senior or the most junior. It is completely within his right to do that.

“But President Bola Tinubu came and met about 350 Major Generals across the services, so to be honest with you, his work was not even easy in picking his service chiefs. I think there is a problem that started long ago. We should not be having 350 Major Generals for the President to pick from. The services themselves or the superintendents in the Ministry of Defence approved that number.”

Shehu added, “When you join the military, they will tell you that the military is a pyramid. Now to maintain that pyramid, the lower bottom of the military should be higher than the next higher level. You are supposed to have a large base of Second Lieutenants who came out of the Nigerian Defence Academy in the Navy, Air Force and Army and as they progress into their second rank, which is full Lieutenant, it is almost automatic unless someone dies.

“But from Lieutenant rank, when you are moving to captain that is when the process of filtering starts coming in such a way that you have like 80 per cent, and from Captain to Major, you have like 70 per cent. Towards the end, at the top which is the General, the ideal is that you have like two per cent and a maximum of three or five per cent. But what do we have in Nigeria?

“According to the research I made, there are some courses that since they went out of the NDA, about 44 per cent of them became Major Generals. This is not a good way to go about it. So, I think the failure has to do with a well-coordinated and modern military personnel management system.

“So, I think the problem was not made by the President himself, but the military as an institution with the strict supervision of the Ministry of Defence should be able to follow this filtering process so that only the best become Generals in line with global practices. Unfortunately, that filter has not been working.”

The former NAF spokesman stated, “Those of us that studied these things as far back as 2012 noticed this tendency of promoting too many Generals. There are too many Generals. I know the times are not like when I joined the military, but I remember in 1984 when I joined the military in Kaduna, you could hardly see a Brigadier around. But what do we have now? We have too many Generals.

“We need to listen to our elders. General Ishola Williams, as far back as 2020, gave us this warning that we are having too many Generals and too little field troops. In the long run, it is the country that loses.”

 

Punch

Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) says it has begun the evacuation of overtime cargoes to help decongest the ports.

A cargo is classified as overtime if the importer does not clear it after 90 days — all overtime cargo are subject to seizure by customs.

NPA said the activity is done to rid the ports of congestion and pave the way for efficient port operation.

Josephine Moltok, general manager of corporate and strategic communications at the NPA, spoke on the need to evacuate overtime cargoes in a statement in Lagos.

“Lagos and Tincan Island Port Complexes and the terminals therein including Ikorodu Lighter Terminal have over the years been occupied with 3,200 units of overtime cars and about 3,295 units of overtime containers respectively”, Moltok said.

“This awkward situation, apart from constraining terminal spaces required for seamless cargo handling operations in the ports, has contributed to deterioration of port infrastructure.”

Moltok said the port infrastructure is designed as transit locations as opposed to holding dead weight tonnages for years, which these age-long overtime cargoes constitute.

“Following the inspection tour which held on June 23 and June 24 respectively, an all-stakeholder sensitisation involving shipping lines, and association of freight forwarders and clearing agents was convened on June 26,” she said.

“It was unanimously agreed that all cargoes and containers that have overstayed their required time at the ports should be auctioned “in-situ” (in their current locations) and removed immediately from the ports.”

Mohammed Koko, managing director of the NPA had at several events asked the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to auction overtime containers to decongest the nation’s ports.

He said the containers occupy space and prevent other cargoes from being imported into the country.

 

The Cable

The federal government may have lifted the ban on importation of vehicles through the land borders, it has been revealed.

The development is projected to revitalise economic activities within the corridor.

It would be recalled that the last administration closed land borders between Nigeria and Cotonou, Benin Republic, and subsequently banned importation of vehicles through that axis.

Director of Road Transport in the Ministry of Transportation, Ibrahim Musa, yesterday, however, disclosed that the federal government has approved the re-opening of the Seme border for the importation of vehicles.

He disclosed this at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting, organised between officials of Nigeria and Benin.

Musa said the development followed complaints by freight forwarders operating at the border.

The director, who spoke at the ECOWAS Monitoring Team’s visit to the Seme-Krake Joint Border Post, said, “I was here with the former minister of state for transportation when the freight forwarders pleaded that the border should be reactivated for the free movement of goods and services.

 “The former minister made us prepare a memo to that effect. It was considered and sent to the government.”

Also speaking, Customs Area Controller of Seme Border Command, Dera Nnadi, said the service had noticed a reduction in its revenue since the importation of vehicles was banned from the land borders.

 

Daily Trust

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine, US agree: counteroffensive creeps ahead, measured in blood

Ukraine has been publicly cautious in counting gains in a counteroffensive it launched this month to reclaim territory occupied by Russian forces, and on Friday its president and a U.S. general acknowledged that progress is measured in blood.

The top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington that the counteroffensive was "advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields ... 500 meters a day, 1,000 meters a day, 2,000 meters a day, that kind of thing."

He said he was unsurprised progress was slower than some people and computers might have predicted.

"War on paper and real war are different. In real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines and real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives."

He added, "What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks, it's going to be very difficult. It's going to be very long, and it's going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that."

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the counteroffensive was "slower than desired", without getting too specific. Ukraine says it has recaptured a cluster of villages in operations that liberated 130 square km (50 square miles) in the south, but this is a small percentage of the total territory held by Russia.

On Friday, Zelenskiy said his forces advanced "in all directions of our active operations," while Hanna Maliar, deputy defense minister, said the military assessed progress as "going according to plan," and that the counteroffensive should be evaluated by "a lot of different military tasks."

Reuters was unable to verify the situation on the battlefield. Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022 has not acknowledged the Ukrainian gains and has said Ukraine's forces are suffering heavy casualties.

SLOWING DOWN TO SAVE LIVES

Zelenskiy was quoted as saying Ukraine wanted to show results before a July 11 NATO gathering in Lithuania, at which Kyiv is hoping for an invitation to begin the process of joining the U.S.-led military alliance - but not at any cost.

"Before the summit we have to show results," Spanish national broadcaster RTVE quoted him as telling Spanish media in Kyiv, based on a translation of his remarks. "But every kilometer costs lives."

Zelenskiy acknowledged plans for the counteroffensive had slowed in recent months. "We stopped because we could not advance," he said. "Advancing meant losing people and we had no artillery."

RTVE of Spain quoted him as saying Ukraine was "very cautious in this regard" and that he would choose to take longer if it meant losing fewer people. "Between time and human beings, people are the most important," RTVE quoted him as saying.

Zelenskiy was speaking on a day when he ordered top military commanders to strengthen the northern military sector following the arrival of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus, under a deal negotiated by President Alexander Lukashenko that ended his mercenaries' mutiny in Russia.

Prigozhin's Wagner Group could set up a new base at a vacant military base near the town of Asipovichi, about 90 km (50 miles) from the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Russian media reported.

After pushing Russian forces out of northern regions last year, Ukraine took steps to tighten the defense of its border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia.

Zelenskiy said the situation in other frontline areas, supplies of artillery and shells, and advances by Ukrainian troops against Russian forces were discussed at a meeting with military commanders on Friday.

"Ukraine is fighting for their life," Milley said in Washington. "We are giving them as much help as humanly possible. But at the end of the day, Ukrainian soldiers are assaulting through minefields and into trenches" against Russia's much larger army.

** Donetsk region school suffers direct hit, two dead, say Ukraine police

A Russian missile attack on Friday on a village school near the frontline in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region killed two women, including a teacher, and injured six, Ukrainian police said.

The 56-year-old primary school teacher and a chief accountant, 44, died in the strike on the village of Serhiivka, Ukrainian police said. Twelve employees were the building's only occupants, the prosecutor's office said. Ukrainian schools were not in session for students on Friday.

"Russian troops, in a direct hit, destroyed a school where civilians were located," Ukraine's national police said in a statement.

The Donetsk region prosecutor's office said four men aged 54 to 69 and two women aged 24 and 34 were injured and taken to hospital, and that it had launched an investigation into the attack.

Reuters was unable immediately to verify details of the attack.

Police shared a video showing a motionless, bloodied person being lifted into an ambulance, and a woman being extracted from extensive ruins.

Groups of men, some in civilian clothing, others emergency workers in helmets, and uniformed police, walked atop the ruins, searching for survivors. Two men carefully laid a piece of green army fabric over a body.

The police said paramedics helped rescue two women from the rubble and that occupying Russian forces were responsible for the attack, which was preliminarily assessed to have been caused by an Iskander missile.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Study reveals extent of Western aid to Kiev

Ukraine received more than $170 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian assistance between January 2022 and February 2023, according to a fresh study published this month by a German economic research center.

The data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) covers aid provided by Ukraine’s 41 largest donors, which mostly consist of the US and its Western allies.

Washington unsurprisingly emerged as Kiev’s largest single donor, with its total aid accounting for more than 45% of all assistance provided to Ukraine over that period. Roughly 60% of that money was spent on weapons, the data shows.

The UK’s military assistance to Kiev accounted for 67% of London’s total aid to Ukraine over that period. Most money Warsaw and Amsterdam allocated for Ukraine was also spent on arms, the research indicated.

The EU’s support, including both the aid provided by Brussels and bilateral assistance provided by the bloc’s members, amounted to almost 40% of the total aid for Ukraine over the same period.

The US was also the biggest military aid provider for Ukraine, spending a total of $47.16 billion on arms for Kiev’s troops, leaving all other nations far behind. The UK became the second largest contributor by spending $7.1 billion on weapons for the Ukrainian forces.

According to the IfW, both the US and the UK were not the most transparent assistance providers, when it comes to aiding Kiev. London and Washington took the 17th and 18th places out of 41 respectively in the list of most transparent donors compiled by the German research center. The first two places on this list were occupied by Switzerland and Germany respectively.

Some of Kiev’s Western backers shouldered additional costs due to the need to accommodate refugees coming from Ukraine, the IfW study showed. Poland, which spent 0.6% of its GDP on bilateral aid to Ukraine, had to spend another 2.2% on Ukrainian refugees, according to the data.

The accumulated costs of helping Ukraine exceeded 2% of GDP in the case of Latvia and Estonia as well.

This week, the Pentagon announced a new package of weapons for Ukraine, including 30 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. More than a dozen of the armored vehicles have reportedly been damaged or destroyed since Kiev launched its counteroffensive against Russian forces earlier this month.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington is also mulling sending long-range missiles to bolster Ukrainian capabilities in its ongoing campaign, which has largely stalled so far.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh recently criticized US military aid to Kiev by calling it a “very bad investment.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also said this week that Ukraine could not defeat Moscow on the battlefield and called for a negotiated solution to the conflict instead.

** CIA director calls Russian intel chief assuring US uninvolved in Wagner mutiny — WSJ

CIA Director William Burns called Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin this week to tell him that the US had nothing to do with the mutiny attempt by the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), The Wall Street Journal said on Friday citing its sources.

According to them, the phone conversation between Burns and Naryshkin was the highest-level interaction between the US and Russia since the incident. The conversation, initiated by the American side, aimed to deliver a message that the US "had no involvement" in Wagner founder Evgeny Prigozhin’s actions and did not intend to exacerbate tensions in Russia, the newspaper writes, noting that the conversation took place this week.

According to the newspaper, Burns told Naryshkin that the US had no role in the mutiny and the incident was Russia’s internal affair.

On the evening of June 23, several audio recordings were posted on the Telegram channel of Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. In particular, he claimed that his units had come under attack, blaming the Russian military. The Russian Defense Ministry slammed the Wagner boss’ allegations of a strike on the PMC’s "rear camps" as fake news. The PMC units that supported Prigozhin headed to Rostov-on-Don and toward Moscow. The Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal case on calls for armed mutiny. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation on June 24, described the Wagner group’s actions as armed mutiny and a betrayal.

Later on June 24, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in coordination with Putin, held talks with Prigozhin, resulting in the PMC standing down, turning its units around, and retreating to their base camps. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian authorities pledged not to prosecute those Wagner PMC fighters who took part in the mutiny in light of their "frontline achievements." The criminal case on armed mutiny was dropped, the FSB said.

** Russia blocks Wagner-linked media

Russia has blocked access to several news websites linked to businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, whose private military company Wagner Group was involved in the short-lived mutiny last week. 

Public access has been “restricted” to riafan.ru and four other websites operating under the umbrella of the Patriot Media Group, according to the database run by the regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN). The group’s website has also been blacklisted.

The websites mostly focus on covering Russia’s standoff with the West and Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. 

News agency TASS cited employees of the affected outlets as saying that their parent company would be closed and all of its subsidiaries cease operation. 

Prigozhin, who initially made his fortune as a restaurateur and catering tycoon, was listed as the head of the Patriot Media Group’s board of trustees until May.

Earlier, the RKN ordered popular Russian social media platform VK to take down web pages associated with Wagner to “prevent the spread of calls to armed rebellion.” 

On June 23, Prigozhin, who accused the Defense Ministry of mishandling the operation in Ukraine, declared a “march for justice” on Moscow. His fighters halted their advance on Saturday evening and returned to their bases after a deal was struck with the authorities. The charges of leading an armed rebellion were dropped as part of the arrangement, and Wagner members were given a choice to sign contracts with the Russian military, return to civilian life, or move to Belarus.

 

Reuters/RT/Tass

 

 

 

"Vaginal seeding," a controversial practice of exposing babies born by cesarean section to their parent's vaginal fluids after birth, may benefit newborns' gut microbiomes, a new study suggests.

Babies born by C-section don't have the same gut microbes as those born vaginally, potentially because they're not exposed to their parent's vaginal microbiome during birth. Studies have shown that the gut microbiomes of cesarean-born newborns more closely resemble the communities of microbes that typically inhabit the skin, rather than the gut. This has raised questions about how birth methods affect babies' development, given evidence that the community of microbes in the intestines, or gut microbiota, shapes the brain and immune system in early life.

Studies have linked cesarean births to a higher risk of neurodevelopmental disorders,  early-life infections, allergies, inflammatory diseases and metabolic diseases, and some suspect that differences in gut microbiota may contribute to this risk.

The new study, published June 15 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, suggests that vaginal microbiota transfer (VMT), also known as vaginal seeding, is likely a safe and effective method of restoring the gut microbiome in cesarean-born infants so that it resembles that of vaginally delivered babies. 

To establish the potential safety and benefit of vaginal seeding, researchers across multiple institutions in China conducted a clinical trial that included 68 pregnant women scheduled for C-sections. Around half of the women's babies were exposed to a gauze that contained the vaginal fluids of their mother, and the other half were exposed to a sterile saline gauze. 

The incidence of adverse events in the first 42 days after birth was similar in both groups of  babies, indicating that vaginal seeding is safe. The most common adverse events were mild skin disorders, including redness and blister-like sores; none of these events could be attributed to vaginal seeding.

The babies' gut microbiota were sampled at several points after birth, and an analysis showed that gut microbiota in the babies in the vaginal seeding group moved faster from "stunted" types to "mature" types, compared with the microbiota of the control group. 

For comparison, the team also studied the microbiomes of 33 vaginally born babies. The results showed that babies who had undergone vaginal seeding had gut microbiota that more closely resembled that of the vaginally delivered group.

The team also found that infant neurodevelopment at six months, as measured by scores on a common developmental screening questionnaire, was significantly higher for babies exposed to vaginal fluids compared with those exposed to saline, suggesting that vaginal seeding could improve neurodevelopment in cesarean-born babies. However, inferences about any potential long-term impact of vaginal seeding on neurodevelopment cannot be made since the study only measured out to six months. 

 

Live Science

A 4-and-a-half-year-old Nelore breed cow known as Viatina-19 FIV Mara Imóveis was recently priced at $4.3 million, making it the most expensive cow in the world by a large margin.

One-third of the ownership of the cow was recently sold at an auction in Arandú, Brazil for 6.99 million real ($1.44 million), putting its total value at a staggering $4.3 million. Viatina-19 FIV Mara Imóveis had already been named the world’s most expensive bovine last year when half of its ownership was auctioned off for around $800,000, which was another record-breaking price at the time. The record-breaking transaction is indicative of the Nelore cattle breed’s genetic qualities, as well as the demand for high-quality animals with outstanding genetic characteristics.

Viatina-19 FIV Mara Imóveis price is considered a new milestone for the Nelore, a cow breed highly valued all over the world for its qualities. Characterized by their bright white fur, loose skin, and a large bulbous hump above their shoulders, the Nelore is primarily known for their naturally high resistance to hot weather. Their white fur plays a big part in this, as it reflects most wavelengths of light, as does the fact that their sweat glands are twice as large and 30 percent more numerous than those of most European breeds.

Nelore cattle, named after the Indian district of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, also have a very efficient metabolism, which allows them to thrive even on low-quality forage. Incredibly hardy and resilient, the Nelore can resist a number of parasitic infections and their tough skin is much harder for blood-sucking insects to penetrate. The breed also breeds very easily, as females have wider pelvic openings and larger birth canals than other cattle breeds, and calves require almost no assistance from humans.

According to a 2018 report by the Guardian, sperm from the most valuable Nelore bulls can cost $5,000 per 0.55-milliliter (0.03 ounces) dose. There are around 167,000,000 Nelore cows in Brazil, around 80 percent of the cattle in the South American country.

 

Oddity Central

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has warned the public of a batch of “unwholesome” Sprite 50cl drink circulating in Nigeria.

In a statement on Wednesday, the agency said the contaminated drinks have the batch number AZ6 22:32, manufacturing date of April 18, 2023 and an expiry date of April 4, 2024.

NAFDAC said the product was discovered following a consumer complaint and upon investigation, over five crates of the batch were discovered to be contaminated with particles.

“The affected batch of the unwholesome product has been sampled for laboratory analysis in the NAFDAC laboratory and the agency has directed all zonal directors and state coordinators to carry out surveillance and mop up the implicated batch of the unwholesome product,” the statement reads.

“Similarly, a comprehensive current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) inspection of the manufacturing site is to be carried out by the agency. This is to find the root cause of the contamination and ensure compliance to marketing authorisation.

“Furthermore, the company, (Nigerian Bottling Company Limited, Abuja plant) has been directed to recall the implicated batch of the unwholesome product and report to NAFDAC for effective monitoring.

“NAFDAC implores distributors, retailers, and consumers to exercise caution and vigilance to avoid the consumption, sale, or distribution of the unwholesome product. The products’ authenticity and physical condition should be carefully checked.

“Anyone in possession of the above-mentioned batch of Sprite 50cl glass bottles is advised to submit stock to the nearest NAFDAC office. If you, or someone you know, have consumed this product or suffered any adverse reaction/event after consumption, you are advised to seek immediate medical advice from a qualified healthcare professional.”

 

The Cable