A bill to formally annex the Palestinian territory and impose Israeli rule over the occupied West Bank has received preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament. It was described as a “stupid” political stunt by US Vice-President JD Vance while he was in Israel.
Published On 23 Oct 2025
Following their defeat at home to Manchester United on Sunday, Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk claims to have convened a players’ meeting, but insists it wasn’t a “crisis” summit.
Liverpool lost their fourth straight defeat to United at Anfield on Sunday, falling to United 2-1.
The Reds finished joint third in the Premier League, four points clear of Arsenal.
Van Dijk said the squad had an opportunity to come together and open up about their recent form while acknowledging the club’s “low” mood at its Kirkby training ground on Monday.
“We came together on Monday because the circumstances were difficult, but it wasn’t a crisis meeting.” We all understand the potential for change. October is only one month away.
We obviously had a proper debrief with the manager, but we also had a separate one as players. I wanted to say something. I don’t do it after every game. Let’s continue with that.
Liverpool’s emphatic 5-1 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday put an end to their losing streak.
Hugo Ekitike, Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Dominik Szoboszlai, and Cody Gakpo scored for Liverpool’s first victory in a month, but Mohamed Salah was dropped from the starting lineup.
The only way to escape such a situation is to remain composed, focus on the task at hand, strive for improvement, maintain confidence, and embrace the present. They are all things that are more straightforward to say than to actually do. However, you must do it if you want to leave, Van Dijk said after the victory in Germany.
We live in a world where there is always someone who is better, always someone who knows better, and always something to be said. We must maintain our self-awareness.
“Everyone was happy after my meeting, but yes, the mood was low”!
Jeremie Frimpong and Alexander Isak both suffered injuries in Liverpool’s victory.
Isak was substituted at half-time with a groin strain, while Frimpong from the Netherlands was substituted in the first half with a hamstring issue.
Rosneft and Lukoil, two of Russia’s top oil companies, are under US President Donald Trump’s pressure to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russian gas exports are the subject of a 19th round of sanctions, which the EU has approved. The actions, which Russia has labeled as “counterproductive,” were welcomed by President Zelenskyy.
Published On 23 Oct 2025
Olisa Agbakoba, the senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has reiterated his call for decentralization of power, arguing that democracy will remain fragile without the transfer of power and resources to local governments and states.
Agbakoba made the call at a press conference in Lagos, Nigeria, where he presented a policy document titled “Devolution is the Solution – Foundational Reform Agenda for Transformation” (Francoise version).
Before the 2027 presidential elections, he referred to the blueprint as a blueprint for restructuring Nigeria’s political and economic systems.
Agbakoba criticized what he termed Nigeria’s “fatal illusion” of federalism, noting that the Federal Government is in charge of 97% of all revenues while the majority of states rely on bailouts.
Without federal assistance, “five out of thirty-six states cannot pay their salaries.” He claimed that there are more than 76 local governments and 36 states that serve as distribution centers for federal aid and are not development engines.
Read more about Western Democracy in Nigeria: Agbakoba and Defections Won’t Help.
He warned that because of this extreme centralization, millions of Nigerians are trapped in an unproductive informal economy, which only allows for three or four percent of GDP growth as opposed to the ten to twelve percent needed to escape poverty.
Agbakoba praised President Tinubu’s economic reforms, including those aimed at reducing fuel subsidies and liberalizing foreign exchange, but argued that they needed political reform to succeed.
“Political is the root of the problem,” not economic. Because you can’t patch a cracked foundation, he claimed, twenty-five years of constitutional amendments failed.
To formally impose federalism through a significant devolution of powers, the senior lawyer emphasized that Nigeria needs a new constitution rather than additional amendments.
Agbakoba argued that states should retain 60% of the nation’s internal revenue while maintaining control over their resources, including policing, electricity, and solid minerals.
He further stated that local governments must be granted constitutional authority in terms of community development, including education, healthcare, water, sanitation, and health.
The senior lawyer argued that the federal government should concentrate on foreign affairs, including currency, defense, immigration, and defense.
He claimed that a multi-centred economy with more people-centric governance would emerge from a centralized redistribution system.
Agbakoba noted that poor legislation and regulatory failures continue to stymie Nigeria’s 25 to 35 trillion-percent untapped revenue potential.
He revealed that illegal fishing, untaxed oil rigs, inefficient ports, and untaxed oil rigs cause annual losses of 11 trillion.
Additionally, the SAN claimed that unexploited resources like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths, valued at up to 45 trillion, are present. Agbakoba argued that the implementation of these reforms would set Nigeria on its way to a development boom.
“If these reforms are put into place, Nigeria could have $500 trillion in its budgets.” In terms of infrastructure, education, and healthcare, we might rival Asian economies.
He predicted that a strong middle class would emerge, agriculture would feed Africa, industries would create millions of jobs, and there would be global competition for technology hubs, he said.
If Nigerians reject the current system, which benefits a few while impoverishing millions, then this transformation, he claimed, could take place in five years with solid foundations by 2030.
According to Agbakoba, political and economic restructuring is necessary to safeguard Nigeria’s democracy.
According to their outlet and the Donetsk region regional governor, a Russian drone has attacked two Ukrainian journalists and injured another in the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
A Russian Lancet drone was used to kill Olena Gramova, 43, and Yevgen Karmazin, 33, according to Freedom Media, a state-funded news agency. Alexander Kolychev, a different reporter, was taken to the hospital following the attack.
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The Donetsk regional governor earlier provided details about the strike and posted images of the journalists’ car’s burned remains, the AFP news agency reported.
Prior to joining the media in 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and began arming a separatist movement in Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass, Gramova, a native of Yenakiieve in the Donetsk region, had a “finance specialist” degree.
Karmazin was born in Donetsk, Kramatorsk, and elsewhere. He “joined Ukraine’s international broadcasting channels as a cameraman in 2021,” according to the outlet.
They were present from day one, covering war crimes, soldier stories, and evacuations, according to a post on X from the Kyiv Post.
Olena Hubanova, a journalist for Ukraine, and Yevhen Karmazin, a cameraman for the Russian Lancet, were killed when a drone tore through Kramatorsk during their reporting from the front lines.
They covered evacuations, war crimes, and soldier stories right from the beginning.
They are no longer there. pic. twitter.com/TNTN8H7nFd
One of the few remaining civilian hubs in the Donetsk region that is still under Ukrainian control is Kramatorsk, which had a population of about 150 000 before the war.
Russian forces are about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the city, where officials earlier this month mandated the evacuation of young people from some towns and remote villages.
Reporting from Ukraine’s front-line regions is becoming more dangerous as a result of the proliferation of cheap, deadly drones used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces.
A drone struck Antoni Lallican earlier in October in the eastern city of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region, killing him.
According to Ukrainian forces cited by the European Federation of Journalists, a “targeted strike” from a first-person-view drone had killed Lallican, according to Ukrainian forces.
The exact number of journalists killed since the start of the 2022 war varies. According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, 17 journalists have been killed so far, both domestically and internationally. That number would increase to 19 with the deaths of Gramova and Karmazin.
At least 23 media workers were killed on both sides of the front lines, according to UNESCO earlier this month, including three Russian state media journalists in March. Russian correspondent Ivan Zuyev was killed in a drone strike in the southern Zaporizhia region in mid-October, according to state news agency RIA.
In recent years, there have been record journalists killed in conflicts, with deaths disproportionately higher in Gaza, where Israeli forces purposefully targeted media executives like Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri and freelance journalist Mariam Abu Daqqa.
Again, there are different reports regarding deaths since the two-year-old Gaza war started. By August of this year, 242 journalists had been killed, according to the UN. Shireen’s tally. More than 270 journalists and media workers were killed by Israeli forces over the same time, according to Ps, a monitoring website named after murdered Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Published On 23 Oct 2025
The world’s largest football organization announced that the Afghanistan women’s refugee team’s tournament, which was organized by FIFA and was to take place in Morocco, will be held on Sunday.
The UAE, Chad, and Libyan national women’s teams are also competing in the “FIFA Unites: Women’s Series” tournament, which was originally scheduled to take place from October 23 to October 29 in Dubai.
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The Taliban’s ban on women’s sports, which led to the formation of the Afghanistan women’s refugee team, led to the Taliban’s 2021 invasion, which caused players to flee the country for fear of persecution.
FIFA thanked the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FMRF) for their support of a successful tournament, according to a statement from FIFA.
Following consultation with FIFA, the Afghan women’s refugee team has come up with the name “Afghan Women United,” according to the governing body.