President Bola Tinubu has granted approval to three airlines to serve as exclusive carriers for the 2024 Hajj pilgrimage.

The airlines are Air Peace Ltd., FlyNas and Max Air.

The Assistant Director, Public Affairs, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, Fatima Sanda-Usara, made this known in a statement on Friday in Abuja.

Mrs Sanda-Usara also disclosed that the Tinubu-led Federal Government approved three other air cargo companies that will airfreight pilgrims’ excess luggage.

According to her, the three air cargo companies are Cargo Zeal Technologies Ltd., Nahco Aviance and Qualla Investment Ltd.

She said that the approval reinforces the Federal Government’s commitment to ensuring a seamless and secure pilgrimage experience for Nigerian intending pilgrims.

“Consequently, the Federal Government concurrently approved allocation of pilgrims from various states to each of the approved airlines as follows: Air Peace is to transport intending pilgrims from Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Kwara, Ondo, Rivers states and the Federal Capital Territory.

“FlyNas will transport intending pilgrims from Borno, Lagos, Osun, Ogun, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Yobe and Zamfara states.

“And Max Air with the highest allocation will be responsible for moving pilgrims from Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Nasarawa, Adamawa, Oyo, Taraba, Kaduna, Armed Forces, Gombe, Jigawa and Plateau states.

She explained that the allocation of pilgrims to the airlines was in line with the subsisting Bilateral Air Service Agreement between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia on the transportation of pilgrims under government quota.

“However, state governments may choose to designate any of the approved freight companies to convey their pilgrims’ excess luggage. Should any state enter such exclusive arrangement, the decision should be communicated to NAHCON accordingly.

“The Chairman of NAHCON, Mallam Jalal Arabi, congratulated the approved airlines on the selection and called on them to gear up to facilitate a smooth pilgrimage in 2024 season.”

She said that NAHCON remains dedicated to upholding the highest standards in pilgrimage organisation with a focus on the safety and satisfaction of pilgrims.

Mrs Sanda-Usara revealed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar is set to lead a delegation from the NAHCON to partake in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for the 2024 hajj on January 7.

India has deployed its navy to aid the crew of a ship that was hijacked off Somalia’s coast.

The vessel has 15 Indian crew members onboard, Indian media reports say.

The crew sent a distress call to a UK marine agency, saying that “five to six unauthorised armed persons” had boarded the ship east of the Somali port town of Eyl on Thursday evening.

A patrol aircraft has “established contact with the vessel, ascertaining the safety of the crew,” the navy says.

The guided missile destroyer INS Chennai “is closing [in on] the vessel to render assistance” while a naval aircraft is monitoring the ship, the navy added.

The ship, named as the MV Lila Norfolk and which bears the Liberian flag, was en route to Bahrain before the hijacking.

The crew had earlier told the United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency they were hiding in the vessel’s citadel, a secure compartment within a ship used for protection during emergencies or potential threats such as piracy.

Recent sporadic attacks on vessels off Somalia’s coast have triggered concerns that piracy could be making a resurgence in the region.

Pirate attacks, often launched from Eyl, were a huge problem for international shipping from 2008-2011, prompting countries from around the world to send warships to patrol the area.

Our ideas of the colours of the planets Neptune and Uranus have been wrong, research led by UK astronomers reveals.

Images from a space mission in the 1980s showed Neptune to be a rich blue and Uranus green.

But a study has discovered that the two ice giant planets are both similar shades of greenish blue.

It has emerged that the earlier images of Neptune had been enhanced to show details of the planet’s atmosphere, which altered its true colour.

“They did something that I think everyone on Instagram will have done at some time in their life, they tweaked the colours,” Prof Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a University of Edinburgh astrophysics professor, told BBC Radio 4’s Today.

“They accentuated the blue just to reveal the features that you can see in Neptune’s atmosphere, and that’s why the image looks very blue, but in reality, Neptune is actually pretty similar to Uranus.”

Astronomers have long known that most modern images of the two planets do not accurately reflect their true colours, according to Prof Patrick Irwin from the University of Oxford, who led the research.

“Even though the artificially saturated colour was known at the time amongst planetary scientists – and the images were released with captions explaining it – that distinction had become lost over time.

“Dr Robert Massey, deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), explained that enhancing images was normal procedure in astronomical research.

“You would be foolish to look at an astronomy image and not think it was enhanced. They have to be, because that is how they are processed in order to see things.

“It’s not that there was any conspiracy to keep it from the public!

“Prof Irwin and his team processed the original data to produce what is claimed to be ”the most accurate representation yet” of the colour of both Neptune and Uranus.

The initial misconception arose because images captured of both planets by Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft mission recorded its images in three separate colours.

The images were recombined to create the composite colour images, which were not always accurately balanced. The contrast was also strongly enhanced to bring out details in the clouds, bands and winds of the planets.

In the case of Neptune, both processes made it bluer than it really was.In the recent study, the researchers used data from the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.

In both instruments, each pixel is a continuous spectrum of colours which enables the researchers to produce the true colours of both planets.

The analysis revealed that Uranus and Neptune are a similar shade of greenish blue, although researchers found a slight difference. Neptune has a slight hint of additional blue, which the model reveals to be because of a thinner haze layer on that planet.

The study also showed that Uranus appears a little greener at during its summer and winter, when one of its poles is pointed towards the Sun.

But during spring and autumn, when the Sun is over the equator, it has a bluer tinge.

The research has been published in the Monthly Notices of the RAS.

Four people have died in a fire at a hospital near Hamburg, in northern Germany.

The fire reportedly broke out at around 22:45 local time (21:45 GMT) on Thursday on the third floor of the Helios Clinic in Uelzen.

Around 20 people were said to be injured, and police said that that the number of dead could rise given the seriousness of some injuries.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the blaze.

140 firefighters and rescue workers, including some from neighbouring districts, fought to contain the fire. People were rescued from the clinic, some using ladders, according to reports.

Police said “calls for help were heard” from inside the building.Uelzen is located some 70km (43 miles) south east of Hamburg.

The four people confirmed dead were all said to be patients.But police said the number of dead could rise.

“There are other people so seriously injured that their lives are in acute danger,” said spokesman Michel Koenemann.

The fire is estimated to have caused around €1m (£862,000) in damages.

The Helios Clinic is the teaching hospital of the Hannover Medical School. The clinic’s website says it has about 750 employees and treats some 42,000 patients every year.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has welcomed the exchange of 230 Ukrainian and 248 Russian prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia.

This is the largest such exchange since the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, Mr Guterres, in a statement by his Associate Spokesperson, Ms Florencia Nino, commended the efforts of both parties and the third-party facilitation by the United Arab Emirates that contributed to this positive development.

The secretary general hoped that this important step would be followed by additional exchange of prisoners of war and other de-escalation efforts.

The prisoner release was announced on Wednesday and was the first to take place for months.

The Russian ministry of defence said in a statement that 248 of its soldiers had been released while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that a total of 230 Ukrainians had returned home, of whom six were civilians.

“We remember each and every one of our people, and we must return all of them,” he wrote on X.

There have been dozens of prisoner exchanges, with more than 2,800 Ukrainian prisoners returned and at least 1,000 Russians, according to news reports.

The last reported exchange took place in August 2023, when 22 Ukrainian soldiers were released.

In response to the latest release, the statement from the UN chief said he hoped that this “important step” would be followed by additional exchanges “and by other de-escalation efforts.”

Chancellor Ahaghotu, a Nigerian student at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, has been announced as a new Guinness World Record, GWR, holder for the longest painting marathon.

GWR, on Wednesday in a post on its official handle, announced that Ahaghotu broke its 10-year-old record after a 100-hour marathon painting.

“After painting for 100 consecutive hours, Chancellor Ahaghotu, a Nigerian art student has broken a decade old record for the longest painting marathon”, the GWR said.

Ahaghotu painted 106 pieces depicting subjects, including celebrities, plants, animals and food items.

Speaking of his new achievements, Ahaghotu stated that the painting represents “my different mood and feeling.”

“There was joy and celebration when I completed the 100 hours. It was a new experience for me and I am glad that I completed it.”

A Belgian painter, Roland Palmaerts, held the previous record in 2013 after painting for 60 hours.

The imam of a mosque in Newark, New Jersey, was shot and killed early on Wednesday morning by an unknown attacker who remains at large.

Authorities said in a news conference that they believe the killing of Imam Hassan Sharif was not motivated by domestic terrorism or bias.

Mr Sharif was found with multiple gunshot wounds outside his mosque, Masjid-Muhammad-Newark, before dawn.He was taken to hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries.

“The evidence collected thus far does not indicate that this was an act motivated by bias or an act of domestic terrorism,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin told reporters.

He added that investigators normally would “not go public with this type of information so early in our process” but that a rise in bias against the Muslim community compelled them to reveal their preliminary findings.

“I know that in light of global events and with a rise in bias directed at many communities we’re experiencing across our state – particularly the Muslim community – there are many in New Jersey right now who are feeling a heightened sense of fear or anxiety at the news of this slaying,” he said.

Governor Phil Murphy released a statement asking for anyone with information to come forward.

“I want to assure the Muslim community and people of all faiths that we will do everything in our power to keep all residents safe, especially in or near our houses of worship,” he said.

A $25,000 (£19,000) reward is being offered to anyone that comes forward with information about the shooting.

Neighbours told local news channel WABC-TV that they suspect the attack was the result of crime in New Jersey’s largest city.

“The crime in this area just has to stop,” said Newark resident Paulette Williams.

Mr Sharif worked as a transportation security officer at Newark Liberty International Airport for years alongside his duties at the mosque.

The New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it was “devastated” at the news of Mr Sharif’s killing and described him as “a beacon of leadership and excellence.

“New Jersey Senator Cory Booker wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was “heartbroken by the shooting death” of Mr Sharif and said “his heart is with the members of the Masjid Muhammad and the entire” New Jersey Muslim community.

Local Aneesah Abdullah described Mr Sharif to the BBC’s US partner, CBS, as “just a good person overall. I can’t think of anything wrong he’s done to anyone, and that comes from my heart.”

Maritime Workers have threatened to shut the country’s ports from Tuesday, January 9, 2023.

The workers said the decision became necessary following alleged continued refusal of the international oil companies and stevedoring contractors to comply with the stevedoring extant laws.

Disclosing the looming shutdown in a statement on Wednesday, President-General of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Adewale Adeyanju, disclosed that all the jetties and oil & gas platforms would be closed.

He stated that the nationwide protest across the seaports would take effect after the expiration of the three-workday notice issued to the Nigeria Ports Authority, commencing from January 4.

According to the statement issued by MWUN’s Head of Media, John Ikemefuna, Mr Adeyanju recalled that it had written a series of letters, press releases, issued ultimatums, marine notices; given by NIMASA and several ministerial orders to no avail.

The statement read, “All these were serially ignored by the management of NPA, the recent one dated June 13, 2023, with reference number MWUN/MD/NPA/SC/U/1.23, on duly signed communiqués spanning over three years.

“The union is, however, using this medium to demand the total compliance of IOCs to the stevedoring regulations in line with the communiqués signed by the relevant stakeholders in the sector.

“The NPA as a master stevedore and industry regulator is wholly saddled with the responsibility of granting operational licences to stevedoring companies to provide stevedoring services for designated IOCs in Nigeria.

“The NPA also must use its oversight and regulatory authority to ensure respect for law and regulations in the dealings of the IOCs that make use of the services of the stevedoring companies; and by extension, members of MWUN as workers in IOCs’ employ.

“However, it’s saddening that the NPA has abdicated its sole responsibility by allowing the IOCs to run an unimaginable riot without control in the sector.

“As a responsible social partner and a union which operates strictly in line with extant regulations, MWUN has since 2018 severally brought to the NPA’s attention the refusal of the IOCs to honour the provisions of the extant stevedoring regulations and the continued violation of the remittance of union’s cheque-off dues in line with the extant stevedoring regulations.

“As a bridge of the extant stevedoring laws stated, the MWUN will on Tuesday, February 9, 2024, shut down the seaports nationwide after the expiration of the three work days already given to NPA commencing from the 4th of January, 2024.

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on Wednesday said it rescued a middle-aged woman who jumped into the Gbodofon River in a suicide bid in Osogbo, Osun.

A statement by NSCDC spokesperson Adeleke Kehinde said officers of the NSCDC command pulled the woman out of the river on Tuesday after receiving a distress call that someone had jumped into the river.

“The Search and Rescue Team of the command received a distress call from a member of the public and in less than ten minutes, our officers were at the scene to rescue the victim.

“The victim, a middle-aged woman, was resuscitated and later taken to the hospital for medical attention.” the statement said.

It said the victim, after becoming conscious, explained that she came from Iragbiji to Osogbo to commit suicide by jumping into the Gbodofon River.

NSCDC said the woman added that she decided to end her life because she was feeling fire burning in her body, and the only way to quench the fire was to jump into the river.

NSCDC commandant Agboola Sunday commended the security agency’s personnel for being responsive and bringing their training in disaster management to bear.

“Agboola assured residents of the command’s commitment to protect lives and property, even during emergencies.

“He enjoined residents to take care of their mental health, adding that his men would pay close attention to all the rivers in the state to prevent people from jumping into them to commit suicide,” said the statement.

Twin girls in Croatia will celebrate their birthdays on different dates after they were born just a minute apart but in different years, a hospital said Wednesday.

One of the girls was born at 23:59 (2259 GMT) on December 31, and the other a minute after midnight on January 1, an official told AFP at a hospital in the coastal town of Split, where the babies were born.

“It is really an unusual situation,” head of the hospital’s perinatology department Damir Roje told local media.

He added that although he had seen twins born over different days before, it was the first time in his professional career that he had seen twin babies born over different years.

The tiny difference means the family will celebrate one of the girls’ birthdays on New Year’s Eve and the other one on New Year’s Day, he said.

Nigerian singer Michael Adebayo Olayinka, popularly known as Ruger, has revealed that he “slacked” in 2023 due to the “wrong people” around him.

He explained that the energy of the “wrong people” around him affected him so much to a point where he stopped feeling like himself.

He said he has left the “wrong people” around him behind in 2023, stressing that he would be “mad, dangerous, selfish and loving man” in 2024.

Ruger wrote via his Instastory: “2023, I slacked. I had the wrong people around me and I let them affect my energy. It got to a point that I didn’t feel like ruger anymore. Anyways, I’ve left each and everyone of them in 2023. In 2024, I am a mad, dangerous, selfish and loving man.”

Loud explosions have been heard in parts of south-west Russia and occupied Crimea overnight.

Russian officials say the border city of Belgorod, where 25 people were killed on Saturday, came under attack again as well as Sevastopol in Crimea, where a Ukrainian missile was downed.

In recent days the aerial war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia used some 300 missiles and 200 drones over five days.

Russia launched its biggest aerial bombardment of the invasion late last week, killing more than 40 people.

Ukrainian forces responded with the attack on Belgorod in which more than 100 people were also injured.

More blasts were reported in Belgorod overnight into Wednesday, with the governor of the region saying several drones had been destroyed.

In Sevastopol – the biggest city in Russian-occupied Crimea – a missile was shot down over the port, the Moscow-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Telegram. No casualties or damage were reported.

On Tuesday, Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s biggest cities including Kharkiv and Kyiv, killing at least five people and injuring dozens, local officials said.

One person was also reported killed in a Ukrainian attack on Belgorod.

Those attacks came after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to step up strikes in response to recent attacks by Ukraine.

In his nightly address on Tuesday, Mr Zelensky said Russia had fired “almost one hundred missiles of various types” that day.

They had, he said, been “specifically calculated by the enemy to cause as much damage as possible”.

Speaking to the BBC later, the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, said Russia’s recent bombardment was “not something that came as a surprise” – but that for Ukraine to win the war they needed more weapons to respond and “just clearly send a message to Russia that they should stop”.

Sierra Leone on Tuesday charged 12 people with treason and other offences for their roles in what authorities have called an attempted coup on November 26, a press release said.

One of those charged was Amadu Koita, who the government has said was one of the organisers of the coup attempt.

A former soldier and bodyguard of former president Ernest Koroma, Koita was widely followed on social networks where he criticised the government of current President Julius Bio.

He was arrested on December 4 and is one of 85 people arrested in connection with the events of November 26, most of them military personnel.

The 12 alleged perpetrators, including former police officers, were handed charges including “treason, misprision of treason, harbouring, aiding, and abetting the enemy,” according to a press release signed by Information Minister Chernor Bah.

Eleven of them were brought before a judge in the capital Freetown, with the case of one of the accused postponed due to illness, the statement said, adding that all had legal representation.

On November 26, armed attackers stormed a military armoury, two barracks, two prisons and two police stations, clashing with security forces.

Twenty-one people were killed and hundreds of prisoners escaped before authorities were able to regain control after what they deemed a coup attempt by members of the armed forces.

The violence sparked fears of another coup in West Africa, where Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea have all experienced putsches since 2020.

Five people aboard a Japan Coast Guard aircraft died on Tuesday when it hit a Japan Airlines passenger plane on the ground in a fiery collision at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

This was as Japanese rescuers battled on Tuesday to find survivors of a New Year’s Day earthquake that killed at least 50 people and caused widespread destruction, AFP reports.

All 379 passengers and crew on board the passenger plane that burst into flames were safely evacuated, Japanese transport minister Tetsuo Saito told reporters.

But five of the six crew members from the smaller plane – bound for central Japan after Monday’s huge earthquake – died, Saito said.

The captain escaped and survived but was injured, he said, “We’re not at the stage to explain the cause” of the accident.

All 367 passengers plus 12 crew onboard were swiftly taken off the plane before dozens of fire engines with flashing blue lights sprayed the fuselage.

They however failed to put out the flames coming out of windows near the wings and the blaze soon engulfed the entire aircraft.

The plane, reportedly an Airbus 350, had arrived from New Chitose Airport serving Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Those on board included eight children.“Smoke began to fill the plane, and I thought, “This could be really bad,” an adult male passenger told reporters at the airport.

“An announcement said doors in the back and middle could not be opened. So everyone disembarked from the front,” he said.

AFP gathered a female passenger who said it was dark on board as the fire intensified after landing.

“It was getting hot inside the plane, and I thought, to be honest, I would not survive,” she said in comments shown on broadcaster NHK.

Police on Tuesday said five people were killed and several others are missing after a boat capsized in Lake Victoria in the central Uganda district of Buvuma.

In a statement, the police said “so far, five people have been confirmed dead, with 14 successfully rescued. Unfortunately, an unconfirmed number of individuals remain missing.’’

The police said that the “ill-fated boat, reportedly overloaded, broke into two pieces while attempting to dock at Zinga Island.

“Efforts are underway to establish the exact number of individuals on board,’’ the police added.

UK authorities have commenced enforcement of a ban blocking Nigerian and other international students from bringing in dependants.

The UK Home Office, in a tweet on Monday, announced that the ban takes effect on the first day of the New Year.

Posting a photo with the inscription, “Changes to Student Dependent Rules: Now in Force,” the UK Home Office said,

“We are fully committed to seeing a decisive cut in migration. From today, new overseas students will no longer be able to bring family members to the UK.”

UK authorities added, “Postgraduate research or government-funded scholarships students will be exempt.”

Retweeting the Home Office’s post on the enforcement of the ban, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote, “From today, the majority of foreign university students cannot bring family members to the UK.

In 2024, we’re already delivering for the British people.”

This followed earlier stringent measures to make it difficult for Nigerians and other immigrants seeking to move into the UK to get a visa.

In December 2023, Home Secretary James Cleverly announced the changes in visa rules in the House of Commons.

The government said it would not set a minimum annual salary for foreign workers to be eligible for a skilled worker visa at £38,700 from £26,200.

The figure is more than the current average salary of a full-time worker in Britain.

The policy will also restrict dependents’ ability to get a visa into the UK. Healthcare workers would no longer be able to bring their family members.

Mr Sunak’s administration believe this would cut immigration into the UK by 300,000 per year.

Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas and two other senior leaders of the organisation’s armed wing have been killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday, the group said on its official Telegram website.

According to the New York Times, the blast occurred during a meeting between Palestinian factions at a Hamas office in Beirut, an incident Hamas described as a “Zionist raid” on the country’s capital.

Meanwhile, there is no official statement from Israel confirming if it was their operation. However, local media, the Times of Israel, reported that a U.S. defence official told The Washington Post that Israel was responsible for the airstrike.

Since the war between Israel and Hamas began late last year, Israel has carried out several airstrikes on Hezbollah outposts in Lebanon — the militant group is a major ally of Hamas and has carried out several attacks in Israel in the ongoing war.

In a defiant statement, Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of the political bureau of Hamas, said Israel “will not succeed in breaking the will and steadfastness of our people, or undermining the continuation of their valiant resistance”.