Nigeria Plans $464 Million Waterway Boost to Ease Lagos Traffic
The state housing Nigeria's economic hub is engaging the European Union to develop inland waterways as part of an integrated urban-transport system intended to ease gridlock in Lagos, which is also its most populous city.
They are due to break ground on the €410 million ($464 million) project in June, the Lagos state government said in an emailed statement Friday.
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Will Starmer's military review match the threats we're told we face?
Down a discreet road, on the fringes of a quiet home counties commuter town, is a set of grey buildings worth many hundreds of millions of pounds. In one, behind a secure fence, a handful of workers are on shift this weekend, making Storm Shadow missiles by hand. Each one is worth hundreds of thousands, the product of months of work, made of myriad components. Storm Shadows, like mini-aircraft, have been flying in the skies above Ukraine with a range of 250km (155 miles), part of the UK's backing of President Volodymyr Zelensky's efforts to try to keep Russia's Vladimir Putin at bay. The factory is calm and quiet - a world away from the fire and fury of the conflict on the edge of Europe. We've been allowed to see the missiles up close because the government is warming up for a big moment on Monday, when the prime minister will unveil a major review of the military, the strategic defence review. Sir Keir Starmer has already said we are living in a "new, dangerous era", with a malevolent Russia and its friends hungry to disrupt and damage the West - while the White House is less eager to cough up to defend Europe. So will this review meet the risk that politicians tell us we face? We have gone through many years in which defence has been a lower priority for politicians and the public, largely because peace has prevailed in the UK. Since the end of the Cold War, a former minister says, "we've been going round the world making sure we are reassuring allies, and there have been some very nasty wars in the Middle East". But, at the same time, the proportion of cash spent on defence has shrunk, and the ability of the military to fight "peer-on-peer" wars has decreased. There are well known worries about stockpiles, a lack of munitions, and weapons being decommissioned that haven't yet been replaced. We now have a smaller armed forces - one that is "hollowed out", in the words of the current Defence Secretary John Healey, who we'll talk to on this week's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Yet now, the government certainly confronts a more alarming picture - and there is a concerted focus on trying to address it. With conflict on the edge of Europe in Ukraine, a former minister says, "if you are going to credibly deter Russia, you need to persuade them, actually, if they mess around with Nato, they lose". And that's before you consider that Donald Trump is a lot less willing than his predecessor to pay for other countries' defence, and China's "imminent" threat to Taiwan highlighted by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth overnight. So what will next week's review suggest for the here and now, as well as the long term future? First, a caveat. The report is not published in full until Monday; it will be important to examine what it recommends. But the broad outline seems pretty clear: expect it to underline the importance of nuclear weapons and the UK's commitment to Nato, the Western defence alliance. There will be an emphasis on modernising the forces, not least because the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of drones and adapting existing kit quickly to lethal effect. We have clues from the announcements ministers have already made about technology and protecting the country from cyber attacks. The review, and ministers' messaging alongside it, will stress a greater need, in their view, for the public to play a part in protecting the country. A government source says "it's about making sure we think more about national resilience", and a "whole society approach" towards threats. That is expected to include announcements about British industry creating more defence kit, expanding the cadet forces, and bolstering the number of men and women in the military reserves. There have been suggestions of a new civilian force - a new "Home Guard" - to protect infrastructure such as power plants, airports and telecommunications hubs. As another source says, "there is a lot of talk about resilience, a push across the whole of society, the kind we have only done twice in our history, in World War One and World War Two". This is "not telling everyone they need to go out and build an Anderson shelter," jokes a former minister, but No 10 does want to usher in a new way of thinking among ordinary people geared towards keeping the country safe. Whether any of these potential recommendations will change much is up for debate, though. While government sources claim it will be "transformative" and hail a "bold new vision", others are playing down its likely impact. A former Conservative defence minister suggests ministers have "massively overegged" what the review will really promise, and "we'll get a lot of things that sound great, but not many things that actually get moving". A source involved in discussion around the review explained: "What will change? Substantively not much - there is a rhetorical change towards Nato and Europe, but it's not a major change in terms of capability - it's all pretty marginal." The Ministry of Defence's permanent secretary David Williams has already said in public that it won't be until the autumn that we'll get specific details about exactly what is going to be ordered, spent and when. The PM has already sped up his plans to spend 2.5% of the size of Britain's economy on defence by 2027, rather than the initial timescale of 2029. UK Defence Secretary John Healey said on Saturday there was "no doubt" UK defence spending would rise to 3% of GDP by 2034 at the latest. All that doesn't make the problems go away. The first is that after inflation and public sector pay rises, insiders question if 2.5% is enough to meet current defence plans - let alone the government's increasing ambition. Existing, expensive plans will remain - such as recapitalising the army, investing in nuclear, carrying on with the Aukus submarine deal with America and Australia, and the global combat air programme to build a next-generation fighter jet - which will gobble up billions of pounds now and for years to come. Second, the chancellor doesn't want to change her self imposed rules on borrowing and spending again, so as we talked about last week, money is tight in government. Defence is already a relative winner in the review of government spending that's coming down the tracks. Third, the PM faces a political dilemma - a pound on defence is a pound that doesn't go on health or welfare, and you won't find huge numbers of Labour MPs who stood for Parliament with the goal of giving more to the military, while trying to reduce benefit payments. Defence has long been one of the PM's big signals to the party and country that he is different to his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. His version of Labour is comfortable appearing in front of Union Jacks, posing with soldiers or clambering in and out of submarines, though not all of his colleagues are. And fourth, fundamentally there is a political question about whether a promise of big cash coming in the 2030s matches increasingly urgent rhetoric about the dangers we face which other allies are using to speed up defence spending more dramatically. At the end of June, Nato allies will gather for a major summit in The Hague. Nato's secretary general Mark Rutte has already made abundantly clear he wants the UK and its allies to be spending at least 3% on defence as soon as possible. The US, the country with the biggest cheque book, wants countries to aim for as much as 5% and if it's to be less, to stop claiming that pensions, health care for veterans or other costs, can be counted as defence spending. I'm told the summit could set a new target for Nato allies to spend 3.5% on defence either by 2032 or by 2035. If that happens, the UK could seem to be lagging behind. As a senior figure warns, for some Nato members, spending 3.5% of GDP on defence is a already a "done deal" - but the UK is still "hopping around". Almost before the ink is dry on the defence review, the government's critics may be able to warn it falls short. Perhaps then, the government's approach is as far as it is currently financially or politically possible to go. But with the PM warning defence should be the "central organising principle" of government - the first thought in the morning and the last at night - threats to our security might evolve faster than politics. This week there will be fierce scrutiny of whether we're really keeping up. Numbers are down - but Starmer will still struggle to win on immigration The Conservative Party faces problems - is its leader one of them? The real problem facing Britain's shrinking military Sign up for the Off Air with Laura K newsletter to get Laura Kuenssberg's expert insight and insider stories every week, emailed directly to you. BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.
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2 hours ago
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Bono Schools Joe Rogan Over Elon Musk Support: DOGE Cuts 'Pure Evil'
U2 frontman schooled podcaster Joe Rogan on his frequent support and defense of Elon Musk. The singer discussed the impact of the Trump administration and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency's proposed cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — which is considered the largest source of international aid to more than 120 countries via delivering food programs, clean water and infectious disease medical assistance. The organization's efforts are often credited for saving lives at the cost of pennies on the dollar. More from The Hollywood Reporter Elon Musk Was Using So Much Ketamine While Campaigning for Donald Trump It Was Affecting His Bladder, NY Times Reports Bono Weighs in on Trump-Bruce Springsteen Drama: "There's Only One Boss in America" Anti-Defamation League CEO: Ye's Stunt Exposed Tech Platforms' Antisemitism Problem Bono has been undertaking humanitarian trips to Africa and other nations since the early 1980s and has a history of working with USAID. He cited a study that estimated the DOGE cuts to the department will result in more than 300,000 deaths worldwide — more than 200,000 of them children suffering from malnutrition, malaria and pneumonia. The cuts, he claimed, have already resulted in food, water and medical aide being stranded due to mass layoffs. 'There's food rotting in boats and warehouses,' Bono said during a Friday appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience (video clip below). 'There is 50,000 tons of food. The people who knew the codes — who were responsible for distributing that aid — were fired. That's not America, is it?' Bono said he understands why people would want to downsize big government but says steep cuts to the popular charity program already have disastrous consequences. 'To destroy, to vandalize, it felt like with glee, that these life support systems were being pulled out of the walls,' Bono says, and cited a story in Christianity Today: '[One aide worker said], 'We don't have the funds, we have to choose which child to pull off the IVs.' It just seems to me, I don't know if 'evil' is too strong a word, but what we know about pure evil is that it rejoices in the deaths, in the squandering of human life — particularly children. It actually rejoices in it. And whether it's incompetence, whether it's unintended consequences, it's not too late for people.' Bono added that he has even attempted to address the issue with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who the singer says is 'convinced people aren't dying yet.' Rogan pushed back, calling USAID a 'money-laundering operation' that has lost even a 'trillion' with 'no oversight, no receipts.' There has indeed been credible accusations of waste and fraud within the organization (some reading here and here). But such instances are estimated to be a tiny fraction of the organization's $40 billion budget. Nonetheless, the Trump administration put most USAID workers on leave in February amid Musk declaring it a 'criminal organization' and that it was 'time to die.' That said, Rogan added, 'But also, we help the world and when you're talking about making wells for people in the Congo to get fresh water, when you're talking about food and medicine to places that don't have access, no way that should have been cut out. And that should have been clear before they make these radical cuts. There's got to be a way to keep aide and not have fraud.' Rogan added, 'The ironic thing is, even though Elon Musk has proposed all these things and the DOGE committee has proposed all these things, they've made no cuts in terms of the budget. They've cut nothing.' Musk posted a clip of Bono and fired back on X: 'He's such a liar/idiot. Zero people have died!' Musk and Rubio's insistence that no one has yet died could be referring to the fact the 300,000 deaths report is a prediction of the number of deaths rather than saying those deaths have already occurred. In the Christianity Today story that Bono cited, workers on the ground said there have already been cuts to funding and suggested children would begin dying soon. One aide worker said, 'I do think we can expect to see increased mortality rates, increased infection, and increased despair if things aren't corrected.' Also, Bono's quote cited about pulling children off IVs was indeed a prediction rather than a current statement of fact. But according to Brooke Nichols — the mathematician and professor of infectious diseases at Boston University who created the prediction model — tens of thousands likely have already died. 'Because I've been doing HIV [research] for so long, I just assumed that would be where the biggest impact would occur,' Nichols told The Times UK. 'But I was really shocked by the child deaths from diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. Tens of thousands of children have died because we've pulled out our funding from diarrhea, pneumonia and food programs.' The bottom line seems to be: Humanitarian workers say the Trump administration's actions are already having a dire impact on the ground, but there is some debate over how many deaths, if any, have already occurred. All experts seem to agree the proposed cuts (which reportedly will reduce USAID spending by 80 percent) will be devastating and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths if fully implemented and/or more time passes without the administration changing course. Previously, Bill Gates similarly chastised Musk for the cuts to The Financial Times, saying, 'The picture of the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one.' The news comes amid Musk stepping down from his official White House role and a New York Times report that claimed the billionaire took copious amounts of ketamine and other drugs during his time running DOGE. Musk has called the report 'bs' and said the number of meetings and photographs he was in would make such use impossible. During the podcast, Bono further warned against the Trump administration's isolationist impulses in general. 'I just want to remind Americans of the size of their country, and I'm not talking about the geography,' Bono said. 'The size of the idea, it's just an extraordinary thing. It's an idea big enough to fit the whole world, and when it becomes an island rather than a continent … when it shrinks, America seems to stop being America.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More
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2 hours ago
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Starmer's enslavement to woke ideology is a gift to the new axis of evil
When wokeness in Britain went from being a loony Left preoccupation to a way of life, hot on the heels of America's wokeward tack in 2020, only fools, villains and villainous fools insisted that nothing much was happening – apart from a bit of long overdue fairness. Of course, they said, the old Right-wing cis white straight men and women were squealing about the embrace by the virtuous of 'social justice' and 'equity,' but that didn't mean there was a real culture war afoot. It was obvious to me from the start of the woke era, however, that this was not 'just' a culture war but a real one, in a truly modern sense, with real consequences that would be felt far beyond a few workplaces or university seminar rooms. The vaulting from the seminar room into the world of the ideology linking 'white privilege' to empire to colonialism to the immovable fact of white British guilt has led to poisonous politics on the Left, a troubling reaction on the populist Right, and a ruling class who make decisions with our money, our personal safety and the security of the country based on it. If people have been injured or died already thanks to wokeness – for instance in the failure to confidently and properly police Islamist terror suspects or BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic knife crime), or in the body-destroying treatments handed out by LGBTQ+ allies to kids who said they were trans in the gender movement that followed Black Lives Matter – then much more is set to come. One of the most flagrant case studies in how the woke mindset can be physically dangerous is Starmer's Chagos islands agreement. The 'deal' is to hand the British territory to Mauritius, and lease back the land on the island of Diego Garcia, on which sits a strategically vital, Anglo-American military base. The lease costs £30 billion, and will be paid over 99 years. The Government's strange argument for the deal was that it would prevent the security risks that could come from instability due to international lawfare on this last 'colonial' outpost of Britain's. Starmer, somehow, did not think that it was more of a security concern that Chinese influence in Mauritius is malign and growing: China has now announced that Mauritius will be joining its power-grabbing Belt and Road initiative. Indeed, Starmer's comments about the handover in a press conference were very odd. He said with confidence that only Britain's enemies were against it. 'In favour are all of our allies: the US, Nato, Five Eyes, India. Against it: Russia, China, Iran.' Yet days after it went through, China was celebrating. Beijing's ambassador to Mauritius, Huang Shifang, told guests at the Chinese embassy in Mauritius's capital of Port Louis that China sent 'massive congratulations' to Mauritius on the deal, and that China 'fully supports' Mauritius's attempt to 'safeguard national sovereignty'. It's hard to think of a more cynical, almost joyously so, use of this terminology. China, after all, is a country obsessed with taking by force the democratic, independent Taiwan (Mauritius, China has made clear, supports its doctrine that Taiwan is already part of China); repressing free speech in Hong Kong, where it operates a subtle reign of terror, and subjecting its Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang to sadistic treatment in internment camps. And now it gets to set about enjoying all manner of devious proximity to our all-important Eastern base. So yes, Britain's Chagos deal makes delicious sense to China, but makes no sense for us. Unless, of course, you are Starmer and his inner circle, and you're enslaved to the twin ideologies of post-colonialism and 'international law' – which lands you in the awkward and unfortunate position, as we have seen, of ending up in agreement with China on core values like self-determination. It's a mess. All this Chinese gloating disguised as proper appreciation for nations' rights to freedom from colonial shackles serves as a useful reminder of just how suspicious such language has become. Yes, it is mass-peddled by august 'international' bodies, NGOs, courts and the UN. But these have all been corrupted by those with sinister anti-Western agendas. Indeed, the intranational bodies charged with pursuing a kinder world order with 'human rights' pursued through law always seem to favour those who care least about those obligations. It was telling when Lord Hermer, Starmer's attorney general, compared those in favour of withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to the Nazi philosopher and jurist Carl Schmitt, when what membership of the ECHR really means, in practice, is having to treat terrorists and foreign mass murderers with the utmost consideration. The greatest, longest-running example of the hijacking of a world organisation is the UN, which has been faking outrage at violations of 'international law' to endanger and ostracise Israel for decades. As Natasha Hausdorff, the international lawyer known for pointing out the legal flaws in the numerous evil smears levelled at Israel, notes : 'Armies of NGOs [have fed] the United Nations system and international bodies like the ICC and ICJ' so that 'pseudo-legal language permeates public discourse about Israel. This has now broken into public consciousness, but it has been building in the NGO world and UN world for a long time.' The once honourable ICJ – the International Court of Justice – was seized by South Africa to bring a case against Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal even as Israel sacrificed soldiers fighting Hamas in Gaza, resulting in an arrest warrant for the Israeli PM which Britain refuses to reject. As the famous American lawyer and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz says of the ICJ: 'It's not international, it's not a court and it doesn't do justice.' The bloc that still determines the balance of power and the fate of countries – just – is the Western one. And we are now in great peril, due to being gullible and ill-informed, anti-Semitic, terror-appeasing and morally confused. Our cultures swallowed whole by Leftist cultural theories that were meant to never leave academia – those of post-structuralism and post-colonialism – and under their influence we turn our faces towards the lies pouring from the Eastern axis of 'resistance' – with lethal consequences. The international human rights community in all its respectable clout gives this evil nonsense the stamp of approval. Older people just about remember when international law meant something. Some saw first-hand the real genocide of the mid-20th century, others spectacular bloodshed under monsters and in the course of war. Some of us just remember hearing about those times and events, from parents and grandparents. To us, the souring of organisations like the ECHR, ICC, ICJ, UN – the whole concept of 'international law' itself – is bitter and clear. The rising generation, though, those who have taken up en masse the garbage of third-rate academic theories about coloniser and oppressor, who misuse terms including racism, apartheid, genocide, settler-colonialism, fascism and even capitalism, seem to genuinely think these corrupted organisations are the end of the moral and geopolitical rainbow. That reference to their motions and cases and objections and votes must end all arguments; that the old animating force behind international courts for human rights and justice was just a relic of a racist age, and now we know better. In some ways we do. But those who still chase after 'international' legitimacy are barking up the wrong tree – either accidentally or, like China, on purpose. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
