PSG want Wenger to replace sporting director Henrique

Paris Saint-Germain are reportedly looking to make a big change upstairs. The French giants are hoping to entice former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger to become their new general manager after the January transfer window, suggests ESPN's Jonathan Johnson.

Les Parisiens are thought to be looking to ditch current chief Antero Henrique, with the Portuguese sporting director coming under fire for his transfer policy - notably failing to secure primary targets such as Chelsea engine N'Golo Kante - and his working methods.

Henrique's relationship with head coach Thomas Tuchel is thought to be frayed at best, while PSG captain Thiago Silva reportedly replied "ask Antero" when questioned about his side's unorthodox midfield lineup in the Champions League defeat to Liverpool last month.

The final straw may have been being beaten to the punch by AC Milan director Leonardo in the race for Flamengo prodigy Lucas Paqueta. Henrique was intending to activate a €50-million release clause in January, reports Johnson, before Leonardo negotiated down the price significantly.

According to Johnson, Wenger has told PSG he'd like to keep his options open and is unlikely to make a decision until around Christmas. The 68-year-old - who left his post as Gunners manager after 22 years at the end of last season - would reportedly prefer a coaching job, but is open to other significant roles that become available.

PSG would reportedly be willing to offer Wenger the opportunity to revamp the club's academy and other areas both on and off the field should he agree to join the staff. - thescore

Weaponised AI is coming. Are algorithmic forever wars our future?

Last month marked the 17th anniversary of 9/11. With it came a new milestone: we’ve been in Afghanistan for so long that someone born after the attacks is now old enough to go fight there. They can also serve in the six other places where we’re officially at war, not to mention the 133 countries where special operations forces have conducted missions in just the first half of 2018.

The wars of 9/11 continue, with no end in sight. Now, the Pentagon is investing heavily in technologies that will intensify them. By embracing the latest tools that the tech industry has to offer, the US military is creating a more automated form of warfare – one that will greatly increase its capacity to wage war everywhere forever.

On Friday, the defense department closes the bidding period for one of the biggest technology contracts in its history: the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (Jedi). Jedi is an ambitious project to build a cloud computing system that serves US forces all over the world, from analysts behind a desk in Virginia to soldiers on patrol in Niger. The contract is worth as much as $10bn over 10 years, which is why big tech companies are fighting hard to win it. (Not Google, however, where a pressure campaign by workers forced management to drop out of the running.)

At first glance, Jedi might look like just another IT modernization project. Government IT tends to run a fair distance behind Silicon Valley, even in a place as lavishly funded as the Pentagon. With some 3.4 million users and 4 million devices, the defense department’s digital footprint is immense. Moving even a portion of its workloads to a cloud provider such as Amazon will no doubt improve efficiency.

But the real force driving Jedi is the desire to weaponize AI – what the defense department has begun calling “algorithmic warfare”. By pooling the military’s data into a modern cloud platform, and using the machine-learning services that such platforms provide to analyze that data, Jedi will help the Pentagon realize its AI ambitions.

Related: Why teach drone pilots about ethics when it’s robots that will kill us? | Andrew Brown

The scale of those ambitions has grown increasingly clear in recent months. In June, the Pentagon established the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), which will oversee the roughly 600 AI projects currently under way across the department at a planned cost of $1.7bn. And in September, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the Pentagon’s storied R&D wing, announced it would be investing up to $2bn over the next five years into AI weapons research.

So far, the reporting on the Pentagon’s AI spending spree has largely focused on the prospect of autonomous weapons – Terminator-style killer robots that mow people down without any input from a human operator. This is indeed a frightening near-future scenario, and a global ban on autonomous weaponry of the kind sought by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is absolutely essential.

But AI has already begun rewiring warfare, even if it hasn’t (yet) taken the form of literal Terminators. There are less cinematic but equally scary ways to weaponize AI. You don’t need algorithms pulling the trigger for algorithms to play an extremely dangerous role.

To understand that role, it helps to understand the particular difficulties posed by the forever war. The killing itself isn’t particularly difficult. With a military budget larger than that of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Britain and Japan combined, and some 800 bases around the world, the US has an abundance of firepower and an unparalleled ability to deploy that firepower anywhere on the planet.

The US military knows how to kill. The harder part is figuring out whom to kill. In a more traditional war, you simply kill the enemy. But who is the enemy in a conflict with no national boundaries, no fixed battlefields, and no conventional adversaries?

This is the perennial question of the forever war. It is also a key feature of its design. The vagueness of the enemy is what has enabled the conflict to continue for nearly two decades and to expand to more than 70 countries – a boon to the contractors, bureaucrats and politicians who make their living from US militarism. If war is a racket, in the words of marine legend Smedley Butler, the forever war is one the longest cons yet.

But the vagueness of the enemy also creates certain challenges. It’s one thing to look at a map of North Vietnam and pick places to bomb. It’s quite another to sift through vast quantities of information from all over the world in order to identify a good candidate for a drone strike. When the enemy is everywhere, target identification becomes far more labor-intensive. This is where AI – or, more precisely, machine learning – comes in. Machine learning can help automate one of the more tedious and time-consuming aspects of the forever war: finding people to kill.

The Pentagon’s Project Maven is already putting this idea into practice. Maven, also known as the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, made headlines recently for sparking an employee revolt at Google over the company’s involvement. Maven is the military’s “pathfinder” AI project. Its initial phase involves using machine learning to scan drone video footage to help identify individuals, vehicles and buildings that might be worth bombing.

“We have analysts looking at full-motion video, staring at screens 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 hours at a time,” says the project director, Lt Gen Jack Shanahan. Maven’s software automates that work, then relays its discoveries to a human. So far, it’s been a big success: the software has been deployed to as many as six combat locations in the Middle East and Africa. The goal is to eventually load the software on to the drones themselves, so they can locate targets in real time.

Won’t this technology improve precision, thus reducing civilian casualties? This is a common argument made by higher-ups in both the Pentagon and Silicon Valley to defend their collaboration on projects like Maven. Code for America’s Jen Pahlka puts it in terms of “sharp knives” versus “dull knives”: sharper knives can help the military save lives.

In the case of weaponized AI, however, the knives in question aren’t particularly sharp. There is no shortage of horror stories of what happens when human oversight is outsourced to faulty or prejudiced algorithms – algorithms that can’t recognize black faces, or that reinforce racial bias in policing and criminal sentencing. Do we really want the Pentagon using the same technology to help determine who gets a bomb dropped on their head?

But the deeper problem with the humanitarian argument for algorithmic warfare is the assumption that the US military is an essentially benevolent force. Many millions of people around the world would disagree. In 2017 alone, the US and allied strikes in Iraq and Syria killed as many as 6,000 civilians. Numbers like these don’t suggest a few honest mistakes here and there, but a systemic indifference to “collateral damage”. Indeed, the US government has repeatedly bombed civilian gatherings such as weddings in the hopes of killing a high-value target.

Further, the line between civilian and combatant is highly porous in the era of the forever war. A report from the Intercept suggests that the US military labels anyone it kills in “targeted” strikes as “enemy killed in action”, even if they weren’t one of the targets. The so-called “signature strikes” conducted by the US military and the CIA play similar tricks with the concept of the combatant. These are drone attacks on individuals whose identities are unknown, but who are suspected of being militants based on displaying certain “signatures” – which can be as vague as being a military-aged male in a particular area.

The problem isn’t the quality of the tools, in other words, but the institution wielding them. And AI will only make that institution more brutal. The forever war demands that the US sees enemies everywhere. AI promises to find those enemies faster – even if all it takes to be considered an enemy is exhibiting a pattern of behavior that a (classified) machine-learning model associates with hostile activity. Call it death by big data.

AI also has the potential to make the forever war more permanent, by giving some of the country’s largest companies a stake in perpetuating it. Silicon Valley has always had close links to the US military. But algorithmic warfare will bring big tech deeper into the military-industrial complex, and give billionaires like Jeff Bezos a powerful incentive to ensure the forever war lasts forever. Enemies will be found. Money will be made. - The Guardian, UK

Buhari bans 50 high profile Nigerians from leaving the country

President Muhammadu Buhari has banned 50 prominent Nigerians suspected of corruption from travelling abroad.

Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, said the development is part of steps being taken to enforce the executive order 6 recently signed by the president.

He said the Nigerians affected by the executive order have been placed under watch list and are restricted from travelling pending the determination of their cases.

“Also, the financial transactions of these persons of interest are being monitored by the relevant agencies to ensure that the assets are not dissipated and such persons do not interfere with, nor howsoever corrupt the investigation and litigation processes,” he said in a statement issued Saturday.

According to Shehu, the president has also mandated Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, to implement the executive order “in full force”.

“To this end, a number of enforcement procedures are currently in place by which the Nigeria Immigration Service and other security agencies have placed no fewer than 50 high profile persons directly affected by EO6 on watch-list and restricted them from leaving the county pending the determination of their cases,” he said.

“The Buhari administration reassures all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians of its commitment to the fight against corruption, in accordance with the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the general principles of the Rule of Law.

“Accordingly, this administration will uphold the rule of law in all its actions and the right of citizens would be protected as guaranteed by the Constitution.

“We, therefore, enjoin all Nigerians to cooperate with the law enforcement authorities towards ensuring a successful implementation of the Executive Order 6 which is a paradigm-changing policy of the Federal Government in the fight against corruption.” - TheCable

Baba Sala’s 9th wife speaks out on his death

Mrs Temitayo Adejumo is the 8th or 9th wife of Moses Olaiya Adejumo, alias Baba Sala. She told Gbenro Adesina that Baba Sala is called chairman at home. Despite having many wives and children, she said he was in full control of his home.

Read the interview:

Q: Was Baba Sala sick before his demise?

A: No, he was not sick. He was very fine.

Q: So, how did he die?

A: In the evening of Monday October 8, 2018, my husband’s younger wife, Iya Sina, who was living with him at Ilesa discussed with me around 7pm. About one hour after or around 9pm, when I was about to sleep, she called me back and said that our husband is dead. I had spoken with him about three days earlier and he was fine. That day, he ate his food and Iya Sina administered his drugs to him because he was on medication.

Q: Where is he right now?

A: Immediately he died, he was taken to Wesley Hospital, Ilesa, where he was medically confirmed dead and his remains have since been deposited at the hospital’s Mortuary.

Q: What did he eat before he died?

A: I do not know. He normally takes his dinner before 7pm.

Q: The chat you had with him three days before his death, was that the last time you spoke with him?

A: Yes. I usually call him every day in the morning to greet him, but on the day he died, I didn’t call him because I went to church early. Whenever he calls, he would ask of his children and the welfare of everyone.

Q: When did you see him last?

A: I saw him last on September 15, 2018. I went to Ilesa for our family harvest. We went to church together that day. I ought to have been there on Saturday but I couldn’t because I had to wait for my daughter, who also wanted to go for the harvest so as to take her new born twins to see him. That was why I couldn’t go on Saturday and the two of us went on Sunday. I came to the house when he was being helped into the vehicle on Sunday. I greeted him and he responded very well inside the car. Then we went to church. The service was rounded off around 3pm that Sunday and he was brought back home. As soon as we entered the house, my child presented her twins to him. He was very happy. He greeted the mother and prayed for her and the babies. My daughter presented him some gift items and he prayed for her. Usually, when I go to Ilesa to see him, I sleep over night and depart the following day but I didn’t sleep that day because my daughter wanted to return to her husband’s house that day. I didn’t want her to travel back to Ibadan alone and that was why I returned to Ibadan with her.

Q: What will you miss about him?

A: I will miss him for many reasons. Chairman (baba Sala) was nice. He was very accommodating and loving. He loves everybody.

Q: Why do you call your husband chairman?

A: When I got to his house as a wife, he was being called director. Later, he made his elder sister, the director of his Alawada Group. The woman was the first child of his parents and Baba Sala was the second child. The woman and Baba Sala were the only children their mother had for their father. His father had other wives. We now asked him that now that you have made your elder sister the director, what will you now be called? He said, henceforth, I am the chairman. Since then, we started calling him chairman.

Q: How did you meet and marry him?

A: I am a native of Ilesa. We met in Ilesa. My elder sister was a prophetess in Cherubim and Seraphim Church. My sister’s church was under the church that Baba Sala was attending. Whenever the two churches were having their harvest, they invite one another. That was how we met during one of the harvest ceremony in the church.

Q: You didn’t mind that he already had wives?

A: I didn’t. The reason is that since I was young and in school, I liked his theatre group and its plays. Alawada plays are telecast 7pm on Wednesdays. I make sure that before 7pm when the play will start, I would have finished my chores so that I could watch the play. From his plays, I developed interest in him.

Q: Why did actors then have many wives?

A: They marry many wives so that they could use them in their plays. Then, it was not like nowadays that there are many professional actresses and actors. Then, parents don’t allow their daughters to act or even relate with actors unlike today that actors and actresses are many. These old actors specialised in stage plays. Then, if a mother sees her daughter acting plays, she would stop her and warn her to desist from acting plays. Parents would not allow their daughters to marry actors. It happened to me shortly after I finished my modern school. When I introduced Baba Sala to my brother that I wanted to marry him, my brother told me that he would not support me to marry him or act plays. He said that he wanted me to go to school. He wanted me to go to a teacher training college or go for a vocational study where I would learn something. I told him that I wanted to be an actress. In order to satisfy my brother, Baba Sala enrolled me at Trans Motel to learn catering. I learnt it but I didn’t like the job, so I didn’t practise it. After the training, I had my first born. When he was five month, we went to location for “Orun mooru” in 1981.

Q: What part did you act in “Orun mooru”?

A: I am one of the wives that Yemoja (Mermaid) gave to Baba Sala in the river.

Q: Do you regret marrying Baba Sala?

A: No, I do not regret marrying him. The reason is that I got to where I never thought that I would ever get to. I am always happy when I am passing and people are pointing to me as Baba Sala’s wife. Many people will call me and greet me saying that they like our plays. That is enough. I do not regret it.

Q: Are you from a polygamous house?

A; No, my father married only my mother.

Q: Could you compare your background with polygamous house?

A: My mother did not raise me. I was brought up by my brother. I don’t believe that polygamous house is bad. In this house, we are many, Baba Sala married many wives.

Q: How many?

A: We are many but now we are four.

Q: What about the concubines?

A: One unique thing about my husband is that he doesn’t involve in secret relationship. He brings all his female friends to the house. If he has a girlfriend, he will bring her home and it is now left to her to stay if she wants to. We, the wives, fight. We shout on ourselves. Whenever there is a problem among us, the wives, Baba Sala comes in and settles it. Our children live together as if they are of the same mother. Baba Sala was in full control of his house. We start each day in the morning with prayer and he rotates the prayer among the wives. If a wife prays today, one of the children will preach, if a child prays tomorrow, one wife will preach. Occasionally, he preaches. A jealous woman can’t live here. A prayerless family cannot differentiate between the good and the bad. They can’t be morally upright and there can’t be a genuine love in such home. If Baba Sala rings bell for prayer and any child or wife does not get to the sitting room early enough, Baba Sala will chase out such a wife or child with horsewhip. There can’t be love, peace and oneness in a prayerless house.

Q: So only four women have children for him?

A: No, many women have children for him.

Q: Can you state the exact number of women that have children for him?

A: I don’t know the number because we are many.

Q: How many wives are now in Baba Sala’s house?

A: Honestly, I don’t know but we are many. For now, two are in Ibadan and two are in Ilesa. Some wives have been taken away by their children who built houses for them to live. Some of his wives have died.

Q: How many children?

A: I don’t think that they are up to 50 but they are over 40.

Q: Can you allow any of your daughters to be a second wife or can you allow your son to marry a second wife?

A: On the engagement day of Bala Sala’s daughter, he would tell his daughter not to foment any trouble if her husband marries another wife. He will say that he must not hear that his daughter attempts to stop her husband from marrying another wife because he is a polygamist and he was not against polygamy. He will say that “your husband can marry as many as possible and there must not be trouble”. He discouraged his male children from going to the registry. As a matter of fact, he has never followed any of his male children to do registry marriage. He doesn’t believe in court marriage that only recognises monogamy. Baba Sala is not a religious bigot. When my daughter brought a Muslim man which I objected, my husband asked me to stop objecting it. Now, they are married and they have a good home. He sees Muslims and Christians as the same.

Q: What position are you in the house?

A: I don’t know, maybe I am number eight or nine.

Q: What is your word to the fans of Baba Sala?

A: The fans should not think that with the demise of Baba Sala comedy is dead. Comedy can’t die. Many children of Baba Sala are now into acting. About eight children of Baba Sala are already acting and some are still springing. I want to appeal to the government that they should encourage the actors and actresses generally. Government don’t spend money on entertainment the same way it spends money on football. If government invest money on entertainment, unemployment will reduce and entertainment is one of the major vehicle in which our culture could be promoted. I feel sad that government is not financing the entertainment industry and that is why it is not lucrative for many actors and actresses. It is only the marketers that are enjoying movie productions. Anyone acting without another job is just suffering himself or herself because it has become the frequent experience that after movies productions in the locations, actors and actresses are not paid. Producers will use you and dump you. They will not pay. In some cases, after production, they run away. - PM News

Barcelona : Lionel Messi to leave on free transfer

Lionel Messi could leave Barcelona on a free transfer, Mundo Deportivo reports.

Barca want the five-time Ballon d’Or winner to retire at Camp Nou and plan to offer him a new deal next season, that will keep him until 2022.

However, a clause comes into effect in 2020, which would allow Messi to join a “non-elite” club on a free transfer.

It is the same clause that was inserted in contracts for Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta, which saw both Spanish midfielders move to Qatar and Japan respectively.

This comes amid revelations that Messi turned down Manchester City’s offer to “triple the salary he has at Barcelona”. - Daily Post

JSS1 student electrocuted in Cross River

A 12-year-old JSS student of Government Secondary School, State Housing Estate, Calabar, Cross River State has been electrocuted.

The incident occurred on Friday in front of the school compound around 2pm after school hour.

An eyewitness, who gave her name as Mrs Margaret, said that she saw the boy walk close to the pole where he was electrocuted.

“He placed his legs on the high tension naked wire on the ground which drew him close to the pole; he was there for over 15 minutes being burnt and unable to detach himself.

“I could not do anything because he was still being burnt.

“By that time, the other pupils, including the sisters of the deceased, school mates, the teachers and passersby were crying profusely but nobody could do anything since people were afraid to get closer,” she said.

Mrs Margaret said that by the time the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC), the Fire Service and the Police arrived, the boy had died.

“They used dry stick to detach the body from the pole and before then, fire had burnt the boys’ private part, legs and other sensitive areas. He died on the spot” she told DAILY POST, adding “The Police took the corpse to the mortuary.”

The mother of the deceased who could not control herself was seen crying saying that her son, Isaac was the only male child out of the four children she had.

“I have just registered Isaac two months ago in the school and he was my only son,” she explained adding that his son was a very brilliant child in the family.

When contacted, the State Police Public Relations Officer, Ms Irene Ugbo told DAILY POST on phone Friday evening that the incident was regrettable.

“The young boy was returning from school when he stepped on naked wire and was electrocuted to death.

“The corpse has been deposited into the general hospital mortuary while investigations on the matter were continuing,” she said. - Daily Post

Customs : Businessman docked for importing 1570 pump action rifles

A businessman, Ifeuwa Moses Christ was yesterday arraigned before a Federal High Court, Lagos for unlawfully importing pump action rifles.

According to the Nigerian Customs Service, the defendant allegedly imported 1570 pump action rifles concealed in a container of ceramic wash-hand basins.

Ifeuwa, a resident of 1, Ifeuwa Street, Ogidi, Anambra State, was arraigned alongside one Ayogu Great James, of Plot 291, Dawaki extension, opposite Gwarinpa Estate, Abuja, and Emeka Umeh Festus, also known as Amankwa, who is said to be at large.

Also, charged before the court is an Oil and Gas company, Great James Oil and Gas Limited, located at 1, Warehouse Road, Apapa, Lagos.

Arraigning the accused, the prosecutor, Mr Julius Ajakaiye, informed the court that the accused and others conspired among themselves between September 6 to 20, 2017, to illegally and unlawfully import a total of 1570 pump action rifles into Nigeria, through Apapa Seaport, Lagos.

The prosecutor also told the court that the accused loaded the said 1570 pump action rifles in two 1× 20 feet containers marked GESU 2555208 and CMAU 1878178.

Furthermore, Ajakaiye told the court that the accused and others now at large, in a bid to illegally and unlawfully bring in the weapons, altered and forged a bill of lading, issued in July 28, 2017, to read Guandong, China, instead of Istanbul, Turkey, which was written on the conveying container.

Ajakaiye also told the court that the accused also altered Form M(application for Import) and Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), issued on August 28, 2017, with number MF 20170080364 and CN 20170768490/001, respectively, to read Guandong, China instead of Istanbul, Turkey, as a country of origin.

The accused were also alleged to have altered a bill of lading numbered ISB0281398, issued on July 28, 2017, to read 230 packages of wash-hand basin and W/C, as the content in the container used in shipping in the illegal firearms.

All the accused persons were charged before the court on charges bordering on conspiracy, illegal importation of Firearms and forgery and altering of Customs’ import documents.

The accused had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The presiding judge, Justice Saliu Saidu declined to grant the defendants bail and adjourned the matter till November 20 and 21, for commencement of trial.

The defendants were remanded in prison custody. - Daily Post