**Argentina have been crowned the 2022 FIFA World Cup champions after beating France in the final. La Albiceleste had drawn 3-3 against France after 120 minutes at Lusail Stadium. Lionel Messi and Angel di Maria put Argentina 2-0 up in the first half, but Kylian Mbappe scored a brace in the second half to force the game into extra time. However, Messi scored for Argentina in 108 minutes before Mbappe completed his hat-trick as he scored a late extra-time second-half goal to force the game into a penalty shootout. Argentina eventually won 4-2 on a penalty shootout to win the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
**Popular socio-political activist, Aisha Yesufu has vowed that even at gunpoint, she would vote for the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in the forthcoming February poll. Responding to a question of who she would support if the former Anambra Governor stepped down for another party candidate, Aisha Yesufu said she would still vote for Obi. According to her tweet, she does not bother if she is alone in the move to make Obi the next president of the country. Her tweet reads, “I will still vote for him on February 25th 2023, even if I have a gun on my head. I will rather they pull the trigger than support Atiku or Tinubu. “I am a person of convinction. In 2019 I was the only one that voted for my candidate at my PU and I stayed till 2am to guard my vote”.
**As the 2023 presidential race is fast approaching, political leaders have been working seriously for the success of their parties in the forthcoming presidential race. However, there are indications that some states may not be an easy ride for both the All Progressives Congress APC and the Peoples Democratic Party PDP in the forthcoming presidential race due to some factors. One of the states that might not be an easy ride for the All Progressives Congress APC and PDP in the forthcoming presidential race, is Osun state. Recently, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP won the Governorship election in the state. Many Nigerians, within and outside Osun state believed that the All Progressives Congress APC, lost the Governorship election due to the internal crisis in the party. It should be recalled, that the former Governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola who was also the Governorship candidate in the last Governorship election and the minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola who was his predecessor, were not in good terms and this was one of the reasons why APC lost the election. However, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP has all the resources at her disposal to influence the forthcoming presidential race and they will do everything possible to win the forthcoming elections. Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress may also use the federal might to ensure, that APC win the forthcoming presidential race. It should be recalled that the former Governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola made it known to the public, that APC will deliver one million votes for the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It was reported by Punch that the former Governor stated this, when he received youths that participated in a march tagged Tinubu/Shettima 2023 at his campaign office, when he was still the Governor of the state. Another point is that the Osun Progressives TOP members of the All Progressives Congress APC, recently dissolved the movement and collapsed the structure, fully into the party. This means that the TOP members will work for the success of the APC in the forthcoming presidential race. Meanwhile, the former chairman of the PDP in the state, Hon Sunday Bisi who is the coordinator of Atiku/Okowa presidential committee in the state, made it known to the public that the party will do everything possible to win 2023 presidential race. It should be recalled that the Governor of the state, has just been appointed as the chairman of the Atiku/Okowa campaign coordinating committee in the southwest.
**In an exclusive interview with Leadership News, the former Local Government Chairman of Ogbadibo in Benue State and a leader in the Middle Belt, Dr. Adoyi Mathew Omale has predicted that the former Anambra State Governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi would emerged victorious in Kaduna State, Gombe States, Kebbi State, Borno States and all the Northern minorities. He added that apart from the Southern states where Peter Obi is clearly the favorite presidential candidate, he knows ten Northern States who would vote for Peter Obi at the 2023 presidential election. He also predicted that the North Central geopolitical zone and the Middle Belt are going to vote for the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi. He acknowledged that the issue of religion would definitely be a factor in who become the next president of Nigeria, especially in the Northern geopolitical zones but above all what the middle belt is interested in at 2023 presidential election is quality leadership. He noted that he did not see both the major party presidential candidates, Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar leading the country in 2023. He further added that the Middle Belt has reached a conclusive agreement to support the candidacy of Peter Obi ahead of the 2023 presidential election, and they has resolved to vote for the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate. He noted that one of the reasons why the Middle Belt chose to support Peter Obi’s candidacy ahead of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu was because of the issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket and also considering the fact that Nigeria is a multi-puller country.
**A yet to be ascertained number of people have been reportedly killed in the troubled Ebor, Eha-Amufu community in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area of Enugu State on Sunday by armed herdsmen. Security sources told our correspondent that the invaders who outnumbered the soldiers and local vigilantes, launched the attack on early Sunday morning, adding that several people were killed.
**The 91-year-old Retired Anglican Bishop of Akure Diocese, in Ondo state, Rev Emmanuel Bolanle Gbonigi, weekend, adduced reasons why the next president must come from the South East. Rev Gbonigi, said in a statement in Akure, the Ondo state capital, that he was adding his voice to “those who are convinced that our next president should come from the southeast political zone of our country. “My reason for this is more than political and human philosophy. It is because of divine will. “The God who created heaven and earth has several tributes. The most important attributes are divinity, holiness, righteousness, justice, love, mercy, peace, and prosperity.
**Francis Arinze, a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church and former Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2002 to 2008, posted on his Twitter page yesterday, and the post reads, “Dear Nigerian youths, Avoid getting distracted by Gov. Soludo’s support of Atiku Abubakar. Without the aid of any Governor, you are capable of achieving your goal. Take control of your battle, and the victory will be yours. I urge you to concentrate. We offer up prayers for you. Recall that Atiku was reportedly in Anambra for a rally for his 2023 presidential campaign about two days ago. Ifeanyi Okowa, the PDP vice presidential candidate, Aminu Tambuwal, the PDP director general, and Iyorchia Ayu, the PDP national chairman, are said to have attended the rally and were all welcomed by the state governor, Soludo.
**Maduka, who is also the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Group, an integrated oil and gas conglomerate, said aside making Imo an economic hub of the eastern region, the state would become a destination choice and Silicon Valley of Nigeria within two years of his administration. “I will turn Okigwe, Orlu and Owerri into industrial zones for massive production of goods and services for the benefit of the people, and for export.” Maduka, who maintained that the major cause of insecurity and youthss restiveness is poverty, said he would create jobs for the youths to keep them busy. “These youths finish school and roam the streets without jobs for years. Some of them are even married with kids. They engage in criminalities because they are not busy. Once government performs its responsibility of providing jobs for the youths, criminality will be reduced to the barest minimum. My government would reduce the incident of unemployment in the society by building more industries.” Maduka, however, promised to provide an enabling environment for the expatriates his government would partner with, for the development of the Imo State.
**A comparison has been made between the manifestos released by the three major presidential contestants, Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. In the analysis released by data company, Stears, “Neither Atiku’s nor Tinubu’s manifesto inspires confidence that either candidate can steer Nigeria in the right direction.” Let’s start with electricity, every Nigerian’s pain point. The report added, “The LP power sector plans are structured according to the sections of the electricity value chain: generation, transmission, distribution, and a bonus section for financing. Unlike the PDP and APC, the Labour party’s power manifesto plans ended with financing sources, from long-term multilateral debt to private sector support.” “Regarding monetary policy, PO acknowledges that the root causes of Nigeria’s inflation and foreign exchange dilemmas are more supply-side driven and require a mix of fiscal and monetary policy interventions. The Labour Party admits fiscal policy’s contributions to taming inflation and aims to pursue a unified exchange rate system. These plans, if implemented, are necessary to stem the tide of rising poverty in Nigeria.” “Moving forward to agriculture, LP’s plans fully grasp the problems embattling the agriculture sector compared to the APC and PDP. They are also relevant and implementable with good chances of success.” “In terms of security, the Labour Party appreciates the steps needed to arrest the insecurity in the country, but additional detail in terms of cost and timelines are necessary to drive success. The APC and PDP took the lead here. “Fiscal policy is another area where the LP’s manifesto falls short. Although LP’s attempt to maintain a balanced budget is admirable, implementation, at least in the next four years, is unlikely.” Overall, Peter Obi’s promises for each sector inspired slightly more confidence that things could be generally positive.
**In an interview with Arise News during the Morning Show program, Dr. Omoshola Deji, Researcher and political scientist, asked how many of Peter Obi, Labour Party presidential candidate, supporters can say no if money is offered to them during an election. Dr. Omoshola Deji made the statement when he was asked whether he is also of the view that money plays a major, vital role in winning election in Nigeria when in the coming 2023 presidential election. Dr. Deji first said that, personally to him, among the three or four leading candidates, Peter Obi, is the best, however, he said the chances of Peter Obi winning the 2023 election is slim. He said his statement stemmed from his ideas of himself as a scientist and a researcher. “The role money plays…some of these youths…Peter Obi sincerely is so far the best candidate, out of the major three or major four, but some of these youths that are shouting Peter Obi, a week to the election, these guys have 10s or 100s of Corolla, they will just share it to people and 2 days to election, they begin to change their mind and say it’s APC or it’s PDP. That’s the reality. How many of these youths that are clamouring for Peter Obi can really stand the test of money. I don’t think that many of them can.
**The governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Rivers State, Beatrice Itubo has shared her views concerning the forthcoming general elections. In an exclusive interview with Journalists, She noted that the Labour Party in Rivers State is ready for the general election. She said; “I don’t know what they mean by structure. Here in Rivers State, we gave it a trial, we said we wanted two million-man march; at the end of it, people that came out were more than 10 million. So, I don’t know what they mean by structure; If the structure as building, we have a secretariat; so, we have structure”. Mrs Beatrice Itubo is one of the leading governorship candidates in Rivers State ahead of the 2023 general elections.
**A Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has opined that government must invest in education rather than executing what he called “white elephant projects” for it to address lingering insecurity in Nigeria. The Islamic cleric also opined that insecurity in Nigeria is a “tricycle of poverty, ignorance, and injustice”. Sheikh Gumi explained that the government must rethink the need to make resources available to those at the grassroots and invest in their education to arrest insecurity in the country. According to the Islamic cleric, if citizens are not educated, insecurity would persist, believing that it is fuelled by ignorance and unemployment which are implications of lack of access to education.
**Against the background of Atiku Abubarkar’s promise to facilitate Igbo presidency if he comes Nigeria’s President in 2023, spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential council in the southeast, Dr Josef Onoh, who has accused the PDP candidate of having never loved the south-east except taking a wife from the zone. He also challenged. Against the background of Atiku Abubarkar’s promise to facilitate Igbo presidency if he comes Nigeria’s President in 2023, spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential council in the southeast, Dr Josef Onoh, who has accused the PDP candidate of having never loved the south-east except taking a wife from the zone. He also challenged Atiku to name what he did for the zone as Vice president for the people to believe him, adding that Atiku also lacked knowledge of what restructuring was all about and how it can be achieved. Onoh said that Atiku failed to observe that the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) has provisions for the necessary steps that must be taken and adhered to in amending any of its provisions. He noted that similar provisions were made in the previous constitutions of Nigeria, stating that the procedures for altering the constitution were complex and cumbersome which the framers of the constitution deliberately made so as to discourage frivolities and unwarranted tinkering with the constitution so as to preserve the unity of Nigeria. Onoh also took a swipe at Atiku on his inability to strategically explain how the insecurity challenge in the southeast can be contained for any other form of development to come the way of the Southeast. In his response to Atiku’s Greek gift, Onoh said: “Atiku came to the southeast with intent to deceive because he cannot be talking about giving the Southeast restructuring as if it is exclusive to the Southeast or as if that is all we need. See him promising restructuring without knowing the full import of what the concept and content of restructuring entails. This reminds one of the episodes under the Gowon administration when some students took to the streets in the demonstration, shouting, ‘Ali Must Go!’ Non-students joined them innocently, echoing ‘Ali Must Go!’ without knowing what the students were protesting against. “He could not even tell us how the Southeast can be integrated into the federal government’s economic policies and other development needs. He could not tell us how he will revamp the industrialization of the Southeast and create other federal government presence in the zone, but all he could say is restructuring as if the Southeast will be the only beneficiary of restructuring. “For Atiku’s information, what the Southeast needs are federal government presence and full-scale business initiatives as businessmen we are. President Muhammadu Buhari has done the second Niger Bridge and other things, but the Southeast needs revitalization of the coal industry and other mega projects that will bring the zone to the forefront of the African economy. With his restructuring promise, he intends to play into the psyche of the gullible self-seeking politicians who have been shouting about restructuring without in-depth knowledge and the complex nature of restructuring. “Atiku goofed as a Muslim by using the name of God in vain in his insincere promise. As vice president for eight years, how did he promote restructuring since he knows about restructuring; what did he do as vice president that encouraged businesses in the south east? “We have to judge people by their past records because Atiku scored zero in the Southeast as vice president. His only achievement in the southeast was marriage to our daughter whom he eventually divorced. As vice president he failed to deal with the issues affecting the Southeast such as an intolerable imbalance in the federal structure, as was and currently constituted; imbalance in appointments and imbalance in the distribution of resources. “Atiku has failed to tell us how he will tackle the challenge of insecurity in the Southeast. Asiwaju told us that he will negotiate with all the agitating groups to bring lasting peace but Atiku has not said anything about how to tackle insecurity challenges which is one of the major challenges in the Southeast. What Atiku rather came to sell was a dummy by promising us in the name of God that he doesn’t believe in. We are tired of Atiku’s Greek gifts. Let him keep his Trojan horse while we keep our Troy. Bola Ahmed Tinubu has demonstrated inclusiveness by making the Southeast his early campaign grounds and the first presidential candidate to campaign in the zone.” Onoh however expressed gratitude to the wife of the PDP presidential candidate who urged the people of the southeast to go and get their permanent voters cards and vote for the APC, noting that even if Mrs Abubakar made a slip of tongue, God used her to speak, noting that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
**Mr. Gowon announced Wednesday that a DNA test had proven Musa Jack Ngodadi is his biological son. Musa Gowon, who had been in jail in the U.S. for 22 years, was pardoned by President Barrack Obama in 2015, cutting short the 40-year prison term he was to serve for alleged drug-related crime of which he was found guilty on November 18, 1992. Musa, a striking lookalike of the former head of state, returned to Nigeria on January 1, 2016, after the U.S. Immigration officials deported him. He was the product of a romance in the 1960s between General Gowon, then a military head of state, and one Igbo damsel, Edith Ike-Okongu, who was said to have ended her love affairs with the ex-military ruler over the Nigerian Civil War and how it was being prosecuted under Gowon’s watch. Edith was said to have protested the manner Nigerian troops had maimed and killed her fellow Igbos, under a government of a man she was in love with. Conflicting reports say she left Nigeria with a pregnancy or with the child their romance had produced to settle in the U.S., while the then young bachelor, Gowon, got married to his present wife, Victoria. Edith is said to have later returned to Nigeria after decades in the U.S., leaving behind Musa Gowon who allegedly got involved with some Colombian drug dealers resulting in his arrest and jailing in 1992. Though he strongly denied being guilty of the crime as he insisted that he was framed up, Musa was sent to a correctional facility to serve a 40-year jail term. The Igbo Mandate Congress, IMC, which made the return of Gowon Junior a big socio-political event, said Musa suffered the abandonment that later led him to imprisonment for 22 years because his mother stood as a patriot of the Igbo nation by severing her relationship with Mr. Gowon in protest of the killing of her kin during the Civil War.“Musa Gowon was borne out of a courtship gone awry between former Head of State Yakubu Gowon, then a Lieutenant Colonel and an Igbo Girl by name Edith Ike-Okongwu while he was still a bachelor,” said IMC, Director-General, Rev Obinna Akukwe. “This relationship between Gowon and Edith Ike ended in the heat of the civil war. It is widely believed that the relationship broke off after Federal Troops bombed Aba General Hospital with NAF Napalm Bomb on July 14, 1968 killing more than 500 patients. “Edith was said to have expressed disapproval with Gowon over the deliberate bombing of Biafran civilian soft targets and the romance was brought to an end. Prior to that, Edith Ike’s parents, though from Aro-Ndikelionwu in Orumba North Local Govt of Anambra State but lived in the north for over thirty years, relocated back to the East after the first wave of pogrom of 1966.” Edith herself relocated to then West Germany on 30th June, 1967 after Gowon overruled her plans to relocate to either the US or UK. “The relationship was said to have produced a handsome young man with full name Jack Musa Ngonadi Gowon in 1968. Due to Edith’s constant unease at the indiscriminate murder of civilians, the relationship got frosty and ended towards the end of 1968. In 1969 Gowon married Miss Victoria Zakari, a nurse by profession. Gowon reportedly denied paternity of Musa.”
**At the event which was also being flagged off simultaneously across the country, Utomi stated that “it’s time to invite everyone to look at where our country is, to look at how much it needs cleaning. That cleaning begins from the physical, we need to clean up our environment because climate change is real, we need to clean up our consciences, because to serve the people is a central demand of our citizenship, we need to clean up our ways so that our country can prosper.” Charles Odibo, Director of Media and Communications for Big Tent, quotes Professor Utomi as encouraging Nigerians to ensure that the activity is sustained every other weekend until February 2023 to clean up the environment and that in cleaning our environment, “we set our minds to clean up corruption, to clean up nepotism, to clean up state capture, to clean up the desire to dominate others because truly it is fascism and it is creeping into our politics.” Professor Pat Utomi had also observed that Africa is host to significant forest belts that play critical roles in absorbing carbon emissions and thereby putting our country in better steads as part of the planet. He reckoned that if “our young people commit to this saving of the planet, it can be an outlet for a variety of things, an outlet for truly saving the advance of the dessert into our country which has direct bearing on poverty. Our concern is to stop the desert, to build a green army from which we can receive enormous credit for our country.” He announced that discussions are ongoing with authorities to begin to build a belt to stop the sahara, re-foresting the forest belt in the south so that “we can actually get billions of dollars in credit that will be used to put literally all of our unemployed people to work as a new production economy is put in place.” Professor Utomi therefore expects that young people will learn what late President Kennedy said to the youth of America, “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,” but in this case for themselves in the long-term. Said he, “with the youth of Nigeria going around, cleaning up our rural areas as we are cleaning the urban areas we will be able to generate an economic machine that will move our economy forward, but more importantly we will be able to get young people to bond, to engage the problems of now, and learn how to change their country, take their country over, cleaning up the environment, they will clean up consciousness and give us a new country that we can all be proud of.” The Vision of “Clean-Up Nigeria,” according to Dr. Chidi Okpaluba, a Director of the BIG TENT and Co-ordinator of the Clean-Up project, is to “mop up and properly channel the energies of our growing Obi-dient youth population to the project, through various socially impactful speak up and clean-up activities to promote sustainably organized youth led support rallies for Peter Obi’s emergence as President.” He explained that the primary aims and objectives of Clean Up Nigeria are to create a rallying point and subject for the productive engagement of youths; create a positive neuro-association between doing good and the Obidatti campaign; serve as channel to support youth Speak-Up (Soro-Soke); and to advance and propagate developed common narratives on topical issues of national discourse as espoused by “Think Tank,” an arm of the Big Tent. The other objectives of Clean-Up Nigeria, according to Okpaluba, include the need to show that the Obi presidency will be all about doing good and solving societal problems; clean up our cities and de-clog the drainages in support of the world climate months and beyond; and rid our environments of plastics waste. Beyond the physical cleanup and environmental activities, the overarching goal of the Clean-Up project is all about promoting speaking up, seeking and providing solutions to the problems and challenges bedeviling our country; rallying youths towards productive engagements; support for, and active promotion of transparency and good governance; promotion and support for issues based campaign, not religion, tribe or primordial sentiments; and the realization that everyone can do something to make Nigeria better.
**A two-year-old boy who was partially swallowed alive by a hippopotamus is recovering after a man stoned the animal to set the boy free, police in Africa said. According to the Uganda Police Force, the attack took place Dec. 4 in Western Uganda about half a mile from Lake Edward in the Kasese District. The boy, identified by police as Paul Iga, was playing near his home when he was grabbed by the amphibious animal, which then swallowed half the child’s body, police said in a news release. Police said a bystander watched the attack take place and threw stones at the hippo in an attempt to stop the attack. “It took the bravery of one Chrispas Bagonza, who was nearby, to save the victim after he stoned the hippo and scared it, causing it to release the victim from its mouth,” police said. The boy was taken to hospital for treatment, police said, where he was vaccinated for rabies as a precaution, and released back to his parents. Police said this was the first incident where a hippo strayed out of the Lake Edward and attacked a young child.
**The Jan. 6 select committee is preparing to unveil its most comprehensive case yet that Donald Trump attempted to subvert the transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden — first by pressuring allies at every level of government and then with the aid of a violent mob. The panel plans to release the first components of its final report on Monday following an 18-month probe that featured explosive depositions from members of Trump’s West Wing, battles that reached the Supreme Court and access to some of the most sensitive papers held by Trump’s White House. The panel has long contended Trump broke the law in service of his bid to seize a second term despite losing the 2020 election. But the new report is expected to add vivid new details of that effort, particularly about the cast of enablers that facilitated Trump’s gambit — from Republican members of Congress to a team of lawyers pushing fringe theories to shadowy operatives awash in conspiracy theories. The panel also plans to formally adopt a conclusion that Trump violated the criminal insurrection statute by providing “aid and comfort” to the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I think that the evidence is there that Donald Trump committed criminal offenses in connection with his efforts to overturn the election. And viewing it as a former prosecutor, I think there’s sufficient evidence to charge the president,” panel member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” though he declined to comment on specific charges. The panel is expected to urge the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against the former president: insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States government. The referrals to the department are included in a sub-panel report that the full committee is expected to approve on Monday. A video of former President Donald Trump from his January 6th Rose Garden statement is played in a hearing. Jan. 6 panel to vote on urging DOJ to prosecute Trump on at least 3 criminal charges. The referral recommendation for insurrection mentions U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in February saying that Trump’s language plausibly incited violence on Jan. 6, as well as the Senate’s 57 votes in last year’s impeachment trial to convict Trump on “incitement of insurrection. Charging decisions rest entirely with Justice Department prosecutors, not Congress, but panel members have increasingly stressed the impact their transmission to the department could have on public opinion and see it as part of building a historical record around the attack. Special counsel Jack Smith is currently conducting a wide-ranging investigation of Trump’s scheme to cling to power, and the select panel has also moved in parallel with the Justice Department’s effort to prosecute hundreds of Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol. More significant than the referrals to the department and other outside entities could be the enormous cache of evidence the panel is readying for release this week. It includes transcripts of more than 1,000 witness interviews and documents that could help prosecutors determine which witnesses might have committed crimes. The select committee’s final meeting comes on the two-year anniversary of Trump’s Dec. 19, 2020, tweet in which he urged allies to descend on Washington for a “wild” protest against the election results. Congressional and Justice Department investigators view that tweet as a crucial turning point — emboldening extremists who were seeking to aid Trump’s effort and sparking an intense focus on a day that is typically a ceremonial aspect of the transfer of power.
**You’ve driven home from work along the same route for the past five years. But lately, you’ve been stopping at the same intersection, struggling to remember if you need to turn left or right. Many occasions in everyday life can make us question whether lapses in memory are normal, a sign of cognitive decline, or even the beginning of dementia. Our first instinct might be that it’s due to deterioration in our brains. And it’s true that like the rest of our body, our brain cells shrink when we get older. They also maintain fewer connections with other neurons and store less of the chemicals needed for sending messages to other neurons. But not all memory lapses are due to age-related changes to our neurons. In many cases, the influencing factors are more trivial, including being tired, anxious, or distracted. Some forgetfulness is normal. Our memory system is constructed in a way that some degree of forgetting is normal. This is not a flaw, but a feature. Maintaining memories is not only a drain on our metabolism, but too much unnecessary information can slow down or hamper retrieving specific memories. Unfortunately, it’s not always up to us to decide what’s important and should be remembered. Our brain does that for us. In general, our brain prefers social information (the latest gossip), but easily discards abstract information (such as numbers). Memory loss becomes a problem when it starts to affect your typical day-to-day living. It’s not a huge issue if you can’t remember to turn right or left. However, forgetting why you are behind the wheel, where you are meant to be going or even how to drive are not normal. These are signs something may not be right and should be investigated further. Then there’s mild cognitive impairment. The road between aging-associated memory loss and the more concerning memory loss is coined as mild cognitive impairment. The degree of impairment can remain stable, improve, or worsen. However, it indicates an increased risk (around three to five times) of future neurodegenerative disease such as dementia. Every year, around 10-15 percent of people with mild cognitive impairment will develop dementia. For people with mild cognitive impairment, the ability to undertake usual activities becomes gradually and more significantly impacted over time. Besides memory loss, it can be accompanied by other problems with language, thinking and decision-making skills. A mild cognitive impairment diagnosis can be a double-edged sword. It affirms older people’s concerns their memory loss is abnormal. It also raises concerns it will develop into dementia. But it can also lead to the exploration of potential treatment and planning for the future. Losing your way can be an early marker. Impairment in navigation is thought to be an early marker for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia. Magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI) studies have shown the areas that crucially underpin memories for our spatial environment are the first to be affected by this degenerative disease. So, a noticeable increase in occasions of getting lost could be a warning sign of more pronounced and widespread difficulties in the future. Given the predictive link between declines in the ability to find your way and dementia, there is an incentive to develop and use standardized tests to detect deficits as early as possible. Currently, the scientific literature describes varying approaches, ranging from pen-and-paper tests and virtual reality, to real-life navigation, but there is no gold standard yet. A specific challenge is to develop a test that is accurate, cost-effective and easy to administer during a busy clinic day. We have developed a five-minute test that used scene memory as a proxy for way-finding ability. We ask participants to remember pictures of houses and subsequently test their ability to differentiate between the pictures they have learned and a set of new images of houses. We found the test works well in predicting natural variations in way-finding ability in healthy young people, but are currently still evaluating the effectiveness of the test in older people. Get help when your memory lapses are consistent. While everyday memory lapses are not something we should unduly worry about, it is prudent to seek professional health care advice, such as from your GP, when those impairments become more marked and consistent. While there is currently still no cure for Alzheimer’s, early detection will allow you to plan for the future and for more targeted management of the disorder.
**Argentina’s Lionel Messi has won the Golden Ball Award, also known as the Best Player of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Superstar Messi became the first to be the tournament’s best player twice in 2014 and 2022. The 35-year-old Paris Saint Germain, PSG, forward, scored seven goals in the Qatar World Cup with several assists. Messi has been decorated in top-tier competitions and leagues, including UEFA Champions League, Copa America, La Liga and Ligue 1. The seven-times Ballon d’Or winner helped his country to break the 36-years world cup drought. Messi has further surpassed the Portuguese international Cristiano Ronaldo’s record by adding the FIFA World Cup to his medals.
**Lionel Messi was made to wear a robe during the award ceremony. This was after winning 3:1 on penalties to see Argentina win the world cup. Being the captain of the team he was made to come last as he would be given the trophy to take to the teammates. He was however made to wear a black robe that is unusual in most sport’s event’s. However this had a connection with the Arab culture as explained. The cloak is called a Bisht and is a traditional men’s cloak dating back to many year’s. It is worn on special occasion’s such as weddings or religious holidays celebrated by the Muslim’s.
May the divine mercy through the Grace of God bring us Favour today
