Mercyvill

Lost in translation. There’s a real fight brewing between the State Department and the outspoken Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko over the watchdog’s staffing levels at its office in Kabul. And the two sides have very different versions of a recent meeting, the Situation Report has learned. During testimony Wednesday before a House of Representatives oversight committee , Sopko -- according to his prepared remarks first reported here -- complained that “within the past week,” he was told by State officials that he must reduce his Kabul staff from 42 to 25 positions by summer 2016. SIGAR was told that the cut “is non-negotiable,” Sopko said. “This arbitrary number was developed without SIGAR’s input, and embassy officials did not provide any explanation for how they determined these cuts.”

Islamic State terror chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is badly wounded with spinal injuries and being treated at a secret hideout by two loyal doctors, it was claimed yesterday Hurt: ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ISIS terrorists may launch a brutal terror attack on the West in revenge for badly wounding its leader with an airstrike. Islamic State terror chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is badly wounded with spinal injuries and being treated at a secret hideout by two loyal doctors, it was claimed yesterday. And there are fears that to avenge their leader’s wounds his fighters are planning a spectacular terror attack somewhere in Europe, possibly in the United Kingdom. The Iraqi leader of the network was hit by a US airstrike in north west Iraq two months ago and survived while three armed henchmen were killed in the blast.

Ikpeazu Abia state governor-elect, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed the resolve of his All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) opponent in the gubernatorial contest, Dr Alex Otti to challenge his victory at the election tribunal, describing it as a threat of a bad loser. He said that he would await Otti and others that would go to the tribunal to challenge his victory, which he claims was ordained by God. He however added that he anticipated such challenges hence he is fully prepared to defend it. “I expected it but they will lose again.”

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega Following the successful conduct of elections into the 24 seats of the State House of Assembly, 22 of the newly elected representatives have been issued their Certificates of Return by the state INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Prof Selina Oko. The winners for Umuahia South and Isiala Ngwa South Constituencies were not issued their Certificates even when it was stated that PDP won the Isiala Ngwa South and APGA won that of Umuahia South constituencies.

LOS ANGELES, CA – APRIL 30: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, with a graphic unveils suite of batteries for homes, businesses, and utilities at the Tesla Design Studio April 30, 2015 in Hawthorne, California. Musk unveiled the home battery named Powerwall with a selling price of $3500 for 10kWh and $3000 for 7kWh and very large utility pack called Powerpack. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) Tesla Energy ’s new foray into providing energy storage products to service not just homes but also utilities is bringing much-needed attention to the accompanying technologies. That, in turn, may attract new capital and help bring about economies of scale that would further reduce those prices.

Electric car pioneer Telsa Motors unveiled a ‘home battery’ Thursday which its founder Elon Musk said would help change the ‘entire energy infrastructure of the world.’ (Photo by DAVID MCNEW/AFP/Getty Images) It would be almost three hours until Tesla’s big announcement, but inside a Northwestern University classroom near Chicago Thursday night, the famed nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen had the inside scoop: Tesla Motors TSLA -0.04% CEO Elon Musk was about to announce an industrial-scale battery, Gundersen said, that would cost about 2¢ per kilowatt hour to use, putting the final nail in the coffin of nuclear power. Thus Tesla’s big news broke first not amongst the throng of reporters gathered under swirling colored lights at the carmaker’s Hawthorne, Calif. headquarters, but in the middle of a debate on the future of nuclear power sponsored by students agitating for a “ Fossil Free NU .” It was Gundersen vs. Jordi Roglans-Ribas,...

Jonathan and Muazu during a political rally By May 29, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that has ruled Nigeria in the last 16 years will become opposition party. This is fallout of the party’s dismal performance in the just concluded general elections which it lost the presidential seat for the first time to the major opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Since the elections were concluded, and it dawned on all PDP members, including President Goodluck Jonathan that PDP will now be in opposition, there has been blame-game going on among the party’s major stakeholders.

The Galaxy S6 may be a bad Galaxy S5 successor , but it is a brilliant phone in its own right. For my money it is Samsung playing Apple at its own game and coming out on top . Yet not all is well and, following a barrage of complaints from users, Samsung has now admitted the Galaxy S6 has a serious memory problem… Perhaps unsurprisingly Samsung chose to make the admission in as low profile a manner as possible. The company took to its Samsung UK Facebook page to confirm that both the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge have memory mismanagement problems which cause them to slow and apps to forcefully close. The root of the problem: how RAM is consumed and freed up. Galaxy S6 (left) and Galaxy S6 Edge (right) – image credit Samsung What should happen is RAM used by apps and services is released when those apps and services are not in use. Instead it is not being released which means each new app or service has to eat into addit...

The LG G4 is a big deal. After producing brilliant under the radar smartphones in recent years like the G2, G3 and Nexus 5 (still the best Nexus phone ) the G4 could be the model to capture public imagination. Why? Because it might just be a better Galaxy S5 successor than the troubled Galaxy S6 … Let me tell you why: Four Reasons For 1. Design – Premium Build Quality Without Compromise Samsung wisely upgraded the build quality of the Galaxy S6, but it did so by compromising features Galaxy S5 users love: the removable battery and expandable storage. By contrast LG also upped the G4’s build quality but kept both options. (left to right) Galaxy S6, Galaxy S5, LG G4 How LG did this was simple: it made the removable back more premium. Leather is currently the top of the line finish (and provides better grip than the glass back of the Galaxy S6), but I’m sure many more options will follow.