The Executive Director of Junior Achievement Nigeria, Ugonna Achebe, has called for increased collaboration among schools, parents, and the government to cultivate a new generation of solution-oriented entrepreneurs. Achebe emphasized that schools must go beyond traditional teaching methods by integrating entrepreneurship programmes, encouraging hands-on learning, and fostering problem-solving and teamwork. “Embedding innovation into the academic structure helps students see education as a tool to build real businesses and solve community problems,” he said. He also noted that parents play a critical role in nurturing entrepreneurial thinking by promoting curiosity, creativity, and calculated risk-taking at home. “Supporting their children’s ideas, no matter how small, and validating their dreams can make all the difference,” Achebe added. On the role of government, he urged policymakers to invest in scalable youth entrepreneurship programmes, provide access to digital infrastructure, and establish policy frameworks that empower young entrepreneurs to experiment, fail, and grow. “Public-private partnerships can amplify the impact of these efforts across the continent,” he remarked. Achebe further highlighted the importance of consistent mentorship, access to resources, and opportunities for young people to take on leadership roles. He explained that JAN’s Company Programme challenges students to tackle real-world problems and equips them with the skills to build measurable and impactful businesses. “Support also means creating safe spaces for failure, where students can learn from setbacks without judgment. Providing access to startup capital, innovation hubs, and alumni networks can help gifted students transition from school-based companies to scalable ventures,” he noted. Achebe stressed the importance of sustaining innovation beyond graduation, stating, “With the right support system, today’s student CEOs can become tomorrow’s African business leaders.” He also announced that Junior Achievement Nigeria is set to host the 2025 Africa Company of the Year competition, in December 2025 in Abuja. “The competition will gather top student entrepreneurs from across the continent to showcase their innovations and compete for the prestigious title of Africa Company of the Year. “It aligns with JAN’s commitment to fostering entrepreneurship by offering young innovators a global platform to develop and present their business solutions,” he said. Speaking on the upcoming event, Achebe said the competition—hosted annually by JA Africa—provides students with opportunities to build real businesses, pitch their ideas, and gain international exposure. With Nigeria as the 2025 host, participants will present their ventures to industry leaders, investors, and seasoned entrepreneurs. Achebe noted that beyond the competition, ACOY also offers mentorship, networking, and hands-on experience to help students navigate the global business landscape. Reflecting on previous successes, Achebe praised Nigerian students’ consistent excellence at ACOY. “In 2024, Smart Sprout from Darun Noor Intercontinental School, Kano, showcased their Smart Sprinkler for sustainable farming. In 2023, Sustainable Future Advocate Company from Kosofe Senior College, Lagos, won the Public Choice Award and Delta Air Lines Social Impact Award in Kigali. “In 2018, Inventive Explorers from Caro Favoured College, Lagos, claimed victory in Ghana with their rechargeable handheld LED traffic lights. These achievements reflect JAN’s commitment to equipping young Nigerians with the skills to compete on global platforms,” he said. Achebe described hosting ACOY 2025 in Abuja as a significant milestone for both Nigeria and JAN, reinforcing the country’s status as a hub for youth-driven innovation. “The competition will spotlight young entrepreneurs, attract investment, and foster conversations around entrepreneurship, job creation, and sustainable development. Participants will pitch their businesses to panels of investors and industry experts, receiving valuable feedback. ACOY 2025 promises to leave a lasting impact on the future of African entrepreneurship,” he said. He added that The event will also include mentorship sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities, culminating in prestigious awards that celebrate innovation, sustainability, and leadership. Achebe called on corporate bodies, government institutions, and other relevant agencies to partner with JAN in shaping the future of African entrepreneurship. “As ACOY 2025 approaches, Junior Achievement Nigeria invites corporate partners, government bodies, business leaders, philanthropists, and individuals to contribute—by sponsoring aspects of the competition, volunteering as mentors or judges, and supporting young entrepreneurs through funding or internships,” he added. “Junior Achievement Nigeria is a member of JA Worldwide, one of the world’s largest and most impactful youth-serving NGOs. Since 1999, JAN has equipped young Nigerians with the skills, mindset, and confidence to thrive in the global economy. Through hands-on programmes in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, digital literacy, and work readiness, JAN empowers young people to become job creators and outstanding professionals.”

If the past decade of English football has one unifying theme it is tactical renewal. Since the mid-2010s - and since Antonio Conte, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp - the Premier League has attracted Europe's best coaches, putting a once sleepy and unsophisticated division at the vanguard of tactical innovation. But we are in a moment of flux. New ideas still flood into the league but nothing, yet, has emerged as the next great theory. As Guardiola treads water at Manchester City we are waiting to find out where the sport goes next. Here are some ideas - some quirkier than others - for the future of football. Let's start with one of the weirder ones… but also one that feeds most directly into where the game seems to be heading. A couple of years ago the way Roberto de Zerbi stretched the pitch from goal-kicks was all the rage. He kept five players next to his goalkeeper and stuck five players on the halfway line, emptying central midfield and splitting a confused opposition in two. Brighton would then kick it long, bypassing half the team. This kind of thing might come back again, and certainly long balls are boomeranging back into fashion as the natural antidote to high pressing, short goal-kicks and high defensive lines. A decade of sucking everyone into tight spaces was bound to trigger a counter-reaction of stretching things back out. So, here's a thought for all those high-risk De Zerbi types. When defending a corner, instead of packing the box with bodies, why not begin a game of chicken and leave four or five on the halfway line? This would create exciting five-on-two long-ball counter-attacking scenarios, or, more likely, force the attacking team to leave five or six players back. Just like that you've decluttered the penalty area and, at the elite level, clearing a path for the goalkeeper and creating simpler one-on-one marking could reduce the chances of conceding. Corners are in vogue at the moment and the set-piece coach is the new must-have accessory. But maybe we're looking too closely at 'love trains' and marking systems in a messy penalty box. It's within a team's power to free up space and lean into ultra-stretched football. Just don't be chicken. There isn't enough deception in football tactics. There are the 'dark arts' of defending, the dummy and the no-look pass. But where are the Trojan horses, the tactical decoys? Players are getting more versatile all the time and (most) managers are too, regularly changing formation between matches and within them. In fact, a lot of managers these days would reject the idea of the formation. But there are still basic differences between, say, the 4-3-3 and the 3-4-2-1, and although a lot of coaches are comfortable switching it up based on the game state - moving to a back three to see out the final few minutes of a 1-0 lead, for example - nobody changes formation early in a game. And nobody is doing it to fool the other manager. Imagine two teams lining up in similar 4-3-3s, with touchline-hugging wingers and two number eights in front of a defensive midfielder. For the first 10 minutes they feel each other out, getting used to their opponents' patterns. Then all of a sudden one team swaps to a 3-4-2-1. The wingers disappear, the three-player triangle in midfield becomes a box-shape four, and the other side has to scramble to keep up. Five minutes later, they change back again. Or switch to a third system entirely. It would be chaotic, but the team who planned the switches in training would have a huge advantage in those frantic few minutes of adaptation. And it could have a huge impact on the game because, at the risk of getting highfalutin, it would require a new way of thinking about time. Currently football people only think about time in quite a limited way: how long we have to hold on to the lead, when the first substitution should be made, when to throw the kitchen sink. Time is an attritional dance with the other team, something we react to, the variable that slips through our fingers. Decoy formations would require breaking up the game into chunks of time and planning each segment. Once we start thinking this way, the 90 minutes could feel longer and richer - something to seize and control. There are about 30 throw-ins per match yet nobody has thought to seek innovation around the most common set-piece in the game - and one with an (inexplicable) detail ready to exploit: no offsides. Except, of course, one man did innovate some 17 years ago. It's just that nobody has thought to copy him. A Rory Delap throw arrowing through the sky is one of the Premier League's most iconic images. His throw-ins led to 25 Stoke City goals in his first four seasons at the club, terrifying defences to the extent that on one infamous occasion Hull City goalkeeper Boaz Myhill chose not to clear for touch but boot the ball straight out for a corner. And yet the technique of Delap's throw-in retired with him. Presumably there is nothing unique about Delap's musculature that prevents it from being taught to others, so why has it never been repeated? Why hasn't Mikel Arteta - who says he takes comparisons with Tony Pulis' Stoke as "a compliment" - brought Delap on to his coaching staff? The most likely explanation is the "Rick Barry" phenomenon. Barry retired from the NBA in 1980 as the all-time leader in free-throw shooting percentage, having exclusively used under-arm "granny throws", yet nobody has copied his technique. It is seen as childish, uncool, un... basketball. Shaquille O'Neal, when advised by Barry to "granny throw" in response to his poor 52% record, summed up the problem: "I'd shoot 0% before I'd shoot underhanded." Maybe a similar phenomenon means Delap's throws are seen as too ugly and too direct - too far outside the elegant philosophies of the elite managers - to be repeated. If so, they ought to loosen up. If someone breaks down that barrier it could lead to a flurry of copycats, permanently turning the throw-in into a corner-like chance and permanently changing how football is played. It would be an exaggeration to say centre-backs have gone unchanged over the past couple of decades. Chris Wilder's overlapping centre-backs at Sheffield United have led to a pared-back version become commonplace for managers who deploy a back three. England manager Thomas Tuchel, for example, may instruct his outside centre-backs to linger towards the corner of the penalty box. But by and large the position is untouched. And after years of full-backs being redeployed, culminating in Ange Postecoglou using his full-backs as number eights, maybe it's time we give the centre-back new responsibilities. There's nothing new about the marauding centre-back, you might say. Franco Baresi used to break lines some 40 years ago, while in England Rio Ferdinand became renowned for this feature of his game in the 2000s. But we could take this one further. Centre-backs, unmarked and untracked, could start to make off-the-ball runs through the lines, slipping unnoticed right up into the forward line and beyond like Destiny Udogie at Tottenham Hotspur. If a full-back shuttled across to cover then there's no reason why powerful centre-backs - better on the ball than ever - can't be freed to become the spare player; the disruptive force that sneaks through the system. OK, wait. Hear us out. Liverpool are 1-0 down against League One opposition in the EFL Cup. There are five minutes left on the clock and all 11 opponents are camped in their third. Goalkeeper Alisson is now in a quarterback role, sat on the halfway line spraying passes left and right. So, Arne Slot withdraws Alisson to bring on an extra forward and, with an ironic flourish, gives he-needs-to-get-serious-about-his-defending's Trent Alexander-Arnold the goalie gloves. Trent stayed behind in training the previous week for a few extra sessions to learn the basics of goalkeeping, even though he's unlikely to do any during his five minutes on the pitch. And if he is called upon then a) Alexander-Arnold in goal might encourage a wild shot from distance that's easier to gather, or b) would face a four-on-two break that goalkeepers rarely keep out anyway. It sounds mad at first, but the more you think about it... why not? Liverpool lose little while gaining a better quarterback distributor and an extra forward. Real tactical innovation requires maverick thinking. Yes, the role of a keeper has already evolved over the past decade, but let's see what Alexander-Arnold can do in goal.

Invoking God to bomb Iran, Trump is reviving a deadly tradition of religiously justified US violence. After ordering the United States military to bomb Iran last month, US President Donald Trump made a brief address at the White House to laud the “massive precision strike” that had allegedly put a “stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror”. The speech, which lasted less than four minutes, ended with the invocation of God’s name no fewer than five times in a span of seven seconds: “And I wanna just thank everybody and in particular, God. I wanna just say, ‘We love you God, and we love our great military – protect them.’ God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America.” Of course, the terminology deployed in the speech was problematic before we even got to the rapid-fire mention of the Almighty by a man who has never been particularly religious. For one thing, Iran simply lacks the credentials to qualify as the world’s “number one state sponsor of terror”; that position is already occupied by the US itself, which, unlike Iran, has spent the entirety of its contemporary history bombing and otherwise antagonising folks in every last corner of the Earth. The US has also continued to serve as the number one state sponsor of Israel, whose longstanding policy of terrorising Palestinians and other Arabs has now culminated in an all-out genocide in the Gaza Strip, as Israel seeks to annihilate the territory and its inhabitants along with it. But anyway, “God bless Israel.” This, to be sure, was not the first time that Trump relied on God to sign off on worldly events. Back in 2017, during the man’s first stint as president, the deity made various appearances in Trump’s official statement following a US military strike on Syria. God, it seems, just can’t get enough of war. God made a prominent return in January 2025, taking centre stage in Trump’s inauguration speech – yet another reminder that the separation of church and state remains one of the more transparently disingenuous pillars of American “democracy.” In his address, the president revealed the true reason he had survived the widely publicised assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in July 2024: “I was saved by God to make America great again.” Part of making America great again was supposed to be focusing on ourselves instead of, you know, getting wrapped up in other people’s wars abroad. But the beauty of having God on your side means you really don’t have to explain too much in the end; after all, it’s all divine will. Indeed, Trump’s increasing reliance on the Almighty can hardly be interpreted as a come-to-Jesus moment or a sudden embrace of the faith. Rather, God-talk comes in handy in the business of courting white evangelical Christians, many of whom already see Trump himself as a saviour in his own right based on his valiant worldwide war on abortion, among other campaigns to inflict earthly suffering on poor and vulnerable people. The evangelical obsession with Israel means Trump has earned big saviour points in that realm, as well. In 2019, for example, the president took to Twitter to thank Wayne Allyn Root – an American Jewish-turned-evangelical conservative radio host and established conspiracy theorist – for his “very nice words,” including that Trump was the “best President for Israel in the history of the world” and that Israeli Jews “love him like he’s the King of Israel”. And not only that: Israelis also “love him like he is the second coming of God”. Obviously, anyone with an ego as big as Trump’s has no problem playing God – especially when he already believes that his every proclamation should spontaneously be made reality, biblical creation story-style. Former Arkansas governor and zealous evangelical Mike Huckabee, who once declared that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” and who is now serving as Trump’s ambassador to Israel, has done his own part to encourage the president’s messiah complex, writing in a text message to Trump that “I believe you hear from heaven … You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU!” So it was only fitting that Trump should thank and profess love for God after bombing Iran in accordance with Israel’s wishes – not that US and Israeli interests don’t align when it comes to sowing regional havoc and ensuring the flow of capital into arms industry coffers. And yet, Trump is not the only US head of state to have enjoyed wartime communications with God. Recall the time in 2003 that then-President and “war on terror” chief George W Bush informed Palestinian ministers of his “mission from God”. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath would go on to quote snippets from Bush’s side of the conversation: “God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.’ And I did.” Now, Trump doesn’t like to take orders from anyone, even if they’re from on high. However, he’s made it clear that he’s not opposed to ingratiating himself with God in the interest of political expediency. Some evangelical adherents see the current upheaval in the Middle East as potentially expediting the so-called “end times” and the second coming of Jesus – which means the more war, the better. And the more that God can be portrayed as an ally in US and Israeli-inflicted devastation, the better for Trump’s delusions of deification. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

What is bird flu?

Can humans get bird flu?

individuals who work closely with infected birds or animals, such as farmers, poultry workers, and backyard flock owners

veterinarians and wildlife facility staff

public health responders handling infected animals

hunters and bird watchers with recreational exposure to wild birds.

Bird flu cases

How bird flu spreads

direct contact with sick birds

exposure to contaminated environments, like live bird markets

handling raw poultry without proper precautions.

Can you get bird flu from your cat?

Bird flu prevention

Is it safe to eat eggs?

Is it safe to eat poultry?