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Gunmen slaughter more than 30 in village attack, kidnap additional residents in northern Nigeria | Report on Militant Organizations
Witnesses say the attackers drove motorcycles and opened fire indiscriminately on the Kasuwan Daji market in Demo village.
Published On 4 Jan 2026
Gunmen have raided a village in northern Nigeria’s Niger state, killing at least 30 villagers and abducting others, in what marks the latest deadly attack in the conflict-hit region.
“Over 30 victims lost their lives during the attack; some persons were also kidnapped,” Wasiu Abiodun, Niger police spokesman, said in a statement on Sunday.
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Abiodun added that the gunmen stormed Kasuwan Daji market in Demo village at around 4:30pm [15:30 GMT] on Saturday, burning stalls and looting food items.
Such attacks are all too common in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where dozens of rogue gangs – locally known as “bandits” – often target remote communities with limited security and government presence.
The attackers arrived from the National Park Forest along Kabe district, according to the police, pointing to a usual trend where expansive forest reserves act as hideouts for armed gangs.
Witnesses said they drove motorcycles and opened fire indiscriminately. “Women and children were not spared,” Dauda Shakulle, who was wounded while fleeing, told Reuters. “There has been no presence of security forces since the attacks began. We are currently recovering corpses.”
Niger state’s Borgu local government area was also the site of another attack in November, when more than 300 schoolchildren and their teachers were kidnapped from a Catholic school. Those victims were released after nearly a month in captivity.
Niger state has been one of the hardest hit by violence in recent months. Security forces have struggled to contain the violence despite ongoing operations.
United States President Donald Trump threatened military action over what he described as targeted killings of Nigeria’s Christians, a narrative rejected by the Nigerian government, which says Muslims are the majority victims of attacks by armed groups.
The US, in cooperation with Nigeria, conducted air attacks against ISIL (ISIS) fighters in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day on December 25, following Trump’s pledge to take action on what he called a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform the day of the attack.
Trump’s assertions echo claims that have gained traction among right-wing and Christian evangelical circles in recent months.
Managers face a new challenge in the RTO wars: Timing is more important than location in the workplace
For the last three years, the corporate world has been locked in a territorial dispute. The “Return to Office” (RTO) wars were defined by geography: the home versus the headquarters. But as 2025 unfolded, the frontline shifted. According to commercial real-estate giant JLL’s Workforce Preference Barometer 2025, the most critical conflict between employers and employees is no longer about location—it is about time.
While structured hybrid policies have become the norm, with 66% of global office workers reporting clear expectations on which days to attend, a new disconnect has emerged. Employees have largely accepted the “where,” but they are aggressively demanding autonomy over the “when.”
The report highlights a fundamental change in employee priorities. Work–life balance has overtaken salary as the leading priority for office workers globally, cited by 65% of respondents—up from 59% in 2022. This statistic underscores a profound shift in needs: Employees are looking for “management of time over place.”
While high salaries remain the top reason people switch jobs, the ability to control one’s schedule is the primary reason they stay. The report notes employees are seeking “agency over when and how they work,” and this desire for temporal autonomy is reshaping the talent market.
Although JLL didn’t dive into the phenomenon of “coffee badging,” its findings align with the practice of hybrid workers stretching the boundaries of office attendance. The phrase—meaning when a worker badges in just long enough to have the proverbial cup of coffee before commuting somewhere else to keep working remotely—vividly illustrates how the goalposts have shifted from where to when. Gartner reported 60% of employers were tracking employees as of 2022, twice as many as before the pandemic.
The ‘flexibility gap’
JLL’s data reveals a significant “flexibility gap”: 57% of employees believe flexible working hours would improve their quality of life, yet only 49% currently have access to this benefit.
The gap is particularly dangerous for employers, JLL said, arguing it believes the “psychological contract” between workers and employers is at risk. While salary and flexibility remain fundamental to retention, JLL said its survey of 8,700 workers across 31 countries reveals a deeper psychological contract: “Workers today want to be visible, valued and prepared for the future. Around one in three say they could leave for better career development or reskilling opportunities, while the same proportion is reevaluating the role of work in their lives.” JLL argued “recognition … emotional wellbeing and a clear sense of purpose” are now crucial for long-term retention.
The report warns that where this contract is broken, employees stop engaging and start seeking compensation through “increased commuting stipend and flexible hours.” The urgency for time flexibility is being driven by a crisis of exhaustion. Nearly 40% of global office workers report feeling overwhelmed, and burnout has become a “serious threat to employers’ operations.”
The link between rigid schedules and attrition is clear: Among employees considering quitting in the next 12 months, 57% report suffering from burnout. For caregivers and the “squeezed middle” of the workforce, standard hybrid policies are insufficient; 42% of caregivers require short-notice paid leave to manage their lives, yet they often feel their constraints are “poorly understood and supported at work.”
To survive this new battle, the report suggests companies must abandon “one-size-fits-all” approaches. Successful organizations are moving toward “tailored flexibility,” which emphasizes autonomy over working hours rather than just counting days at a desk. This shift even impacts the physical office building. To support a workforce that operates on asynchronous schedules, offices must adapt with “extended access hours,” smart lighting, and space-booking systems that support flexible work patterns rather than a rigid 9-to-5 routine.
Management guru Suzy Welch, however, warns it may be an uphill battle for employers to find a burnout cure. The New York University professor, who spent seven years as a management consultant at Bain & Co. before joining Harvard Business Review in 2001, later serving as editor-in-chief, told the Masters of Scale podcast in September burnout is existential and generational. The 66-year-old Welch argued burnout is linked to hope, and current generations have reason to lack this.
“We believed that if if you worked hard you were rewarded for it. And so this is the disconnect,” she said.
Expanding on the theme, she added: “Gen Z thinks, ‘Yeah, I watched what happened to my parents’ career and I watched what happened to my older sister’s career and they worked very hard and they still got laid off.’” JLL’s worldwide survey suggests this message has resonated for workers globally: They shouldn’t give up too much of their time, because it just may not be rewarded.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Donald Trump declares US will take control of Venezuela and repair oil infrastructure
The US will “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” can be ensured, Donald Trump has said, after US strikes led to the capture of country’s President Nicolas Maduro.
US oil companies would also fix Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country”, the US president said.
The US launched strikes on Venezuela on Saturday morning in which Maduro and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores, were captured by US forces and removed from the country.
Venezuela announced a state of national emergency and denounced the “military aggression”, with the country’s vice president saying Maduro is its only leader.
Maduro and Flores were flown out of the capital, Caracas, on a US helicopter in the early hours of Saturday morning and taken aboard the USS Iwo Jima at an unknown location in the Caribbean Sea.
They were later flown to the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba before being transferred to another plane to head to New York state, and then flown by helicopter into New York City’s Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and Flores had been indicted in the Southern District of New York.
The pair have been charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi wrote on X.
Previously, Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel leader and has accused the US of using its “war on drugs” as an excuse to try to depose him and get its hands on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Trump told a news conference ahead of Maduro’s arrival in New York: “The oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
The South American country has approximately 303 billion barrels’ worth of crude, accounting for about 20% of the world’s oil resources, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
It is unclear exactly how the US plans to “run” Venezuela, but the president said it will be a “group” of people leading the charge.
“We’re going to be running it with a group, and we’re going to make sure it’s run properly,” Trump said.
When pressed by reporters as to who inside Venezuela would form part of that group, Trump said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been talking to Delcy Rodríguez, the country’s vice-president.
Trump said Rodríguez – who has since been sworn in as interim president by Venezuela’s Supreme Court – had expressed her willingness to do “whatever the US asks”.
However, speaking on state TV after Trump’s remarks, Rodríguez called Maduro the “only one president in Venezuela”, adding that the government was ready to defend itself.
Trump also said he had not spoken to Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who was barred from the 2024 presidential election but was instrumental in galvanising support for a rival candidate to Maduro believed to have won the poll.
The US president said Machado “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” needed to run Venezuela.
Explosions were heard around Caracas early on Saturday morning as military bases were targeted by US forces. Over the following two hours and twenty minutes, dozens of US aircraft were seen in the skies as special forces penetrated Maduro’s safe house to retrieve him.
Venezuela’s long-term allies strongly condemned the US actions. Russia accused the US of committing “an act of armed aggression” that was “deeply concerning and condemnable”. China’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply shocked and strongly condemns” the use of force against a sovereign country and its president.
Many Latin American countries, including Venezuela’s neighbours, Colombia and Brazil, also condemned the actions. Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel described them as a “criminal attack”, while Trump’s ally in Argentina, Javier Milei, wrote “freedom moves forward” on social media.
US allies were more reserved in their responses, urging a peaceful transition of power. Sir Keir Starmer said the UK “regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president” and “shed no tears about the end of his regime”, but called for a “safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government”.
The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas and France’s president Emmanuel Macron offered similar sentiments. A new government must be “respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people”, Macron wrote in a post on X.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the legality of the US operation was “complex” and warned that “political instability must not be allowed to arise in Venezuela”.
The taking of Maduro is the culmination of an escalating pressure campaign against his government by the Trump administration over the past 12 months that has included sanctions and placing a large naval force in the region.
Since September, the US has launched more than 30 strikes on what it says are boats being used for drug trafficking in the Pacific and the Caribbean, killing more than 100 people.
The Trump administration has described the strikes as attacks against terrorists attempting to bring fentanyl and cocaine to the US, however it has provided no evidence for this claim.
With the exception of two survivors – a Colombian and an Ecuadorean national – none of the identities of those aboard have been made public.
Earlier this week, the conflict escalated further when the US carried out a strike on a “dock area” linked to alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
Fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border.
Counter-narcotic experts have also described Venezuela as a relatively minor player in global drug trafficking, mainly acting as a country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled.
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Trump Removed Maduro from Power in Venezuela
new video loaded: Why Trump Removed Venezuela’s Maduro
David E. Sanger, our national security correspondent, describes the implications of President Trump’s launching of the attack that captured the Venezuelan president, and Trump’s declaration that the United States would “run the country.”
By David E. Sanger, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, Leila Medina and June Kim
January 3, 2026
Anthony Joshua breaks silence following tragic car accident resulting in deaths of friends Latif Ayodele and Sina Ghami
Anthony Joshua has returned to the UK from Nigeria for the cruellest of reasons — the funeral of Latif Ayodele and Sina Ghami, two of his closest friends who lost their lives in a car crash in which the two-time heavyweight champ was injured.
The three men were being driven in Lagos on Monday when their car collided with a stationary truck, leaving ‘AJ’ requiring medical treatment but tragically killing personal trainer, Ayodele, and strength coach, Ghami. Joshua was discharged from hospital on Wednesday and is now home. Those who know his character won’t be surprised to see his first stop was with those closest to ‘Latz’ and Sina.
Posting on Instagram, he shared two pictures alongside the message “My Brother’s Keeper”, highlighting what he sees as his moral duty to care for others.
Tributes to Ayodele and Ghami from the boxing community, as well as wishes of recovery for ‘AJ’, have been overwhelming, with the likes of Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko and Oleksandr Usyk sending messages of support. Joshua’s latest opponent, Jake Paul, through his promotional company MVP, paid tribute with a bespoke message on the canvas of their Puerto Rico show last night.
A Janaza prayer for Ayodele, known as Latz, is expected to take place at London Central Mosque this morning. A separate funeral service for Ghami will be held from noon. A wake for both individuals will reportedly follow in north-west London.
Boxing News extends its condolences to the families and loved ones of Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, and wishes Anthony Joshua a full recovery during this difficult time.
Wetland Museum in China Puts Nature at the Forefront
Inspired by a vision to support nature, architectural firm Studio Link-Arc has completed the Yunlu Wetland Museum in Yunlu Wetland Park in Shunde, within southern China’s Pearl River Delta. Positioned beside a protected habitat of wading birds, the museum combines a bird-watching tower with exhibition spaces, allowing visitors to observe the landscape while remaining secondary to the surrounding wildlife.
The museum is located adjacent to an ecological island inhabited by approximately 25,000 egrets. The presence of the birds is a relatively recent development, beginning after a local resident planted bamboo on the site, unintentionally creating the foundation for an urban refuge.
“The project originated from a bamboo forest planted by ‘Uncle Bird’ Xian Quanhui 26 years ago,” says Studio Link-Arc. “With the arrival of egrets, his long-term efforts gradually transformed the area into an ‘egret paradise.’ Today, the Shunde government has expanded the protected area thirteenfold, working with scientists, engineers, and designers to restore water systems, renew bamboo forests, and develop the site into Yunlu Wetland Park.”
Studio Link-Arc.
Set within this oasis, the Yunlu Wetland Museum is understated. From across the wetland, it blends into the greenery, integrating with the landscape rather than asserting itself as a landmark.
The architects avoided a singular monumental form, instead choosing to stack a series of offset volumes that rise vertically. Each floor is carefully aligned with specific environmental layers, from roots and trunks, to canopies and open sky. Visitors are invited to move through the building as if ascending the forest, with each level offering a calibrated view without the need to step outside.
Inside, the museum boasts a layout that departs from standard museum conventions. There is no central hall or dominant focal point. Instead, sightlines intersect across levels, and each window acts as a picture frame, capturing the continuously changing view of the surrounding environment.
A central void runs through the stacked volumes, allowing multiple perspectives to be observed simultaneously. This design reinforces the concept that no single viewpoint is ever complete, and allows visitors to move through the museum as active observers.
Studio Link-Arc.
Concrete is the primary building material, with surfaces textured using timber imprints. The interior finishes are restrained and tactile, emphasizing natural tones, while also blending in with the natural setting. Light enters from above, and is diffused to convey time and seasonal changes.
Constructing a concrete structure in a wetland raises challenges despite careful planning. Hundreds of trees were surveyed to limit removal, the footprint was kept compact, and a shallow-water landscape on the roof reduces visual impact from above. These measures mitigate but do not eliminate the tension between preservation and construction.
At the same time, it suggests that the role of architecture within nature should take a step back rather than a step forward. By lowering its voice, it asks visitors to listen more closely to the wildlife.
Source: Studio Link-Arc
Analysts: US strike on Venezuela could strengthen China’s territorial claims, Taiwan attack unlikely
Analysis-US strike on Venezuela to embolden China’s territorial claims, Taiwan attack unlikely, analysts say
Bernie Sanders criticizes Trump’s actions towards Venezuela, adding to US-Venezuela tensions
US senator Bernie Sanders has condemned Trump’s attack on Venezuela, accusing him of bypassing Congress to take the country into war. He says it risks global instability and revives a dangerous imperial mindset.
Published On 4 Jan 2026