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Nigeria in Positive as MEA IT Market Records Mixed fortunes

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Contrary to a general trend of decline in ICT equipment and device shipment across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) markets, there was still cheering news in the shipments of blade servers which grew 10.9 per cent across the region, with the biggest annual growth seen in Nigeria, UAE, Pakistan and Oman.

According to latest results published by IDC (International Data Corporation), the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the IT, telecom and consumer technology markets, the overall MEA x86 server market suffered a 5.9 per cent year-on-year decline in unit terms during the first quarter of 2013 but a 3.0 per cent increase in value to reach $321.94 million.

Zeeshan Gaya, research manager for servers and systems at IDC MEA and Turkey said Saudi Arabia continues to be the bright spot among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, registering year-on-year unit growth of 31.0 per cent.

 “Deals within the education and government sector were the major contributors to the high uptake. But in sharp contrast, the UAE market experienced a severe decline of 21.5 per cent over the same period, with no sizeable projects taking place in the country.”

Overall, the GCC suffered a drop of 10.8 per cent in volume during Q1 2013 but expanded 4.4 per cent in terms of revenue. Bahrain and Qatar registered double-digit drops in x86 shipments of 28.4 per cent and 17.6 per cent, respectively.

Key initiatives in the banking sector accelerated Oman’s growth by 12.6 per cent in volume and 58.2 per cent in revenue, year on year.

Kuwait remained mostly flat for the quarter, expanding 1.4 per cent in volume on the back of a few deals in the education and government sectors.

The downward trend continued in the North African market in Q1 2013, with shipments to the region declining 25.1 per cent year on year. “In Morocco, there was shrinkage in the number of deals taking place in both the public and private sectors during the quarter, with several key projects either resized with smaller budgets or simply postponed,” said Gaya.

“The government and the oil and gas sector remain the highest spending verticals in Algeria and Tunisia, although the first quarter of the year was very slow in both countries, with very few projects taking place.”

As previously forecast, the South African x86 server market experienced a year-on-year unit decline of 11.7 per cent.

IDC observed that the main drivers for the country market in Q1 2013 were the business services, government, finance, and retail sectors.
“Telecom operators are continuing to invest in server infrastructure to expand their datacenters as they seek to diversify their service offerings, largely around readiness for cloud service delivery as the demand for cloud services start unfolding,” said Gaya.

“The small and medium-sized business (SMB) space continues to show demand for servers as such organizations are late deployers’ of server virtualization and IT infrastructure renewals. The public sector was also relatively active in Q1 2013 as national governments headed towards their budget deadlines and allocated additional spending to clear up any remaining funds.”

The overall negative trend was observed uniformly across all form factors in the MEA region. Towers took the biggest hit, suffering a 15.5 per cent decline in shipments year on year, followed by rack and density-optimized servers, which slumped 8.7 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.

Contrary to this trend, shipments of blade servers grew 10.9 per cent across the MEA region, with the biggest annual growth seen in the UAE, Pakistan, Oman, and Nigeria.

Eight-socket servers took a hit in the first quarter of the year, recording a year-on-year volume decline of 41.8 per cent.

One-socket and two–socket server shipments shrunk by 9.1 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively. Two-socket servers remain the dominant capability, comprising more than half the MEA market with 70.3 per cent volume share.


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Trump Threatens More Strikes in Nigeria

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President Donald Trump has warned that the United States could carry out further military strikes in Nigeria if Christians continue to be killed, reigniting a sensitive debate over religious violence and foreign intervention in Africa’s most populous nation.

Trump Threatens More Strikes in Nigeria

President Donald Trump

Trump made the remarks in an interview with The New York Times, published on Thursday, while responding to questions about a US military strike carried out in Nigeria on Christmas Day.

At the time, the US military said the operation targeted Islamic State militants in north-west Nigeria and was conducted at the request of the Nigerian government.

Nigeria, however, described the operation as a joint counterterrorism effort, stressing that it was aimed at armed groups designated as terrorists and “had nothing to do with a particular religion”.

“I’d love to make it a one-time strike,” Trump was quoted as saying. “But if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike.”

Pressed on comments by his own Africa adviser that extremist groups such as Islamic State and Boko Haram have killed more Muslims than Christians in Nigeria, Trump acknowledged that Muslims were also victims but insisted that Christians were being targeted disproportionately.

“I think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it’s mostly Christians,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly raised alarms about the safety of Christians in Nigeria, beginning in late October when he warned that Christianity faced what he described as an “existential threat” in the country. He has accused Nigerian authorities of failing to adequately protect Christian communities and has openly threatened US military intervention if the violence continues.

Nigeria has firmly rejected claims of systematic persecution of Christians. The government maintains that the country’s security challenges are complex and largely driven by insurgency, banditry and criminal violence rather than religious targeting.

With a population of more than 230 million people, Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Christians, who are concentrated mainly in the south, and Muslims, who predominate in the north. Islamist insurgencies, particularly Boko Haram and its offshoots, have plagued parts of northern Nigeria for more than a decade, killing thousands and displacing millions.

Nigerian authorities have repeatedly pointed out that militant attacks have claimed the lives of both Muslims and Christians, arguing that framing the violence along religious lines oversimplifies the crisis and risks inflaming tensions.

Following Trump’s earlier threats, the Nigerian government said it was willing to continue cooperating with Washington in combating terrorism but rejected language suggesting that Christians alone were under threat.

The latest comments are likely to strain diplomatic relations further, as Nigeria balances its partnership with the United States against concerns over sovereignty, security cooperation and the portrayal of its internal conflicts on the global stage.


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OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Health

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OpenAI maker of ChatGPT is rolling out a health-focused feature to the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that’s used by nearly a billion users.

Named ChatGPT Health, the new feature aims to provide users with health and wellness information. This, as health is one of the most common ways people use ChatGPT, according to OpenAI.

In a blog post, Microsoft-backed OpenAI says de-identified analysis of conversations show that over 230 million people globally ask health and wellness-related questions on ChatGPT every week.

ChatGPT Health will also “securely” connect medical records and wellness apps to ground conversations with a user’s own health information, making responses more relevant and useful.

“Designed in close collaboration with physicians, ChatGPT Health helps people take a more active role in understanding and managing their health and wellness – while supporting, not replacing, care from clinicians.”

According to OpenAI, health information is often scattered across portals, apps, wearables, PDFs, and medical notes making it hard to see the full picture, and people are left to navigate a complex healthcare system on their own.

“ChatGPT Health builds on these so responses are informed by your health information and context. You can now securely connect medical records and wellness apps – like Apple Health, Function, and MyFitnessPal – so ChatGPT can help you understand recent test results, prepare for appointments with your doctor, get advice on how to approach your diet and workout routine, or understand the trade-offs of different insurance options based on your healthcare patterns.”

According to the company, ChatGPT Health is designed to support, not replace, medical care, adding that it is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. “Instead, it helps you navigate everyday questions and understand patterns over time – not just moments of illness – so you can feel more informed and prepared for important medical conversations.

“To keep your health information protected and secure, Health operates as a separate space with enhanced privacy to protect sensitive data. Conversations in Health are not used to train our foundation models. If you start a health-related conversation in ChatGPT, we’ll suggest moving into Health for these additional protections.”

OpenAI adds that access to ChatGPT Health has started with a small group of early users to learn and continue refining the experience, adding that users with ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans outside of the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the UK are eligible.

“As we make improvements, we plan to expand access and make Health available to all users on web and iOS in the coming weeks.

“Medical record integrations and some apps are available in the US only, and connecting Apple Health requires iOS.”


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Kaspersky Shares AI Cybersecurity Predictions for 2026

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Kaspersky experts outline how the rapid development of AI is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape in 2026, both for individual users and for businesses. Large language models (LLMs) are influencing defensive capabilities while simultaneously expanding opportunities for threat actors.

Deepfakes are becoming a mainstream technology, and awareness will continue to grow. Companies are increasingly discussing the risks of synthetic content and training employees to reduce the likelihood of falling victim to it. As the volume of deepfakes grows, so does the range of formats in which they appear.

At the same time, awareness is rising not only within organisations but also among regular users: end consumers encounter fake content more often and better understand the nature of such threats. As a result, deepfakes are becoming a stable element of the security agenda, requiring a systematic approach to training and internal policies.

Deepfake quality will improve through better audio and a lowering barrier to entry. The visual quality of deepfakes is already high, while realistic audio remains the main area for future growth.

At the same time, content generation tools are becoming easier to use: even non-experts can now create a mid-quality deepfake in just a few clicks. As a result, the average quality continues to rise, creation becomes accessible to a far broader audience, and these capabilities will inevitably continue to be leveraged by cybercriminals.

Online deepfakes will continue to evolve but remain tools for advanced users. Real-time face and voice swapping technologies are improving, but their setup still requires more advanced technical skills. Wide adoption is unlikely, yet the risks in targeted scenarios will grow: increasing realism and the ability to manipulate video through virtual cameras make such attacks more convincing.

Efforts to develop a reliable system for labelling AI-generated content will continue. There are still no unified criteria for reliably identifying synthetic content, and current labels are easy to bypass or remove, especially when working with open-source models. For this reason, new technical and regulatory initiatives aimed at addressing the problem are likely to emerge.

Open-weight models will approach top closed models in many cybersecurity-related tasks, which create more opportunities for misuse. Closed models still offer stricter control mechanisms and safeguards, limiting abuse.

However, open-source systems are rapidly catching up in functionality and circulate without comparable restrictions. This blurs the difference between proprietary models and open-source models both of which can be used efficiently for undesired or malicious purposes.

The line between legitimate and fraudulent AI-generated content will become increasingly blurred. AI can already produce well-crafted scam emails, convincing visual identities, and high-quality phishing pages.

At the same time, major brands are adopting synthetic materials in advertising, making AI-generated content look familiar and visually “normal.” As a result, distinguishing real from fake will become even more challenging, both for users and for automated detection systems.

AI will become a cross-chain tool in cyberattacks and be used across most stages of the kill chain. Threat actors already employ LLMs to write code, build infrastructure, and automate operational tasks.

Further advances will reinforce this trend: AI will increasingly support multiple stages of an attack, from preparation and communication to assembling malicious components, probing for vulnerabilities and deploying tools. Attackers will also work to hide signs of AI involvement, making such operations harder to analyse.

“While AI tools are being used in cyberattacks, they are also becoming a more common tool in security analysis and influence how SOC teams work. Agent-based systems will be able to continuously scan infrastructure, identify vulnerabilities, and gather contextual information for investigations, reducing the amount of manual routine work.

“As a result, specialists will shift from manually searching for data to making decisions based on already-prepared context. In parallel, security tools will transition to natural-language interfaces, enabling prompts instead of complex technical queries,” adds Vladislav Tushkanov, Research Development Group Manager at Kaspersky.

 


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