Wasserman Music just loaded up their UK crew with four people to handle tours and artist stuff. Paul Ryan came over as a senior VP, bringing his metal and rock portfolio with bands like Sleep Token and Architects, while grabbing some new acts. Chris Lander jumped into work on the podcast side after doing production work on big UK shows and repping comedians.
Rebecca Laurie got hired to run tour marketing for UK agents after stints at DICE and AEG, working festivals. Laura Flynn moved up internally to manage tour marketing after handling campaigns for RAYE and Louis Tomlinson. The agency exec said everyone brings different skills to boost what they can do for artists as the company keeps growing worldwide.
The EU dropped 20 million euros on Gambia to juice up secondary schools and get more teachers trained with extra focus on girls and disabled students. Higher Education Minister Pierre Gomez said the cash hits right when they're turning Gambia College into a proper university and upgrading all teaching programs to degree level. He flagged how girls finish high school but then fall off getting into college, which basically caps their education at that point.
EU Ambassador Emmanuela Del Re said they're targeting enrollment gaps in rural spots while pushing digital learning and STEM programs, plus trying to get more qualified women teaching. Finance Minister Seedy Keita told everyone that the money needs to show real results on the ground...
Gambia just rolled out a National Madrassah Board to get Islamic school grads into universities and technical programs after years of them getting locked out of higher education. Higher Education Minister Pierre Gomez said the board fixes problems with broken infrastructure and curricula that kept thousands of students stuck on the sidelines while also making sure their religious education still counts for something.
The government framed this as the first real attempt to standardize Madrassah education across the country with unified exams and better career options for graduates. Board chairman Samba Baldeh pointed out that more kids are going through these Islamic schools, but the system needs an official structure to help them...
A Gambian guy, Momodou Wurry Jallow, and a Sierra Leonean dude, Kaaba Yankee, both got slapped with 100k dalasi bail after getting pinched for allegedly jacking solar panels from the NAWEC plant in Jambur. Each needs two Gambian co-signers and they both said they didn't do it when they rolled up to Brikama Magistrates' Court.
The supervisor from the solar facility testified that someone boosted 15 panels a couple of years back and locals found eight but seven stayed missing. When cops caught up with the accused this year, they had panels matching the serial numbers from inventory. The first defendant asked the magistrate to go easy since his kids' school situation was getting wrecked while he sat in lockup and the case got pushed to...
A crew from 4H Norway just wrapped two weeks checking on their partner org 4H Gambia, and said the youth and women empowerment work is looking solid. The Norwegian visitors sat in on the annual meeting in Farafenni, where everyone went over reports and locked in plans for next year, while the Gambian side keeps running their Learn by Doing program across the North Bank and Central River regions.
The national program director mentioned how Salaam Financial Services hooked up 268 fertilizer bags worth almost 295k dalasi to youth clubs in Niamina Dankunku villages, which helped farms produce more crops. The Norwegian advisor talked about how her organization is hitting 90 years and restructuring operations while praising the Gambia team...
Gambia just wrapped up reviewing its plan to wipe out Peste des Petits Ruminants by 2030 after the African Union helped fund a weekend workshop. The disease hammers sheep and goats hard and basically wrecks the income for smallholder farmers who depend on those animals for cash and food. Officials from the agriculture ministry and livestock services got together to update their old strategy from 2017, since disease patterns have shifted, and they need to match what the rest of the continent is doing.
The livestock director said this goes way beyond just animal health because rural families rely on these animals for everything from meat to manure to religious ceremonies. Losing herds to PPR threatens food security across the country and...
Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev is getting sprung on 200k leva bail after his lawyer, Ina Lulcheva, argued the prosecution had nothing new since August and keeping him locked up was basically just harassment. The court agreed he doesn't need to stay in custody anymore since it's not serving any real purpose for the case. Lulcheva said people were already lining up in the square, ready to throw down cash to help raise the bail money.
The mayor has a week to get the funds transferred before he can bounce home. His defense team is calling the whole detention situation sketchy since the indictment showed the prosecutors were running on empty the entire time.
Vazrazhdane councilors are raising hell over a 60 million leva heating network project in Sofia's Druzhba neighborhood after their audit found around 40 million leva missing from the books. Party chairman Deyan Nikolov says Toplofikatsiya Sofia can't explain where the money went and their numbers don't add up at all. His crew figured the pipes should run about 12 to 13 million leva, with another 7 million for all the other stuff like fittings and welding, putting the real cost at maybe 20 million or 28 million tops if they went fancy.
The company has over 2 billion in debt and management couldn't even say what the materials cost or if they had backup pipes for emergencies. Nikolov pointed out that similar work in Western Europe costs...
Police ran up on former Malawian president Lazarus Chakwera at his spot in Area 10, Lilongwe, yesterday, hunting for four German Shepherds that apparently got jacked from State House. The whole thing was about some dogs.
People are saying this petty stuff is exactly why African leaders won't step down from power. They know the second they're out, even meaningless garbage gets turned into a weapon against them. Chakwera wasn't great at his job, but this kind of harassment over stolen pets while he's trying to retire is wild. The fear of getting hounded after leaving office keeps dictators clinging to their positions because they see what happens when you give up control.
