Culture

Again, Ugandan security officials invade, seal Bobi Wine’s party office

Published

1 year ago

October 9, 2023

Ugandan opposition leader, Bobi Wine is in the news again after a combined team of police and military officers stormed the headquarters of his party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), and blocked the main office.

The party, in a post on X on Monday, said the raid on their office was another strategy of intimidation of their presidential candidate by the Yoweri Museveni administration ahead of next year’s election

“There is heavy military deployment at our secretariat in Kamwokya, and they are currently off limits,” the NUP shared on X.

“This is intimidation of our President Bobi Wine by Museveni administration,” the party said in another post.

Wine himself also took to his social media pages to say that the officers raided the party headquarters and stopped people from entering or leaving the premises.

He said the blockade by the security officers was aimed at stopping a prayer event that the NUP planned to hold at its Kampala office on Monday.

The prayers, according to the former pop star, were intended for the party’s “dead, detained and disappeared comrades”.

“While they do this, they will shamelessly gather today to celebrate ‘independence’ even when they behave worse than the colonialists,” he wrote.

The invasion of the NUP office is coming barely a week after security operatives arrested Wine at the Entebbe airport when he arrived the country from south Africa after an official engagement.

Hundreds of his supporters were also arrested and detained on allegations that they incited violence and planned an illegal procession.

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Culture

MultiChoice targets illegal streamers in crackdown against piracy

Published

8 hours ago

October 9, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Satellite television services provider, MultiChoice, says it is now targeting illegal streamers in its renewed crackdown against piracy.

Frikkie Jonker, the Anti-Piracy Director for Broadcast and Cybersecurity at MultiChoice-owned Irdeto, in a statement on Tuesday, says the company now uses tools to analyse illegal streams and identify the individuals responsible for streaming pirated DStv content.

Jonker stated that authorities knew who the end-users of these pirate streaming services were and warned that MultiChoice would consider legal action against them once criminal proceedings against such operators had been finalised.

“We are going after the whole ecosystem,” Jonker said in response to a question asking who MultiChoice is targeting.

“The company has carried out several raids in recent months, resulting in the arrest of several suspects allegedly involved in pirate streaming operations.

“Suspects include individuals allegedly distributing pirate streaming devices and login credentials for illegal streaming services like Waka TV.

“We have identification tools that we can use to analyse a stream of a pirate operation. By analysing it, we can say that the stream is using account number ‘123’, and then we take that account down,” Jonker said.

Jonker emphasised the importance of the crackdown, stating that the impact of pirate streaming services on platforms such as DStv Stream and Netflix is difficult to quantify due to their size.

Culture

Online streaming platform Spotify increases price for its Nigerian premium subscribers by 40%

Published

2 days ago

October 7, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Online audio streaming platform, Spotify, has announced an immediate increment in price for its premium subscribers in Nigeria by over 40%.

In a statement announcing the price increase, the platform said the hike in the fee would allow the team to continue innovating on its product offerings and features, providing users with the best experience.

In the notification, Spotify informed that starting from their billing date in November, their subscription price would change from ₦900/month to ₦1,300/month.

The latest price update puts the Premium subscription plan at ₦7,000 ($4.40) monthly, up from the initial ₦5,000 ($3.14), indicating a 40% rise.

The platform had in April, hiked its Premium Plan price from ₦4,400 ($2.76) to ₦5,000 ($3.14).

However, it added that users who do not wish to continue paying for Premium at the new price can cancel via their account page.

Spotify has also introduced Offline Backup to its Premium users globally, allowing them to listen to music offline without needing to download, with the
Offline Backup appearing in the Home feed when users are offline, and can listen to more than five songs once they have offline listening activated.