The Director-General of the Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office (MCO), Mr. Obadiah Nkom, says his Agency is committed to achieving greater feat, through hard work, until government’s desire for the Agency and the Mining sector is fulfilled.

Mr. Nkom stated this when he received the award of “Best Digital Innovation in the Federal Government,” organized by the Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA) in Lagos State, South-west Nigeria.

Receiving the award on behalf of his agency during the 5th.ng best Award category for the year 2022, Mr Nkom said that his agency “will remain committed to professionalism and improve on this achievement so that Mining Cadastre Office can be the gateway to economy diversification as well as boost government’s revenue”.

The Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office was established to independently administer mineral titles to those who want to invest in the sector.

It also plays very pivotal roles in the aim of government to make the sector attractive to investors with an overall aim of diversifying the sector.

Thousands of residents of a historic Old West town in New Mexico were told to prepare for possible evacuation on Sunday as fierce winds drove the largest active U.S. wildfire through drought-parched forests.

People in the west of Las Vegas, New Mexico packed bags and kept family members close after the fire burned within 5 miles (8 km) of their homes near interstate highway 25, according to local officials and fire authorities.

Crews bulldozed firebreaks to the west and north of the city of 14,000 to protect ranches, rural houses and the United World College in the village of Montezuma, fire official Todd Abel told a briefing.

The Calf Canyon fire has so far burned 104,000 acres (42,100 hectares), an area nearly the size of Albuquerque, and is the largest of a dozen Southwest blazes that scientists have said are more widespread and arriving earlier this year due to climate change.

“We’re just gritting our teeth, there’s going to be thousands of people affected,” said San Miguel County Deputy Manager Jesus Romero as ash swirled around his home in south Las Vegas.

Asked if the entire city would be told to evacuate, Romero said that could happen on Monday when winds are expected to shift and blow into the east.

About 20 miles (32 km) north, crews fought to stop the blaze from burning homes near the village of Ledoux or moving further north into the Mora valley with other communities dating to Spanish colonial times, Abel said.

Burning since April 6 around 30 miles (48 km) east of Santa Fe, the fire has destroyed more than 300 properties and forced the evacuation of dozens of villages and settlements in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

U.S. wildfires have burned more than twice as much land this year as in the same period of 2021, and about 70% more than the 10-year average, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Akdamar Island on Turkey’s Van has been home to the “Almond Blossom Festival” amid blossoming trees around Lake Van.

With the support of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the Governorship of Van, and the Metropolitan Municipality, the “Almond Blossom Festival” has brought a fresh breeze of blossoming trees which takes on a different beauty every season.

Van Governor and Deputy Mayor of Metropolitan Municipality Mehmet Emin Bilmez, other high-ranking officials, and many citizens have joined the festival.

The festival started with a cortege from the central district of Gevaş. The visitors reached the island after a 20-minute boat ride.

Within the scope of the activities held in front of Akdamar Church, the folklore team performed.

Meanwhile, the bride and groom, who came to the island for the photoshoot, together with Governor Bilmez, and the accompanying protocol members, danced the halay.

During the festival, where poems were recited, local artists also sang Turkish and Kurdish songs.

Speaking at the festival, Governor Bilmez thanked all the institutions that contributed to the festival and added that from now on, they would organize the Almond Blossom Festival every year in the season when almond flowers bloom.

“Our main goal here is to introduce our city to the world, on the one hand, the ancient artifacts that are still standing in the bosom of dozens of civilizations. We want to preserve our natural beauties and riches, and introduce the life, culture, folklore, and music of our people to the world. This is our culture,” he said.

“Akdamar Church was built in Anatolia during the most dominant period of Islamic civilization. This is the greatest symbol of Anatolian Islamic civilization,” he added.

“I hope that after the security forces clear the area from terrorist attacks, we will see serious developments in tourism, animal husbandry, and our industry. Hopefully, there will be more to come,” he said.

The guests who came to the island took lots of photos of the landscape accompanied by the snowy Artos Mountain, the turquoise blue of Lake Van, and the blooming almond trees.

“We held the first of our festival this year. We will make it permanent by doing it every year. We try to make a significant contribution to the city’s tourism with events,” Provincial Culture and Tourism Director Erol Uslu said.

Pakistan can further enhance its rice production and export by encouraging the use of mechanized methods of sowing and this coming from Pakistani farmers.

Pakistan is the fourth-largest exporter of rice in the world.

It has been using traditional methods of rice cultivation as compared to developed countries that are using modern machines for this purpose.

However, recently Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) conducted a field demonstration of the rice transplanter machine at the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) in cooperation with Meskay & Femtee Trading Corporation.

A farmer from Narowal, Hamza Khalid, said that using a modernized rice transplanter is beneficial for farmers in many ways.

He said traditional methods of planting rice can only grow 70,000 to 80,000 plants per acre.

By using a rice planter, the number of plants per acre can be increased up to 120,000, which significantly increases the crop production.

Secondly, through the traditional manual way, rice is planted in an asymmetric way.

Some parts of the field could have more plants while some have fewer.

By using a modern rice planter, the population per acre increases, and plants are sowed at equal distances.

According to another farmer, Muhammad Awais Zafar, Pakistan’s rice production had been 35 to 40 maunds per acre for the last 50 years.

However, the use of rice planter has resulted in a significant increase in production at 65 to 70 maunds per acre.

Moreover, employing a rice transplanter can save labour cost.

Planting rice in a manual way can take more time than in a mechanized way.

A rice planter is very beneficial for the farmers, but not every farmer can afford it.

In this regard, the Government of Pakistan has started providing subsidies to farmers on rice planters so the cost could be minimized and more farmers could afford this mechanized method of farming.

It merits mentioning here that Pakistan is the 9th largest producer of rice in the world.

To increase rice production, modern agriculture technologies are being used globally.

A record crop of 8.9 million tonnes of rice was harvested in Pakistan in the marketing year 2021-22, up from 8.4 million tonnes in the previous year, according to a Global Agricultural Information Network report from the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Ukraine has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sunday that there had been no significant developments related to nuclear safety and security in the country over the past 24 hours, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

Regarding the country’s 15 operational reactors at four nuclear power plants (NPP), Ukraine said seven are currently connected to the grid, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya NPP, two at the Rivne NPP, two at the South Ukraine nuclear power plants, and one at the Khmelnytskyy NPP.

The eight other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance or held in reserve.

Safety systems remain operational at the four NPPs, and they also continue to have off-site power available, Ukraine said.

In relation to safeguards, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the remote transfer of safeguards data from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant to the Agency’s Vienna headquarters is gradually being restored after its technicians this week upgraded the unattended monitoring systems installed at the site and deployed new transmission channels based on satellite technologies.

The transmission from Chornobyl had been interrupted for two months. For the four operational NPPs in Ukraine, remote data is being transferred to the International Atomic Energy Agency.