President Muhammadu Buhari has called for outright debt cancellation for developing countries facing the most severe challenges particularly due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The president made this call on Friday at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) currently holding in New York
The President called on world leaders to urgently review the eligibility criteria for debt suspension, including debt cancellation to all developing countries, Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States facing fiscal and liquidity challenges.
He urged the G-20 countries to consider expansion and extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiatives.
Polling stations in Reikjavik open for Iceland’s parliamentary elections.
The country votes in an election that could see its unprecedented left-right coalition lose its majority, despite bringing four years of stability after a decade of crises.
With the political landscape more splintered than ever, the process of forming a new coalition could be more complicated than in the past.
Climate change is high among voters’ concerns in Iceland, a glacier-studded volcanic island nation of about 350,000 people in the North Atlantic.
An exceptionally warm summer by Icelandic standards – 59 days of temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius and shrinking glaciers have helped drive global warming up the political agenda.
The first molecule of domestic liquefied natural gas from Nigeria LNG Limited is billed to come into the Nigerian market by July 2022 heralding what could become a million-dollar investment opportunity in the gas sector.
On the back of this plan, investors can find opportunities in shipping, regasification infrastructure construction, offtaking the gas, construction of terminals, even tracking, and insuring the gas in transit.
A Nigerian shipping entity can leverage the Cabotage Act to ship LNG from the company’s Bonny plant to ports around the country. Nigeria’s Cabotage Act restricts the use of foreign vessels in domestic coastal trade to promote local participation.
LNG can be shipped either on Delivered Ex Ship (DES) or Free On Board (FOB) basis. Under the DES, the seller delivers the goods to a buyer at an agreed port of arrival but under the FOB contract, the buyer or his agent handles shipment.
Before the recent spike in gas prices, the cost of shipping LNG was usually charged around $1 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), shipping thousands of LNG volumes could become a million-dollar business.
Naira, Nigeria’s legal tender, on Friday fell by 0.3 percent against the dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) foreign exchange window, the lowest ever since the creation of the window in 2017.
After trading on Friday, the dollar was quoted at N414.90 as against N413 the previous day, data from the FMDQ showed
Currency traders who participated in the trading session on Friday maintained bids at between N400.00k and N415.20k per dollar.
The naira is weakening to a lowest at a time Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves are growing following the allocation of $3.3 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on August 23, 2021, and most recently, the issuance of $4 billion Eurobond by the Federal Government.
Newly opened lawsuits in London and New York have shed light on how bribe that trading firms paid agents to win oil contracts from Nigeria’s state oil company may have raised funds for the country’s past two elections in 2015 and 2019.
An ex-British Petroleum Plc, BP oil trader alleged this week that cargo allocations by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. could have contributed to preparations for general elections in 2019, Bloomberg reported.
And a former Glencore Plc employee in July admitted paying a middleman $300,000 to secure a crude shipment from the NNPC, understanding the money would be spent on the nationwide vote that took place four years earlier.
A spokesman for the NNPC didn’t respond to three calls and three text messages seeking comment.
President Muhammadu Buhari has addressed world leaders at the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA76).
He stressed the need not to only deal with the symptoms of conflict but to tackle the immediate causes that fuel crisis, including poor and undemocratic governance, human rights abuses, poverty, ignorance, injustice and inequalities.
President Muhammadu Buhari has addressed world leaders at the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA76).
On security, he raised concerns over illicit trade, transfer, and circulation of small arms and light weapons.
Their excessive accumulation and uncontrolled spread in many regions of the world, the President stated, were already having devastating humanitarian and socio-economic consequences, especially on the continent of Africa.
He, therefore, called for a worldwide application of the Arms Trade Treaty to codify accountability in conventional arms trade, saying it was critical to the security of nations.
He stressed the need not to only deal with the symptoms of conflict but to tackle the immediate causes that fuel crisis, including poor and undemocratic governance, human rights abuses, poverty, ignorance, injustice and inequalities.
Archaeologists in Morocco have identified clothes making tools fashioned from bone dating back 120,000 years, the oldest ever found, one of the researchers said.
The international team discovered more than 60 tools in Smugglers Cave, less than 20 kilometres from the North African country’s capital.
They had been “intentionally shaped for specific tasks that included leather and fur working”, the team wrote in a study published in the journal iScience.
The discovery could help answer questions on the origins of modern human behaviour, said El Hajraoui, a researcher at the National Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage.
The team also discovered living spaces dug into the ground or built in the cave, as well as perforated seashells apparently used as ornaments.
Nigeria has committed to electrifying 25 million people across five million homes by 2023 using solar technologies and creating 250,000 jobs.
Similarly, the West African nation will give 30 million homes access to clean cooking and energising agriculture, textile production, cold storage etc. using gas as a transition fuel.
These formed the highlights of the country’s commitments made in New York on Friday, September 24, 2021, at the UN energy summit.
With pledges also made by Denmark, Germany, India, Malawi, Latin America and the Caribbean countries, Sierra Leone, United States, and United Arab Emirates, new multi-billion-dollar commitments to increase renewables and access to electricity and clean cooking technologies were announced at the summit, aimed at boosting efforts to reduce the ranks of nearly 800 million people living in energy poverty while setting the world on a trajectory towards net-zero-emissions by 2050.
More than $400 billion in new finance and investment was committed by governments and the private sector during the UN High-level Dialogue on Energy, the first leader-level meeting on energy under the auspices of the UN General Assembly in 40 years.
Over 35 countries — ranging from Small Island Developing States to major emerging and industrialised economies — made significant new energy commitments in the form of Energy Compacts.
Additionally, several new partnership initiatives were announced, aiming to provide and improve access to reliable electricity to over a billion people.
The new commitments would result in large increases in the installed capacity of renewable energy and significant improvements in energy efficiency around the world — leading to hundreds of new renewable energy facilities and the creation of millions of new green jobs.
The energy summit took place as world leaders grapple with the critical urgency to keep the 1.5 degrees temperature target of the Paris Agreement within reach, and cut emissions by 45% by 2030, while closing the energy access gap and providing more than one billion people who currently rely on harmful fuels with clean cooking solutions.
The new commitments showcase the bold actions needed to meet the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7).
Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah has called on Christians in Nigeria to rise up and live up to the expectation of their callings as followers of Christ.
The Bishop said the persistent of forces of darkness of banditry, Boko Haram, kidnap for ransom and other security challenges that have rendered many homeless and caused the death of several others is a wakeup call for all Christians to disperse the forces of darkness in the nation.
Bishop Kulah made this call shortly after the ordination Mass for the newly ordained five priest of the Sokoto Catholic Diocese held at the Holy Family Catholic Cathedral in Sokoto.
He described the security challenges facing the country as the forces of darkness which is not in line with the light of Christ.
He said the appearance of the light of Christ chase out darkness and Christians as the representatives of Christ on Earth are expected to shine and chase out darkness in their surroundings.
He said though the federal government is not willing to mention and shame the sponsor of Boko Haram, but citizens are now aware that sponsors of Boko Haram are Nigerian citizens working to destabilize the nation.
The Bishop said it is the responsibility of government through the security agencies to ensure no trouble maker using whatever platform to destroy the nation is allow to have his way.
1066 Battle of Stamford Bridge: English army under King Harold II defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold’s brother Tostig, who were both killed
1237 Treaty of York signed between kings Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland which establishes a boundary between the two countries (mostly unchanged in modern times)
1513 Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Panama Isthmus becoming first European to see the Pacific Ocean
1789 US Congress proposes the Bill of Rights
1906 Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the Telekino at Bilbao before a great crowd, guiding a boat from the shore, considered the birth of the remote control
1926 Henry Ford announces an 8 hour, 5-day work week for workers at the Ford Motor Company
1981 Sandra Day O’Connor sworn in as the 1st female US Supreme Court Justice
Today in Film & TV 1957 18th Venice Film Festival: Influential Indian film “Aparajito” directed by Satyajit Ray is first film to win the Golden Lion and the Critics Award
Today in Music 1975 Pink Floyd’s concept album “Wish You Were Here” reaches No. 1 in the US, goes on to sell 13 million copies
Today in Sport 1844 Canada defeats USA by 23 runs in the first cricket international match at the grounds of the St George’s Cricket Club in Manhattan, NYC
Do you know this fact about today? Did You Know?
Andorra and Germany sign a treaty ending World War I, as Versailles Peace Treaty forgot to include Andorra, on this day in 1939
Would you believe this fact about today? Would You Believe?
British physician Dr. Charles Drysdale warns against the use of tobacco in a letter to The Times newspaper in one of the earliest public health announcements on the dangers of smoking on this day in 1878
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