Nigeria’s Oil Production Costs Spike With N785bn Yearly Overhead

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November 18, 2020

NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, disclosed that the highest personnel cost in the oil and gas sector remained in Nigeria, a development, which he said, was unacceptable.

With Nigeria’s oil industry incurring about 7.4 per cent of the national budget in personnel and overhead costs, alongside others like logistics, direct handling and lifting of crude, operators may have to do more to achieve the $10 per barrel (bbl) production benchmark set by the Federal Government.

Indeed, many operators in the country spend about 50 per cent of their cash flow on personnel costs, which is why some still produce at a high rate of $93/bbl, even in a low oil price regime.

“There is nowhere any company will spend 50 per cent of its cash flow on human resources and survive. It is not possible,” Kyari had noted.

Beyond taxes, he noted that high expenditure driven mainly by high personnel, logistics and handling costs, push the unit operating price of oil to $20/bbl.

Was it right for Pope Francis to congratulate Biden who isn’t Pro-life?

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Henry Williams

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November 18, 2020

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Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, offered his congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden during a morning call recently.

According to a statement from the Biden-Harris transition team, the pair discussed some policy areas in which Biden is likely to break from President Trump.

It raises the question being asked by those from faith based organizations and pro-life activists alike that should the Pope be congratulating the Biden camp knowing what it stands for when it comes to issues of religious liberty and abortion?

Considering the fact that the church or faith based organisations and pro-life movements have enjoyed more support from the Trump administration which has defunded pro-abortion movements and maintained that Government has no business in Gods business, one would have thought that the Pope would be the last to celebrate a Biden victory.

Recent reports on Pope Francis support for gay unions outside the church (whatever that means) have seem to have given more affirmation to the suggestion by watchers that the Pope has become more liberal to accommodate liberal interests as opposed to what scripture upholds.

The Pope’s past and present utterances rather that diffuse the controversies have become a source of heated debate about the Vatican gradually moving from a spiritual leadership to a political one or are we the ones late to come to that reality and have Catholics been living in denial that they are a mixed multitude?

The president-elect in his correspondence to the Pontiff expressed his desire to work together on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind.

Francis has been outspoken on these issues and has repeatedly called on global leaders to take more action to confront them. I’m wondering where in scripture climate change take precedence over the spread of the gospel? This is a good that gives the commission in the book of Genesis to man to multiply and subdue the earth.

Biden will be the second Catholic president in U.S. history, following John F. Kennedy yet we wonder how Biden will be favorable to the faith. In a recent video put together by Fox exposing Biden’s many gaffs instead of God he says America is one nation under a thing.

Regardless deep media and fake news making the rounds call Senator Biden deeply devout person of faith, I you believ that you’ll believe anything!

In the final week of the presidential campaign, for example, Biden quoted an anti-populism passage from the pope’s most recent encyclical, that should be a giant leap for religion.

Holy Scripture posits that a man cannot serve two masters, either he serves one and despises the other. Can the Pope be a political and spiritual leader at the same time? I guess it depends on whose agenda you are pushing.

Google CEO, Apologises Over Leaked Document Detailing Tactics to Counter EU Rules

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faith Jegede

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November 18, 2020

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Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, has recently been forced to tender apologies to Europe’s industry chief Thierry Breton over leaked documents that proposed tactics to counter the EU’s tough new rules on internet companies.
The documents showed that Google was proposing actions that would counter the strict EU rules on internet companies and even lobbying against the commissioner of the EU.

The apology was tendered, during a video conferencing call between Breton and Pichai. The call, which was initiated by Google and had been scheduled before the leak, saw Breton bring up the document and show it to Pichai, inducing an apology.
The document revealed a 60-day strategy to attack the European Union’s push for the new rules by getting US allies to push back against Breton.
In an online meeting on Friday, Breton told the Anglo-American Press Association “I was not surprised. I’m not naive. I thought it was a bit old fashioned…”
“In any case, yes I had a discussion with Sundar… I told him what I had to tell him….he apologized. I told him, If you need to tell me something, my door will always be open,” he said.

The video-conference was the third they had had in 2020 and was to share views and opinions.

Breton told Thierry Breton that he would increase the EU’s power to curb partisan behavior so that the Internet does not solely benefit a handful of companies but also Europe’s small- and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs.

Disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein ‘gravely ill with suspected Covid-19’

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Chris Ottah

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November 18, 2020

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Harvey Weinstein is in isolation with a high temperature after taking a Covid-19 test.

The convicted rapist is reportedly seriously ill in Wende Correctional Facility in New York, with doctors believing he has contracted coronavirus.

According to TMZ, the 68-year-old has a temperature of 101 (38 degrees celsius) and is ‘doing poorly’.

Weinstein underwent a Covid-19 test on Tuesday, and has already been placed into isolation for 72 hours.

If he tests positive for the virus, he will be moved to the prison hospital.

Reps for the disgraced producer did not confirm or deny whether Weinstein has Covid-19, but said he was being ‘closely monitored’.

A statement read: ‘At this time, according to Juda Englemeyer, his publicist, and Craig Rothfeld, his authorised NYSDOCCS and NYS Department of Health Representative, we can neither confirm nor deny that Mr. Weinstein has tested positive for COVID-19.

‘We can confirm that Mr. Weinstein has a fever and is being closely monitored by the excellent medical staff at Wende CF for which the entire legal defense team is grateful.

‘It should come as no surprise that Mr. Weinstein has numerous maladies and conditions including a heart condition, high blood pressure and spinal stenosis.

We are working with the NYSDOCCS and the excellent team at Wende CF to ensure Mr. Weinstein receives the proper medical attention he needs.

‘As information becomes available that we are at liberty to discuss we will update everyone accordingly.’

It was previously reported back in March that Weinstein had tested positive for Covid-19 during the first New York outbreak, shortly after he began his jail sentence.

Weinstein is considered high risk due to his age and his medical issues, having spent five days in hospital back in March for ongoing heart problems and chest pains and having back surgery last December.

The star is serving a 23-year sentence after being convicted of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape.

Weinstein also faces 11 further counts of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles, including six counts of sexual assault which were added last month.

If convicted on all of the California charges, Weinstein could face an additional 140 years in prison.

A spokesperson said: ‘Harvey Weinstein has always maintained that every one of his physical encounters throughout his entire life has been consensual. That hasn’t changed.’

Yellow fever scare: Unknown illness ‘kills 50’ in Kogi state

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Chris Ottah

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November 18, 2020

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An unknown illness has reportedly killed at least 50 persons in Ette community, Olamaboro local government area of Kogi state.

Ujah Alewo, the lawmaker representing Olamaboro constituency in the state house of assembly, disclosed this via a motion introduced during the plenary session on Tuesday.

He said there is no confirmed diagnosis of the illness of which symptoms include headache, sore eyes, loss of appetite, inability to urinate or defecate and convulsion before death.

See Also: Yellow fever outbreak: Tension as disease spreads to three Enugu council areas

Olamaboro shares boundary with Igbo-Eze north LGA in Enugu state where the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed an outbreak of Yellow fever of which symptoms also include jaundice and headache.

It was reported that the disease has spread to two more LGAs in the state; it already killed at least 76 people in three states.

Alewo said the illness has defied treatment with herbs and at the local health centres.

“More worrisome, all efforts to seek a solution, using the local herbs and treatment at local health centres with referrals to neighbouring clinics and hospitals at Ogugu and Okpo in Olamaboro respectively were not successful,” THISDAY quoted him to have said.

See Also: Just In: Yellow fever outbreak spreads to three more LGAs in Enugu

“The reports reaching my constituency office from the community leaders confirmed that over 50 people within the economic and productive age of 25 to 40 years died from September to date, thereby stalling agricultural, social and economic activities, which directly affect the food security of the agrarian and artisan Etteh people.”

He added that the deaths have caused panic among residents in the affected community, and called on the state government to intervene.

The NCDC and Saka Haruna, the state commissioner for health, have been contacted for their response.

Governors seek additional UN help with COVID-19

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Chris Ottah

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November 18, 2020

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Governors seek additional UN help with COVID-19The Nigeria Governors Forum, on Tuesday, asked the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed, to facilitate additional assistance to states in their bid to deal with the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chairman of the forum, Governor Kayode Fayemi, with the company of his Imo and Adamawa State counterparts, Senator Hope Uzodinma and Umaru Fintiri respectively, and 20 other governors who joined via zoom, held a meeting with the deputy scribe of the UN, in Abuja.

A statement from the NGF secretariat, late on Tuesday, quoted the Ekiti State governor and his colleagues as making a strong case for additional help.

The Deputy Secretary General of the UN visited the NGF Secretariat as part of her tour of some West African States including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

Fayemi said the NGF took steps to ameliorate the impact of the pandemic on Nigerians at the sub-national level.

He was quoted as saying that, “As a responsive group, we worked collaboratively, co-opting ideas and welcoming support from critical stakeholders including partners and the private sector.

“At the wake of the pandemic, we worked with the Federal Government to ensure the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Presidential Task Force, National Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development got all the support it required in delivering swift containment measures.”

“At the National Economic Council (NEC) level, we developed a COVID-19 response plan encompassing health, economic and socio-economic, immediate to medium term measures needed to combat the virus and its impact.”

He further explained that the period was one to turn adversity into opportunity. The Ekiti State governor further said, “at the subnational level, we set up intervention funds, social investment programmes, distributed palliatives, launched tax incentive programmes to protect and support livelihoods as well as businesses.

“This is reflected in our 2020 amended State budgets of which 10 percent was earmarked for COVID-19 response expenditures and the recent partner interventions undertaken by States including the World Bank $750 million States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability additional financing, $750 million COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus programme for results and the $100 million Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement.”

Earlier, while welcoming the DSG to the NGF Secretariat in Maitama Abuja, Fayemi enumerated some of the challenges of governance in the country and how the pandemic affected the nation’s economy and whittled down its superstructure at the subnational level.

He explained that although the virus hit Nigeria in March 2020, later than other countries, its impact has been ravaging with over 64,090 confirmed cases and 1,154 deaths.

Other impacts, he said, include the fall in oil prices, contracting tax base, loss of sources of livelihood, unemployment, youth restiveness (ENDSARS Protest), increasing inflation rate, worsening exchange rate, decline in productivity due to necessary lockdown measures initiated globally and nationally.

The Ekiti State Governors also told Mohammed that the pandemic had compelled Governors to see the “need for retooling ourselves, on how best to become accountable to the electorate.”

In response to the plea by the governors for further assistance, the statement said, “Responding to their pleas for assistance from the UN the Dep Sec Gen said that the UN does not write cheques but creates an environment for those who have the cheques to do so.”

While regretting the ugly influences which contaminated the #EndSARS Protests, she commended the governors for the mature manner with which they handled the ENDSARS demonstrations.

Green Revolution: UK to ban petrol, diesel cars from 2030

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Chris Ottah

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November 18, 2020

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Britain will ban petrol and diesel vehicle sales from 2030 as part of a 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution” to be unveiled Wednesday by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The British premier has earmarked £12 billion (13.4 billion euros, $15.9 billion) for the wide-ranging plans, which he hopes will secure up to 250,000 jobs and help meet a target for the UK to become carbon neutral by 2050.

The proposals include quadrupling offshore wind power within a decade while scaling up hydrogen production capacity for industry, transport, power and homes.

Investment will also be made in zero-emission public transport, alongside research into zero-emission planes and ships, and in making cycling and walking “more attractive”.

The plans contain broader aims to make Britain a “world-leader” in carbon capture technology and the City of London a “global centre of green finance”.

The government will also spend £525 million on developing large and smaller-scale nuclear plants, and new advanced modular reactors, in a move likely to anger environmentalists.

Johnson is hoping the ambitious proposals can help deliver on pledges to reduce Britain’s stark regional inequality and repair some of the economic damage done by the pandemic.

They are also being seen as an opportunity to reset his faltering government and align with the priorities of US President-elect Joe Biden, ahead of the UK hosting global climate talks next December.

“My 10-point plan will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net zero by 2050,” Johnson said in a statement ahead of publishing the full blueprint.

“Our green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the North East, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales.”

The 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars and vans follows what Downing Street called “extensive consultation with car manufacturers and sellers”.

Johnson had said in February his government would aim to end such sales by 2035, but will now only allow the sale of hybrid vehicles until that year.

Under the new plans, it will invest £1.3 billion on expanding electric vehicle charge points in homes and streets across England and make £582 million available in grants for people to buy zero or ultra-low emission vehicles.

Meanwhile, nearly £500 million will be spent in the next four years on the development and production of electric vehicle batteries.

Under proposals to reduce carbon-emitting gas usage, another £500 million is earmarked to trial using hydrogen in homes for heating and cooking.

The government is aiming to build a so-called “Hydrogen Neighbourhood” within three years, a “Hydrogen Village” by 2025, and a town of tens of thousands of homes using the gas by the end of the decade.

It is also set to invest £1 billion in a grant scheme launched in September, and now to be extended for a year, to make homes and public buildings more energy-efficient.

Greenpeace welcomed the package and the “landmark announcement” on vehicles.

The pressure group called the move “a historic turning point on climate action” that could “put the government back on track to meeting its climate commitments”.

“It’s a shame the prime minister remains fixated on other speculative solutions, such as nuclear and hydrogen from fossil fuels, that will not be taking us to zero emissions anytime soon, if ever,” it added.

Nigeria highest in drug use prevalence rate in the world – UNO

By

Chris Ottah

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November 18, 2020

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Nigeria highest in drug use prevalence rate in the world – UNOThe National Programme Officer of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Mrs Folusho Adelekan, said on Tuesday that Nigeria has been ranked as the highest in drug use prevalence rate in the world.

She said the nation accounted for 14.3 per cent as against 5.3 per cent of the entire global community.

Mrs Adelekan stated this in Abuja at a sensitisation workshop on Drug Abuse and Rape organised by Christabels Initiatives and facilitated by the National Assembly Joint Committee on Drugs and Narcotics.

She said available statistics showed that there were 14.4m drug users in Nigeria at 14.3 per cent prevalence rate.

She said, “The National Drug Control Master Plan Nigeria which came up within the last two years is not being funded adequately and the menace requires action-packed operational strategy that must be well funded.

“Apart from the lack of well funded operational plan, there are no enough treatment or rehabilitation centres in the country for drug addicts.”

A Deputy Director with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Dr Yinka Falola-Anoemuah, said the seriousness of actions applied in tackling the scourge of HIV/AIDS in the country, should be used in confronting the menace of drug abuse and rape in Nigeria.

She said, “Two million people are living with AIDS in Nigeria, but being managed without much havoc in the country. Even at that, the operational master plan has been put on the ground to end AIDS in Nigeria by 2030, the way Polio was eliminated.”

Also, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who was represented by the House Leader, Hassan Doguwa, said most of the drug addicts in the country lacked the required discipline and decent upbringing at the home front.

He added, “This is the very reason curricular at the primary and secondary school levels need to be reviewed for the inclusion of subjects against drug abuse and violence against women, particularly rape.”

Satellites Are Mapping Out Every Tree On Earth Using Artificial Intelligence

By

Zoe Maven

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November 18, 2020

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Scientists have mapped 1.8 billion individual tree canopies across millions of kilometres of the Sahel and Sahara regions of West Africa. It is the first time ever that trees have been mapped in detail over such a large area.

So how was it possible? Researchers analysed a huge database of satellite images using artificial intelligence. They employed neural networks which are able to recognise objects, like trees, based on their shapes and colours.

To train it, the AI system was shown satellite images where trees had been manually traced. This involved lead author Martin Brandt going through the arduous process of identifying and labelling nearly 90,000 trees himself, beforehand.

From these images, the computer learnt what a tree looked like and could pick out individual canopies from the thousands of images in the database. Brandt says it would have taken millions of people years to identify the trees without the AI system.

In a review of the research, commissioned by Nature, scientists at New Mexico State University wrote that “it will soon be possible, with certain limitations, to map the location and size of every tree worldwide”

Alongside the opportunity to measure deforestation, the satellites would also allow scientists to determine how much carbon is stored in deserts, a figure that is not currently included when modelling climate change.

The survey is promising, but it is too early to determine whether the new information will have a significant impact on our understanding of the climate crisis.

Hong Kong politicians arrested for causing stink over anthem law

By

Zoe Maven

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November 18, 2020

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Police in Hong Kong have arrested three former opposition legislators over incidents in May and June, in which foul-smelling liquid was thrown inside the city’s legislature, an act police said was intended to cause harm.

Pro-democracy activists Ted Hui, Ray Chan and Chu Hoi-dick confirmed the arrests on their Facebook pages on Wednesday.

The arrests came after Hong Kong’s opposition legislators resigned en masse last week in protest against the dismissal of four colleagues in what they see as a further clampdown by Beijing on the city’s political and civic freedoms.

Police said after an in-depth investigation, the three men had been charged with attempting to use harmful substances with the intent to cause harm, psychological injury or irritation to others. They are being detained while the investigation continues.

Live television footage showed legislators Eddie Chu and Ray Chan rushing to the front of the chamber during a June debate over a controversial bill that was designed to criminalise “disrespect” of China’s national anthem.

As they grappled with security guards, the reeking fluid was sloshed about. Police and firefighters arrived later.

Chan and Chu later said the liquid they hurled was bio-fertiliser.

Despite their attempts to disrupt the proceedings, the law – which includes jail terms of three years as well as fines of $6,450 (50,000 Hong Kong dollars) – passed the legislature.

China denies curbing rights and freedoms, but authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing have moved swiftly to quash dissent in the wake of last year’s anti-government protest