Paris talks focus on European train security

European interior ministers and transport officials are due to hold emergency talks in Paris following last week’s foiled gun attack on a train.

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield in Paris says France wants tougher security measures after the incident on the Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris.

Passengers overpowered a heavily armed man and pinned him to the floor.

French prosecutors have filed charges against 25-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani in connection with the attack.

But questions have been raised about how someone was able to board the train in Brussels carrying an assault rifle, 270 rounds of ammunition, a handgun, a box-cutter and petrol.

Saturday’s meeting will include ministers from Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland, as well as UK Home Secretary Theresa May.

Our correspondent says ideas to be raised at Saturday’s talks include:

*Airport-style metal-detectors on some international trains

*More armed security personnel

*Greater information exchange so that destination countries know when a suspect is heading their way

Announcing the meeting, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said: “We must see if we can put in place a mechanism that allows control at airports, in transportation, in a more co-ordinated manner.”

Any recommendations from the meeting will be debated first by a European rail security working group on 11 September and then by EU transport ministers meeting on October 7-8.

Khazzani is accused of carrying out a “targeted and premeditated” jihadist attack.

No-one died in the incident, although two passengers who helped to overpower the gunman were injured in the struggle.

Three Americans and one Briton have been awarded the Legion d’honneur by President Francois Hollande for their bravery, with awards for four more on the train likely to follow.

Khazzani is said to have denied plotting a terrorist attack, saying he found a bag of weapons the night before and planned to use them to rob passengers.

Facebook hits billion users in a day

For the first time over a billion people used Facebook on a single day, according to company founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The “milestone” was reached on Monday, when “1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family”, he said in a post.

Facebook has nearly 1.5 billion users who log in at least once a month, but this was the most in a single day.

The company gained its billionth user in October 2012, reports the BBC.

It was founded in 2004 by Zuckerberg while he was a Harvard student.

In his post on Thursday, he predicted that Facebook’s reach would continue to grow.

“This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it’s just the beginning of connecting the whole world,” Zuckerberg wrote.

In July, Facebook claimed that over half of the world’s online users visited the site at least once a month.

Nigeria, others’ remittances may slow to $33bn –World Bank

Oversea remittances to Nigeria and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa are projected to slow to 0.9 per cent in 2015, amounting to $33 billion, according to a World Bank report. The study also says that global remittance volume is projected to reach $586 billion in 2015, though at a slower growth rate of 0.4 per cent due to economic conditions.

It is therefore expected to accelerate again to an estimated $636 billion in 2017. In figures released at the last Word Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings in March this year, the World Bank had said that $21 billion (N4.2 trillion) was sent home to families and friends by Nigerians in the Diaspora, in 2014.

However, the growth of remittance is expected to slow this year, it said in its latest issue of Migration and Development Brief, released at the meetings. According to the report, officially recorded remittances to the developing world are expected to reach $440 billion in 2015, an increase of 0.9 per cent over the previous year.

Global remittances, including those to highincome countries, are projected to grow by 0.4 per cent to $586 billion. Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, also depends on remittances for foreign exchange. Money transfer from the west makes up the country’s second highest foreign exchange earner after oil. Nigeria is also Africa’s top remittance recipient.

The study said: “The top five migrant destination countries continue to be the United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), while the top five remittance recipient countries, in terms of value of remittances, continue to be India, China, Philippines, Mexico and Nigeria. “Nigeria alone accounts for around twothirds of total remittance inflows to sub-Sahara Africa, but its remittances are estimated to have remained flat in 2014, at roughly $21 billion.

“Growth of remittances to the sub-Saharan Africa region is projected to slow to 0.9 per cent in 2015, amounting to $33 billion.

The regional growth in remittances in 2014 largely reflected strong growth in Kenya 10.7 per cent, South Africa 7.1 per cent and Uganda 6.8 per cent.” Meanwhile, experts say that mobile transfers and other forms of remittances, though growing at lower rate, presents huge potential for economic growth. Principal Associate, Mobile Money Africa, Mr. Emmanuel Okoegwale, while reacting to the World Bank figure, said that the strategy to unleashing the potential of remittances in the market is to enable low-cost remittances for Africans in order to encourage the sector’s growth.

To address the low remittance projection, he said, RemitAfrica 2015 Conference, holding in Lagos early November, this year, had been conceived to add the needed impetus, through dialogues and collaborations, to the growth of remittances in African nations.

Nigeria’s 150.7m active phone lines face decline

• As teledensity rises to 107%

Telecoms operators in Nigeria are set to witness a decline in their over 150.7 million active subscriptions as they comply with the regulator’s directive on Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) deactivation, New Telegraph has learnt. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had, on August 4, directed the operators to deactivate unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards on their networks and reconnect such lines after they have been properly registered by the operators. T

he move, according to the regulator, was being taken to prevent the telecoms industry from declining into an emergency situation, restore discipline and ensure the protection of life of the citizenry across the country while ensuring a credible database of phone users.

About 37.79 million telephone lines have been sent to the operators for revalidation through the process of re-registration of the effected subscribers, following the regulator’s discovery that over 45 per cent of subscriber data so far collected by the operators are invalid.

“When we gave the operators the seven-day ultimatum spanning August 4 through August 11, the directive was clear: to clean up their databases by deactivating the affected SIMs and  two, call back these wrongly registered subscribers to register their SIMs,” he said, “For instance, when we gave the directive, we sent 18.6 million numbers to MTN for revalidation, 7.4 million to Airtel, 2.33 million to Glo and 19.46 million to Etisalat,” Head of Enforcement Compliance and Monitoring at NCC, Mr. Idehen Efosa, said in Lagos. However, while the operators have been sending text messages to the affected subscribers to go and re-register their SIM to avoid total deactivation, New Telegraph gathered that many

subscribers are still reluctant to do so. “I have received a notification from Globacom to come and re-register my SIM, but I have been so busy to go and queue again to re-register. I don’t care because I use three SIM lines and I have not received any notification from the other two. So, when the Glo line is disconnected, I don’t care until I have time to go a register. I can use other lines,” said an Ikeja-based telecoms subscriber, Mr. Soji Badare, Another subscriber, Mr. Jacob Uche, said: “I have not given it a thought to go and re-register. There is no time to go and do that. But I still believe it is a stray text message not meant for me because I am sure I registered my SIMs well before now.”

However, some other subscribers, who spoke with our correspondent at the weekend, said that they had proceeded to reregister their SIMs. New Telegraph learnt that the reluctance by subscribers to proceed for reregistration of their SIMs on receiving notifications from their respective networks may create a total disconnection of their lines, if they fail to register within the on-going ‘grace time’ during which the NCC is monitoring operator’s compliance to the SIM deactivation directive.

“Though this is not fair to the subscribers who had passed through the rigour of queuing and getting their SIM cards registered to come and reregister again, we appeal to subscribers, who have received notifications from their networks to go and re-register,” counsels President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Mr. Deolu Ogunbanjo. Meanwhile, as the number of active telephone lines in Nigeria increased to 150.7 million, teledensity has also moved up to 107.67 per cent, according to the latest subscriber data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for the month of July.

According to the NCC, of the 150.7 million active subscriptions, GSM operators including MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat control 148.4 million. Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), where Visafone the only active operator in the segment, has over two million, while fixed wired/wireless networks had 188,281 telephone lines.

Chinese shares continue recovery

Chinese shares extended their recovery on the last day of a volatile week which started with shock losses that spread fear to global markets.

The mainland’s benchmark Shanghai Composite was up by 1.1% at 3,123.04 points in early trade.

With these gains adding to Thursday’s recovery, investors hope that the panic and sell-off has died down for now.

Stocks elsewhere in Asia also continued their rebound, helped by a strong finish for US shares, reports the BBC.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was higher by 1.6% at 22,186.30 points.

Japan inflation flatlining

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 saw the strongest gains of Asia’s big markets, climbing 2.4% higher to 19,020.56.

Morning trade in Tokyo extended Thursday’s recovery on the region’s largest stock market after its sharp losses earlier in the week.

Investors were also looking at fresh data showing Japanese inflation fell back to zero in July, raising speculation that the central bank would launch a fresh round of stimulus.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was higher by 0.5% at 5,259.60 points.

Marking the end of week of earnings reports, the country’s supermarket giant Woolworths reported a 12.5% drop in full year profit, its first fall in at least 19 years.

Woolworth shares were 0.5% higher despite the poor numbers.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi was 1.2% higher at 1,930.30 points in early trade.

The recovery across Asia took its cue partly from China’s recovery but also the strong sentiment from the US.

Shares on Wall Street had risen over night and oil prices jumped after revised figures showed the US economy grew by far more than had been thought between April and June.

From Russia to Nigeria, crude values still depressed

Oil traders in barrels from Nigeria to Russia say that the physical market remains stubbornly weak in further evidence a global crude oil glut is proving much more difficult to clear. “I can’t remember when during such a correction (in futures), differentials and values in the physical market stayed so weak.

It tells me only one thing – the glut is still weighing on the market,” a trader in the Mediterranean market told Reuters. Oil prices have tumbled to around $40 per barrel from their 2014 peaks of $115 as a supply glut caused by a US shale boom was aggravated by an OPEC decision to open the pumps to fight for market share and depress output of high-cost producers.

As oil prices began their slide, traders of Nigeria, Russian, Azeri, Kazakh and Angolan oil rushed to offer their grades at steep discounts as they struggled to place it with buyers. The trend has continued for most of the past year, challenging the views from the likes of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and big producer, Saudi Arabia, which have repeatedly said that lower prices would spur demand and ultimately help clear the glut. “Strong demand? If it was as strong as everyone is saying, cargoes would be clearing much faster,” a Russian trader said.

Russian Urals crude has been trading at a discount of between $1 and $2 per barrel to benchmark dated Brent in northern Europe compared with a discount of less than $1 during most of 2009, when oil futures began a recovery from their 2008 lows. With futures prices now hovering around six and a half year lows, the physical market would typically begin to strengthen and signal a potential rebound in futures – in a repeat of patterns seen during the previous crisis of 2008/09.

Azeri Light is trading not far off its weakest premium to Brent since 2010 and Nigeria’s Qua Iboe grade – one of the key victims of the US shale boom, which almost fully displaced it from the American markets – is hovering not far off its lowest premiums to dated Brent in a decade. US bank, Morgan Stanley, one of the biggest players in commodities markets in the past decades, said this week that the latest weakness in oil futures appeared to be more driven by financials than physical markets.

Buhari meets centenary city plc board, hails compensation of Centenary city landlords

Press statement from the presidency

The Presidency Friday in Abuja welcomed an assurance from Centenary City PLC that all the original inhabitants of the site have been fully compensated.
Speaking after being briefed by the Chairman of the company's board of directors, General Abdulsalami Abubakar and members of its management team, President Buhari praised the Centenary City's main development partners from the United Arab Emirates for having enough confidence in Nigeria to agree to invest about $18.5bn in the project.

President Buhari also welcomed the assertion by Gen. Abubakar and his team that the project will create about 250,000 more direct jobs in the Federal Capital Territory and about half a million indirect jobs.
The President noted that skills, expertise and vast experience that will be brought into country to build the Centenary City on the Dubai model, will also be of immense benefit to Nigeria's overall development.

He said that he looked forward to regular updates on the Centenary City's development.
Vice President Yemi Osibanjo who was also present at the briefing, said that the issue of the rights of the original inhabitants of the site acquired for the Centenary City had been of concern to the present Administration.

"We are glad that it is being handled," he said while welcoming the assurance that compensation had been paid to those who will be displaced by the project and that the issue of their relocation was being addressed.
Gen. Abubakar and the management of the Centenary City also told President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo that the project will be totally private sector driven.
Garba Shehu
SSA to the President
(Media & Publicity)

Russian billionaire, Andrey Melnichenko bought the world's largest privately owned sailing yacht

What do you do when you're worth over $8billion? You spend $450million on a luxury super yacht. Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko has built the world's largest sailing yacht -which boasts of eight decks, a glass observation area, measures a roomy 468 feet and weighs 14,224 tons. The ship will have a crew of around 54 people, the masts are very tall, and its sails are bigger than a football field when all are flying. It will be the largest privately owned sailing yacht in the world.

The founder of MDM Bank (pictured above with his supermodel wife) who ranked 97th in the Forbes World's billionaires list, hired master ship designer Philippe Starck, whose credentials include Steve Jobs' famous yacht and Mr Melnichenko's first opulent vessel.

The yacht, which Mr Melnichenko is thought to have named 'A' to ensure it is listed first in shipping registers, is due to begin its first sea trials later this year. Initially it will be tested with one mast before the others are fixed in place.

With an 26ft (8 metres) keel and width of around 81 feet (24.88 metres), Sailing Yacht A had to be built in one of the largest shipyards in the world in Nobiskrug in Germany.


Source: Mail Online

NNPC reduces the number of companies that will be lifting Nigeria’s crude from 43 to 16

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has reduced the number of companies that will handle the contract of lifting Nigeria’s crude from 43 to 16. The drastic reduction is part of the Corporation’s transformation agenda aimed at keeping its operation small, efficient, transparent and reduction of cost.

NNPC spokesman, Ohi Alegbe said the decision is a novel move to instill transparency and accountability in the award of the annual Crude Oil Term Contract for 2015/2016.
He said:

“NNPC yesterday mapped out measures to execute the 2015/2016 award of contract to companies for the evacuation of Nigeria’s crude oil equity from the various crude and condensate production arrangements.”
In a statement, NNPC stated that it was part of measures to optimise the marketing of Nigeria’s crude oil and secure new market potentials. It said the number of off-takers for the proposed 2015/2016 term contract which would emerge after a planned rigorous competitive bid exercise has been pruned from 43 to 16.
The statement read:
“In the days ahead, we shall place advertisement for the 2015/2016 Term Contracts and the publication will run for one month in major National and International print media to ensure effective message penetration. Later the guidelines for the selection of new off-takers would be published and subsequently a special bid evaluation committee would be constituted to conduct due diligence on successful applicants.”
He also stated that apart from Oando, Calson, MRS, BP/Nigermed and Total Trading that were earlier selected to bid for the new Offshore Processing Agreement (OPA), invitation was also extended to Forte Oil and Mobil to bid for the OPA contract.


The Nation

Buhari to Ambassador of Saudi Arabia - Diversification of the country's economy is very high on our agenda

Press statement from the presidency

President Muhammadu Buhari said Thursday in Abuja that Nigeria, under his leadership, will work more closely with other countries facing the challenge of falling oil prices to rapidly move away from dependence on crude oil exports for economic survival.
Speaking at an audience with the new Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, Mr. Fahad Abdullah Sefyan, President Buhari affirmed his administration's commitment to faster development of Nigeria's non-oil sectors and the speedy diversification of the country's economy.

‘‘For more than 30 years, Nigeria has depended on oil as its major source of revenue at the expense of agriculture and the non-oil sector which could be the mainstay of our economy.
"As oil exporting countries facing similar challenges due to the down turn in the international price of crude oil, we should be working closer together.

"Saudi Arabia has done excellently in manufacturing, building of infrastructure and exploration of solid minerals and I believe that greater bilateral cooperation between us in this regard will be mutually beneficial," the President told the new Ambassador of Saudi Arabia.

President Buhari said that in keeping with his commitment to the accelerated development of Nigeria's non-oil sector, the Federal Government will ensure that all pending agreements on trade and economic relations with other countries are speedily concluded and signed.

President Buhari, who also received the new Ambassador of Turkey, Mr. Hakan Cakil and the new Ambassador of Sudan, Mr. Ibrahim Bushra Mohammed, commended Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sudan for their cooperation with Nigeria in the war against terrorism.

The President restated his conviction that the war against terrorism in Nigeria and other countries can only be won with greater and more effective international collaboration.

All the new ambassadors assured President Buhari that they will work very hard to boost trade and economic relations between Nigeria and their respective countries.


Femi Adesina
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
August 27, 2015

World Bank sets to start the disbursement of $140m for community projects & development

The World Bank on Wednesday said it would soon start the disbursement of $140m under its assisted Community and Social Development Project to 26 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The bank, in a statement issued in Abuja said about $200m (N39.4bn) had been disbursed under the first phase of the project, thus bringing the total amount provided under the programme to $340m.

It said the States that benefit from the additional financing will focus on the most vulnerable households in poor communities in the country.
Anambra, Kaduna and Sokoto states, it added will also be given additional funds.

The statement said the additional financing was expected to fund micro-project facilities such as rehabilitation and construction of school class rooms, health centres, clinics and skills acquisition.

Others are rural electrification, rural transport, community water schemes, community housing schemes and rural market infrastructure.

It gave a list of vulnerable groups that would also benefit from special grants as internally displaced poor persons, marginalised or chronically poor households, widows and the physically challenged.

The World Bank Task Team Leader for the project, Foluso Okunmadewa in the statement, stated:
“This project will not only help vulnerable people in the short term, including those in conflict-affected areas, but will also help build and rebuild long-lasting partnership between local governments and communities.
In addition, it will help integrate communities as well as make smart investments in people for the future.


“The first phase of the World Bank funding of the Community Social Development Project, which benefited over 5,600 communities and about two million people in 26 states of the federation, was fully disbursed by December 2014.”


Punch

Bank debtors, civil servants exert pressure on property market

Despite the seeming lull in the housing sector, there has been a surge in home supply, especially in Abuja and Lagos, New Telegraph has learnt.

This recent development is not unconnected with the current probe of rich civil servants and threat by banks to disclose the names of their chronic debtors Built environment experts, who confirmed this, said that the threats by lenders to publish the names of their debtors have increased the volume of property available in the market.

In a bid to avoid the name and shame tactics deployed by the lenders to reduce the huge portfolios of their non-performing loans put at N546.02 billion as at March 2015, some of the debtors were compelled to sell off their properties to offset their debts.

The quantum of property pushed to the market, expert said, has forced down property values in some highbrow areas in Abuja and Lagos. Banks’ debtors are not alone. Civil servants in Abuja whose source of  wealth are questionable, are also offloading their properties into the market to avoid being caught by the anti-graft agencies, it was also learnt.

Lagos-based estate surveyor and valuer, Mr. Akin Olawore, said that property sales in the last two months had increased, attributing this development to the decision of lenders to publish names of their debtors. He said that many property owners and developers who dread the repercussion of having their names in debtors’ list have pushed some of the properties into the market in order to offset their loan.

Some of the property sales, he said, were executed in Abuja, while Lagos market received low sale. However, despite the huge volume of property that have been pushed to the market, Olawore said that there are no funds to purchase these properties.

Besides, Olawore noted that the demand for residential properties in high-end areas of Abuja and Lagos has been affected by exchange rate volatility.

He, however, said that there was high vacancy factor in flooded areas of Park View, Ikoyi and Chevy View Estate, Chevron and Lekki – all in Lagos . Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company (FDC), Mr. Bismark Rewane, further confirmed this in his monthly economic analysis.

He noted that the name and shame debtors by banks have forced huge selling of properties to pay down debts. Rewane also pointed out that the war against corruption and money laundering are pushing down property values.

China shares returned to positive territory after massive losses

Chinese shares have returned to positive territory after massive losses earlier in the week rocked markets around the globe.

The Shanghai Composite was up by 2.3% at 2,991.91 points.

The turnaround, though, does little to make up double digit percentage losses made so far this week.

Shares elsewhere in Asia also made gains in early trade on the back of a jump on Wall Street on Wednesday, which saw its biggest rise in four years, reports the BBC.

The mood was lifted by remarks by US Federal Reserve official William Dudley, who said the case for a rate rise, which had seemingly been on the cards for September, now seemed “less compelling”.

In Asian markets on Thursday:

*Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up by 2.6% at 21,635.32 points.

*The region’s biggest stock market, Japan’s Nikkei 225, traded 2% higher at 18,736.90, building on strong gains made the previous session.

*South Korea’s Kospi also notched up rises for a second day. The index rose 1.1% to 1,915.23 points.

*In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up by 1.7% at 5,262.20 points.

Severe losses on Chinese market over the past week sent shockwaves around the globe.

A move by the country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, to cut its key lending rate on Tuesday initially failed to calm Chinese market.

Analysts believe the tentative share market bounce back indicates fears over China’s woes have eased.

States’ bailout: Banks get CBN approve to fund salary arrears

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved the request by Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to disburse funds set aside for liquidating the outstanding staff salaries owed by states and local governments.

This followed the request made by the National Executive Council (NEC) to the apex bank to consider ways of resolving the imbroglio. The banking watchdog stated that the conditions for accessing the loan facility include resolutions of the State Executive Council authorising the borrowing and State House of Assembly consenting to the loan package, as well as issuance of Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) to ensure timely repayment.

In a statement yesterday, the CBN said: “Out of the 27 states involved, funds have been disbursed to two states namely Zamfara and Kwara states that met the requirements as agreed with their respec-tive banks.

Efforts will be made in the coming days to conclude disbursements to other states so that all outstanding salaries to civil servants can be cleared.” It would be recalled that the slide in oil prices from June last year, led to a significant reduction in the amount of funds shared monthly to states and local governments by the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).

Consequently, at the inception of the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, most states owed their workers several months’ salary arrears resulting in industrial action across the states.

With the affected states clamouring for a bailout from the Federal Government, the NEC, at its meeting of June 29, 2015, requested the CBN to collaborate with other stakeholders and consider ways of liquidating the outstanding staff salaries owed by state and local governments. After series of meetings, the Federal Government, last week, gave approval to Debt Management Office (DMO) to raise bonds for 11 states to offset their loans to commercial banks. The DMO’s bond has between 15 and 20 years tenor. Fourteen banks are involved in the phase one of the state’s debt restructuring exercise involving 11 states.

The first 11 states that got their debts to commercial banks restructured are Osun – N88.6 billion; Delta – N69.8 billion; Ogun – N55.4 billion; Imo – N37.1 billion; Ekiti – N18.8 billion and Kwara N15.6 billion. Edo had N11.9 billion; Benue – N10.9 billion; Oyo – N9.1 billion; Bauchi – N6.5 billion and Kogi – N0.81 billion.

All these debts amounted to N322.78 billion Speaking on Monday in Abuja, Director-General of DMO, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, said that the 11 states that had their commercial debts restructured would pay 14.83 per cent of the value of their domestic bonds, which their debts to commercial banks were converted into.

He said the debt restructuring “is good not only for the states, but also for the banking system because banks’ balance sheets will improve, as weak subnational loan, which threatened banks’ assets and balance sheets will be replaced with high quality sovereign assets.”

He noted that the FGNBonds enjoy enhanced liquidity as they are traded in the strong secondary market and banks would have improved space to lend to other sectors of the economy as they are free to convert their FGNBond holdings into cash in the secondary market whenever they desire.”

Osinbajo declares Nigeria Diaspora Day 2015 open - See photos

Vice President Osinbajo declared open the Nigeria Diaspora Day 2015 which held in Abuja yesterday Aug 25th. More photos...

President Buhari blames past administrations for escalation of subsidies of petroleum products

Press statement from the presidency

President Buhari Tuesday in Abuja blamed past administrations for the current situation in which Nigeria is forced to spend billions of Naira annually on alleged subsidies for petroleum products. Speaking at a meeting with the Chairman and members of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, President Buhari expressed the view that the escalation of petroleum subsidy payments over recent years was due to the deliberate neglect of the nation's refineries, oil pipelines and other related infrastructure to allow the importation of petroleum products and corruption to thrive.
The President, who restated his huge disappointment with the way Nigeria's oil industry has been run since he left office as Petroleum Minister and Military Head of State, said that he was convinced that if the development of the country's domestic refining capacity and petroleum products distribution network had kept pace with national demand, there would not have been any need for the huge subsidies currently being paid to importers. "They allowed the infrastructure to collapse so that their cronies can steal by bringing in refined products from overseas," President Buhari said.

The President urged the chairman and members of the RMAFC, who availed him of their view on the vexed issued of petroleum subsidy payments, to go "back to the drawing board" and come up with more humane proposals to rescue ordinary Nigerians from the "wicked manipulation" of the country's oil industry by corrupt operators.
President Buhari also warned that severe sanctions will be visited on any individual or organisation that violates the directive on the payment of all national revenue into the Federation Account.
The President said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Nigerian Ports Authority and other MDAs which previously relied on the laws establishing them to retain all or part of revenues collected by them, did so illegally and must now comply with the Nigerian Constitution by paying all revenues to the Federation Account.
President Buhari, who also chided the RMAFC for approving excessive remunerations for some political office holders, urged the commission to seek a proper interpretation of its powers and address the public outcry against the unreasonably high payments.
Garba Shehu
SSA to the President
(Media & Publicity)
August 25, 2015

China’s ‘Black Monday’ woes continue

Chinese stocks are again down, a day after their worst plunge since 2007 caused market losses around the world.

The global sell-off was driven by fears that China’s slowing growth might pull down other economies.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite fell 6% on Tuesday, after dropping 8.5% on what state media called “Black Monday” – overnight, stocks in Europe and the US also fell, reports the BBC.

Other Asian markets opened lower on Tuesday, but recovered in later trade.

Investors are worried that firms and countries which rely on high demand from China – the world’s second largest economy and the second largest importer of both goods and commercial services – will be affected by its slowdown.

China’s central bank devalued the currency, the yuan, two weeks ago, raising fresh concerns globally that its economy could be in worse shape than previously thought.

A cheaper currency lowers the price of China’s exports, making them more attractive to global firms.

Elsewhere in Asia on Tuesday though, markets beat expectations, returning back to positive territory in early trade:

*Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up by 2.6%

*Australia’s S&P ASX/200 rose by 2.2%

*Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 0.7% higher.

Those gains came despite the losses in Europe and the US overnight:

*Wall Street’s Dow Jones fell 6%, then almost recovered its losses before closing 3.6% lower.

*London’s FTSE 100 index closed down 4.6%.

*Major markets in France and Germany down by 5.5% and 4.96% respectively.

Nigeria’s annual marine crude export expenses hit N800bn

The worth of Nigeria’s investments on marine vessels for crude exports has hit N800 billion ($4 billion) in one year. This came as the United States’ Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed that Nigeria’s 10 per cent contribution of overall US oil imports in 2010 had fallen to zero per cent in 2015. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude exporter, had, according to statistics from the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), hitherto spent less than $4 billion yearly before 2014.

New Telegraph gathered at the weekend that the NCDMB has already began a process to reduce the cost, which it considered outrageous. The process, which a source at the agency said at the weekend, began by the immediate past Executive Secretary of the bard, Ernest Nwapa, is being given speedy execution by the new Executive Secretary. He said: “Nigeria spends $4 billion on marine vessels to export the country’s crude, and that the local content board is encouraging the foreign companies to partner some Nigerian companies to sell off some of their equities.”

Talks, he said, had begun at different levels of engagements, adding that an understanding had been reached with states such as Imo and Bayelsa. “Bayelsa and Imo states had made land available for indigenous equipment manufacturers to promote the local content policy,” he said. According him, Shell has also agreed to build a jetty worth $10 million in Bayelsa and this process is being given speedy coordination by the new Executive Secretary.

Meanwhile, EIA has said that crude oil production in Nigeria increased to 2.520 million barrels per day in April from 2.420 million per day in March of 2015. The petroleum industry in Nigeria is the largest on the African continent. As of 2014, Nigeria’s petroleum industry contributes about 14 per cent to its economy. Therefore, though the petroleum sector is important, it remains, in fact, a small part of the country’s overall diversified economy.

As a result of the numerous small fields, an extensive and well-developed pipeline network has been engineered to transport the crude. Also, because of the lack of highly productive fields, money from the jointly operated (with the Federal Government) companies is constantly directed towards petroleum exploration and production. Nigeria’s petroleum is classified mostly as “light” and “sweet”, as the oil is largely free of sulphur. Nigeria is the largest producer of sweet oil in OPEC.

This sweet oil is similar in composition to petroleum extracted from the North Sea. This crude oil is known as “Bonny light.” Names of other Nigerian crudes, all of which are named according to export terminal, are Qua Ibo, Escravos blend, Brass River, Forcados, and Pennington Anfan. As recently as 2010, Nigeria provided about 10 per cent of overall US oil imports and ranked as the fifth-largest source for oil imports in the US.

However, Nigeria ceased exports to the US in July 2014, because of the impact of shale production in America; India is now the largest consumer of Nigerian oil. There are six petroleum exportation terminals in the country.

Shell owns two, while Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, and Agip own one each. Shell also owns the Forcados Terminal, which is capable of storing 13 million barrels (2,100,000 m3) of crude oil in conjunction with the nearby Bonny Terminal. Mobil operates primarily out of the Qua Iboe Terminal in Akwa Ibom State, while Chevron owns the Escravos Terminal located in Delta State and has a storage capacity of 3.6 million barrels (570,000 m3). Agip operates the Brass Terminal in Brass, a town 113 km southwest of Port Harcourt and has a storage capacity of 3,558,000 barrels (565,700 m3). Texaco operates the Pennington Terminal.

CBN intervention sustain Naira stability

Consistent intervention by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may have impacted positively on the naira, as the local currency seems to have achieved some level of stability on the parallel market in the last fortnight. Although it declined to N210 to the dollar yesterday compared with N208 that it exchanged last Friday, the naira has not dropped below N215 to the dollar on the parallel market in recent weeks.

The naira had weakened on the parallel market to as much as N242 to the dollar last month, on persistent dollar demand after CBN limited importers’ access to dollars on the official interbank market to buy a wide range of goods, in order to save its reserves.

The local currency, has, however, remained stable at N197 to the dollar on the official interbank bank. Dealers attributed the naira’s recent stability on the parallel market to the twice-weekly sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux De Change (BDC), which the CBN commenced three weeks ago. A Lagos-based BDC operator, Mr. Jacob Awuzia, told the New Telegraph that in addition to the regular $30,000, which the apex bank sells to BDCs on Wednesdays, it had in the last three weeks also sold dollars on Fridays to operators.

He said, “The CBN has intervened actively in the market in the last three weeks, selling dollars on Wednesdays and Fridays. This has helped to ease the pressure on the naira. However, nobody is sure of how long the CBN would be able to sustain this kind of intervention. For instance, no one is sure at this moment whether the CBN would sell dollars once or twice this week.”

He disclosed that the uncertainty about the CBN’s ability to sustain the intervention has been fuelled by the fact that the regulator does not usually give BDCs any prior notice about whether it would sell dollars once or twice in a particular week. According to industry analysts, the CBN’s ability to sustain its intervention would depend on whether oil prices recover or not. They pointed out that with oil prices suffering further decline in recent days, the prospects don’t look good for the naira.

Bar use half n-ked women to attract customers

People like n.aked things this days oo lol..A local bar in the provincial city of Shanxi province, China has introduced a somewhat seductive, if not erotic, program of inviting its customers to enjoy sushi strategically placed on the body of a half-u.nclad woman.

Such event is not the first in China. In June, an automobile show in north China’s Shenyang had a similar event where young models were asked to lay down on top of the cars, and spectators could enjoy sushi placed on their bodies.