Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigerian economist and former finance minister, has been appointed to head the World Trade Organization, becoming the first African and woman to helm the global trade body.
Okonjo-Iweala takes over as the global trade body struggles to remain relevant amid growing protectionism and trade tensions and an economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.
From reviving WTO's dispute settlement process to policing China, the new director-general has her task cut out as she looks to restore global faith in the trade body.
Reas more at:
Daunting challenges await WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 16.02.2021
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
2/6/21
WTO: Nigerian economist poised to become first female WTO chief
Nigeria's former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is poised to become the next head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after US President Joe Biden's administration gave her its "full support" on Friday.
If she is confirmed, Okonjo-Iweala will be both the first African and the first woman to hold the position.
< Read more at: https://www.dw.com/en/nigerian-economist-poised-to-become-first-female-wto-chief/a-56479349
If she is confirmed, Okonjo-Iweala will be both the first African and the first woman to hold the position.
< Read more at: https://www.dw.com/en/nigerian-economist-poised-to-become-first-female-wto-chief/a-56479349
3/1/16
Nigeria: Environmental Concerns: Dutch Royal Shell proves test case for oil majors’ -- by William Wallis and Anjli Raval
Royal Dutch Shell’s environmental record will come under renewed fire
on Wednesday in two cases that will test the ability of aggrieved
communities in Nigeria to use UK courts to hold the company to account.
Shell’s Nigeria subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC), is the largest onshore producer in the Niger Delta, where millions of barrels have been spilled — in accidents and as a result of criminal interference — since oil was first discovered in 1956.
In many instances — including in the two cases being brought to the high court in London by solicitors Leigh Day on behalf of the affected communities of Ogale and Bille — the spills have yet to be properly cleaned up. Shell says that in both cases sabotage and oil theft was a likely cause.
Lawyers at Leigh Day said their action would contribute to establishing whether oil spill litigation “goes international”. They would also seek to compel the company to clean up the affected areas immediately and compensate villagers for the impact on their lives in the wake of last year’s £55m payout by Shell for a similar Nigerian case brought by the Bodo community, also handled by Leigh Day.
Wednesday’s hearing is a procedural one in which Leigh Day will begin to make the case for why a UK court should have jurisdiction over Shell’s Nigeria subsidiary. Similar cases brought against SPDC and other oil companies in Nigeria have tended to languish for years, even decades.
“No one is going to mess around in the Nigerian courts if they can get remedy in the UK,” said Daniel Leader, lead solicitor in one of the cases.
In the past, the World Wildlife Fund has said that amount of oil spilled in Nigeria over the decades has been equivalent to an Exxon Valdez disaster every year for half a century. It claims the Niger Delta is one of the top five polluted places on earth.
Read more Shell proves test case for oil majors’ environmental records - FT.com
Shell’s Nigeria subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC), is the largest onshore producer in the Niger Delta, where millions of barrels have been spilled — in accidents and as a result of criminal interference — since oil was first discovered in 1956.
In many instances — including in the two cases being brought to the high court in London by solicitors Leigh Day on behalf of the affected communities of Ogale and Bille — the spills have yet to be properly cleaned up. Shell says that in both cases sabotage and oil theft was a likely cause.
Lawyers at Leigh Day said their action would contribute to establishing whether oil spill litigation “goes international”. They would also seek to compel the company to clean up the affected areas immediately and compensate villagers for the impact on their lives in the wake of last year’s £55m payout by Shell for a similar Nigerian case brought by the Bodo community, also handled by Leigh Day.
Wednesday’s hearing is a procedural one in which Leigh Day will begin to make the case for why a UK court should have jurisdiction over Shell’s Nigeria subsidiary. Similar cases brought against SPDC and other oil companies in Nigeria have tended to languish for years, even decades.
“No one is going to mess around in the Nigerian courts if they can get remedy in the UK,” said Daniel Leader, lead solicitor in one of the cases.
In the past, the World Wildlife Fund has said that amount of oil spilled in Nigeria over the decades has been equivalent to an Exxon Valdez disaster every year for half a century. It claims the Niger Delta is one of the top five polluted places on earth.
Read more Shell proves test case for oil majors’ environmental records - FT.com
4/17/15
Italy: Christian migrants thrown overboard into Mediterranean en route to Italy
Italian police arrested 15 Muslim migrants on Thursday suspected of
throwing about a dozen Christians from a boat in the Mediterranean as it
headed to Italy.
Police in the Sicilian capital Palermo said
they had arrested the men, from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal after
survivors reported they had thrown 12 people from Nigeria and Ghana to
their deaths and threatened other Christians.
The 15 were arrested on charges of multiple homicide motivated by religious hatred.
“The motive for the resentment was traced to their faiths,” police said. “Twelve people are said to have drowned in the waters of the Mediterranean, all of them Nigerian and Ghanaian.”
The survivors’ account underscores the rising chaos in the Mediterranean, which thousands of migrants, many fleeing war and deprivation in Africa, try to cross in rickety boats in the hope of a better life in Europe.
In a separate incident the same day, another 41 migrants were feared drowned after their boat sank en route to Italy, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.
Around 20,000 migrants have reached the Italian coast this year, according to the IOM, fewer than arrived in the first four months of last year, but the number of deaths has risen almost nine-fold.
Read more: Europe - Christian migrants thrown overboard into Mediterranean en route to Italy - France 24
The 15 were arrested on charges of multiple homicide motivated by religious hatred.
“The motive for the resentment was traced to their faiths,” police said. “Twelve people are said to have drowned in the waters of the Mediterranean, all of them Nigerian and Ghanaian.”
The survivors’ account underscores the rising chaos in the Mediterranean, which thousands of migrants, many fleeing war and deprivation in Africa, try to cross in rickety boats in the hope of a better life in Europe.
In a separate incident the same day, another 41 migrants were feared drowned after their boat sank en route to Italy, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.
Around 20,000 migrants have reached the Italian coast this year, according to the IOM, fewer than arrived in the first four months of last year, but the number of deaths has risen almost nine-fold.
Read more: Europe - Christian migrants thrown overboard into Mediterranean en route to Italy - France 24
1/13/15
Boko Haram: Nigeria Is Letting Boko Haram Get Away With Murder - Barbie Latza Nadeau
No one knows for sure how many people Nigeria’s militant Islamist
group Boko Haram killed in a string of violent attacks last week because
there are few people left to count the bodies.
The first slayings came when the militants razed the community of Baga on Lake Chad, killing hundreds and possibly as many as 2,000 civilians with little effort or care. Those who survived reported fleeing over fields of bloody corpses. A few days later, a barrage of females—including a 10-year-old girl thought to be among those kidnapped by the extremist group last April—were corseted with explosives and used as human detonators to kill scores more.
The only thing worse than the global community’s collective amnesia about the once-viral #bringbackourgirls campaign and the indifference to the latest bloodshed is the detachment shown by the Nigerian government, which still has not made a formal comment on the latest atrocities. “In this worsening narrative, women as collateral damage or easily dismissed war booty or victims or tools is a major step backward,” Adotei Akwei, the Africa advocacy director of Amnesty International, told The Daily Beast. “Not only in terms of gender bias, but in terms of accountability for all involved.”
As Nigeria prepares for elections next month, accountability—or lack thereof—seems to be the most important campaign topic not being discussed by the candidates. No one seems ready to catch the killers or take responsibility to stop the violence, despite estimates by the Council on Foreign Relations that more than 10,000 people lost their lives in 2014.
The elections will be a repeat of those held in 2011 with now-incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south who heads the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), challenged by Muhammad Buhari, a Muslim from the north, who heads the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Buhari was briefly head of state in the mid-1980s when he was a general and Nigeria was a military state, but he was toppled in a coup that paved the way to democratic elections. According to a Gallup Poll released Tuesday, only 8 percent of Nigeria’s population say they believe in the fairness of the upcoming elections.
The accountability issue in Nigeria is as multifaceted as the country is corrupt, said Carl Levan, a professor at the school of International Service at American University in Washington and author of Dictators and Democracy in African Development.
He says that the reluctance to pursue Boko Haram, which flies the jihadi black flag and publicly supports ISIS, stems from the fact that sitting President Jonathan, who is from southern Nigeria, risks an electoral backlash if he comes down hard on his military’s ineffectiveness.
Read more: Nigeria Is Letting Boko Haram Get Away With Murder - The Daily Beast
The first slayings came when the militants razed the community of Baga on Lake Chad, killing hundreds and possibly as many as 2,000 civilians with little effort or care. Those who survived reported fleeing over fields of bloody corpses. A few days later, a barrage of females—including a 10-year-old girl thought to be among those kidnapped by the extremist group last April—were corseted with explosives and used as human detonators to kill scores more.
The only thing worse than the global community’s collective amnesia about the once-viral #bringbackourgirls campaign and the indifference to the latest bloodshed is the detachment shown by the Nigerian government, which still has not made a formal comment on the latest atrocities. “In this worsening narrative, women as collateral damage or easily dismissed war booty or victims or tools is a major step backward,” Adotei Akwei, the Africa advocacy director of Amnesty International, told The Daily Beast. “Not only in terms of gender bias, but in terms of accountability for all involved.”
As Nigeria prepares for elections next month, accountability—or lack thereof—seems to be the most important campaign topic not being discussed by the candidates. No one seems ready to catch the killers or take responsibility to stop the violence, despite estimates by the Council on Foreign Relations that more than 10,000 people lost their lives in 2014.
The elections will be a repeat of those held in 2011 with now-incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south who heads the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), challenged by Muhammad Buhari, a Muslim from the north, who heads the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Buhari was briefly head of state in the mid-1980s when he was a general and Nigeria was a military state, but he was toppled in a coup that paved the way to democratic elections. According to a Gallup Poll released Tuesday, only 8 percent of Nigeria’s population say they believe in the fairness of the upcoming elections.
The accountability issue in Nigeria is as multifaceted as the country is corrupt, said Carl Levan, a professor at the school of International Service at American University in Washington and author of Dictators and Democracy in African Development.
He says that the reluctance to pursue Boko Haram, which flies the jihadi black flag and publicly supports ISIS, stems from the fact that sitting President Jonathan, who is from southern Nigeria, risks an electoral backlash if he comes down hard on his military’s ineffectiveness.
Read more: Nigeria Is Letting Boko Haram Get Away With Murder - The Daily Beast
7/31/14
The EU Energy Dilemma : EU must become energy self sufficient: before trade deal talks with US continue
Shawn Donnan writes in the Financial Times: "Ask anyone in European business what the most daunting longer-term issues confronting them are and it is unlikely to take much time before they site energy costs.
Even before Vladimir Putin’s Russia turned into the EU’s most belligerent neighbor, the reality was that Europe is facing a long-term energy crisis."
"The shale oil and gas have radically lowered the cost of energy in the US and given American manufacturing a competitive boost. That has caused more than a measure of angst among European businesses as they fret over their long-term international competitiveness. One solution to many in Europe seems obvious. "
"With a vast new trade pact – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated with the US, there is a strong case for making sure the deal helps guarantee access to that same cheap energy. "
"Moreover, as officials on both sides of the Atlantic have argued publicly, the ultimate goal of the exercise is knitting two ageing economies together as part of a strategic response to the rise of China and other emerging giants. "
"Removing the barriers to trade for a key economic ingredient surely makes sense. Mr Putin has, of course, been doing his best to help that argument in recent months via his hardening stand on Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea."
"A massive natural gas deal with China sent a signal that Russia intended to reduce its reliance on European customers. This month’s downing of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, seemingly by pro-Moscow rebels, will also undoubtedly rekindle the argument."
"The truth, however, is that a year after negotiations began, EU officials are becoming increasingly frustrated with the US over the energy component of TTIP. With good reason – discussions around one of the biggest potential prizes of the transatlantic deal are proceeding slowly."
"At the sixth round of negotiations in Brussels this month, EU officials were again pressing their case for the TTIP to include a separate “energy and raw materials” chapter. The US side, meanwhile, was again politely deferring the question. "
The above shows once again that the present US proposals on the trade deal with the EU are self serving and that the EU must put these talks on the back burner while they solve their energy crises by seriously developing their own alternative energy sources and finding new partners to supply oil and gas requirements.
EU-Digest
Even before Vladimir Putin’s Russia turned into the EU’s most belligerent neighbor, the reality was that Europe is facing a long-term energy crisis."
"The shale oil and gas have radically lowered the cost of energy in the US and given American manufacturing a competitive boost. That has caused more than a measure of angst among European businesses as they fret over their long-term international competitiveness. One solution to many in Europe seems obvious. "
"With a vast new trade pact – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated with the US, there is a strong case for making sure the deal helps guarantee access to that same cheap energy. "
"Moreover, as officials on both sides of the Atlantic have argued publicly, the ultimate goal of the exercise is knitting two ageing economies together as part of a strategic response to the rise of China and other emerging giants. "
"Removing the barriers to trade for a key economic ingredient surely makes sense. Mr Putin has, of course, been doing his best to help that argument in recent months via his hardening stand on Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea."
"A massive natural gas deal with China sent a signal that Russia intended to reduce its reliance on European customers. This month’s downing of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, seemingly by pro-Moscow rebels, will also undoubtedly rekindle the argument."
"The truth, however, is that a year after negotiations began, EU officials are becoming increasingly frustrated with the US over the energy component of TTIP. With good reason – discussions around one of the biggest potential prizes of the transatlantic deal are proceeding slowly."
"At the sixth round of negotiations in Brussels this month, EU officials were again pressing their case for the TTIP to include a separate “energy and raw materials” chapter. The US side, meanwhile, was again politely deferring the question. "
The above shows once again that the present US proposals on the trade deal with the EU are self serving and that the EU must put these talks on the back burner while they solve their energy crises by seriously developing their own alternative energy sources and finding new partners to supply oil and gas requirements.
EU-Digest
3/7/13
Global Insurance Industry: showing signs of strengthening
The spring edition of SURE, a free electronic publication published by Koster Insurances BV in the Netherlands, with news reports from around
the world, focusing on the insurance and financial industry, the global economy and
international trade, indicates there are signs the insurance market segment is slowly improving. .
The latest SURE report includes news items from the EU, USA, Canada, India, China, Nigeria and Russia.
For the complete report go to SURE
The latest SURE report includes news items from the EU, USA, Canada, India, China, Nigeria and Russia.
For the complete report go to SURE
11/1/12
Agriculture - Nigeria: Netherlands to invest euro 26 Million in Agric Sector
The Netherlands is to provide investment worth over 26 million Euros in Nigeria's agric sector, the Dutch ambassador to Nigeria, Bert Ronhaar has said.
Mr Ronhaar, who made this known when the special advocate on financial inclusion for development to the UN Secretary General, Princess Maxima of Netherlands paid a visit to the federal ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Tuesday, said 6 million Euro is being spent on value-added chain for cassava to create employment for 100,000 farmers.
"We are supporting the cassava industry and the small holder cassava growers in Nigeria with a contribution of 6 million Euros developing the value-added chain of cassava which results in creating employment and income for approximately 100,000 Nigerian farmers," he said.
"At the same time the Dutch government is supporting the coco growers in this country, the coco processing industry; it is also supporting the value-added chain in the coco industry. And the total amount invested in that program which will last for over five years is approximately 20 million euro.
Read more: allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Netherlands Spends Euro 26 Million On Agric Sector
Mr Ronhaar, who made this known when the special advocate on financial inclusion for development to the UN Secretary General, Princess Maxima of Netherlands paid a visit to the federal ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Tuesday, said 6 million Euro is being spent on value-added chain for cassava to create employment for 100,000 farmers.
"We are supporting the cassava industry and the small holder cassava growers in Nigeria with a contribution of 6 million Euros developing the value-added chain of cassava which results in creating employment and income for approximately 100,000 Nigerian farmers," he said.
"At the same time the Dutch government is supporting the coco growers in this country, the coco processing industry; it is also supporting the value-added chain in the coco industry. And the total amount invested in that program which will last for over five years is approximately 20 million euro.
Read more: allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Netherlands Spends Euro 26 Million On Agric Sector
5/30/09
Nigeria News - Royal Dutch Shell to go on trial in New York over complicity in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others
For the complete report from Nigeria News click on this link
Royal Dutch Shell to go on trial in New York over complicity in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others
Multi-National Royal Dutch Shell is to go on trial in New York today. Shell has been accused of complicity in the execution of aKen Saro-Wiwa and eight others in 1995. Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian activist who led criticism of exploitation by oil companies in Ogoni, his homeland. He was executed on November 10, 1995. Two lawsuits accused Shell and Brian Anderson, the former managing director of Shell Nigeria of complicity in the decision by the military government to hang the men. The son of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr said "In a sense we already have a victory, because one of the things my father said was that Shell would one day have its day in court.
The case is being seen as a test to determine if transnational companies owned or operating in the US can be held responsible for human rights abuses committed overseas.
5/6/09
Business Day onm Line: ‘We all need insurance at whatever stage of life’ - Salami
For the complete report from the Business Day on Line click on this link
‘We all need insurance at whatever stage of life’ - Salami
"About 14 insurance companies in Nigeria recently launched a group project on corporate campaign aimed at educating the public on the benefits of insurance and how to access insurance. KEHINDE SALAMI, project coordinator of the campaign in this interview with MODESTUS ANAESORONYE, reviews the exercise and what the public stands to benefit.
8/20/08
allAfrica.com: Olympics Soccer: Nigeria: Dream Team Cruises to Olympics Soccer Final against Argentina - by Aliou Goloko
For the complete report from allAfrica.com click on this link
Olympics Soccer: Nigeria: Dream Team Cruises to Olympics Soccer Final against Argentina - by Aliou Goloko
Nigeria qualified for the final of the soccer tournament at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday by defeating Belgium by four goals to one, 12 years after winning the gold medal at the Atlanta games. They will be playing Argentina which won a 3-1 victory over Brazil for the gold medal.
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