the unbearable notice is; that you've to make up your mind to be the difference and not the other way round else people will misjudge you even though you're not that person.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers remarks alongside Democratic Republic of the Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner (L) and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe during a Declaration of Principles signing ceremony at the State Department in Washington on April 25. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Of the three Gulf states that U.S. President Donald Trump visited last week, the United Arab Emirates struck some of the most spectacular deals.
Pledges between the two countries amounted to more than $200 billion, and following restrictions under former President Joe Biden the UAE will enjoy expanded access to advanced U.S. artificial intelligence chips.
Lifting these controls is a dangerous error, Alasdair Phillips Robins and Sam Winter Levy warn: Without them, the United States is
“placing the most important technology of the 21st century at the whims of autocratic regimes with sophisticated surveillance systems [and] expanding ties to China.”
InsiderNotes
The nexus between China and the UAE is especially apparent in Africa, where Emirati businesses are making green energy investments using Chinese technology and minerals.
The United States, meanwhile, looks set to retreat from the continent, with cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and Trump’s tariffs pushing African nations to form new alliances.
Through the transactional lens that Trump is fond of,
Curtis Bell and Christopher Faulkner, of the U.S. Naval War College, write.
But the authors argue that U.S. Africa policy can still prioritize tangible returns through investments that build enduring partnerships, not through quick exits or one-sided gains.
Trump will have the chance to follow that advice as he meets with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Washington on May 21.
South Africa is the United States’ largest trading partner in a region that is an important strategic gateway into Africa, yet Ramaphosa and Trump have not gotten off to a good start.
In fact, the diplomaticrelationship between the United States and South Africa has reached its lowest point since the latter’s transition to democracy in 1994, Imraan Buccus, a senior research associate at South Africa’s Auwal Socio Economic Research Institute, writes.
Much of the blame can be attributed to a Feb. 7 executive order awarding refugee status to Afrikaners that South Africa’s foreign ministry described as based on a “campaign of misinformation and propaganda.”
Ramaphosa has said that his country would not be “bullied” by Trump, but as he looks to reset relations and strike a much needed trade deal, the stakes for his meeting at the White House this week are high.
A mother crying out for help Israel’s genocide against Palestinians must stop and the siege on Gaza must end. Ceasefire Now!
I am a mother from Beit Lahia, and being a mother during genocide is to fight, every minute, every second to maintain your family when nothing is available.
InsiderNotes
Everything here is a struggle: “Getting clean water is a battle; securing food is a battle; getting fresh vegetables or fruits is a dream, but I am a lucky mother because my children are still alive.”
I look at my children and feel guilty because they have been denied their childhood, they were forced into the cruel world of adulthood, of war: no schools, no playgrounds, no daily walks by the sea. I hear bombs and wish I could wrap them with my own body, wish that my love, larger than the universe could protect them, shelter them.
Let’s stand with this mother, and all the mothers in #Gaza, by showing our support for their right to protect their children and demanding Israel to stop the genocide and lift its total siege.
I don’t know if we will survive this round of bombardment, I do not know if the world will remember that one day people lived in a small place called Gaza, which had the most beautiful coastline in the world.
Here lived people who wanted to live, they had so many dreams, they wanted to raise their children under normal circumstances but never got the chance to do so.
All I know is that if we do not make it;
“we will leave knowing that we did everything in our power and beyond to protect our children“
Beit Lahia is the capital of strawberries and flowers; it is now a city of rubble, smoke, and stench of death.
But please remember us by our strawberries and poppies and remember the names and faces of our martyred children
A Global Citizen from Nigeria, Jeremiah, reminisced on how the $Twitter crackdown impacted the community:
“The sudden ban of Twitter, now referred to as X, several years ago sent shockwaves through communities, significantly affecting not only individuals’ ability to connect and share but also disrupting businesses and revenue streams dependent on the platform.”
He added: “It highlighted the interconnectedness of individuals and businesses in the digital realm, where disruptions to online platforms can have far-reaching consequences on livelihoods.”
In 2024 Senegal is experiencing Nigeria’s history, as civil society organizations are taking the Senegalese government to the ECOWAS court regarding internet shutdowns that took place in June, July, and August 2023 as presidential elections were meant to be en route and popular opposition leader (and fierce critic of President Macky Sall) Ousmane Sonk was criminally charged and held in custody.
The blackouts not only limited the right to access information and the freedom of expression of everyday citizens, but it also limited the work of journalists on the ground.
Speaking to Global Citizen on the internet blackout in Senegal, the African head of the International Federation of Journalists, Louis Thomasi said: “Political interference is really putting a dent in qualitative journalism.
If you look at what’s happening in Africa all over, it is now a norm that during election periods, the internet will be cut off.
Even yesterday again [13 Feb. 2024] in Dakar, in Senegal, the internet was cut off.”
“It’s a deliberate attempt to suppress freedom of expression and media freedom in general,”
Louis Thomasi/African head of the International Federation of Journalists
Internet shutdowns and crimes against humanity
We’ve already mentioned that there’s an ongoing war in Sudan and the country has had its internet cut off several times in the face of the civil war.
Sudanese Global Citizen, Mazen, explains what having online access means to them: “Nowadays, the Internet means life.
It makes you aware and connected with the world.”
Internet blackouts in the country have heavily impacted people’s lives, but their impacts are a lot worse than you can imagine.
The loss of the internet has also meant that conflict-related atrocities can continue without being reported.
Advocacy organization, Access Now, has consistently kept tabs on the violent impacts of shutdowns in Sudan.
The organization noted that in 2021, the day before a pro-democracy protest was to take place, the internet was cut off along with phone and SMS services.
The protest continued regardless.
With citizens having no ability to transmit information inside or outside of Sudan, authorities took the opportunity to crack down physically on protesters.
At least 17 people were killed, and 250 people were injured as a result.
“The internet blackouts are doing their job and providing cover for the military’s violent takeover and hijacking of a possible democratic future for Sudan,”
“I have experienced natural disasters such as earthquakes, social unrest causing violent protests, terrorist attacks, all sorts of events that caused or forced involuntary internet shutdowns,”
“The one thing I missed the most in any of those instances was critical services and the ability to connect with my loved ones. This is what the internet means to me.”
Rwandan Global Citizen Gabriel
It’s futile to deny the importance of online access to people across the continent.
However, for as long as the internet exists, there will be ways to exploit it for the use of harm towards everyday citizens in African countries, and around the world.
Since 2011, the United Nations has called for universal internet access as a human right, however, this has not been implemented across countries despite the growing call for it
Right now what Global Citizens can do is remain informed about internet shutdowns and their impacts on communities, and spread the word about them so that their impacts do not go unnoticed and underreported.
As Sudan experiences a civil war where one of the most severe hunger crises of 2023 (and 2024 so far) is ongoing, access to humanitarian aid is both dire and scarce, and innocent lives are being scraped off the planet every day authorities added insult to injury by shutting the internet down when citizens needed it most.
It was mid-February 2024, almost a year into the ongoing violence, when Sudan’s internet would be disrupted for around 10 days.
While the current civil war has been ongoing for over a year, violence and conflict have clung to Sudan’s back on and off for years, and throughout, internet shutdowns have been the norm.
“Because of the internet shutdown, we are unable to communicate with our volunteers, we are unable to buy food, medicine and deliver these services to those in need.
Most of our soup kitchens in the greater Khartoum are cut off and therefore not working.”
A civilian expressed: “Due to war, using online banking apps for transactions has gained popularity given the lack of liquidity.
Now, however, we are almost starving because of this shutdown, as we can’t even buy food and medicine.
All my interactions, including business and online courses, have come to a stop too.”
Whether or not access to the internet should be considered a human right is no longer up for debate: it should be.
The internet has become a vital part of the engine that propels the world forward, and to block someone’s access to it is to block someone’s access to their already existing human rights.
Access to education, food, employment, health, and humanitarian aid, are all within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and because the internet has overwhelmingly become the means by which we access these rights, it should suffice that access to the internet itself should be a human right.
So when an entire region or nation has been denied the right to access the internet due to political agendas that are not always in the best interest of the people, we should be worried as a global society.
Internet shutdowns across the African continent are not only frustrating, but they are increasingly harmful.
Here’s what more you should know:
What are internet shutdowns?
We’re not talking about an outage here.
An outage is when an error or accident occurs and the internet goes off as a result, for instance in times of extreme weather where infrastructure is destroyed, or in the case of maintenance repairs.
A shutdown, on the other hand, is the deliberate turning off of the internet to control a population or the information flow surrounding a situation, and is often orchestrated by some form of authority.
Egypt’s authorities at the time caught on to the fact that demonstrators were using the internet to mobilize and multiply the protest movement, and so they shut off the internet directly impacting access to an open civic space for the right to protest and speak freely.
While it wasn’t the first internet shutdown in history, because of the magnitude of the Arab Spring protests, the world opened its eyes to how internet shutdowns can be weaponized.
A similar thing happened in the last African monarchy-state, eSwatini, in 2021, when pro-democracy and anti-police brutality protests erupted, the state shut down the internet citing “security reasons”, depriving children of their education, businesses of their income, and citizens alike of their free speech.
If it’s still not clear why these shutdowns are a bad thing, a Global Citizen from Ghana, who wished to stay anonymous, broke it down for us: “The internet means Information, which means power in the hands of the people.
The reason governments like to impose restrictions is so the information flow can be stagnant, robbing people of their power to be seen and heard.”
They can either rely on what’s called a routing disruption, which is to stop the transmission of information altogether, meaning people using the internet can’t connect to it, and information being sent will not find its destination.
This is largely what we’ve seen across the continent, particularly in the case of Sudan and eSwatini.
Global Citizen
The second is called packet filtering, where parts of the internet or specific sites are shut down, or specific content is targeted, for instance, Nigeria blocking access to Twitter in 2021.
In retaliation (or what the government referred to as protecting the state from “undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”) the government banned Twitter for the entire country.
At the time, Human Rights Watch and other organizations raised alarm about the impact of freedom of expression and an open civic space, however, these calls were ignored by Buhari’s government.
What’s more is that any use of Twitter, including by journalists and media houses, was deemed “unpatriotic”, and could result in persecution.
We’ll continue the rest of the discussion in our next blog, subscribe to be the first to be notified when it drops.
Exactly six months ago, a new wave of devastation and profound suffering began.
Israeli civilians were targeted and at least 1,139 were killed by Hamas and Palestinian armed groups with hostages being taken and 132 remaining in captivity today.
Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories came under retaliatory attack and continue to face daily horrors more than 32,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza, and over 2.3 million remain at risk of genocide and famine.
Families are waking up every morning without their loved ones, and with uncertainty for their own lives.
I remain heartbroken — and determined to help.
I know you share my sense of moral responsibility.
While the U.S. government and the international community have failed to put an end to the staggering scale of death and devastation, Amnesty International has been responding since day one:
Our call for a permanent ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza, and the release of remaining civilian hostages has mobilized more than 1 million signatures from 167 countries1;
Our investigations have exposed numerous human rights violations and war crimes by all parties — including unlawful attacks by Israeli forces in which U.S.-made weapons were identified2;
Our experts are meeting with U.S. leaders and lawmakers, who are referencing and uplifting our research on the national stage3;
For over six decades4, we have been documenting how Israeli forces have committed grave human rights violations against Palestinians with impunity.
Amnesty is on the ground ensuring violations do not go unchecked all thanks to dedicated people like you and we need your help to continue our lifesaving work.
Tristan: this crisis is devastating but we must not give into despair or assume someone else will come to the rescue.
Behind the stories you read about Israeli and Palestinian civilians being killed in ruthless attacks, we are there, collecting evidence and interviewing survivors so we can seek justice.
Behind the historic number of Palestinians being displaced, we are there, documenting their plight so we can show people in power why a permanent ceasefire is so urgently needed.
And behind Amnesty, there’s YOU. With your help, we can ramp up efforts to protect human rights and demand accountability for the human rights crimes being committed around the world.
Your support will mean more investigations to uncover war crimes, more pressure for a ceasefire, humanitarian access, and hostage release, and more action to shine a light on injustice.
We have no intention of slowing any of this work. Help us maintain the resources needed to continue responding.
Thank you for powering our movement,
Paul O’Brien Executive Director Amnesty International USA
P.S. Not ready to make a donation? Use our simple tool to send a message to your members of Congress calling for an immediate ceasefire, which would help put an end to unlawful attacks, allow for lifesaving humanitarian aid, and negotiate the release of hostages.
A young man by the name AKPA JEREMIAH has disclosed how the economic hardship in his country turned him into Professional Content creator.
Initially, he was into graphics and cinematography, directing sessions of shootings and coverages.
When asked of how he had made the decision on budging from what seemed like a stagnation into a whole new life and to this exquisite experience through a fostering career he said
“No one except God knows what we have sacrificed together for the sake of success in life”
Akpa Jeremiah
Mr. Akpa Jeremiah also stated that all went alright until he felt something like a weight was behind dragging him backward and that made him really felt stagnated despite all his competency.
It’s probably not fair to characterize what happened to him as life handing him a lemon.
“However, the one good thing about being stuck in bed is that you’ve got plenty of time on your hands”
Tristan James Jr.
He went further stressing that;
"It is unfortunate that we have not gotten there even after our sincere services but we still believe in God and the future is bright."
And when asked about his financial status quo as to whether it was part (played a huge role) of his ambitions that made him go scrambling and a pursuer of many odigie on humanitarian efforts turned into a career.
That has been the order of work in today’s world people thriving so hard tryna bring in a good value and endless decisionmaking assistance sprouting to the societal life, and it should’ve been easier that way.
“We decided not to do Ev!| To make money rather we work hard with sincererity” He continues…
JTF
How it all started
I started content creation in the earliest dwindles of 2020 without any help or advice or encouragement either.
Since then, I have struggled and faced many challenges along the line (with few of non lesser successes) and, God has never failed me and I have never given up on anything that patches the tires of mine running wheels.
“I have not made money from my Contents but consistently working hard and believing I will get there soon”
INSIDERNOTES
The digital world today, has generated a common value and leverage to the masses who had nothing to borrow for.
We tried to delve more deeper as to what had birthed this sensational urge to succeed in to a different field.
“What inspired me to start content creation is that I found out it is the easiest way I could express my feelings/rights to the world and equally teach them”
Akpa Jeremiah quoted;
And also exposing how people think, react, behave, and some of the things that could happen in the future or have already happened in the past.
You just had a total of 150K viewers and above now on YouTube being one of the greatest medium for developers especially in this erring age, how does it feel like knowing that you’re on the right path to achieving success?
YouTube Achievements for Akpa Jeremiah
On YouTube after just a short while of beginning this journey.
Well, let me start first by thanking each and everyone of you who is supporting me in one way or the other.
Often the road towards achieving success are filled with many obstacles hindrances and distractions but, one must be ready to overcome those columns of difficulties ignoring their lustful appetites of failures which are seen as distractions and staying focused.
I appreciate your comments, likes, views & shares, it all makes sense and is the reason that am here where I’m today.
I wouldn’t have gotten here if it weren’t for you people, I cannot do this without you, and also, don’t give up on me and please continue to support and share my Contents.
UMB
God bless you all forever amen!
Contact Us via Social Media; Prime:Comedy, Modelling & DOP Youtube:@Akpa Jeremiah Facebook:@Akpa Jeremiah IG:@Akpa_Jeremiah1 WhatsApp:@+2348116765809
The world’s single train refinery, the Dangote Refinery, has made an essential move by issuing tenders to sell its first two fuel cargoes for export in Nigeria.
The development is an essential step for the newly launched refinery, which has generated a buzz in the industry.
A Reuters report quotes three sources saying that the first cargo of 94,000 metric tons of sulphur straight run fuel oil, which Dangote has awarded to Nigeria, is due to load at the end of this week. Before 25th February 2024.
The second tender is for about 70,000 tons of naphtha, which three other sources told Reuters, with the tender started on February 05, 2024.
The development comes after reports emerged that the refinery was preparing to deliver its first fuel cargoes to the domestic market in early weeks today.
“Significant oil marketers in Nigeria had registered with Dangote Refinery to lift and distribute petroleum products from the $20 billion facility”
INSIDERNOTES
The Petroleum Products Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria said that PETROAN has been in talks with the refinery management holding on a conclusion to supply products from the facility as soon as possible.
The report outlined the seven significant marketers, including 11 Plc, Conoil Plc, AA Rano, Ardova Plc, MRS Oil Nigeria Plc, OVH Energy Marketing Limited, Total Nigeria Plc and NNPC Retail.
Adeola Yusuf, Energy Policy expert and Lead of Platforms Africa said the development is good and did say that the move will affect local pricing positive.
In another report the Port Harcourt refinery is set to begin operations after receiving 745,000 barrels of crude oil from #Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited.
The crude oil supply is the first to be made in the past few years due to the poor state of the plant, which called for rehabilitation and testing to ensure readiness for sustainable operations.
Port Harcourt refinery begins production after years of neglect Shell stated that the recommencement of crude oil supply from the BOGT to Port Harcourt Refinery is a significant achievement and a game changer for the industry and Nigeria.
The intensive preparations, partnerships, and dedication of both teams involved were responsible for overcoming challenges and ensuring safe and efficient supply operations.
According to Shell, the move will support the government’s plan of a steady supply of petroleum products to the downstream market and other associated benefits to Nigeria’s economy like the #150naira sale back from October, 7th, 2023.
FG gives oil firms in Nigeria strict orders on Dangote, other refineries as reported that the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has ordered oil companies in Nigeria to supply about 934,000 barrels of crude oil daily to local refineries for the next seven months beginning from January, 1st, 2024.
The initiative is part of Nigeria’s efforts to ensure regular supply to local refiners for domestic consumption.
About 12 local refineries are expected to begin production in the coming weeks, including the 960,000 capacity Dangote refinery and Nigeria’s four refineries in Port Harcourt, 2 in Warri, and 3 in Kaduna.
The economic hardship in Nigeria has proven on over time that “while the seething nectar we drink inn harms no one else but ourselves” every institution from every sector is detrimental to this scourgerous failure.
A question for you: have you heard about Zambia’s escalating HIV crisis? No?
Well what about Angola experiencing one of the most intense droughts in its history, have you heard anything about that?
If not, it’s not surprising, because nor have a lot of people.
Despite the world having this wonderful access to information technology where news and stories can be shared globally with just the click of a button, some of the most crucial stories and events are going overlooked.
lobal media attention can be both fickle and fleeting and, often depending on where a crisis is happening or who the people are being impacted, the threat to lives and the urgent action needed can often go unnoticed or underreported.
This in turn, can affect the political and humanitarian attention that each crisis receives.
Humanitarian agency CARE International released a report this month called,
The report dives into the crises that are impacting millions of people yet received the least media coverage of the past year they found that all of them are on the African continent
CARE’s research compares the coverage of these crises to the coverage of major pop culture moments, and the results are… revealing.
In Malawi, for instance, 5.4 million people are facing an acute hunger crisis as a result of tropical storms such as Cyclone Ana with 2,330 articles written about the crisis.
That might sound like quite a lot — until you compare it with the 217,529 articles written about the Chris Rock/Will Smith incident at last year’s Oscars.
That’s almost 93 times more articles than the hunger crisis in Malawi.
According to CARE, the main reason these humanitarian crises don’t get more attention is because they often don’t suit the criteria of being compelling enough news, which, according to experts CARE consulted for the report,
“prioritize dramatic, timely, familiar, unambiguous, and easy to explain stories, which are assumed to resonate with their target audiences.”
InsiderNotes
But now more than ever, as the climate crisis wreaks havoc, the refugee and displacement crisis is the worst it’s been in decades, the global food crisis leaves millions going hungry every day, and conflict is raging across countries and continents we can all play a part in making sure all crises get the attention they need.
And how do we do that? We asked Emily Janoch, Senior Director for Thought Leadership, Knowledge Management, and learning at CARE USA.
“As an individual, diversify your news sources.
Look at what you consume, click on, and share.
If that hasn’t covered one of these crises, start thinking about why, and who might be covering those issues,” she said.
“Also look at who is telling the story,” she added. “Is it someone who is impacted by the crisis?
Does it show the people involved as humans who can act and who deserve better? Or does it only treat them (especially women) as victims?”
This is a result of rising temperatures, with CARE reporting that there’s potential for these droughts to be more frequent due to climate change.
The droughts are causing climate migration, and have impacted food insecurity resulting in 3.8 million people not having enough to eat.
It also doesn’t help that Angola is also one of the countries with the highest food price increases as a result of the war in Ukraine.
2. Malawi: Cyclones, Cholera & Hunger
Health workers treat cholera patients at the Bwaila Hospital in Lilongwe central Malawi on Jan. 11, 2023.
Malawi’s cholera outbreak has now claimed more than 1,000 lives by Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2023 according to the country’s health minister, who warned that some cultural beliefs and hostility towards health workers are slowing down response efforts.
We’ve mentioned that 5.4 million people in Malawi are experiencing an acute hunger crisis as a result of damaging cyclones.
We also need to mention that Malawi’s health care system is under strain due to rising HIV cases and intense cholera outbreaks, seen as a result of not enough access to clean drinking water.
3. Central African Republic: Conflict & Climate Change
One in two people in the Central African Republic don’t have enough to eat.
The changing weather conditions have impacted the soil that the country’s food grows from, while storms and floods have destroyed thousands of homes and left 10,000 children without schools to attend.
The country has also experienced unceasing conflict since 2013, which has resulted in a severe refugee crisis with over 740,000 people seeking refuge across the borders and 500,000 people experiencing internal displacement.
4. Zambia: Increased Poverty, HIV & GBV
More than half the Zambian population lives in extreme poverty — meaning living on less than $1.90 a day and the country is experiencing some of the worst malnutrition rates in the world as a result of economic instability and the climate crisis affecting agriculture.
Meanwhile, more than 10% of people have recently been infected with HIV and, in 2021, around 19,000 people died of AIDS in the country.
Gender-based violence is also highly prevalent in the country, particularly following the #COVID19 pandemic and lockdowns that also saw economic hardship increase across the country.
5. Chad: Unrest & Floods
A top view of one of the biggest camp for people displaced by Islamist extremists in Maiduguri, Nigeria on Aug. 28, 2016.
Droughts, flooding and a shrinking Lake Chad caused in part by climate change is fueling conflict and migration in the region and needs to better addressed, a report said Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023.
Armed conflicts and insurgency have remained a major issue in the Sahel region of North Africa for several years, and right now, 6.1 million people in the region are in need of humanitarian aid as a result.
Over 70% of Burundi’s people live below the poverty line, and 1.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to the lack of safe drinking water and inadequate access to health care.
Climate migration has also been a major issue, with 85,000 people being forced to leave their homes following extreme flooding.
6. Burundi: Economic Crisis & Natural Disaster
Over 70% of Burundi’s people live below the poverty line, and 1.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to the lack of safe drinking water and inadequate access to health care.
Climate migration has also been a major issue, with 85,000 people being forced to leave their homes following extreme flooding.
A vendor counts her money after making a sale in Harare, Thursday ,June, 2, 2022. Rampant inflation is making it increasingly difficult for people in Zimbabwe to make ends meet.
Since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, official statistics show that Zimbabwe’s inflation rate has shot up from 66% to more than 130%.
The country’s finance minister says the impact of the Ukraine war is heaping problems on the already fragile economy.
High inflation and economic instability mean more than half the Zimbabwean population is living in extreme poverty.
The climate crisis, including intense drought periods followed by heavy rainfall, have impacted food production and food security, resulting in food shortages and insecurity across the country.
8. Mali: Conflict & Climate Crisis
Ongoing violence and two coups in 2020 and 2021 have led to citizens fleeing the country in large numbers resulting in 2.5 million children dropping out of school, and exposing women and girls to the threat of sexual violence.
The climate crisis has also hit Mali hard, with floods and droughts contributing to crop failure and increasing malnutrition and hunger in the country.
Cameroon has faced crisis after crisis over the last decade, and currently 3.9 million people are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance that’s around 14% of the country.
There has been ongoing conflict and political unrest since 2016, resulting in 3,000 schools closing down, and citizens becoming internally displaced this despite the fact that there is already a large influx of refugees entering Cameroon to escape violence in the neighboring Central African Republic.
Water and sanitation is also a major issue, with 1.8 million people unable to access clean water.
10. Niger: Hunger & Lack of Development
“In general, Niger is a country of records: one of the hottest countries, it has the highest fertility rate, and the highest population growth in the world,”
The Report Highlights.
Yet, despite these records, little to no investment has been made into the country’s development and climate adaptation.
Natural disasters such as droughts, together with ongoing conflict and insurgency, have led to food instability 4.4 million people are acutely food insecure, and half the country’s children under the age of 5 are chronically malnourished.
The COP28 climate summit in Dubai, November 2023. Here’s what you should know.
Many countries had their representatives at the COP28, and still yet are with less or zero knowledge about what really went down well, here’s a brief recap if you fall into this category just a two minute read.
Flooding in India, Cameroon, and Libya. Extreme heat across the US, Europe, and Asia.
A cyclone in Myanmar. A tropical storm hitting Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The list goes on.
This is not exactly the kind of sentence you’d expect from a qualified climate expert, a group that prefers the more austere language of hard facts.
Yet, these days, “climate scientists are struggling for words,” writes climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
Instead, she’s started replying to questions about the latest extreme weather event or report about how dire things are with: “I am running out of original things to say.”
This year’s COP is a significant milestone: the first assessment of how countries are faring against emissions cutting commitments made at Paris in 2015 (known as the Paris agreement).
When the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, it was agreed that every five years countries would return with more ambitious plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and tackle global warming.
The #COVID19 pandemic caused COP to be canceled in 2020, making COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, one of the “big COPs.”
The “small COPs,” held in the intervening years, tend to focus on laying the groundwork for negotiations.
COPs usually open with a ceremonial opening meeting.
This is then followed by days of world leaders on stage talking about climate change, generally concentrating either on what their countries intend to do about it or on the dire consequences they are experiencing.
The remaining days have themes such as finance and energy and see politicians and business leaders stepping up to announce various new promises, pledges, coalitions, and projects.
But outside the doors, activists usually rage against superficial commitments and rally against political inaction.
This time, there’s been significant outrage after it was leaked to the Guardian that the UAE’s state oil company has been able to read emails to and from the COP28 climate summit office and was consulted on how to respond to a media inquiry.
Remind me, what was agreed at Paris?
Under the landmark Paris agreement at COP21 in 2015, nations committed to holding global heating to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels, and preferably limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.
Though the deal is legally binding, the commitments that countries have made to cut their emissions are not, unless they are enshrined into national or regional legislation.
INSIDERNOTES
Who takes part?
The attendees at COP are dignitaries and Heads of State and Government as well as tens of thousands of government delegates and representatives of civil society, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, and the media.
There are 197 parties which are broadly organized in five regional groups: Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and Other States (including Australia, Canada, and the US).
At the cluster of COP side events, climate change leaders, experts, and influencers gather to share their stories and solutions at panel discussions, exhibits, cultural events, and more.
What happened at COP27?
After two weeks of fraught negotiations, a “historic pact” was struck at COP27 in which developed countries, which are historically responsible for the climate emergency, agreed to provide climate finance to help poorer countries experiencing climate-related disasters, known as a loss and damage fund.
Alok Sharma, the UK President of COP26, was more scathing about how the conference fared.
“I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5 degrees was weak. Unfortunately, it remains on life support,” he said.
What do we want to happen at COP28?
An End to Fossil Fuels
That means support for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty from world leaders to ensure a Just Transition away from fossil fuels, an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and robust taxing of remaining fossil fuel production.
Cough Up the Climate Finance
Now isn’t the time for baby steps, it’s time to go big: fund a Just Transition in all countries, help countries adapt to climate change, and fund loss and damage.
Protect Climate Activists and Environmental Defenders
Almost 2,000 environmental activists have been killed over the past decade.
We need a human rights approach to all aspects of climate action.
Zimbabwe | 61-year-old Esther is a married grandmother of two young grandchildren (Rudo and Munashe), and also looks after two nieces (Faith and Nicole). She struggles to feed her family and worries a great deal about where she will find food to feed them all. She has very little food supplies left, and her granddaughter Rudo needs to go out and collect termites for their family to eat. She makes a living supervising other farmers’ livestock, and is usually paid in food. | John Hewat/CARE International
Picture the map of the world. If you’re having trouble remembering the details, we’ll provide a visual aid. Have a look at this map of the world.
Graphic by Darnelle Fortune.
Situated right in the center, and taking up the second-most amount of space is Africa.
It’s a continent that, when you consider it next to the others, is almost impossible to overlook.
You’d have to be trying really hard not to see the continent at all. But that is what happens, isn’t it?
Africa and her issues go unseen by so much of the world and a major reason for this is mainstream media not creating the space to cover Africa and her crises.
At the beginning of every year, the humanitarian organization CARE International releases a report that lists 10 of the world’s most underreported crises from the previous year.
This is not to say that other continents and the countries within them don’t have crises, or that one crisis is more harmful than another, it’s to highlight that there is a great deal of need that is going unnoticed and the longer need goes unnoticed, the longer it takes to resolve.
For virtual events it allows a meeting place where all those attending individual sessions, panels, tracks or exhibit booths in a Shindig-enabled event, to navigate to a single shared experience and meet up, just as they might if the event were in person.
One of the key additional differentiators of this feature is that all the private conversations can go on while the participants are also able to peruse and interact with the conference program directory, discussing with friends and colleagues what session, panel, track, or booth they might attend together next while jointly exploring the full conference guide.
Addressing the clamoring need for better virtual and hybrid event networking, Shindig today introduces a patented virtual lobby functionality; a virtual experience where event attendees can mingle, network and conduct private business on the platform.
“The innovation is designed for both virtual events and hybrid events”
TRUSTANJAMESJR
For hybrid events the function adds two critical new elements.
First, it provides a venue for in-person guests to engage with online participants freely on their mobile phones, critically uniting both audiences together for purposes of private conversation.
Second, it helps event hosts avoid “dead air” in their livestreams and provides opportunities for the online audience to engage during breaks required between the in-person sessions, which otherwise would cause the online audience to be lost and otherwise leave the event.
In the 2021 Event Tech Innovation Report, the EventMB publication cited ‘the biggest challenge for planners in virtual events is how to keep attendees engaged’.
Virtual events also promise to play a significant role in hybrid events, as they can allow in-person attendees to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with the potentially larger audience attending online, and vice versa.
In response to this need, Steve Gottlieb, CEO & Founder of Shindig, Inc. said, “while many platforms claim that one-on-one appointments, speed dating or text interactions are the same as networking, those just don’t compare to real life behavior people want
“And just like an in-person event lobby, the Shindig lobby is perfect for sponsor messaging, video displays, dynamic CTA’s and other activities that can be facilitated in a conference reception space”
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a historical fiction novel by American author Taylor Jenkins Reid and published by Atria Books in 2017.
The novel tells the story of the fictional Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, who at the age of 79 decides to give a final interview to an unknown journalist, Monique Grant.
“Taylor Jenkins Reid” is an American essayist and author who majors on the genre of fiction. She is the highly acclaimed author of tear jerking, romantic books such as One True Love, Maybe in Another Life, After I Do, and Forever, Interrupted.
“Evelyn reveals she has no interest in giving an interview for Vivant”
INSIDERNOTES
According to Reid, Evelyn Hugo was loosely based in part on actresses Elizabeth Taylor, who was married eight times to seven different men, and Ava Gardner, who revealed the secrets of her life to a journalist which was eventually published as Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations.
Monique Grant, a reporter for Vivant magazine, has been individually selected to interview Evelyn Hugo, a reclusive former star, who is auctioning some of her famous gowns to raise money for a breast cancer charity.
Monique is confused as to why Evelyn has chosen her, but goes to Evelyn’s apartment to meet her.
“Evelyn is 14 when she marries her first husband, Ernie Diaz, in order to reach Hollywood and escape her abusive father in Hell’s Kitchen”
MONIQUEGRANT
She falls in love with and marries actor Don Adler, but in the following months, Don begins to abuse Evelyn when pressure is placed on his career.
In an adaptation of Little Women, Evelyn, now 21, stars opposite Celia St. James. Evelyn is initially jealous of Celia’s talent, but the two quickly form a bond. At a party, Evelyn is told that Celia is a lesbian.
21’s birthday was on Friday, and he celebrated with a major Freaknik-themed bash in the ATL. You might’ve seen the awesome fire red pickup truck Thug gifted to his homey — but what you didn’t know, until now, is the whip cost $150k!!!
Young Thug is about that big spender lifestyle — especially when it comes to his pal 21 Savage … who just hit 29, and YT went all out for his very pricey gift … some very expensive wheels.
Roadshow International — a luxury car dealership in Atlanta — tells TMZ … the truck itself is a Dodge Hellcat TRX, new models of which can range anywhere from $60k to $72k right off the lot.
“It also has a “21” emblazoned across the door”
TRISTANJAMESJR
But, watch this video showing all the truck’s features and you’ll see why Thug paid way more than that.
Not just that, but the interior bears 21 Savage’s face too … a rendering of himself is stitched right into the upholstery of some of the seats — so there’s no question whose ride this is.
Herm, who owns Roadshow Int’l, says he had 3 days to work on the truck, and sure enough … he got it done in time for the big birthday party. Talk about a good friend, and talk about some nice nice things.
Music star Davido and his former lover, Chioma Rowland, have gotten members of the online community talking as they were spotted again after the festivities of their son’s birthday parties.
A photo making the rounds online captured Davido and Chioma posing together alongside their son inside a church. The parents seemed to have visited a branch of the popular Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Davido carried Ifeanyi while Chioma posed just beside him for the photo. As expected, many Nigerians in the online community could not stop talking with some people suggesting that Chioma is still in love with the father of her child.
“The photo sparked reactions from members of the online community with some noting that Chioma still loves the singer”
INSIDERNOTES
Here are some of the highlights from post comments and likes, 👇👇👇
salemchad said: “The way she stood next to him shows she’s still in love with him. And then the color combo.”
bibii___m said: “Chioma still loves Davido….it’s so obvious.” titilayyyo said: “Who else notice chef chi is very happy.”
floxylaah said: “Davido please come back to Chioma I love you both together.”
isaaction4u said: “Be like say them done come back together.”
miss.ifeyinwa said: “It’s the matching orange for me.”
Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) Shine Ya Eye finalist, Liquorose attended a public function with the mother of her lover in the house, Emmanuel.
Liquorose got special attention at the event. She appeared in a beautiful green gown as she exchanged pleasantries with other guests at the party.
A couple of fans have reacted to the video with some of them suggesting that Liquorose was mingling with her future mother-in-law. Legit.ng captured some of their reactions below:
However, Luno disclosed that the withdrawal and depositing of funds for Nigerian users will be done through a third-party platform.
“We believe that this is the safest and easiest-to-use solution currently available to our customers in Nigeria and look forward to you experiencing it for yourselves.”
INSIDERNOTES
Luno warns users that it “does not set the price of bitcoin or any cryptocurrencies, we only facilitate transactions between customers.
The return of Naira deposits and withdrawals may cause significant price volatility, with the release of pent-up customer demand to buy and sell cryptocurrency causing unusual market behaviour that could last for several weeks,” Luno said.
You will be able to deposit and withdraw funds to and from the Luno platform using vouchers purchased and redeemed through a trusted third party provider.
“Representation of cryptocurrency Bitcoin is placed on PC motherboard in this illustration taken, June 29, 2021. Representation of cryptocurrency Bitcoin is placed on PC motherboard in this illustration taken, June 29, 2021.”
This is as the apex bank released regulatory guidelines which stipulate that charges for transactions that originate from the eNaira platform will be free in the first 90 days commencing from October 25.
According to the regulatory and issuance guidelines, banks will automatically be onboarded by the CBN while merchants will be onboarded once they download the app and individuals will have to onboard by themselves.
Following the launch of the enaira by the President, Major General Muhamadu Buhari (retd.), the application for the digital currency introduced by the CBN has become available for download, with more than 5,000 downloads within hours of the launch.
“The eNaira stock wallet belongs solely to the CBN and it shall warehouse all minted eNaira,”
INSIDERNOTES
The eNaira speedwallet app meant for individuals had at 4pm on Tuesday, seen more than 5,000 downloads while the eNaira speed merchant wallet had seen close to 1,000 downloads.
After this period, applicable charges as outlined in the Guide to Charges by Banks, Other Financial and Non-bank Financial Institutions will become effective.
It said that financial institutions were expected to maintain one treasury eNaira wallet to warehouse eNaira received from the CBN eNaira stock wallet.
“The eNaira branch subwallet shall be funded from the treasury eNaira wallet”
Comedian Hannah Gadsby unleashed the wrath of Dave Chappelle after she criticized his Netflix special The Closer. Now people are coming to her defense.
The jab at Gadsby—who has Netflix specials of her own in Nanette and Douglas—come after the comedian responded to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, after he defended Chappelle’s special using her own work as an example.
“does dave chappelle not get that he is hannah gadsby for guys”
INSIDERNOTES
“Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle’s fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial world view,”
Dave Chappelle told a “joke” about assaulting a lesbian in his stand up special and now demands that trans people “admit that Hannah Gadsby isn’t funny” in case any cis lesbians are confused, people who hate trans people hate you too. They do not make a distinction.
Hannah Gadsby is living rent free in the heads of every male comedian is existence—and absolutely EATING THEM UP inside—and for that (among other things) I love her very much.
“Hannah Gadsby is funny af, also brilliant, also I am desperate to take an art history class from her”
INSIDERNOTES
Hannah Gadsby is HILARIOUS and smart as hell. She is also a lesbian and neurodivergent so I see Dave Chappelle is still punching down on people I love. What a waste of his talents.
First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end,” Chappelle said. “You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing, and thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny.”
In honor of 21 Savage’s 29th birthday, his good friend Young Thug marked the occasion by gifting the “Bank Account” MC a custom Dodge Hellcat TRX worth $150,000.
As TMZ points out, the Hellcat on its own already ranges between $60K and $70K, but an extensive video demonstrates that 21’s bright red pickup is completely customized to the fullest extent, hence the hefty price tag.
His name “21” is inscribed on the side of the truck along with multiple dagger logos. 21’s face has also been stitched into the truck’s headrests, along with glow-in-the-dark stars and an illuminating “21” stitched into the ceiling of the vehicle.
“better sit down somewhere.”
21SAVAGE
The party, which 21 named “FreakNik 21,” actually later incurred legal copyright threats from the Atlanta festival company of the same name.
“Sucks we gonna have to sue them when all we asked that they acknowledged us since it was a free event and they declined,” FreakNik’s official Twitter account wrote.
The truck was bought and designed from Roadshow International, a luxury car dealership located in Atlanta where 21 had a crazy birthday party this past weekend, TMZ reports. A reaction video on Instagram shows 21 smiling as he playfully puts Thugga in a headlock once he reveals his gift.
Two microphones aboard the Perseverance Rover have “recorded nearly five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm,” NASA says.
NASA has launched an interactive resource that allows listeners to hear recordings taken millions of miles away on the surface of the Red Planet.
Although it’s subtle, you don’t have to be a planetary scientist to hear the difference between sounds on Earth and sounds on Mars.
“If you hear one new thing today, how about making it the sound of wind on Mars?”
INSIDERNOTES
NASA describes the astro-acoustics of Mars this way: If you were standing on Mars, you’d hear a quieter, more muffled version of what you’d hear on Earth, and you’d wait slightly longer to hear it.
Baptiste Chide is a planetary scientist who is studying the audio’s data at L’Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie in France.
“Martian sounds have strong bass vibrations, so when you put on headphones, you can really feel it.
“It sounds even better if you listen through headphones”
TRISTANJAMESJR
I think microphones will be an important asset to future Mars and solar system science,” Chide says.
David Gruel, one of the experts who study the rover’s audio, says wind on Mars sounds different because of Mars’ unique atmosphere. He spoke with Weekend Edition’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro in March.
The scientists took into account atmospheric pressure, density and chemistry to simulate how the Earth’s sound might change on Mars.
The 20-track Punk boasts an array of guest stars, including A$AP Rocky, J. Cole, Doja Cat, Drake, Future, Gunna, Juice WRLD, Post Malone, Mac Miller, Nate Ruess and Travis Scott.
Young Thug achieves his third No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Oct. 30) as his latest release, Punk, debuts in the top slot. The set earned 90,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 21, according to MRC Data.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units.
“My Universe, with BTS, debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, marking the second leader for Coldplay”
INSIDERNOTES
Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
The new Oct. 30, 2021-dated chart (where Punk debuts to No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Oct. 26.
“All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes”
INSIDERNOTES
3,899%). Of that sum, album sales comprise 48,000 (up 11,570%; making it the top-selling album of the week), SEA units comprise 6,000 (up 589%; equaling 8.34 million on-demand streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (up 1,180%).
Let It Be was first released in 1970 as the final studio effort from the band. It spent four weeks atop the chart (June 13-July 4, 1970-dated charts).
For its special edition, the album was reintroduced in a variety of expanded formats and editions, including many with previously unreleased tracks.
For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
45'MEDIA 