Author: Our Reporter

It is alleged that the Federal Government knows cabals involved in stealing crude oil in the Niger Delta region. National Chairman, Host Communities of Nigeria Producing oil Gas, HOSCON, Dr. Mike Enuh, who made allegation during the inauguration of HOSCON National Youths Wing in Abuja, alleged that officials of Nigerian Navy and other security agencies protecting oil installations across the country were aware of the illicit transactions, saying that vessels used for oil theft and bunkering in the region were not invisible. Enuh argued that there was nowhere naval personnel monitoring oil situation will not detect when empty vessels will…

A fisherman in Akwa Ibom State, after losing all his fishing gears including outboard engine and his catch to boat mishap, has reportedly committed suicide. The fisherman, Imoh Iyip-Erong, an indigene of Akpautong village in Esit Eket Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom, was said to have “resorted to taking his own life, a night after the incident because of the frustration of losing his major source of livelihood”. “We really don’t know why he should take his own life after his fishing boat and the day’s catch were lost as his boat capsized”, Effiong Bassey, a fellow fisherman told Vanguard.…

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has called on importers to utilise Warri and Calabar sea ports to decongest the current traffic challenge in Lagos. Mr. Fashola, who made the call on Tuesday in Abuja while addressing journalists, blamed the traffic challenge on the ongoing rehabilitation work on Apapa-Wharf road on congestion. The report culled from PREMIUM TIMES today said the reduction of cargo movement through Lagos sea port would reduce traffic on the ever busy Apapa-Wharf road, being rehabilitated. “What we can do also is to perhaps, for now, move our cargo to other ports if…

The Chairman of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has decried the activities of kidnappers in scaring away investors from the country and having crippling effects particularly on the agricultural sector. Dangote, who made this known at the on-going Agric Expo and Conference, organised by Nigeria Agribusiness Group in collaboration with other private and public sector agencies, lamented the spate of kidnapping along the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway, which has made investors owning commercial farms to practically abandon them for fear of being attacked and kidnapped. Represented by Engr. Mosul Ahmed, Executive Director, Public Sector, Dangote Group, Dangote speaking on ‘Challenges Facing Agribusiness…

A total of 8,500 farmers in the state have benefited from government’s support to establish businesses in the agro-allied sector as part of the efforts to boost production and ensure food sufficiency. Senior Special Assistant to Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State on Marketing and Brand Management, Mr. Sam Edoho, who stated this in Uyo Tuesday during Dakkada Business Forum, described investment in fish farming, palm fruit cultivation, palm oil processing and other ventures in the past two years of Governor Emmanuel’s administration as tremendous. Edoho said more than 500 new entrepreneurs have been empowered with training programmes in…

By 2018, Saudi Arabian women will join other womenfolk in the world to drive, a royal decree by the country’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has confirmed. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are prohibited from driving. In the royal decree issued Tuesday, King Salman ordered a ministerial body to implement the change by June 2018, after a consultation in the next 30 days. The decree referred to the “negative consequences of not allowing women to drive the vehicle and the positive aspects of allowing it”, adding that “majority” of senior scholars viewed allowing…

Ugandan members of Parliament Friday passed an anti-gay law that sets life imprisonment as a maximum penalty for the new offence of “aggravated  homosexuality”. When it was introduced in 2010, the bill had recommended death penalty for offenders, but was later removed from the revised version. Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda, under a colonial-era law that criminalised sexual acts “against the order of nature”, but the politician who wrote the new law argued that tough legislation was needed, because homosexuals from the West threatened to destroy Ugandan families and were allegedly “recruiting” Ugandan children into gay lifestyles. Ugandan gays…

The conversion of nitrogen in the air to fertilizer, using what became known as the Haber-Bosch process is seen one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century, a study has shown. A report from BBC says 100 years ago two German chemists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, embarked on the research and without it almost half the world’s population would have been decimated today. Although Haber’s history is controversial, he is also considered the “father of chemical warfare” for his years of work developing and weaponising chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War 1. The study further shows…

Eleven people died when a blaze engulfed two houses early Monday in an Eastern China city prone to fatal fire disasters, the government said. A report monitored from AFP says that the fire broke out shortly after midnight in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province, and left two other people hospitalised in serious condition, a local government statement said. Ten more people sustained minor injuries. The fire was soon brought under control and its cause was being investigated. Deadly fires are common in China, where fire safety regulations are widely flouted and enforcement is often lax. Taizhou has seen…

Nearly 50,000 people have abandoned their homes amid fears of an imminent volcanic eruption on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, disaster officials said Monday. Mount Agung, about 75 kilometres (47 miles) from the tourist hub of Kuta, has been rumbling since August, threatening to erupt for the first time in more than 50 years. Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said Monday 48,540 people had fled, although the number was expected to rise because more than 60,000 people lived in the danger zone. “There are still people who don’t want to be evacuated,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the disaster…