Nigeria’s former Environment Minister, Amina J. Mohammed, on Tuesday, February 28 2017 at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York formally assumed position as the Deputy UN Secretary General after being sworn into office. The event was graced by dignitaries,  most especially from Nigeria, who stood beside the world’s Number 2 civil servant in what looks like a spirit ...

The Nitijela (parliament) of the Republic of the Marshall Islands on Tuesday, February 28 2017 gave its approval for the low-lying atoll nation to become the first country to ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The move comes just four months after the Marshall Islands worked with the Federated States of ...

Lagos is a conurbation and a mega city by the very definitions of the two words – a very large city made up of a network of other urban communities and having a minimum population of 10 million people and above. The estimated population of the mega city being bandied in different literature put the current figure between 21 million and 25 million. The ...

Syngenta’s Seedcare programme for smallholder farmers in Senegal has led to impressive yield increases, the firm has said. It lists these increases to include those for pearl millet (1.2 t/ha, +40%), sorghum (1.1 t/ha, +86%), maize (2.7 t/ha, +101%), irrigated rice (9.4 t/ha, +11%) and rain-fed rice (2.0 t/ha, +33%). The achievements, from year one of a Syngenta project in ...

The Government of Singapore has announced its intent to implement a carbon tax on the emission of greenhouse gases. The disclosure was made in the country’s Budget of 2017. “We will consult widely with stakeholders, and aim to implement the carbon tax from 2019. The tax will generally be applied upstream, for example, on power stations and other large direct ...

Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has turned down an offer to leave the Gunners and move to China as manager, despite the offer of a mouth-watering £30 million a year. This stunning offer from China would have made him the world highest-paid manager in the world. Reports say an unnamed Chinese club was prepared to pay Wenger £30 milion-a-year net, twice ...

Shell Companies in Nigeria are making a remarkable presence at the 16th edition of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition (NOGE), which is holding in Abuja, the federal capital city. On Tuesday, February 28 2017, the Shell stand at the NOGE 2017 was a beehive of activities, as it welcomed some august visitors.

The United Nations expert on the human rights to water and sanitation raises serious concerns about a recent Bill in Lagos that criminalises abstraction of water from natural sources. The Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation, Léo Heller, says: “When the State fails to provide adequate access to drinking water, no one should be criminalised or ...

Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State may have bitten more than he can chew, in his bid to sign into law the New Environment Bill passed recently by the House of Assembly. Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) and other civil society organisations (CSOs) have vowed to mobilise Lagosians to ensure that Governor Ambode is stopped from signing the ...

The Commonwealth and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have committed to work closely together to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, met with Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, at Marlborough House in London on Friday, February 24 2017 to discuss how the Commonwealth Secretariat can support global ...