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.
Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger
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 the salary of the current best-paid manager, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola.
The offer dwarves the two-year extension that Arsenal have offered Wenger, which would pay him about £10 million-a-year, but joining the Chinese football revolution appears not to be an attractive proposition for him.
Wenger, 67, has yet to decide whether he will stay at Arsenal next season and club insiders are growing increasingly anxious that he will decide to walk away.
Wenger, who has spent 21 years with the club, insists he is not ready to retire and will be in management next season, which apparently sparked the enormous offer from the Chinese Super League club.
Arsenal owner, Stan Kroenke, remains desperate for Wenger to stay and his two-year contract extension offer includes a 25% increase from £8 million pounds-a-year to around £10 million-a-year.
The top 10 highest paid managers in the world are:
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.
L-R: Managing Director, Shell Petroleum Development Company and Country Chair Shell Companies in Nigeria, Mr. Osagie Okunbor; Secretary General, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Mr. Muhammad Barkindo; and the Minister of State, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in Abuja… on Tuesday.L-R: Managing Director, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, Bayo Ojulari; Managing Director Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria, Osagie Okunbor; and General Manager External Relations, SPDC, Igo Weli, at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in Abuja… on Tuesday.
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.
Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation, Léo Heller. He has expressed concern 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 fined for fetching water from lakes, rivers, or any other natural sources.”
The comment from the UN expert comes after the Lagos State House of Assembly passed the Lagos Environment Bill on 20 February 2017. The Bill includes specific provisions that criminalise the abstraction of water from natural sources if conducted without the approval from the authorities.
Mr. Heller said: “The Government is taking a step too far by imposing fines of the equivalent of $310 on ordinary individuals fetching water for survival, when the minimum wage stands at approximately $60.”
“Legal measures by the Government to regulate access to water are an important step to ensure that drinking water is safe,” said Mr. Heller. However, when only 10 per cent of the population are connected to piped networks and the rest of the population rely on natural water sources for drinking water, a blanket prohibition of accessing natural water sources is not the way forward,” he stressed.
Mr. Heller is urging the Government to reconsider the Bill and to conduct a proper and meaningful public consultation with all relevant stakeholders providing an adequate time for comments and opinions.
Mr. Heller has recently communicated about this matter to the Government. On 4 July 2016, the Special Rapporteur also sent a letter to the Government of Nigeria to request clarification about the water and sanitation situation in Lagos but no response has been received thus far.
Heller, a Brazilian, is the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. He was appointed in November 2014. He is a researcher in the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil and was previously Professor of the Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil from 1990 to 2014.
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 “obnoxious” bill into law.
L-R: Biodun Bakare, Betty Abah (Executive Director of CEE-HOPE), Akinbode Oluwafemi (Deputy Director, ERA/FoEN), Achike Chude (Joint Action Front) and Agnes Sessi (President of African Women Water, Hygiene and Sanitation Network) at the press briefing over the New Lagos Environment Law. Photo credit: Innocent Anoruo
On February 20, 2017, the House of Assembly passed “A Bill for a Law to Consolidate all Laws Relating to the Environment for the Management, Protection and Sustainable Development in Lagos State and for Connected Purposes”.
The lawmakers had cut short their six-week recess to attend to the bill and, after passing it, immediately announced they were going for another recess.
This “clandestine move” of absconding in the name of recess, according to the Deputy Director, ERA/FoEN, Akinbode Oluwafemi, was made because the lawmakers knew that activists would come after them immediately on the issue.
He was speaking on Monday, February 27, 2017 at a press conference in Ikeja on the New Environment Bill.
Other speakers at the event that drew both local and foreign journalists in the online, print and broadcast media expressed their readiness to resist the “wicked” bill.
Oluwafemi said “the bill is a conspiracy” against Lagos people.
One of the issues with the bill is the allocation of the fund and guarantees. Section 7(2)(a) says: “The state shall secure the payment in respect of contracted services and concessions for long-term infrastructure investments with an Irrevocable Service Payment Order (ISPO) as the first line charge on the state’s internally generated revenue.”
The law also provides that nobody distributes or sells water in the state without permission from the Department of Water Resources.
“Ordinarily, news that new environmental guidelines have been set should elicit joy. Alas, the environment was not the main concern of this bill. This new bill is nothing but a clandestine manoeuvre to unleash extreme capitalism, business without morals, and politics without values on Lagos State. It is draconian, obnoxious and anti-people,” the ERA/FoEN deputy director said.
ERA/FoEN disclosed that “the new law was only subjected to a hurriedly-conducted public hearing by the House Committee on the Environment on February 9, 2017. At the time, we had frowned at the committee’s deliberate invitation of few civil society and grassroots campaigners to the hearing, and the fact that we only had a few hours to review a 190-page proposal.”
EnviroNews gathered that the state government also held a press briefing on February 27, 2017 over the same issue.
Achike Chude of Joint Action Front (JAF) wondered why “Nigerian governments take pleasure in subjecting the people to untold hardship”, adding: “Lagos is a litmus test for their plan for other states of the federation.”
While noting that water has no alternative, unlike other necessities of life, he said “with the way they are going, one day they will commercialise the air we breathe”.
For Chude, “if Ambode loves Lagosians, he should refrain from signing the bill into law”, as it will only benefit few vested interests.
President of African Women Water, Hygiene and Sanitation Network, Agnes Sessi, maintained that “it is the duty of governments to provide citizens with water”. Since this seems not to be happening, she called on the people to prepare for another challenge from government.
“The law is not acceptable to us in Lagos. We say no to privatisation of water,” she added.
Founder and Executive Director of CEE-HOPE, Betty Abah, lamented that “the very vulnerable in Lagos are under threat”, as government is set to fight them.
She revealed that while South African government ensures that every home gets a certain quantity of water free every day, governments in Nigeria are positioned to hurt the poor.
“With this law, epidemic looms”, as people will source for water anywhere possible, she added.
Desperation of government will lead to the hasty signing of the bill into law, according to Biodun Bakare of Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Service Employees (AUPCTRE).
All the activists at the event vowed that even if Ambode signs the bill into law, they will mobilise Lagos people to resist it.
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 (left), with Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC
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 climate action efforts.
Ms Espinosa credited the Secretariat as being a leading partner for the delivery of the Paris Agreement, singling out the establishment of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub as a mechanism to help small and vulnerable countries build local capacity and mitigate against climate impacts.
The Commonwealth is an intergovernmental institution with “trusted and important relationships” with countries, Ms Espinosa said. “It’s an important partner for us in this endeavour to be as effective as possible in promoting implementation.”
“We are talking about complex processes of building up national development plans, building up legislation and making projects that are subject to funding from international sources. So it’s a very, very important relevant contribution,” she added.
In addition, Ms Espinosa credited the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta in November 2015 for its role in helping to galvanise international action to deliver the Paris Agreement in December that year.
Commonwealth member states were also among the first to ratify the Paris Agreement, helping to ensure it entered into force with the required 55 ratifications representing 55% of global emissions.
“The Commonwealth played a very important role in the time before Paris in making the Paris Agreement possible. The clear messages by the meeting of the heads of state and government from the Commonwealth just before the Paris conference was a very important impulse to that process,” Ms Espinosa said.
Secretary-General Scotland has made tackling climate change one of the major priorities of her tenure in office, urging the world to move from “from agreement to action” at the COP22 conference in Marrakech, Morocco, last year.
Fiji, a Commonwealth member state, will host the next round of climate talks, COP23, under the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany, later this year.
Secretary-General Scotland said, “The next round of climate talks chaired by Fiji is historic, being chaired for the first time by a small island developing state. The Commonwealth will offer its fulsome support to Fiji and the UNFCCC at it prepares for COP23.”
“Our shared goal is to help Commonwealth member countries access the support they badly need to prepare for the potentially devastating impacts of climate change. Together we seek to deliver on the Paris Agreement and ensure it has an enduring positive legacy, especially for the smallest and most vulnerable countries.”
Port authorities in Chennai have impounded a BW LPG vessel and a local ship carrying heavy fuel oil, and detained their crews, a spokesman for the port has said. He made the submission recently, after the two collided, causing an oil spill that is affecting marine life and local fishing.
Emergency workers and locals stand along the shoreline of Ennore Port following a collision between two tankers, in Chennai, India on February 2, 2017. Photo credit: Reuters
About 20 tonnes of heavy fuel oil leaked and a complete clean-up is expected to take eight to 10 days, according to an Indian coast guard spokesman.
BW Maple, with a total capacity of 82,000 cubic metres of liquefied petroleum gas, was half full when it collided near Chennai with the Indian ship Dawn Kanchipuram.
The port spokesman said the sludge – a mixture of oil, water and sand – has travelled over 18 miles, polluting the Marina Beach, one of the world’s longest.
Reuters Television footage showed black layers of oil floating near the shoreline, with buckets being used by volunteers and coast guard officials to clean up the sludge.
No one at Darya Shipmanagement Pvt Ltd, owner of the Indian vessel or the Oslo-listed company BW LPG were immediately available for comment.
The joint declaration of the South Asian Speakers’ Summit in India has asserted that the Paris Agreement must continue to be guided by the principles of UN Framework Convention.
Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, host of the summit
Climate change news, analysis, commentary, The average surface temperature of earth has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It has called for greater cooperation among the member countries to meet the challenges of climate change and related disasters.
The South Asian Speakers’ Summit on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals at Indore was attended by South Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The declaration stressed that the Paris Agreement should continue to be guided by the principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate change, especially the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
The joint declaration of the seven countries also agreed to consider setting up of joint parliamentary groups under the forum to deliberate upon and deepen cooperation on relevant issues.
The declaration also urged the parliamentarians to create enabling conditions for encouraging private sector, civil society organisations, and other stakeholders to participate in the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“It called upon parliamentarians to create gender sensitive elected bodies, particularly at the grassroots level, with a view to achieving gender equality and prioritising issues pertinent to women,” the declaration said.
The declaration also vowed to encourage the Parliaments to put in place legislative measures to protect women against discrimination, violence, sexual harassment, atrocities and trafficking.
According to the declaration, it also urged upon the parliaments to collectively work for advancing actions, strategies, and cooperation among all stakeholders to mobilise additional resources so as to achieve the targets under the SDGs in a time-bound manner.
“It also vowed to reaffirm that the achievement of the SDGs is closely lined to addressing the threat of climate change and strengthening disaster risk reduction which require regional as well as international cooperation,” it added.
It also called upon the parliaments of South Asian region to allocate one day in a session for deliberations on SDGs.
The Nigeria Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has called an emergency meeting with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Wednesday, March 1 2017 in Abuja.
NFF President, Amanju Pinnick
The meeting becomes necessary as NFF President, Amanju Pinnick, has called for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) President, lssa Hayatou, to resign, so that new leadership can be installed. It is widely thought that Pinnick is interested in putting his own name forward for the position.
The Abuja meeting is to discuss the position of the country with regard to the CAF election for the presidency on 16th of March.
Last week, reports have it that Pinnick has publicly backed Ahmad Ahmad, the 57-year-old Madagascar FA President seeking to unseat Issa Hayatou, the 70-year-old Cameroonian who has been in the post for 29 years and is seeking an eighth term in office.
The 39th Ordinary Congress of CAF, at which the elections would take place, comes up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on March 16.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s sensational moment has created history for Manchester United as the most successful club in England. That moment was his brace in the 3-2 win over Southampton on Sunday’s EFL Cup final, to near Liverpool in EFL cup history.
Zlatan lbrahimovic
Ibrahimovic was Manchester United’s man of the match with the Midas touch, dragging them from a mire of mediocrity with his 25th and 26th goals of the season, as he secured his success in England.
After the match at the Wembley Stadium, the 35-year-old Swede could not help but to say that the win was a team effort. “This is what I came for – to win, and I am winning. The more I win the more satisfied l get. This is number 32nd trophy for me,” he said.
Manchester United manager, José Mourinho, said: “Honestly, Ibrahimovic won the game for us. In a match where the opponent was better than us for long periods – they deserved to go to extra time – he (Zlatan) made the difference and he gave us the cup.”
Ibrahimovic’s opening goal was the first Southampton have conceded in the League Cup this season, going 468 minutes without shipping a goal in the competition.
Reports have it that Manchester United have won each of their past six games at Wembley, while only Liverpool (8) have won the League Cup more times than Manchester United (5).
Manchester United fans face the daunting prospect of meeting violent hooligans that target English fans, should they travel to Russia to see the Rostov game in the Europa League.
The city of Rostov-on-Don in Russia will host the encounter
Reports have it that the Russia’s Hooligan Army (fans) in Rostov-on-Don always brag about confrontation as a way of life. It is on record that Russian fans deliberately targeted fans from England and other countries to mar any festival of football.
Manchester United fans will make the trip to Rostov-on-Don on March 9,while Russian fans will descend on Manchester in a high risk tie on March 16.
Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho, Manchester United manager, has described the Round of 16 draws of Europa League as a bad one in every respect. “It is far and difficult draws and comes in a bad period. The team (Rostov) is very defensive and physical,” observed Mourinho.
In last season’s Russian Premier League runners-up Rostov are the lowest ranked team left in the Europa League, with UEFA’s system rating them as only the 93rd best team on the continent.
They are competing in the last of 16 of a major European competition for the first time.
Rostov are 7th in their domestic league at the mid-season winter break having won two of their previous eighth league matches, but had a very good champion’s league campaign.
