An increase of coronavirus infections around the world is forcing some governments to reimplement lockdown measures to control the spread of the virus.
From Australia to Israel and around Europe, health officials announced new restrictions ahead of the weekend as they report clusters of outbreaks and try to mitigate further transmissions. These decisions come as the more transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus becomes the dominant strain in several countries.
The picture looks very different in the U.S., where many places are still reopening despite warnings from health officials.
This week Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health warned that the delta variant poses a serious threat to unvaccinated people. At the same time, President Biden announced that the White House will miss its goal of getting 70% of Americans vaccinated by July 4.
Restrictions in Hawaii for vaccinated travelers, for example, will be lifted next month even though the immunization rate currently remains under the state's goals.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige had previously said Hawaii would lift these travel restrictions when the state reached 60% vaccination levels. The figure went from 53% June 4 to 57% as of June 21, but Ige said the state will reach its goal by July 8.
That same day, the state plans to end its pre-travel COVID-19 testing requirement for visitors from the mainland U.S. who are fully vaccinated. Travelers would still need to submit their vaccine card to the state government's Safe Travels website.
"I know that this change has been widely anticipated and it will make it easier for residents to return home and for visitors to come and enjoy our islands,'' Ige said.

Long overdue government legislation must come into place in Nigeria if the country hopes to reform its oil industry to make it more accessible for international players and win back investment.  The Nigerian Senate is expected to finally pass legislation known as the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), originally presented in 2008, to change how energy assets are operated and funded following pressure from Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s oil-drilling unit.
Bayo Ojulari, managing director at Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Co. explained that “For every month and every week that we delay, the investment fund is moving somewhere else,” further, “We’ve got the commitment that it will come up in June. We’ve heard that before and we are waiting to see.”
Africa’s biggest oil-producing country, with an estimated 37 billion barrels of oil, has been criticized for failing to pass the PIB for so long, leaving international companies facing regulatory uncertainty. This is surprising for a country that relies on oil for around 80 percent of its earnings, churning out around 2 million bpd of crude, with the potential of producing nearer to 4 million bpd. 
The reform would make the NNPC, the Nigerian oil and gas sector’s regulator, a private limited liability company, deregulating much of the sector, reducing taxes, and making Nigerian oil generally more attractive to investors. 
Criticism over the delay dates back to 2016 when the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) published a report titled The Urgency of a New Petroleum Sector Law, where the group estimated that Nigeria had lost over $400 billion from not passing the 2008 law. 
Nigeria’s Senate President Ahmad Lawan stated last week, “our expectation is that we’ll pass the PIB within the month of June”. But some wonder if this move is too little too late.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Thursday ordered staff to avoid leaving their quarters to cope with a surge of Covid-19 cases that has filled intensive care units and led to multiple evacuations and the death of at least one staff member.
An internal management notice reviewed by The Wall Street Journal described a chaotic situation at the embassy. Some 114 coronavirus cases have been confirmed among staff, it said.
The rapid spread of the illness has stretched medical facilities, according to the notice, forcing health units to create temporary wards to deal with an influx of patients. The intensive care unit at the U.S. military hospital that supports the embassy is at full capacity and several staff members have been evacuated.
“We must break the chain of transmission to protect one another and ensure the Mission’s ability to carry out the nation’s business,” said the notice, which was approved by U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson.
While the embassy has been downsized in recent years as the U.S. has prepared to end its 20-year military engagement in Afghanistan, hundreds of staff continue to serve there. The notice encouraged staff to report violations of the orders and warned that those failing to comply risked being sent home on the next available flight.

The orders have confined all staff to their quarters, except to get food, exercise or relax outdoors alone. Meal-sharing with others, including among vaccinated staff, is prohibited.
It said exceptions would be made only for mission-critical and time-sensitive tasks, approved by supervisors in writing.
The U.S. Embassy, located close to Kabul airport in the heavily fortified diplomatic area of the Afghan capital, is a sprawling complex where most staff live and work. Due to deteriorating security conditions, staff rarely leave the embassy, and even trips to the airport are carried out by helicopter.
The American Foreign Service Association, which represents State Department staff, said in a statement on Thursday the crisis threatened U.S. national security interests as well as employees’ health.
It urged the White House to allow the State Department to require Afghanistan-based staff to get vaccinated, with exceptions for medical or religious reasons, to prevent further loss of life.
“Saying I don’t feel like it or I don’t believe in the vaccine isn’t sufficient reason,” the association’s president, Eric Rubin, told the Journal.

AS global energy firms and their funding partners trend towards energy transition, analysts have called on Nigeria’s government to ensure it prioritises innovative technology usage in the hydrocarbon business to lessen carbon emission and drive fossil energy relevance in the near future.
The experts spoke as panellists at the ongoing Nigerian Petroleum Summit in Abuja, with the theme, ‘From Crisis to Opportunity, a New Approach to Hydrocarbon.’
The panellists, in their respective submissions, said the Federal Government’s continued reliance on fossil energy must be driven by technology and innovation to lessen carbon emission and sustain its relevance in the near future.
“Let’s be clear again on energy transition. Oil and gas will still be relevant in the next 50 years. However, the fraction will be reducing. The focus should be that we must lessen carbon emission through the use of technology, which is the bigger focus of energy transition geared towards lessening carbon emission in the environment,”   Former Head of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) Osten Olorunshola said at the panel on Tuesday .
He stressed that the Federal Government must make the best use of hydrocarbon energy before it went into extinction.
“Let’s get it clear, the discussion on energy transition is the race to carbon emission reduction. Hence, we must make the best from our fossil energy,” he said.
General Manager of Citadel Group and an oil and gas expert  Nicholas Odunuwe said he had been looking at what would make his company remain relevant following the digital transformation in the oil sector.
“We have been looking at what will ensure our relevance, given global energy transition. We have been employing the usage of big data, robotics and digital oil fields. We have been understudying some of the technologies we see at the Oil and Gas Technology Conference in the United States and have been working on domesticating them to advance our operations technologically.”
Executive Secretary of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) Simbi Wabote, at the event, said government had put its feet on research and development with a $50milion funding war chest.
Wabote stressed that many countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) entered negative territory during the early days of the pandemic, prompting lots of innovations and protectionist strategies to drive their own economies.
Wabote insisted that despite the energy transition drive, some countries would not do without hydrocarbon at some point, stressing that Nigeria must employ innovation and technology to sustain relevance in fossil fuel.
“I expect complete technological innovation to drive our oil sector such as smart oil fields, smart platforms and remote operator capabilities to become the norm in the industry,” he said, noting that the agency under his control was committed to that innovation drive.
He pointed out that COVID-19 had already put everyone on the path of technology, insisting that Nigeria’s oil and gas sector must sustain relevance with these technologies.
Covid-19 sent each country's GDP into negative territory, and the impact on the future of which country can recover first in the late stages of development is enormous.

The United States has now lost over 600,000 mothers, fathers, children, siblings and friends to COVID-19, a painful reminder that death, sickness and grief continue even as the country begins to return to something resembling pre-pandemic normal.
A bride forced by the pandemic to have a Zoom wedding is planning a lavish in-person anniversary celebration this summer, but all of the guests must attest they are vaccinated.
A Houston artist, still deep in grief, is working on a collage of images of people who died in her community. Others crowd theaters and bars, saying it is time to move on.
“There will be no tears - not even happy tears,” said Ali Whitman, who will celebrate her first wedding anniversary in August by donning her gown and partying with 240 vaccinated friends and family members in New Hampshire.
COVID-19 nearly killed her mother. She spent her wedding day last year with 13 people in person while an aunt conducted the ceremony via Zoom.
“I would be remiss not to address how awful and how terrible the past year has been, but also the gratitude that I can be in a singular place with all the people in my life who mean so much to me,” said Whitman, 30.
The United States passed 600,000 COVID-19 deaths on Monday, about 15% of the world’s total coronavirus fatalities of around 4 million, a Reuters tally shows.
The rate of severe illness and death has dropped dramatically as more Americans have become vaccinated, creating something of a psychological whiplash that plagues the millions whose lives have been touched by the disease. Many are eager to emerge from more than a year of sickness and lockdown, yet they still suffer - from grief, lingering symptoms, economic trauma or the isolation of lockdown.
“We’ve all lived through this awful time, and all of us have been affected one way or another,” said Erika Stein, who has suffered from migraines, fatigue and cognitive issues since contracting COVID-19 last fall. “My world flipped upside down in the last year and a half - and that’s been hard.”
Stein, 34, was active and fit, working as a marketing executive and fitness instructor in Virginia outside Washington, D.C., before the initial illness and related syndrome known as long-COVID ravaged her life.
Like many, she has mixed feelings about how quickly cities and states have moved to lift pandemic restrictions and re-open.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Social media firms wanting to operate in Nigeria must register a local entity and be licensed, the country's information minister said on Wednesday, the government's latest move since it banned Twitter last week.

"We are insisting that for you to operate in Nigeria you must first be a Nigerian company and be licensed by the broadcasting commission," said Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's information minister, of social media companies.

The new regulations will include conditions for continued operation, Mohammed said, without elaborating. The move comes amidst what critics say is a broader crackdown on freedom of expression in Africa's most populous country that has drawn comparisons to Nigeria's decades of military rule in the 20th century.

Nigeria's government last week said it had suspended Twitter's activities, two days after the platform removed a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish secessionists. Nigerian telecoms firms have since blocked access to Twitter.

Buhari is a former military ruler.

Mohammed did not give a deadline for registration and licensing, but said some firms were given notice, without naming the affected companies. He did not respond to calls and a message seeking details.

"Twitter has consistently made its platform available to those who are threatening Nigeria’s corporate existence," said Mohammed, naming a separatist leader and anti-police brutality protesters.

The minister said Facebook and its subsidiaries Instagram and WhatsApp had not been suspended, but did not say whether they would need to register and get a licence.

Biden said about 100 low- and middle-income countries would benefit from the program. The first orders are expected to be delivered in August. 200 million doses will be delivered to those in need later this year. Washington will order a Pfizer product.
According to some experts, Washington’s gesture should be only the beginning, because the demand for vaccines in poor regions of the world far exceeds the number that President Biden just announced.
According to the Associated Press, “The Biden administration’s decision to donate the Pfizer vaccines raised doubts about whether the doses would actually go to the ‘poorest of the poor’ because the preparation had to be kept at very low temperatures.” AP journalists noted that “many low-income countries with limited infrastructure are unlikely to be able to transport vaccines to remote areas.”
The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC, the public health agency of the African Union) has already announced that it will likely advise member states to use Pfizer’s vaccines in large cities. “Despite this, Biden’s promise was cause for celebration,” said Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Center for Disease Control.

Masks, social distancing, nose patch tests: For K-12 children returning to school after summer vacation, these unpleasant coronavirus control measures are far from over.
Until classes resume in the fall, children under the age of 12 are unlikely to be vaccinated against COVID-19. But a new study found that when elementary school students wear masks at school and keep a certain distance, on average, infected children may be less likely to spread the infection to other students than other students. 30-day course.
However, if the school abandons masks, abandons efforts to reduce child mixing, and fails to detect and isolate people who may be infected, an epidemic will definitely occur, model exercises show.
However, these outbreaks are not necessarily large-scale, which makes the local school board and the mayor face difficult choices.

The U.S. government will share the majority of its donated Covid-19 vaccine doses through COVAX, the World Health Organization-led program that provides shots to countries in need, the White House announced Thursday.
The Biden administration has committed to donating at least 20 million doses of Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson as well as 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccines, which has not yet been authorized for use in the United States.
The U.S. plans to allocate 75% of the vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine sharing program, the White House in an email. Of the first 25 million doses, about 6 million will go to countries in South and Central America, 7 million to Asia and 5 million to Africa, the White House said. About 6 million will go to neighboring countries and U.S. allies.
At least 25% of shots will be kept for immediate U.S. needs and for “countries in need, those experiencing surges, immediate neighbors, and other countries that have requested immediate U.S. assistance,” according to the plan.
The administration is donating the shots to “save lives” and thwart the emergence of new variants,  national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday.
“The United States is not doing this as some kind of back-and-forth deal where we are getting something in return,” Sullivan said at a White House briefing. “We are giving these for a single purpose. It is the purpose of ending this pandemic.”
The announcement comes as world leaders urge wealthy nations such as the U.S. to donate Covid shots to other countries. While the U.S. has returned to some form of normality as more Americans get vaccinated and new cases fall, other countries, like India, have experienced huge outbreaks.
Just last week, the WHO said Africa needed at least 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine within six weeks to get the second round of shots to people who have received the first.
The head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations told Reuters that leaders of the Group of 7 rich nations must donate shots urgently to avoid an outcome akin to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people.
“It’s a moral imperative if we want to avoid situations like Peru, if we want to avoid impacts that could rival those of the 1918 flu, we must send vaccine to countries to protect their health-care workers and protect the vulnerable populations now,” Richard Hatchett, chief executive of CEPI which co-runs the COVAX vaccine sharing facility, told Reuters.
In addition to donating the doses, the White House also announced it is lifting restrictions as part of the Defense Production Act that gave the U.S. priority for vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Novavax.

My phone beeped at 1 a.m. The text message from my sister was brief: “Daddy is in the hospital.”
A quick call established that they had spent the past five hours trying to get my 65-year-old dad – who had severe headache and delirium – admitted into the emergency ward of a government hospital in Lagos.
My father is a doctor who has given over 35 years of his life to the Nigerian healthcare system. Yet, he was at the brink of death – not because his ailment was incurable but because treatment was being delayed with hurdles set by poor hospital management and lack of staffing.
When he was finally admitted, he was put on an unclean bed without a bedspread. A hospital staff member screamed at the family to get their own bedspread, as there was none available due to crowding in the wards.
We could explain this away by saying “It’s the pandemic”. But Nigerians will tell you that this is a common occurrence in many government and primary healthcare centres in Nigeria.
Nigeria has a deficit in the number of qualified doctors: the country needs about 237,000 doctors to ensure the population’s health needs are catered for but currently has only about 35,000. Each day it loses doctors to foreign hospitals, as they leave in search of better salaries or, given the number of unpaid staff, any salary at all.
In addition, our healthcare system already struggles with more patients than hospital beds – which was true even before the pandemic. Compared to the global average of 26 hospital beds per 10,000 people, we have just five. We are talking of about just 134,000 beds to a population of 211 million people. The United Kingdom, which has less than half of Nigeria’s population with just 68 million people, can boast of over 170,548 hospital beds.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not to blame for the state of our hospitals or how we treat patients. The pandemic has merely opened our eyes to the preexisting problems.
And one of these is proper hospital management.

Growing up, Awele Uwagwu’s view of energy was deeply influenced by the oil and gas industry. He was born and raised in Port Harcourt, a city on the southern coast of Nigeria, and his hometown shaped his initial interest in understanding the role of energy in our lives.
“I basically grew up in a city colored by oil and gas,” says Uwagwu. “Many of the jobs in that area are in the oil sector, and I saw a lot of large companies coming in and creating new buildings and infrastructure. That very much tailored my interest in the energy sector. I kept thinking: What is all of this stuff going on, and what are all these big machines that I see every day? The more sinister side of it was: Why is the water bad? Why is the air bad? And, what can I do about it?”
Uwagwu has shaped much of his educational and professional journey around answering that question: “What can I do about it?” He is now a senior at MIT, majoring in chemical engineering with a minor in energy studies.
After attending high school in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, Uwagwu decided to pursue a degree in chemical engineering and briefly attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016. Unfortunately, the impacts of a global crash in oil prices made the situation difficult back in Nigeria, so he returned home and found employment at an oil services company working on a water purification process.
It was during this time that he decided to apply to MIT. “I wanted to go to a really great place,” he says, “and I wanted to take my chances.” After only a few months of working at his new job, he was accepted to MIT.
“At this point in my life I had a much clearer picture of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be in the energy sector and make some sort of impact. But I didn’t quite know how I was going to do that,” he says.
With this in mind, Uwagwu met with Rachel Shulman, the undergraduate academic coordinator at the MIT Energy Initiative, to learn about the different ways that MIT is engaged in energy. He eventually decided to become an energy studies minor and concentrate in energy engineering studies through the 10-ENG: Energy program in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Additionally, he participated in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) in the lab of William H. Green, the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor in Chemical Engineering, focusing on understanding the different reaction pathways for the production of soot from the combustion of carbon.
After this engaging experience, he reconnected with Shulman to get involved with another UROP, this time with a strong focus in renewable energy. She pointed him toward Ian Mathews — a postdoc in the Photovoltaic Research Laboratory and founder of Sensai Analytics — to discuss ways he could make a beneficial impact on the energy industry in Nigeria. This conversation led to a second UROP, under the supervision of Mathews. In that project, Uwagwu worked to figure out how cost-effective solar energy would be in Nigeria compared to petrol-powered generators, which are commonly used to supplement the unreliable national grid.
“The idea we had is that these generators are really, really bad for the environment, whereas solar is cheap and better for the environment,” Uwagwu says. “But we needed to know if solar is actually affordable.” After setting up a software model and connecting with Leke Oyefeso, a friend back home, to get data on generators, they concluded that solar was cost-comparable and often cheaper than the generators.
Armed with this information and another completed UROP, Uwagwu thought, “What happens next?” Quickly an idea started forming, so he and Oyefeso went to Venture Mentoring Services at MIT to figure out how to leverage this knowledge to start a company that could deliver a unique and much-needed product to the Nigerian market.
They ran through many different potential business plans and ideas, eventually deciding on creating software to design solar systems that are tailored to Nigeria’s specific needs and context. Having come up with the initial idea, they “chatted with people on the solar scene back home to see if this is even useful or if they even need this.”
Through these discussions and market research, it became increasingly clear to them what sort of novel and pivotal product they could offer to help accelerate Nigeria’s burgeoning solar sector, and their initial idea took on a new shape: solar design software coupled with an online marketplace that connects solar providers to funding sources and energy consumers. In recognition of his unique venture, Uwagwu received a prestigious Legatum Fellowship, a program that offers entrepreneurial MIT students strong mentoring and networking opportunities, educational experiences, and substantial financial support.
Since its founding in the summer of 2020, their startup, Idagba, has been hard at work getting its product ready for market. Starting a company in the midst of Covid-19 has created a set of unique challenges for Uwagwu and his team, especially as they operate on a whole other continent from their target market.
“We wanted to travel to Lagos last summer but were unable to do so,” he says. “We can’t make the software without talking to the people and businesses who are going to use it, so there are a lot of Zoom and phone calls going on.”
In spite of these challenges, Idagba is well on its path to commercialization. “Currently we are developing our minimum viable product,” comments Uwagwu. “The software is going to be very affordable, so there’s very little barrier for entry. We really want to help create this market for solar.”
In some ways, Idagba is drawing lessons from the success of Mo Ibrahim and his mobile phone company, Celtel. In the late 1990s, Celtel was able to quickly and drastically lower the overall price of cell phones across many countries in Africa, allowing for the widespread adoption of mobile communication at a much faster pace than had been anticipated. To Uwagwu, this same idea can be replicated for solar markets. “We want to reduce the financial and technical barriers to entry for solar like he did for telecom.”
This won’t be easy, but Uwagwu is up to the task. He sees his company taking off in three phases. The first is getting the design software online. After that has been accomplished — by mid-2021 — comes the hard part: getting customers and solar businesses connected and using the program. Once they have an existing user base and proven cash flow, the ultimate goal of the company is to create and facilitate an ecosystem of people wanting to push solar energy forward. This will make Idagba, as Uwagwu puts it, “the hub of solar energy in Nigeria.” Idagba has a long way to go before reaching that point, but Uwagwu is confident that the building blocks are in place to ensure its success.
After graduating in June, Uwagwu will be taking up a full-time position at the prestigious consulting firm Bain and Company, where he plans to gain even more experience and connections to help grow his company. This opportunity will provide him with the knowledge and expertise to come back to Idagba and, as he says, “commit my life to this.”
“This idea may seem ambitious and slightly nonsensical right now,” says Uwagwu, “but this venture has the potential to significantly push Nigeria away from unsustainable fossil fuel consumption to a much cleaner path.”

Memorial Day weekend is underway in the United States, and things are decidedly different for travellers than they were a year ago.
More than half of all adults in the United States have now been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A federal mandate requires travellers in aeroplanes or on public transportation to wear masks, although most airlines then were asking passengers to wear them. And many, many more people are likely to leave town for the holiday this year than in 2020.
Darby LaJoye, the acting administrator at the Transportation Security Administration, said that the number of travellers at US airports has been increasing steadily during the spring, reaching nearly 1.9 million last Sunday, nearly eight times the figure for May 17, the comparable Sunday in 2020.

On Friday, the number of daily travellers topped 1.9 million, a level of travel not seen since March 2020, according to agency data released Saturday. The TSA predicted that airports would probably see 2 million passengers in a day over the holiday weekend, the latest crest in the recent waves of returning travellers. LaJoye said that the increasing number of passengers could lead to longer wait times at security checkpoints.AAA, the automobile owners group, predicted earlier this month that, all told, more than 37 million people would travel 50 miles or more from Thursday to Monday, a 60 per cent increase from last year, though still 9 per cent below 2019. A great majority will travel by car.
“We will continue to see a very steady increase as we approach the summer travel season,” LaJoye said. “As vaccinations continue to rise and confidence continues to build, the nation’s planes, trains, buses and roads are going to be heavily traveled.”
To help control the spread of the virus, the TSA has erected acrylic barriers, installed new machines allowing some passengers to scan their own documents and adjusted the rules to allow passengers to have up to 12 ounces of hand sanitiser in their carry-on bags.
A year ago in the United States, there was no authorized coronavirus vaccine, mask requirements were left up to local officials and individual carriers, and air traffic was sparse.
Now, people 12 or older can get vaccinated, and those who choose to travel have a sense of their own safety that even the boldest voyagers last year did not. (Still, travelling, and many other activities, can be complicated for younger children and their families).
“Thanks to vaccines, tens of millions of Americans are able to get back to something closer to normal, visiting friends and family,” Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said this past week at a news conference.
This year’s holiday falls at a time when parts of the world, like the United States and the European Union, are progressively reopening their borders and allowing tourism to restart. But the virus continues to ravage other areas, notably India, South America and Southeast Asia, where vaccine supplies are scarce and worrisome virus variants have been detected.
As it happens, the average number of new cases being reported in the US is about the same now as it was around Memorial Day last year, about 23,000 a day, although testing was far scarcer as the pandemic initially hit. In each case, the figure had been declining from a peak in mid-April.
Last year, reports of revellers ignoring mask and social distancing rules over the holiday weekend were legion. Within weeks of some states reopening, virus cases were starting to surge to record levels. Jumps in virus cases have been seen after other holiday weekends, Walensky noted this past week.
Now that many people have been vaccinated, any virus outbreaks in the United States after the holiday will probably look different, according to Dr Wafaa El-Sadr, a public health researcher at Columbia University. She said she was concerned about “micro-epidemics” in vulnerable areas.
“We could potentially see these surges focused in specific communities where there’s low vaccination rates and low masking rates,” El-Sadr said.

Nigeria's NNPC in advanced talks to buy stake in Africa's biggest refinery project
State-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., or NNPC, is in advanced talks with Dangote Industries to acquire a 20% stake in the 650,000 b/d Dangote oil refinery, a company spokesman said May 27.
"Negotiations have reached an advanced stage...," the spokesman said. "We are hoping to wrap up the negotiations before the refinery goes on stream. This is a deliberate move to ensure that the risk associated with refinery business does not weigh solely on Dangote Industries, and also a bold statement that the government is ready to encourage private investors in the building refineries."
The Dangote plant located in the outskirt of Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos -- which will be Africa's largest refinery -- is expected to start commissioning early next-year, Devakumar V.G. Edwin, an executive director at Dangote Industries, had previously told Platts.
Edwin said on March 1 that overall progress is now 90% complete, including design, engineering, and procurement, with construction work around 70% complete.
But not everyone is convinced that the refinery will be ready by next year. Some Nigeria-based industry sources told S&P Global Platts that the refinery might still struggle to come on stream until late 2022 or early 2023 as the delays caused by COVID-19 continue to slow down the project.
Downstream reforms
This refinery is critical for Nigeria, which relies heavily on fuel imports for its needs.
The Nigerian government has pinned its hopes of ending gasoline imports largely on the completion of the Dangote refinery
Nigeria imports around 1 million-1.25 million mt/month of gasoline due to inadequate domestic refining capacity. All the refineries, with combined nameplate capacity to refine 445,000 b/d of crude oil, are currently shut down.
The imports come at a cost to Africa's largest producer, which has endured a choppy 2020 due to the oil price crash and the pandemic.
NNPC's has been looking to reform the country's downstream sector for almost a decade now but progress has been slow.
But NNPC recently started repairs of Nigeria's Port Harcourt refinery last month after the necessary financing was secured. It is now working on getting funding for the overhaul of the other plants.
NNPC says it expects them to operate at around 90% of capacity when repairs are completed, and they resume production by 2023.
The refineries have operated sporadically due to years of neglect, forcing Africa's largest crude producer to rely heavily on imports to meets its domestic fuel needs.
Rising oil demand
NNPC's Managing Director Mele Kyari recently said that Africa needed an "efficient refining sector, and massive investment was needed" for the region to become self-reliant.
The global refining sector did not look very attractive because of falling margins and fragile oil demand but, but the picture in Nigeria looks rosier.
Oil demand in Africa is poised to grow at a faster pace than most of the world in the next two decades, increasing by 3.1 million b/d between 2020 and 2040 due to the doubling of the car fleet along with increased demand for LPG as a cooking fuel, according to the International Energy Agency. The demand growth in the continent is higher than the projected growth in China and second only to that of India.
The start-up date of this refinery has been repeatedly delayed, after the company first announced the project in 2013.
The crude distillation unit has been designed to process 12 crudes at one time and has been engineered to process three Nigerian crude grades -- Escravos, Bonny Light and Forcados.
The plant will yield 327,000 b/d of gasoline, 244,000 b/d of gasoil/diesel, 56,000 b/d of jet fuel/kerosene as well as 290,000 mt/year of propane/LPG when fully operational, according to a Dangote presentation given at an industry event last year.
It will also produce 830,000 mt/year of polypropylene, 600,000 mt/year of slurry, 290,000 mt/year of propane and 38,000 mt/year of sulfur.
The refinery received most of its key refining units, such as the columns that make up the plant's crude distillation unit reactor, regenerator and fluid catalytic cracker, in 2019.

Jacksonville, FL , May 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lytus Technologies Holdings PTV. LTD. (“Lytus,” or the “Company”), a technology platform services company that offers content streaming/telecasting and telemedicine services with active users and business operations in the United States and India, introduces Lytus Telemedicine, a robust platform of telemedicine/telehealth services that’s one of the premier platforms to actively serve the U.S. and India markets.
Lytus Telemedicine is a unique patient-centric program in the marketplace that provides health care practitioners the opportunity to deliver, and patients to receive, unequalled health care services in full compliance of all regulations and conditions prevalent in today’s current regulatory ecosystems. Lytus will deploy digital communication technologies using medical devices, video capabilities and data collection methodologies within the Lytus Telemedicine platform. Lytus has engaged leading global suppliers of telemedicine equipment and remote patient management devices and has entered into long-term privileged supply arrangements to support both the U.S. and India markets with such suppliers.
In October 2020, Lytus acquired a majority stake in Global Health Sciences, Inc. (“GHSI”), an innovator of telemedicine services that aims to provide management and technology solutions to hospital networks, university medical schools, physician networks and individual practices in the U.S. GHSI is led by CEO and founder of GHSI, James Tuchi, an industry veteran with experience in rolling out telemedicine services in the United States and other parts of the world. GHSI’s proprietary delivery platform uses digital communication technologies using medical monitoring devices, video capabilities and data capture methodologies. The GHSI platform also uses AI ecosystem assets including conversational computing, Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (iRPA), and Machine Learning (ML). This platform is currently rolled out in New Jersey, Illinois, Florida and Texas with approximately 125 medical physician practices using the system for approximately 3,000 eligible patients via hospital and clinic networks.
Lytus’ telemedicine business in India is led by Dr. Sanjeiiv Geeta Chaudhry, a health industry veteran with vast experience of leading large companies and driving innovation and growth. In India, Lytus’ telemedicine business has commenced repurposing its existing local cable operator network infrastructure to set up Local Health Centers/diagnostic centers (LHC). There is scheduled to be one dedicated LHC for every 5,000 customers and this LHC will be staffed with trained healthcare professionals. We believe LHCs will support customers with additional patient services that cannot be remotely provided through device telemedicine services. Typical services provided at the LHCs will include ECGs, EKGs, blood and urine testing, ultrasound scans, and other health vitals. The LHC network will act as an important link between patients, doctors and supporting hospital partners for better integration. The Company also intends to leverage the LHC network for pharmaceutical delivery. The beta testing of services in India has brought out the unique advantage of 24/7 company-employed physicians handling inbound health calls to be able to provide prompt resolution of health needs of the callers, while at the back end, the national call center has access to specialist services for diagnosis and fulfilment of prescriptions.
Mr. Dharmesh Pandya, Lytus’ founder and CEO, commented: “Amid the current global pandemic, Lytus has worked diligently in both the U.S. and India to help meet the needs of patients by bringing them closer to their physicians to receive the care they need in the safest and most efficient manner possible. The current and dire COVID-19 situation in India has highlighted the importance and need for telemedicine services for patients. The demand for this type of virtual medical diagnosis and treatment is growing rapidly in India. Clearly, we do not believe this is a fad – telemedicine and telehealth bring an abundance of efficiencies to clinical care, and is here to stay. In fact, India’s Prime Minister stated recently that telemedicine service needs be expanded in the country’s rural areas because it has played such an important and beneficial role for patients in home isolation. Virtually all the restrictions that have heretofore impeded the growth of the telemedicine industry in delivering healthcare have been removed by almost all governmental regulatory bodies around the world. We also believe that it is very clear there will be substantial changes in the provisioning and delivery of health care in our target markets for telemedicine services. This has led to a more favorable environment for Lytus to leverage the breakthrough technological applications available to us. We intend to be well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities quickly, through the assistance of our business partners and our network of technology vendors with whom we have built long-term working relationships.”

Oyeronke Adegbile stands by a wooden boat at a beach in Lagos, the biggest coastal city and the economic hub of Nigeria, smiling and listening to several fishermen pouring out their complaints about the hardship of life as they are busy picking fishes off their fishing net.

Adegbile is here on a beach cleaning activity, part of the efforts of a non-governmental organization she founded to promote marine protection in local communities.

The 40-year-old marine researcher with Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) is widely referred to as "Madam Sea Turtle" by the coastal communities she frequents together with her colleagues because of her seemingly "overzealous" dedication to the protection of sea turtles.

However, the "Madam Sea Turtle" always finds herself caught in the quandary between conservation and survival, and the fight to protect marine life and the tradition and livelihood of a vast majority of people living in coastal communities.

Adegbile did not know there are sea turtles in Nigeria until 2009 when she went for a field trip as a NIOMR researcher in a fishing community in Lekki, a coastal area of Lagos, and saw a sea turtle shell.

Adegbile recalled when she graduated from the University of Lagos in 2002, she traveled for an international conference on marine protection in Britain.

"One of the participants at the conference asked me if there were sea turtles in Nigeria and prior to that time I had never heard of sea turtles being in Nigeria. So, I said we didn't have them and I don't know anything about them," Adegbile told Xinhua.

However, she got back to Nigeria with that question lingering on her mind until her field trip in 2009.

"I was able to establish that we have sea turtles nesting in Lagos. We formed a little group with my colleagues and we started going out to the coastal communities to ask if they have found any sea turtles," she said.

The answer was affirmative.

Later, Adegbile was involved in a sea turtle nesting survey for her PhD research, so she went to coastal communities more frequently to check where they nested.

"I realized that the government vehicle was not moving fast enough for the sea turtle work, so I decided to start a cause around the sea turtle. That was when I started the cause on sea turtle monitoring," she said.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has registered 49 new cases of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), bringing the total number of infections in the country to 165,901.

The NCDC disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Wednesday.

According to the centre, no new death linked to COVID-19 was recorded in the past 24 hours.

The public health agency noted that the newly recorded infections raised the country’s tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 165,901 and the death toll from the disease to 2,067.

It disclosed that additional four people have been successfully treated and have been discharged from its isolation centre, bringing the active caseload across the country to more than 7,300.

The NCDC noted that additional recoveries reported on Wednesday increased the country’s number of recoveries and discharges to 156,459.

It said, however, that the new cases were reported in six states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

According to the NCDC, 21 of the new infections occurred in Lagos, 16 in Rivers and five in the FCT.

Kano reported three, Akwa Ibom, two, while Ebonyi and Ekiti had one each.

The NCDC stated that it had tested more than two million people since the pandemic erupted on Feb. 27, 2020.

It added said that a multi-sectoral National Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, continued to coordinate the national response activities.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will soon allow up to 250 “particularly vulnerable” immigrants into the U.S. each day, said a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, an exception to the current policy that blocks most families and single adult migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Already, Customs and Border Protection has allowed roughly 2,000 vulnerable immigrants to enter the U.S. as they await their immigration hearings, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging the administration in court to give all migrants that right. DHS did not comment on how many migrants have been allowed to enter due to their vulnerabilities already.
Immigrants considered particularly vulnerable include those who are ill, families with very young children or immigrants who have been threatened or attacked while they wait in Mexico. They are identified to CBP by international and non-governmental humanitarian organizations, said DHS and the ACLU.
Those will be in addition to all unaccompanied children and some families already allowed to enter the U.S. by the Biden administration. Others have been blocked under a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authority known as Title 42 intended to stop the spread of Covid-19.
The admittance of vulnerable migrants is the result of negotiations in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the ACLU to challenge the use of Title 42.
“While these concessions will hopefully save lives, they are not a substitute for eliminating Title 42 and restoring asylum processing fully,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
A DHS spokesperson said the administration is working to “streamline a system for identifying and lawfully processing particularly vulnerable individuals who warrant exceptions for humanitarian reasons under the Title 42 order.”
“This is done in close coordination with international and non-governmental organizations in Mexico and includes COVID-19 testing before those vulnerable individuals identified through this process are allowed to enter the country,” the spokesperson said.
Another concession by the Biden administration as part of the lawsuit, according to the ACLU, was an agreement to temporarily suspend the practice of flying immigrants who cross into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas to El Paso, Texas, or San Ysidro, California, to expel them there.
“Lateral flights,” as they were called, allowed CBP to spread its resources to process immigrants away from the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest border sector for migrant traffic. While they are now suspended, DHS says the government “reserves the right to restart the lateral flights if it deems the circumstances warrant.”

The Federal Government and most state governments in Nigeria deserve a pat on the back for the able way they have steered the war against the coronavirus pandemic since the end of March 2020 when we embraced the first lock-downs to curb its spread.
Commendations also go to the health workforce who, despite personal risks and inadequate welfare packages, succeeded in keeping our COVID-19 pandemic profile among the lowest in the world. Through their efforts and the mercies of God, Nigeria successfully evaded the doomsday prediction that "corpses would be picked up from the streets".
We, once again, extend our heartfelt condolences to families which lost loved ones, some of whom were among the finest and best among us. It is on record that as at Sunday, May 16, 2021, Nigeria had 165,661 confirmed cases, 156,399 discharged patients, 7,196 active cases and 2,066 deaths. From over 1,000 daily new infections in January 2021 when we reeled from the second wave, Nigeria has consistently recorded less than 100 per day for over a month. The curve had flattened, but the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 are now talking about a "fourth wave" onset.
This should put everybody on the alert. The Federal Government has also proactively instituted measures to ensure that the deadly Indian strain of the virus, which is reported to have arrived in Nigeria, does not explode. If India with its far more advanced health system, could be rendered so prostrate, the new restrictions ordered by the PSC should elicit our total cooperation.
We must go back to full observance of the COVID-19 protocols of wearing face masks, frequently washing our hands with soap under running water, avoiding crowded places (especially indoor situations), using hand sanitisers and insisting on these protocols in public places, places of work and worship centres. Let us be reminded that the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had only recently celebrated success against COVID-19 before the current wave that has crippled his country.
We, however, urge Nigerians to guard against evils that some unpatriotic elements used the lock-downs of last year to perpetrate against innocent Nigerian communities, especially in the South. While we stayed behind doors in compliance with government orders, these shadowy elements used that period to transport thousands of strange elements in food and cement trucks, most of whom marched into our forests as soon as they disembarked. This has spawned a security challenge that is threatening the entire nation.
While we reiterate our support for measures to contain COVID-19, we call on the various state governments and community vigilantes to rise and ensure that this does not happen again.



Some security measures are to better contain the generation and spread of the virus. We need to follow measures to protect ourselves and our families.

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG, warned that insecurity is the biggest threat to investment in Nigeria and urges the FG to provide security agencies with the necessary support to deal with insecurity.
The NESG disclosed this in its May 2021 report, titled ‘Sectoral reforms and Investments in Nigeria; A Focus on the Manufacturing Sector.”
What the NESG said about insecurity and Investment:
“The biggest threat to investment in Nigeria is insecurity,” the report said.
“The President and National Assembly must provide security agencies with adequate resources – equipment, finance, training, etc. – to tackle the insurgency, banditry, and other forms of social vices. There must be clear key performance indicators and heads of security agencies must be sanctioned when they fail to meet relevant goals,” it added.
The report also stated that “Nigeria has numerous favourable conditions for investment, especially in its manufacturing sector,” citing the following:
Large arable land.
Strategic location in Africa.
Large market and opportunities presented by the AfCFTA.
Import dependent–manufactured and agricultural goods account for 72.5% of total import in 2020.
Weak manufactured goods exports – share of manufactured goods to total exports was 7.7% in 2020.
Large population – Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people.
It went on to state that the FG must tackle insecurity, develop industrial policy in identified areas and provide targeted infrastructure to attract investment in the Nigerian Manufacturing sector.
What you should know
The African Development Bank also stated this week that Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, needs urgent economic diversification to move the country from a single income source (oil and minerals) towards multiple income sources.
“In pursuit of long-term recovery and sustainable development, Nigeria needs urgent economic diversification. Nothing is more poignantly demonstrative of the danger of over-reliance on a single or narrow range of commodities,” Prof. Oyelaran-Oyeyinka Oyebanji, Senior Special Adviser on Industrialisation at African Development Bank (AfDB) said.

Digital economy no longer needs introduction. We will therefore not be spending time trying to define neither the term, scope nor coverage. But its pervasiveness and disruption of established business norm is no more demonstrated by the recent valuation of Paystack, a fintech company in Nigeria, with less than ten-year track record.
Stripes, a US-based major investor in the payment technology industry recently paid a whooping US$200m (approximately N76 billion at current official exchange rate) to acquire the company. The value of a relatively unknown company set up by young graduates was more than the combined net asset value of at least three non-first tier banks in Nigeria, each of which has been in existence for more than three decades.
Digital economy is literally displacing the brick and mortal forms of business all over the world. Uber is shutting down yellow cab taxi drivers in Lagos. The traditional media houses are competing for space within the social media channel.
The telecommunication companies (telcos) have been granted a form of banking licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The major reason why the telcos have not displaced the banks is due to the limitation in the scope of what the telcos are permitted to do. Nevertheless, the fact that the telcos outlets in cash dispensing far exceeds the ATM machines and available in remotest part of Nigeria is a wake up call that banking in Nigeria will no longer be the same.
The Nigeria tax system however lacks a coherent system of taxation for the players in the digital economy. It is still rooted in the past seeking for the traditional ways of tracking income derived, earned, received or brought into Nigeria.
The common factor about each of the basis for identifying a taxable income for companies in Nigeria is ability to identify a particular place or trajectory of where an income is earned within the geographical space of Nigeria. This is where digital economy escapes from tax net of the country.
The situation in Nigeria is extremely critical. The tax laws, sadly, do not guarantee certainty in tax payable by the companies. The problem ranges from identification of the particular legal entity that should account for the tax, to the determination of the taxable income, tax-deductible expense, documents and information required to be filed for tax purpose, among others.

Cruise ships may be able to resume sailing from ports in Florida in mid-July after being shut down for over a year by the coronavirus pandemic, according to guidelines from US health authorities.
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) informed cruise companies in late April of the requirements they would need to meet to begin sailing again.
At least 98% of the crew and 95% of passengers will need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the letter obtained by AFP.
“Ships may now bypass simulated voyages and move directly to open water sailing with passengers if a ship attests that 98 percent of its crew and 95 percent of its passengers are fully vaccinated,” the CDC said.
Cruise lines were asked to submit their plans “as soon as possible to maintain the timeline of passenger voyages by mid-July.”
The multi-billion dollar cruise industry employs thousands of people in Florida and is critical to a state that relies largely on tourism.
The three largest cruise lines in the world — Norwegian, Carnival and Royal Caribbean — run operations out of south Florida. All three advertise Limón, Costa Rica, among their pre-pandemic destinations.
Norwegian announced on April 5 that it would require proof of vaccination for passengers and crew in the hope that the CDC would lift the sailing ban in July.
A Norwegian spokesman said the company “is encouraged by the ongoing constructive dialogue (with the CDC) that resulted in recent meaningful modifications to previously issued technical guidelines and the incorporation of vaccines.”
Jonathan Fishman, a Royal Caribbean spokesman, said the company was encouraged “that we now see a pathway to a healthy and achievable return to service.”
A Carnival spokesperson said the company is still reviewing the new CDC guidelines.
Cruise operations were suspended on March 14, 2020 when the CDC issued a “no sail order” to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.
Several ships had already had deadly outbreaks on board.
Some cruise ships resumed operations in Europe and elsewhere last year but the ban remained in place in the United States.
The CDC issued a roadmap in October for cruise ships to resume operations and updated it in April.
Didier Arino, head of the Protourisme consulting firm in Paris, told AFP this month that the pandemic has caused $48.3 billion in losses to the cruise industry and he doesn’t expect it to resume normal activity until 2025.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says home COVID-19 tests are now acceptable for people flying internationally into the U.S.
The guidance page, which was updated Friday, says a self-test can be used if it meets the following criteria (from the CDC website):
The test must be a SARS-CoV-2 viral test (nucleic acid amplification test [NAAT] or antigen test) with Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The testing procedure must include a telehealth service affiliated with the manufacturer of the test that provides real-time supervision remotely through an audio and video connection. Some FDA-authorized self-tests that include a telehealth service may require a prescription.
The telehealth provider must confirm the person’s identity, observe the specimen collection and testing procedures, confirm the test result, and issue a report that meets the requirements of CDC’s Order.
Airlines and other aircraft operators must be able to review and confirm the person’s identity and the test result details. The passenger must also be able to present the documentation of test results to U.S. officials at the port of entry and local/state health departments, if requested.
If there is a positive test, the telehealth provider is asked to provide the results to local public health authorities and to advise the traveler not to fly until they complete isolation or quarantine subject to local requirements.
This guidance is only for people coming into the U.S. from another country. Requirements for traveling from the U.S. to an international destination may differ, based on that country's guidance.

High-level visit to Nigeria signals strength and importance to UK-Nigeria partnership
Mr Duddridge was accompanied by the UK Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Girls’ Education and Trade Envoy to Nigeria, Helen Grant MP.
During the 4-day visit, the Mr. Duddridge and Ms. Grant covered a wide range of issues, including human rights, girls’ education, and electoral reform. They discussed how the UK can work in partnership with Nigeria to address insecurity; and how to support economic development and mutual prosperity as the world builds back better from COVID-19.
In Abuja, Minister Duddridge met Chief of Staff to President Buhari, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Senate President Ahmed Lawan, Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama, the Governors of Kaduna and Jigawa, ECOWAS President Jean-Claude Brou, leading civil society organisations and members of the international community. Ms Grant also met the Minister of Education.
During the visit, the Minister for Africa and the Trade Envoy attended the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and Konexa, a British company, which will help increase sustainable energy access in Nigeria. The delegation also visited a government secondary school in Abuja that is currently being supported by the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms programme.
In Lagos, Mr. Duddridge met the Governors of Lagos and Edo States, had a dinner with members of the Nigerian creative sector and met representatives of UK business and investment groups in Nigeria. Mr. Duddridge also visited Apapa seaport, where he took a tour of a terminal and met Nigerian agencies to discuss law enforcement and trade facilitation between the UK and Nigeria.

MTN Nigeria lost 5 million mobile subscribers in the first quarter of 2021 as a result of new regulations on the sale and activation of SIM cards, slowing down the company’s growth momentum.
Mobile customers dropped from 76.5 million at the end of December 2020 to 71.5 million by the end of March 2021, revealed a press statement from the JSE-listed MTN Group, which owns Nigeria’s largest telecommunications operator.
Lagos-listed MTN Nigeria Communications said in a statement that there was also a slight slippage in data customers at the unit, with active subscribers down by 71 000 to 32.5 million.
"Although active data subscribers fell slightly, MTN Nigeria still recorded an 86.7% increase in data traffic, supporting by additional access to the key 800MHz band," it said.
Digital revenue grew by 101% and fintech revenue by 28.5% as customers continued to adopt digital products and services, a trend accelerated by the pandemic.
Meanwhile, MTN Nigeria's revenue increased by 17.1% to NGN 385.3 billion in the first quarter ended 31 March compared with NGN 328.2 billion in the same period in 2020. Net profit grew by 42.5% to NGN 73.7 billion from NGN 51.7 billion in 2020.
“We made good progress in the first quarter of 2021 despite the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola in a statement to shareholders.
MTN Nigeria said its 2021 priorities remain unchanged, with a clear focus on sustaining double-digit revenue growth, driving 4G network expansion, and positioning its fintech business for accelerated growth.
The Nigerian government has approved the activation of new SIM registrations by telecom operators, including MTN, lifting a ban in place since December 2020. The issue of SIMs and other suspended activities can restart on 19 April, the ICT ministry said.

The coronavirus vaccine from developer Novavax may soon be a popular option in the United States, according to Politico.
Novavax has recently finished up its late-stage clinical trials, following in the footsteps of Pfizer and Moderna.
The vaccine has shown to be a strong mRNA vaccine in the U.K. It will soon apply for authorization in the United States, Politico reports.
Novavax is a little different in that it “uses moth cells to brew batches of the coronavirus spike protein,” according to Politico.
The plants where the vaccine will be developed are still trying to figure out how to make the technology work.
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Lawrence Gostin, a global health law professor at Georgetown University, told Politico that he sees a bright future for the vaccine in the U.S.
“I do think it’s going to play a larger role,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global health law professor at Georgetown University. “In the short to medium term, at least, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has taken a reputational hit and people are more hesitant to take it. In addition, J&J has had major production problems at its Baltimore plant. And as a result I think Novavax is going to be a reasonably significant player.”
Novavax effectiveness
In January 2021, Novavax said its first trial for its vaccine prevented COVID-19 complications 89.3% of the time, and it was effective in stopping the virus variant originally found in the United Kingdom, as I wrote for the Deseret News. The two-dose vaccine also stopped the South Africa COVID-19 variant 60% of the time.
But in March, the company said its vaccine is 96% effective in preventing coronavirus cases, and it led to no severe illnesses or deaths from COVID-19, according to CNBC.
Dr. Gregory Glenn, president of research and development at Novavax, told Time magazine that this is more great news for the fight against COVID-19.
“I did not think it was possible to have a vaccine prevent 96% of any respiratory disease,” he said, per Time magazine. “That’s outstanding, and I’m personally ecstatic. If you had asked me a year ago (to predict) the very best vaccine we could expect, I would have said 80% or 85% efficacy against any respiratory disease would be pretty amazing.”
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NIGERIA’S general election will begin on Saturday, February 18, 2023, according to  the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
INEC Chief Press Secretary Rotimi Oyekanmi confirmed this to The ICIR in a telephone conversation. He said Chairman of the commission Mahmood Yakubu disclosed it on Wednesday during a one-day public hearing on the National Electoral Offences Commission (Establishment) Bill 2021, organised by the Senate Committee on INEC.
Yakubu said the 2023 general elections were exactly one year, nine months, two weeks and six days or 660 days from April 28, 2021.
“By the principle established by the Commission, the 2023 General Election will hold on Saturday 18th February 2023, which is exactly one year, nine months, two weeks and six days or 660 days from today,” Yakubu said.
He noted that the commission hoped to release the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the General Election immediately after the Anambra governorship election scheduled to hold on November 6, 2021.
However, he said that to release the schedule and timetable, the INEC needed to be clear and certain about the electoral framework that would govern the conduct of the elections, stating that one of the most challenging duties of the INEC had been the prosecution of electoral offenders in the country.
He further stated that out of the 125 cases of electoral offences filed across the courts of law in the country in the 2015 general elections, only 60 convictions had been secured so far.
“We look forward to the day when highly placed sponsors of thuggery, including party chieftains and candidates that seek to benefit from violations of the law, are apprehended,” Yakubu stated.
There is a provision for the establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission Bill before the National Assembly and the Electoral Act (2010) Amendment Bill (2020), although they have not been passed. The Senate has said it is committed to the passage of the Electoral Act (2010) Amendment Bill (2020).

frecent electoral contests held in Lagos, Imo, Bayelsa, Plateau and Abia are an indicator, the civic awakening that seemed apparent at the height of the demonstrations in October 2020, has thus far failed to spill over into the electoral realm. Voter apathy, which typifies Nigerian elections, has been a notable feature of these polls. 
But as the 2023 elections draw closer amid a gloomy political and economic outlook, Nigeria’s young voters and activists are yet again being pushed to consider their role in politics, while trying to navigate the relative power of protest and electoral politics as modes of civic participation. 
Activists and organisers who participated in the #EndSars protests must decide between redoubling their efforts or stepping back from all contentious political activity; whether, and how, to change tactics; what issues they should focus on; or if abstaining completely from electoral politics would be the most powerful statement. 
These questions are particularly pressing for Nigeria’s so-called “s’oro s’oke generation” or what I like to call the “70 Percent Club” — the cohort of Nigerians believed to be 30 years old or younger. 
In a country as large and heterogeneous as Nigeria, these young people come from all walks of life and have different experiences, but they also share some important commonalities. They have no little to no memory of Nigeria under military rule, they increasingly reject the respectability politics that govern intergenerational social interactions, and they are very online. #EndSars was undeniably their moment; their introduction to the world as a social force to be reckoned with.

Nigerian actor Samuel Abiola Robinson has revealed that he has recently tested positive for Covid-19.
He writes on his page, “Hey Guys. So I'm COVID Positive and have been experiencing the serious symptoms for few days now and recently lost my taste and smell. I am and have been staying in Isolation, right now, I feel alright as the symptoms have reduced and I'm taking drugs... I am resting and should recover soon. Anyone who has been in touch with me recently is advised to get tested. Thanks. Samuel Abiola Robinson.”The actor has been living in Delhi for the past few years, where he stays with his long-time girlfriend Isha Patrick, a lawyer from Odisha. Around the time he moved, Samuel had told us, “India is one of the most beautiful and culturally diverse places in the world. My love for India is unfathomable, you can see majestic mountains in one area, then go to another place and it will be snowing, go even further and you will see lush green forests and sandy beaches. There is no place on Earth as diverse in both people and landscape as India.”

The circumstances around it haven’t changed much since then. While the government claims to have ended SARS, sadly the crux of the matter which was police brutality, and a total disregard for the value of life of Nigerians still exist…
I love Nigeria, foolishly and undeserved, yes, but I love this country. The last few weeks have shown that most of you do too!
We can not and we will not all leave.

The US has added about 130 countries to its Do Not Travel list, accounting for approximately 80% of all nations, raising concern that there won’t be an air corridor with the UK in May.
The US Department of State said the Covid-19 pandemic “continues to pose unprecedented risks to travellers” and “strongly recommends US citizens reconsider all travel abroad”.
The full list of banned destinations has not yet been made public, with guidance for each individual country expected next week.
The Telegraph said the move “dashes hopes for the introduction of a UK-US travel corridor from May 17”, when the UK government intends to resume overseas travel.
The UK is expected to confirm its “green” list of countries on May 10, with the US thought to be one of the few places Britons can visit without the need to quarantine on return, but there has not been any official confirmation.
The Telegraph also reported that Israel and the UK are exploring the possibility of opening a “green travel corridor” between them, citing the success of the two countries’ vaccination drives.
The newspaper said the issue was discussed at a meeting in Jerusalem between Israel’s foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, and Michael Gove – the British cabinet minister who is reviewing how Covid certification might work in the UK.
Last week, Israel set out its intention to allow organised groups of tourists that have been vaccinated to enter the country from May 23.
The ministers of tourism and health agreed on a framework for the opening of Israel to foreign tourists after more than a year of border closures.

On Wednesday, the 24th of March 2021, Lauretta Onochie, a presidential aide, took to Twitter, to announce the legality of lifestyle audit in Nigeria, with a view to tackling corruption. She also mentioned that those who flaunt lifestyles they cannot afford can now be investigated by any of the antigraft agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to give information about their source of wealth.
Some Nigerians have already expressed delight in the government’s action, hailing it as a great move, while others have heavily criticized it, adding that such lifestyle audit should be for those in public offices and those holding political positions in Nigeria.

Nigerian authorities are stepping up efforts to vaccinate more people against COVID-19 after a slow rollout blamed on misinformation. Authorities aim to vaccinate over 80 million Nigerians by year’s end but are running far behind schedule. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.