Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces still are trying to push deep into Ukraine in the east, but the Ukrainian army is holding them back. In his daily night-time video address to the nation late Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was aware that Russia was gathering up reinforcements for another offensive. Zelenskyy also said Ukraine is outnumbered both in troops and equipment. “We don’t have a choice – the fate of our land and of our people is being decided,” he said. “We know what we are fighting for. And we will do everything to win.” __ Zelenskyy said late…

The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of dollars. Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at U.S. financial institutions were frozen. But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis. On Monday, as the…

Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and planning, says the N1.3 trillion intervention fund the federal government provided for the power sector has not yielded any significant result. On March 1, 2017, the federal government approved N701 billion as a power assurance guarantee fund for the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET) to pay for the electricity produced by the generation companies (GenCos) to the national grid for two years. The fund was provided to tackle the monthly liquidity challenges faced by GenCos, as the distribution companies (DisCos) kept defaulting in paying for the monthly invoice of electricity received. In a…

Over 72.77 million active telecommunication subscribers have been barred from making calls on their SIMs, following a directive from the Federal Government to telecommunication companies. On Monday, the Federal Government ordered telecommunications companies to enforce compliance with its National Identification Number-Subscriber Identity Module policy by restricting outgoing calls on all unlinked lines as the deadline for the verification expired on March 31. This directive was contained in a joint statement signed by Director of Public Affairs of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Ikechukwu Adinde, and Head, Corporate Communications at the Nigeria Identity Management Commission, Kayode Adegoke. According to the statement, 125…