WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian military says six servicemen killed in helicopter incident

Six Ukrainian servicemen were killed aboard two helicopters while they were "carrying out missions" in eastern Ukraine, the military said on Wednesday.

There was no indication what happened involving two widely-used Mi-8 helicopters on Tuesday.

A military statement on Telegram aid the men were "carrying out missions" in the sector of the Russian-held eastern city of Bakhmut when they died.

The news site Ukrainska Pravda said the incident occurred near Kramatorsk - a large town west of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, theatre of much of the fighting in Russia's 18-month invasion of its neighbour.

Ukrainska Pravda said the two helicopters were "completely destroyed" and the bodies were found at the site.

An air force spokesperson identified as Yevhen Rakita told public broadcaster Suspilne that the men aboard were officers.

He said a service for the men would take place on Thursday in the central town of Poltava but their identities were not being made public for security reasons.

** Zelenskiy decries corruption in military medical exemptions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy decried on Wednesday what he described as systematic corruption in medical exemptions to people avoiding military service, saying the system was subject to bribes and mass departures abroad.

Ukraine has made a crackdown on graft a priority as it presses on with a counteroffensive 18 months into Russia's invasion. Uprooting corruption is also a key element in the country's bid to join the European Union.

Zelenskiy said the National Security and Defence Council had considered data showing the extent of false exemptions, bribe-taking and flight abroad since the February 2022 invasion. The investigation of dubious medical exemptions was still being conducted, he said.

"There are examples of regions where the number of exemptions from military service due to medical commission decisions has increased tenfold since February last year," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"It is absolutely clear what sort of decisions these are. Corrupt decisions."

He said the investigation had exposed corrupt practices in different regions and by officials in different positions, involving bribes ranging from $3,000 to $15,000.

Zelenskiy said a separate analysis was needed to determine the numbers of people who had fled abroad, largely on the basis of medical commission decisions.

"We are talking about at least thousands of individuals," he said.

Zelenskiy this month dismissed all the heads of Ukraine's regional army recruitment centres.

He said more than 100 criminal cases had been opened in a wide-ranging probe launched after a graft scandal at a recruitment office in southern Odesa region last month.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian air defenses repel multiple coordinated drone raids – MOD

The Russian military has prevented a series of attempted Ukrainian drone strikes overnight, with over half a dozen unmanned aircraft shot down across five regions spanning from the Ukrainian border to Moscow, the Defense Ministry claimed early on Wednesday.

Russian air defense units prevented an “attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack by airplane-type UAVs on Russian infrastructure,” the military said in a brief statement.

Shortly after midnight, three unmanned aircraft were shot down in the border region of Bryansk and at least one intercepted over Oryol, some 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Around 2am, another drone was detected and downed over Kaluga Region, to the southwest of Moscow, the Defense Ministry added in another statement.

At 2:30am a plane-type unmanned aerial vehicle was downed in Ryazan Region.

At about 3:30am, another Ukrainian UAV was intercepted and crashed over the territory of Moscow Region. The hostile UAV was downed while heading towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, adding that it caused no damage or injuries on the ground.

At 4am yet another UAV was downed over Ryazan Region, according to the Defense Ministry.

At 8:30am, Bryansk Region governor Aleksander Bogomaz reported another incident, saying that two drones had targeted a TV tower in the city of Bryansk. Both aircraft were shot down by air defenses, he wrote on Telegram, adding that the fires at their crash sites had already been extinguished.

Earlier, the Russian aviation authority announced the emergency closure of airspace over the Tula, Ryazan, and Kaluga regions and parts of Moscow Region, following explosions at an airfield in northwest Russia.

At least 10 drones attacked Pskov, according to the regional governor. Most were brought down by air defenses, but some reportedly caused damaged at least two Il-76 transport aircraft. There were no reports of casualties.

Pskov is about 700 kilometers north of Ukraine, but only 30 kilometers from the Estonian border. Latvia is about 60 kilometers to the southwest. Both are NATO member states. To reach the city, drones launched from Ukraine would have to fly over eastern Belarus.

Ukraine has previously used “drone swarms” to attack Crimea, but has not sent more than a handful of UAVs in the direction of Moscow, where they caused minor property damage to the city’s financial district. The Kremlin had dismissed the attacks as an “act of desperation,” intended to distract from Kiev’s failures on the battlefield.

** Russia cripples Ukrainian military command, intel centers in overnight precision strike

Russian forces delivered a strike by long-range precision weapons, wiping out Ukrainian military command and intelligence centers over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

"Overnight to August 30, Russian forces delivered a multiple-launch strike by airborne and seaborne long-range precision weapons against enemy military command and intelligence centers," the ministry said in a statement.

The goals of the strike were achieved. "All the designated targets were destroyed," the ministry stressed.

 

The routine is now very familiar: the sudden putsch, the president confined, the nocturnal statement by new, camouflaged rulers. Today it is the turn of Gabon to wake up to find a military coup has brought sudden and unexpected political upheaval in a country that had been considered relatively stable.

On this occasion, the men in uniform introduced themselves as members of the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. If successful, the coup will be the eighth in west and central Africa since 2020 to lead to a violent – or at least coerced – change in regime. The most recent was last month in Niger.

Soldiers have also seized power in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Sudan in the past two years. Now other leaders of Gabon’s neighbouring states will feel threatened – notably Denis Sassou Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville – and with some justification.

So far, the ousting of Ali Bongo Ondimba as president after 14 years in power appears to have significant popular support, although it is difficult to tell so early. This would not be surprising. Many of the military coups in recent years have been greeted by enthusiastic public celebrations. Some have been organised for the media to win swift legitimacy, but many have been spontaneous outbursts of excitement at the simple prospect of change.

Few doubt Gabon needed a shake-up. The president inherited power from his father, who ruled from 1967 until his death in 2009. Gabon, a member of the Opec oil cartel with a production of 181,000 barrels of crude a day, should be relatively prosperous. Yet the quality of life of the vast proportion of its 2 million inhabitants speaks volumes about the decades of mismanagement, clientelism, corruption and blatant political rigging that the Bongo dynasty brought.

The exact motivation for the takeover will soon become clear. It is unlikely to be the protection of Gabon’s institutions from security or other threats, as the new apparent rulers claimed in their first address. The lack of concerted regional, African or global response to the other recent coups is likely to have been a major factor in the soldiers’ decision to gamble their lives and livelihoods on a grab for power.

This failure has been more obvious than ever in recent weeks. Threats of military intervention from Ecowas, the west African regional bloc, have yet to help restore Mohamed Bazoum, the democratically elected president of Niger ousted in July, and sanctions are not having much effect either. Military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso appear entrenched. And in Sudan, the biggest threat to the military factions that seized power in 2021 is one another.

In the case of Gabon, the military can count on popular support and that of the opposition. A recent United Nations development programme survey of thousands of people living in countries where coups had recently occurred found strong democratic aspirations. This is true elsewhere, too, and is being reinforced as Africa becomes more urban and educated. But above all, there is a desire for change as soon as possible – even if this means it comes wearing combat fatigues.

There is a wider trend to watch as well. Many of the recent coups are in former French colonies, and one cause is undoubtedly the revived memory of a long, exploitative period of rule from Paris. Africa watchers have long worried about the inherent instability of the system left by France after it ended its direct colonial control across a swath of the continent. This toxic mix of political manipulation, financial control, military intervention, extractive commercial enterprise and cosy relations between elites is far from unique to Francophone Africa but is very entrenched there, even today.

Gabon, too, was a French colony – as recalled by Emmanuel Macron when he met the French-educated Bongo in Paris in late June. The photos of the two presidents shaking hands may not have done either much good.

Every coup is different but many outcomes resemble one another. The new leaders of Gabon will almost certainly follow the same path as their counterparts farther north and announce a “transition period” before new elections, which will not be held for a long time. In the meantime, tearful pleas by Bongo from his official residence, to which he is now confined, for supporters to “make some noise” are likely to fall on deaf ears.

 

The Guardian, UK

Since the National Bureau of Statistics published figures that put the unemployment rate at 4.1 per cent, they have faced sweltering criticisms. Earlier in April, they announced they were changing the metrics used in calculating the unemployment rate in the country to align with the International Labour Organisation guidelines. Since last Thursday when they released a jobs report that revised the unemployment rate (previously calculated at 33.3 per cent as at Q4 2020) to 4.1 per cent for (Q4 2022 and Q1 2023), they have been criticised for asserting that the Nigerian unemployment figures are at par with some of the most developed countries/diverse economies. Without any evidence to substantiate such assertion, the NBS go explain the wizardry of their numbers taya!

That no one exactly celebrated the progress the NBS reports is understandable. A healthy amount of scepticism must greet a 4.1 per cent unemployment rate announcement. Anywhere in the world, figures are considered political. Contrary to received wisdom that numbers objectively assess reality, they can, in fact, mythify. In the hands of unscrupulous politicians, they bestow a patina of legitimacy upon lies.

For Nigeria where politicians solicit empiricists to use their scientific tools to produce a truth that will find no feet to stand on the grounds of reality, the former Statistician-General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, must have faced a lot of pressure when he headed the NBS and published figures that directly refuted the propaganda of the previous administration. And that is why any statistics emanating from the agency that can be deviously seized on by a non-performing government, will be scrutinised for traces of chicanery.

Now, despite the fuzziness of their statistics, I will give it to the NBS that they at least explained that what has changed is not the reality of Nigerian unemployment but simply the measuring rule. They stated that the lower unemployment figures are not based on government performance but mere standardisation of the definition of unemployment to conform to international standards. According to them, under the old mensuration system, they categorised ‘unemployed’ as anyone of working age who worked below 20 hours, or did not work, but searched and was available for work during the week of the survey. Under the new calculus, what counts as being “employed” is to work for pay/profit for just an hour within the week of the survey. They said the new marker aligns with “international best practices.”

Well, this is one of those instances where “international” and “best practices” are mutually exclusive because the NBS re-categorisation is problematic on several levels. As Kale said when interviewed on Arise’s Global Business Report on Monday, while he was at the NBS, the committee in charge of reviewing the minimum number of work hours thought such a counting measure does not make sense in Nigeria because the income generated within that time frame was not necessarily livable. On that score, I hundred per cent agree. Nigeria should not have adopted that rule because it merely distorts the truth of our local situation. In some other countries, doing the bare minimum at least qualifies you for social/welfare benefits, but what does it mean in Nigeria?

Conforming to international standards must not come at the expense of accurately discerning the truth of your situation. Figures should clarify reality, not occlude it. Facts are important, but they are also manipulable. Numbers can be twisted by the neck until they tell a story you need them to tell. One can arrive at a 100 per cent employment rate in Nigeria if we expand the definition of what constitutes “work” until it includes the time we spend volunteering in religious houses (in expectation of spiritual blessings), or even soliciting “urgent 2k” on social media. Virtually everyone will be classified as “occupied” even though that will not make what they do an occupation in the real sense of it.

That said, the other important point made by the NBS boss, Semiu Adeniran, but which was overshadowed by the controversial figures, is that Nigeria’s problem is not so much unemployment but of underemployment. He explained that the underemployment rate stood at 13.7 per cent in Q4 2022 and 12.2 per cent in Q1 2023 making it a much bigger issue. While we can take issues with the metrics used to calculate “unemployed,” his point is instructive and should not be lost in the melee of arguing whether the unemployment rate is 4 or 40 per cent.

In Nigeria, the opposite of “unemployment” might not be “employment” but underemployment. Our trouble is that people are working and doing so ungainfully. Where I vehemently depart from Adeniran is his definition of underemployment as a situation “whereby persons engaged in one activity or the other yet indicate interest and availability to take on more work, due to inadequacy of the jobs they are engaged in at the time.” Classifying underemployment in Nigeria that way is rather unhelpful. People already labouring under the yoke of a non-regenerative economy cannot transmute their under-employment to employment even if they worked 24/7. The reprieve they need will come from doing quality work, not simply more of the same.

Unemployment is underutilisation of skills, not an issue of mere work hours. In Nigeria, the problem of underemployment presents itself as an internal brain drain. We talk a lot about people’s leaving the country as depriving us of the best brains but there is an ongoing internal crisis as well. People trained in professional skills have had—to stave off the biting reality of unemployment—to take on jobs mismatched with their skill set. In many cases, they get trapped in those lowly jobs and ultimately fritter away the skills they acquired in the university or polytechnic.

There are millions of young Nigerians who also formally passed through an apprenticeship in one vocational training or the other but have been retarded because they cannot come up with the capital necessary to set up shop. Lots of them like that have had to abjure their training and take on Okada/Marwa riding, street hawking, or even running a gambling store. Some veered, hoping to save enough money to buy—in many cases—the imported machines they need to set themselves up, but the increasing foreign exchange recedes their plans right before their eyes. So many of them like that, frittering away the prime of their lives doing work that neither improves their skill set nor guarantees a future. Yet, under the new rule of the NBS, all those people will be classified as “employed.” In the real sense of the word, they are not.

Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of the NBS report is their response to criticism, especially the one that came from Kale. Their retort was far more telling of the intellectual disposition of the agency than all the figures Adeniran reeled out.

The PR boss, Wakili Ibrahim, undercut the integrity of the agency by making snide comments at Kale, an attitude that suggests that their whole revision of standards is a personal affront to the ex-boss they despise, not because Nigeria needs such clarity. Also, Ibrahim’s understanding of how “work” works was so limited that it put a question mark around their job report. In clarifying that the new calibration system factored in the changing nature of work, Ibrahim said, “Look at lecturers; a lecturer can go lecture for one or two hours, and they will pay him about N200,000 or N300, 000 in one or two hours. So, what is the basis of ignoring those ones?”

Well, as a lecturer, I can tell him—for free—that when we lecture for two hours, we spend up to 10 hours on preparation. That makes at least 12 hours of work. If the NBS does not have that basic clarity, why should we trust the figures they generate?

 

Punch

Summary: A new study reveals a direct link between smoking and the increased risk of mental illnesses like depression and bipolar disorder. The research, based on data from 350,000 individuals from the UK Biobank, shows that smoking increases the risk of hospitalization for mental illness by 250%.

Importantly, the study finds that smoking typically precedes mental illness, often by a significant time gap. The research not only clarifies the role of smoking in mental illness but also raises questions about raising the legal age for cigarette purchase.

Key Facts:

1. Smoking increases the risk of being hospitalized for a mental illness by a staggering 250%.
2. People generally start smoking around the age of 17 but are not hospitalized for mental disorders until after 30, indicating that smoking likely precedes mental illness.
3. Genetic data suggests that certain “smoking-related genes” may increase the risk of both smoking and mental disorders, although the precise biological mechanism remains unclear.

Source: Aarhus University

Most of us know that smoking is unhealthy. 

Cigarette packets display shocking picture warnings of diseased lungs and rotting teeth. And we often hear in the media about how smoking can cause all sorts of cancer.

But most of us probably do not know that smoking actually increases the risk of mental illness as well.

In recent years, ever more research has indicated a strong correlation between smoking and mental illness. However, researchers have not been able to agree on whether smoking causes depression or other mental disorders, or whether we smoke because we need to lessen the symptoms of a latent mental disorder.

But now we know.

Together with two colleagues from Canada, Doug Speed from the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics at Aarhus University has shown that smoking can lead to depression and bipolar disorder.

“The numbers speak for themselves. Smoking does cause mental illness. Although it’s not the only cause, smoking increases the risk of being hospitalised with a mental illness by 250 per cent,” he says.

Based on health data from 350,000 people
Before Doug Speed and his colleagues could answer whether smoking can cause mental disorders, they needed very large volumes of data. There can be many different reasons why we develop a mental disorder. It was therefore important that they had enough data to clean their figures from other possible effects.

They gained access to the UK Biobank, one of the largest databases in the world of human health information. The database contains genetic data on more than half a million people. The genetic data was paired with a lot of other health information and answers provided by the participants regarding their lifestyle.

They fed the data into a computer and began looking for patterns. Doug Speed and his colleagues are far from the first researchers to investigate this correlation, but they found a new way to do it, as he explains.

“Previous research hasn’t really considered that there may be a temporal dimension at play. People typically start to smoke before the age of 20, but aren’t admitted to hospital with a mental disorder until they’re between 30 and 60 on average.” 

“Smoking typically comes before the mental illness. In fact, a long time before. On average, people from the data set began smoking at the age of 17, while they were typically not admitted to hospital with a mental disorder until after the age of 30.”

Your genes affect whether you become a smoker
As many as 90 per cent of the people in the data set who were still smokers or former smokers started before the age of 20. The likelihood that you will start smoking later in life is therefore quite small. In fact, your genes help determine whether or not you will become a smoker, explains Doug Speed.percent

“When we looked at the many smokers in the database, we found a number of recurring genetic variants. By looking at twin studies, in which the twins had the same genes but grew up in separate homes, we could see that their genes could explain 43 percent of the risk of becoming a smoker.”

In the homes where the adoptive parents also smoked, the risk of the child starting to smoke increased. However, if the parents didn’t smoke, the risk was lower, but still greater when the children’s ‘real’ parents had been smokers and passed on certain genes.

“There are a number of genetic variants that we can refer to as ‘smoking-related genes’. The people in the data set who carried the smoking-related genes but did not smoke were less likely to develop mental disorders compared to those who carried the genes and smoked,” he says and continues:

“Because the genetic variants also seem to be linked with the risk of mental illness, this used to be a bit blurry. But in this study, we demonstrate that it’s probable that the risk of starting to smoke causes the risk of developing mental disorders to increase due to the ‘smoking-related genes’”.

Nicotine may damage the brain
Statistically, smoking seems to cause mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. However, Doug Speed and his colleagues have no explanation as to why. Only a number of theories.

“We still need to find the biological mechanism that causes smoking to induce mental disorders. One theory is that nicotine inhibits absorption of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain, and we know that people with depression don’t produce enough serotonin,” he says.

When you smoke a single cigarette, nicotine activates the production of serotonin in the brain. Among other things, this is what makes you feel relaxed after smoking. But if you continue to smoke, nicotine will have the opposite effect. Instead, it will inhibit the serotonin – which can make you anxious, upset and unstable.

“Another explanation could be that smoking causes inflammation in the brain, which in the long term can damage parts of the brain and lead to various mental disorders. But as I said: We don’t know for sure as yet,” he says.

Should we raise the age limit for buying cigarettes?
One of the things the new figures show is that we rarely start smoking after the age of 20. Therefore, it might be a good idea to look into whether we should raise the age limit for buying cigarettes.

“This could be a good way to prevent people from starting smoking. Again, we don’t know why people don’t start smoking after the age of 20, but perhaps it’s because we become less and less willing to take risks with age,” says Doug Speed, and continues:

“Changing the law and raising the age limit may therefore have an effect. At least there are indications for this”.

The figures on which the study is based are from the UK. So they are not based on Danes. However, Doug Speed believes that the differences, if any, are very small.

“Denmark and the UK are very similar, and I would say that they are quite comparable. Having said that, our next step is actually to conduct the same study with figures from Denmark and Finland. However, getting access to this data is more expensive, which is why we did a pilot study with the British data to see if there was a correlation,” he concludes.

 

Neuroscience News

There are a number of ways you can build wealth, from founding a successful start-up to receiving a hefty inheritance.

For the everyday consumer, though, becoming wealthy usually requires a longer-term strategy. That can include a number of components, such as budgeting, investing and managing your money well.

The most important factor in building wealth: your salary, according to 67% of both millennials and Gen Zers, a recent survey from financial services company Empower found. The younger generations chose salary above other wealth-building factors such as being debt-free, job stability and living below your means.

While earning a high salary can play an important role in growing your wealth, it won’t make you wealthy on its own. Here’s what it takes to build your net worth.

How to actually build wealth

Your salary alone says little about your overall wealth. A high salary may indicate a better financial position, but if you’re not using that money effectively, it may not be contributing much to your net worth. 

“The real key to building wealth is really how much of that check you hold onto,” Scot Johnson, chartered financial analyst and chief investment officer at Adell, Harriman and Carpenter Inc., tells CNBC Make It.

You can do some of that holding in a savings account — you should always maintain cash reserves for emergencies — but investing in assets like stocks, bonds or property will help your money grow over the long term.

If the money you save is just sitting under your mattress, your purchasing power could shrink over time due to inflation. But investing in low-cost index funds is a time-tested, self-made millionaire-approved method to build wealth on virtually any income.

Index funds are a practical way to invest because they are often low-cost and give you exposure to a variety of stocks, creating automatic diversification. That way, your portfolio isn’t tied to the success of a few specific companies, allowing it to better weather any market volatility.

Even if you can’t afford to put away much, it’s a good idea to make a habit of investing what you can. As opposed to money sitting in your checking account, investments benefit from the power of compound interest, which occurs when interest accumulates on your returns as well as your initial investment, so your money grows faster.

“Building wealth comes down to balancing living in the here and now and putting ample savings aside to grow for you,” Johnson says. “The longer those savings are growing for you, the bigger that pile has a chance to get.” 

 

CNBC

• A dozen mutinous soldiers appeared on Gabonese national television, announcing the cancellation of recent election results and the dissolution of “all the institutions of the republic”.
• Wednesday’s announcement came after President Ali Bongo Ondimba, 64 was re-elected for a third term, in an election the opposition described as a ‘fraud orchestrated’ by the ruling party.
• The Bongo family, one of Africa’s most powerful dynasties, has been in power since 1967.
• The president has confirmed he is under house arrest and called for help, urging citizens to ‘make noise’.
• There have been scenes of celebration in the Gabonese capital, Libreville since the military takeover.

Commonwealth: Gabon coup ‘deeply concerning’

The Commonwealth has voiced fears about the military coup in Gabon, which joined the bloc last year with Togo, another former French colony.

Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said the situation was “deeply concerning”, adding that the bloc was monitoring the situation closely.

“The Commonwealth Charter is clear that member states must uphold the rule of law and the principles of democracy at all times,” Scotland said.

How many coups have there been in Africa?

Out of the 486 attempted or successful military coups carried globally since 1950, Africa accounts for the largest number with 214, of which at least 106 have been successful.

Based on data compiled by American researchers Jonathan M Powell and Clayton L Thyne, at least 45 of the 54 nations across the African continent have experienced at least a single coup attempt since 1950.

Gabon’s Assala Energy says oil production unaffected

Assala Energy says its oil production in Gabon has been unaffected by the military coup in the country.

“We can confirm that all our personnel are safe, our operations continue as usual and our production is not affected,” a company spokesperson said.

Gabon produces about 200,000 barrels a day (bpd) of crude oil, making it the second-smallest OPEC producer.

Coup leader says Bongo will ‘enjoy all his rights’

Speaking to the French newspaper Le Monde, coup leader Brice Oligui Nguema says the president will “enjoy all his rights” after the military announced it has placed him under house arrest.

“He is a Gabonese head of state. He is retired. He enjoys all his rights. He is a normal Gabonese, like everyone else,” Nguema said.

Nguema will not confirm whether he will declare himself the new president of the West African country.

“I do not declare myself yet. I do not envisage anything for the moment,” he said.

“This is a debate that we are going to have with all the generals. We will meet at 2pm [13:00 GMT]. It will be about reaching a consensus. Everyone will put forward ideas, and the best ones will be chosen as well as the name of the person who will lead the transition,” he added.

‘This is Francophone Spring’

Michaek Amoah, a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, says people in former French colonies in Africa are tired of leaders clinging to power.

“This is Francophone Spring whereby the anti-French sentiment in a number of Francophone countries is now having a domino effect from Mali to Burkina Faso to Niger and now to Gabon,” Amoah said.

“If you look across the African continent at the moment, apart from Uganda and Equatorial Guinea, every single country where you find a presidential term extension, they are all Francophone. These heads of state can rule for a very long time. In Cameroon, for 41 years and counting,” he added.

Ships drop anchor around Gabon

At least 30 commercial ships dropped anchor around Gabon’s waters after military officers said they had seized power, Reuters news agency reported citing data and maritime sources.

British maritime security company Ambrey said port operations in Libreville had stopped and no vessels had entered or departed from the port since the announcement of the coup.

“Ambrey is aware that movements in and out of Gabon have been closed down following an early morning announcement by military officials,” it added in an advisory.

Russia ‘concerned’ about situation in Gabon

Russia has expressed concern about the situation in Gabon.

“Moscow has received with concern reports of a sharp deterioration in the internal situation in the friendly African country. We continue to closely monitor the development of the situation and hope for its speedy stabilisation,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said Moscow is closely following the situation.

Russia is looking to build up diplomatic and trade ties with Africa, and President Vladimir Putin hosted African leaders for a summit last month.

‘Bongo era is over’

Political analyst Adama Gaye says the coup in Gabon does not come as a surprise.

“The Bongo era is over. Ali Bongo was no longer in the hearts of the population in Gabon. He was not accepted by the opposition, who were very strong this time around,” Gaye told Al Jazeera from Dusseldorf, Germany.

“There was also bickering between Ali Bongo and France to the point where, two days ago on national television, a speaker said there was a coup attempt being masterminded by Emmanuel Macron and the opposition,” he said.

“He [Bongo] was trying to create the condition for him to clamp down on the opposition and to fabricate another victory for himself in another rigged election. But this time around, the military realised that this was too far-fetched and they had to act, and that is what they did,” Gaye added.

France says Gabon election result should be respected

French government spokesman Olivier Veran says Paris condemns the coup in Gabon and wants the election result to be respected.

Earlier, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said France is following events in Gabon “with the greatest attention”.

On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron denounced what he called an “epidemic” of coups in recent years in French-speaking Africa, from Mali and Burkina Faso to Guinea and most recently Niger.

Paris maintains a military presence in many of its former colonial territories, including Gabon, where it has 370 soldiers permanently deployed, some in the capital, Libreville, according to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces website.

 

Oil giant Total says safety of employees, operations ‘main priority’

The French oil giant TotalEnergies says it has made arrangements to ensure the safety of its employees and operations in Gabon.

The company is the country’s main distributor of petroleum products with 45 petrol stations and 350 staff.

Gabon also accounted for 0.6 percent of the company’s oil and gas output in 2022.

The group did not immediately respond to a question about whether the coup could potentially have an impact on its operations.

Coup leaders say President Bongo under house arrest

Gabon’s coup leaders say President Ali Bongo Ondimba is under house arrest and one of his sons has been arrested for “treason”.

“President Ali Bongo is under house arrest, surrounded by his family and doctors,” they said in a statement read out on state TV.

Bongo’s son and close adviser Noureddin Bongo Valentin, his chief of staff Ian Ghislain Ngoulou as well as his deputy, two other presidential advisers and the two top officials in the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) “have been arrested”, a military leader said.

They are accused of treason, embezzlement, corruption and falsifying the president’s signature, among other allegations, he said.

‘In the past France would have intervened’

France is unlikely to send its military to intervene in its former colony, Tara O’Connor, executive director of Africa Risk Consulting, told Al Jazeera from Bordeaux.

“I think what is very clear is that dynastic politics are extremely unpopular across West Africa. But I do think this is opportunistic on the part of the military officers following the military coups that have taken place, successfully it has to be said, in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, which are all neighbouring countries and with whom the military leadership will have relations,” O’Connor said.

“Gabon is yet another country that was formerly a dictatorship under Ali Bongo’s father. It actually moved towards democracy and has had relatively successful and peaceful elections. But I think much more interesting is its position in relation to France,” she said.

“In the past, France would have intervened with its military. But France has modernised its foreign policy towards Africa and now would only intervene at the invitation of says ECOWAS or any of the regional bodies or the African Union,” she added.

French mining group Eramet says Gabon operations stopped

The French mining group Eramet says it has stopped its operations in Gabon.

“For the safety of staff and the security of operations”, Eramet said it had stopped work and was following events closely.

It employs 8,000 people in the oil- and mineral-rich West African country, and its local subsidiary extracts manganese ore from the Moanda mines, the world’s largest manganese mines. The mineral is used in steelmaking and batteries.

‘The coup in Gabon is different’: Analyst

Ovigwe Eguegu, analyst at the security consultancy group Afripolitika, says the apparent coup in Gabon is not similar to others witnessed in West Africa.

“The coup in Gabon came as a surprise but to some extent, it is not really a surprise because if you go back to 2016 for instance when there was an election, the vote was fraudulent with people protesting the results. That was Ali Bongo’s second term,” Eguegu said.

“Then in 2019, there was a coup attempt and those officers cited election irregularities saying it was not representative of the will of the people,” he added.

“Again, we are seeing the same pattern. The coup in Gabon is different from what we are seeing in other West African countries. While those other coups are more about security and governance, this is specifically about the electoral process,” he said.

China calls for President Bongo’s safety to be guaranteed

China has called for “all sides” in Gabon to guarantee safety of President Ali Bongo Ondimba after a group of military officers said they were “putting an end to the current regime” in the Central African nation.

“We call on all sides in Gabon to proceed from the basic interests of the country and the people, resolve differences through dialogue, [and] restore normal order as soon as possible,” foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday.

Wang called on parties to “guarantee the personal safety of President Bongo, and uphold national peace and stability”.

 

Al Jazeera

 

A group of senior Gabonese military officers appeared on national television in the early hours of Wednesday and said they had taken power, minutes after the state election body announced President Ali Bongo had won a third term.

Appearing on television channel Gabon 24, the officers said they represented all security and defence forces in the Central African nation. They said the election results were cancelled, all borders closed until further notice and state institutions dissolved.

Loud sounds of gunfire could be heard in the capital Libreville, a Reuters reporter said, after the television appearance.

There was no immediate comment from the government of the OPEC-member nation. There were no immediate reports on the whereabouts of Bongo, who was last seen in public when he cast his vote in the election on Saturday.

"In the name of the Gabonese people ... we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime," the officers said in a statement.

As one officer read the joint statement, around a dozen others stood silently behind him in military fatigues and berets.

The servicemen introduced themselves as members of The Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. The state institutions they declared dissolved included the government, the senate, the national assembly, the constitutional court and the election body.

If successful, the coup would represent the eighth in West and Central Africa since 2020. Coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger have undermined democratic progress in recent years.

Last month, the military snatched power in Niger, sending shockwaves across the Sahel and sucking in global powers with strategic interests at stake.

Tensions were running high in Gabon amid fears of unrest after Saturday's presidential, parliamentary, and legislative vote, which saw Bongo seeking to extend his family's 56-year grip on power while the opposition pushed for change in the oil and cocoa-rich but poverty-stricken nation.

A lack of international observers, the suspension of some foreign broadcasts, and the authorities' decision to cut internet service and impose a night-time curfew nationwide after the poll had raised concerns about the transparency of the electoral process.

Gabon foiled an attempted military coup in January 2019 after soldiers briefly seized the state radio station and broadcast a message saying Bongo, who had suffered a stroke months earlier, was no longer fit for office.

The situation was restored hours later after two of the suspected coup plotters were killed and others arrested.

IN POWER SINCE 2009

The Gabonese Election Centre said earlier on Wednesday Bongo won the election with 64.27% of the vote and that his main challenger, Albert Ondo Ossa, had come in second place with 30.77%.

Bongo, 64, who succeeded his father Omar as president in 2009, had contested against 18 challengers, six of whom backed Ondo Ossa in an effort to narrow the race.

The government has said the web blackout and curfew are necessary to prevent the spread of fake news and to protect public safety. Bongo's disputed 2016 election win provoked violent protests that saw the parliament building torched.

His team have rejected allegations of fraud by Ondo Ossa and his opposition alliance after a vote marred by numerous polling stations opening several hours late.

The alliance Alternance 2023 also reported other alleged irregularities including that ballot slips for its candidates had not been deployed correctly in some areas. Reuters could not independently verify the claim.

The European Union was not invited to observe this election. EU monitors previously questioned the validity of Bongo's narrow victory in the 2016 presidential vote.

On Monday, media watchdog Reporters without Borders (RSF) voiced concern about the internet block and Gabon's temporary suspension of broadcasts by French international news outlets RFI, France 24, and TV5 Monde.

"RSF denounces a series of attacks on press freedom and information pluralism, facts likely to compromise (the) general election's transparency," it said in an online post.

The opposition has disputed both of Bongo's previous electoral victories, citing fraud. He first came to power in a 2009 vote following the death of his father Omar Bongo before being re-elected in 2016.

 

Reuters

In July 2018, Muhammadu Buhari, the president of Nigeria at the time, boarded a gleaming new train linking the capital city, Abuja, with its airport. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Buhari hailed the system as “evidence that we are a government that delivers on its promises.”

Five years on, that promise looks empty. Train cars are locked away at a depot. Cavernous stations fully equipped with escalators, ticket offices, cameras and scanners stand empty, overseen by bored security guards. The faux leather couches in the VIP area are covered in bird and bat droppings. “It’s an abandoned project,” says Rowland Ataguba, an adviser to the government on rail strategy. “Quite clearly there was no plan on how to run the operations before they built it.”

The $823 million Abuja Light Rail—the first of its kind in West Africa—was closed in March 2020, ostensibly to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, it’s remained shuttered, and there’s been scant progress toward a resumption of service on the 27-kilometer (17-mile) line. Meanwhile, Nigeria is spending $50 million a year paying down the project’s $500 million in loans from the Export-Import Bank of China. “The current situation is a mystery for the next minister to unravel,” says Nasir El-Rufai, who as minister in charge of the capital area signed the contract to build the railway 16 years ago.

The idea was to reduce congestion, helping the city avoid the polluted, traffic-clogged fate of the country’s commercial hub, Lagos—the capital until Abuja, a city newly carved out of the savannah in central Nigeria, opened for business in 1991. From the time planning started in the 1970s, Abuja was always meant to have urban rail, but it wasn’t until 2007 that China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. won the contract for the first leg, and it took another half-decade for the government to secure sufficient funding.

The line was intended to be the first of a half dozen in a 290-kilometer network that would connect the city to the satellite towns where many workers live. Instead, it’s become a lesson in how not to create a mass transit system, says Mohamed Lawal Shaibu of Envicons Teams Ltd., an urban planning consultant in Abuja. The problem, Shaibu says, is that the train serves areas with little demand. “It has been very terribly executed,” he says. “The line basically avoided where people are, where people live, where people go.”

At one end lies the airport, a place where most people who can afford to fly typically arrive by car. At the other end is an isolated area of the so-called Central Business District, where the road in front of the station is more often filled with herders driving cattle to grazing land than anyone headed to or from work. Out back is scrubland where people fleeing violence in the north of the country have built shacks. An additional 18 kilometers of track was built toward the suburbs but never saw any service.

The first section was conceived about two decades ago as an airport link to bolster the capital’s bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. But after Abuja lost out to Glasgow, local officials stuck with the plan rather than adapting it to create a system that might better serve residents, according to Tonami Playman, an independent researcher who studies African public transport. “Politicians just want something to ribbon-cut and don’t care what kind of utility the infrastructure will provide,” he says.

During the 20 months the line was open, a maximum of four trains a day made the 40-minute trip between the city and the airport in each direction, making just one stop in between while breezing through five other stations. The system failed because it was “neither a high occupancy nor a high frequency service,” according to a report prepared for Japan’s development agency in 2019, which estimated daily ridership at fewer than 1,000 passengers, compared with a forecast of 34,000.

Mohammed Bello, the minister who ran the capital area under Buhari, said in October that he was working “toward the imminent resumption of operations.” That didn’t happen. Bello left his post in May when Buhari retired, and the newly elected president, Bola Tinubu, waited until Aug. 16 to name a successor. Neither Tinubu’s office nor the capital administration replied to questions about the railway.

The new minister in charge of the capital region, Nyesom Wike, on Aug. 23 toured the line and vowed that trains would be back on track within eight months. And the city has signed a $6.6 million deal with the Chinese construction company to complete repairs. The project’s defenders say once the system starts running at full throttle—whenever that might be—it will boost development along the route, and starting with a line through more densely populated areas would have been more expensive.

The main reason for the ongoing closure is damage suffered during the shutdown, according to the state-owned company appointed to run the system in May. A project manager involved in the railway says thieves have stolen crucial equipment such as communications cables, copper wiring and signaling gear, and repairing or replacing that will take at least six months once work begins.

The plan is to integrate the train with a revamped public bus service that will ferry passengers from stations to their final destinations. Until then, though, the 3.8 million residents of the fast-growing city, and millions more who live nearby, are left with few options beyond the thousands of rickety shared taxis and minibuses that ply the streets and highways.

Nigeria is notorious for grand infrastructure projects that are ill-conceived, never completed or quickly abandoned. The Ajaokuta steel mill, for instance, has swallowed $7 billion since the 1970s without ever producing a sheet, rod or coil. The government has committed billions of dollars to restoring four oil refineries that have barely produced any fuel in more than a decade. And just a couple of miles from the train’s city terminus, the 170-meter-tall Millennium Tower—intended to be a cultural complex topped with a revolving restaurant—remains unfinished 17 years after construction began.

Any significant further investment in the rail project in the near term, either providing the needed subsidies for the existing line or constructing the next one, remains unlikely. Nigeria’s government spent almost all its revenue last year on debt service, and going back to Chinese lenders is getting increasingly difficult, as the government and banks there become less generous in the face of growing domestic challenges. Six years ago the Abuja administration awarded China Civil Engineering a $1.5 billion deal to build the second phase of the train system, intended to serve busier areas, but adequate funding has yet to be lined up, leaving the project in deep freeze. “Signing a contract is one thing,” says Najeeb Abdussalam, head of the city’s public transit agency. “Raising the money is another.”

 

Bloomberg

 

Crude oil theft may have cost the country a whopping N1.9tn revenue loss in July.

The estimation was arrived at following a pronouncement by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, last week when he led a presidential delegation to inspect oil and gas facilities at Owaza in Abia and Rivers State.

Ribadu said Nigeria was losing 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily due to activities of oil thieves and pipeline vandals.

He added that the country had the capacity to produce 2 million barrels of crude oil per day.

“It is unfortunate that few individuals would steal our common resources, and in the process cause unbelievable loss to the nation, communities and the people,” Ribadu said.

“Nigeria has the capacity to produce two million barrels of crude daily, but we are currently producing less than 1.6 million barrels due to theft and vandalisation of pipelines.’’

“So, we’re talking about 400,000 barrels of crude oil going to waste, with few criminals and economic saboteurs not even getting much out of it,” he said.

Checks on data provided in the August report of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries showed that the country’s July crude oil production, as provided by direct sources such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, was one million barrels per day.

According to OPEC August report, Nigeria’s crude grade, Bonny Light, against which all other crude grades produced by the country were priced, was sold for $80 per barrel in July. The exchange rate against the dollar was also at N777/$1 in July.

This estimation brings total revenue loss to crude oil theft to N1.9tn in July alone.

 

Punch

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says it has commenced the implementation of value-added tax (VAT) on automobile gas oil (AGO), also known as diesel, imported into the country.

The service made this known in a memo, dated July 28, 2023, sent to all importers and agents of diesel.

The memo was titled, ‘Request for Charge of Value Added Tax (VAT) on Automobile Gas Oil (ago) or Diesel Imported into the Country’. 

The communication, signed by PC Chibuoke (DC admin) on behalf of the area controller, Area I, Port Harcourt; made reference to a “headquarters circular No. NCS/T&T/T/899/217/VOL.I of 27 July 2023 on the above subject matter”.

“I am directed to inform you that henceforth, Value Added Tax (VAT) is to be charged on Automobile Gas Oil (AGO), and Procedure Code 4900 000 shall be used on all importations of AGO,” the memo reads.

The service added that no importer of diesel is allowed to use “additional Code 409 in their declaration”.

In 2020, the federal government began the implementation of the Finance Act, which stated that a 7.5 percent VAT would be charged on diesel costs.

The development means that the price of diesel, which has been surging, may reach unprecedented highs — further worsening the plight of Nigerians and manufacturers.

In July 2023, the price of a litre of the product increased to N794.48 a litre, compared to N774.38 per litre in the corresponding period last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

 

The Cable