Federal government has transferred control of its 40 percent shareholding in electricity distribution companies (DisCos) from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to the Ministry of Finance incorporated (MOFI).

Following the privatisation of DisCos in 2013, the federal government retained a 40 percent shareholding in the companies.

The development comes a month after the BPE announced its intention to sell the 40 percent shares on the capital market this year.

In a letter dated January 10, 2024, sent to MOFI’s board of directors by Wale Edun, minister of finance, MOFI was directed to assume ownership and control of interests in entities where the federal government has equity holdings.

“Pursuant to a Power of Attorney granted in 2012, the MOFI, the Donor “as the legal and beneficial holder of FGN interest” appointed the Attorney to be its lawful attorney to transfer its shares in the successor companies to undertake the various actions expressly stated in the said Power of Attorney and do all acts and things in that behalf in order to effectively implement the said decision of the NCP,” the letter reads.

“On 1st day of November, 2013 the powers thereby donated to the Attorney were duly executed and the privatisation by sale of shares in the said successor companies was duly completed by the Attorney.”

Therefore, Edun directed MOFI to revoke and terminate all instruments, agreements, and documents, including a 2012 power of attorney granted to BPE regarding the federal government’s shareholding in successor companies to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

He also directed MOFI to assume ownership, control, and management of all equity holdings of the federal government, and to issue necessary notices, instruments, and documents, which are required to give effect to the directive.

‘MOFI WITHDRAWS BPE NOMINEE DIRECTOR FROM DISCOS’ BOARD’

In a letter subsequently sent to DisCos, Armstrong Takang, chief executive officer (CEO)of MOFI, notified the companies that the BPE nominee director on their board of directors were withdrawn with immediate effect.

“Share certificates of the Company issued in the name of the BPE are to be immediately withdrawn and cancelled,” the letter reads.

“A new share certificate for all outstanding shares of the FGN in the Company is to be issued in the name of “MINISTRY OF FINANCE INCORPORATED.”

Arnstrong also instructed DisCos to promptly deliver all board meeting minutes, operational reports, strategic plans, management accounts, and audited financial statements from 2021 to 2023 to MOFI at a stipulated address.

The Cable

The series of assaults by bandits on some communities in the nation’s capital, Abuja, continued on Thursday as they stormed Kawu village in Bwari Area Council, abducting 23 persons.

Kawu, an FCT village which shares boundaries with Niger and Kaduna states had not been in the radar of the bandits in recent times since they began a regular assault on villages in Bwari and in Garam, a village in Niger State.

The gunmen numbering about 40 were said to have divided themselves into groups in order to launch the multi-prong assault.

Deputy Leader of the Bwari Area Council Legislative arm, Abdulmumini Zakari, who represents the area, said the gunmen arrived around the community the previous day from the Kuyeri Forest in Kaduna State.

“They divided themselves into groups and some went into the palace of the district head, Abdurrahman Danjuma Ali, where they abducted his son, Lukman, and his wife, who he married two weeks ago. Others attacked the compound of Alhassan Sidi Kawu, the Marafa of Kawu and a former PDP Chairman of Kawu Ward. They abducted him along with his four children”, he explained.

According to him, the bandits also went into the compound of Sarkin Pawan Kawu, Gambo Pawa, and abducted him alongside his two wives and some children.

Since December last year, while the activities of bandits had reduced in Kuje, Kwali, and Abaji, it has heightened in Bwari.

Vanguard

Israel defends itself at the UN's top court against allegations of genocide in Gaza

Accused of committing genocide against Palestinians, Israel insisted at the United Nations’ highest court Friday that its war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and that it was Hamas militants who were guilty of genocide.

Israel described the allegations leveled by South Africa as hypocritical and said one of the biggest cases ever to come before an international court reflected a world turned upside down. Israeli leaders defend their air and ground offensive in Gaza as a legitimate response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, when militants stormed through Israeli communities, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage.

Israeli legal advisor Tal Becker told a packed auditorium at the ornate Palace of Peace in The Hague that the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”

“In these circumstances, there can hardly be a charge more false and more malevolent than the allegation against Israel of genocide,” he added, noting that the horrible suffering of civilians in war was not enough to level that charge.

On Friday afternoon, Germany said it wants to intervene in the proceedings on Israel’s behalf, saying there was “no basis whatsoever” for an accusation of genocide against Israel.

“Hamas terrorists brutally attacked, tortured, killed and kidnapped innocent people in Israel,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement. “Since then, Israel has been defending itself against the inhumane attack by Hamas.”

Under the court’s rules, if Germany files a declaration of intervention in the case, it will be able to make legal arguments on behalf of Israel.

Germany would be allowed to intervene at the merits phase of the case to address how the genocide convention, drawn up in 1948 following World War II, should be interpreted, according to international lawyer Balkees Jarrah, associate director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch.

“That would come after the court issues its decision on South Africa’s request for urgent measures to protect the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Jarrah told The Associated Press from The Hague, where she attended the ICJ hearings.

Germany’s support for Israel carries some symbolic significance given its Nazi history.

Hebestreit said Germany “sees itself as particularly committed to the Convention against Genocide.” He added: “We firmly oppose political instrumentalization.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the announcement, saying the gesture “touches all of Israel’s citizens.”

South African lawyers asked the court Thursday to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in the besieged coastal territory that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. A decision on that request will probably take weeks, and the full case is likely to last years — and it’s unclear if Israel would follow any court orders.

On Friday, Israel focused on the brutality of the Oct. 7 attacks, presenting chilling video and audio to a hushed audience.

“They tortured children in front of parents and parents in front of children, burned people, including infants alive, and systematically raped and mutilated scores of women, men and children,” Becker said.

South Africa’s request for an immediate halt to the Gaza fighting, he said, amounts to an attempt to prevent Israel from defending itself against that assault.

Even when acting in self-defense, countries are required by international law to follow the rules of war, and judges must decide if Israel has.

As two days of hearings ended Friday, ICJ President Joan E. Donoghue said the court would rule on the request for urgent measures “as soon as possible.”

Israel often boycotts international tribunals and U.N. investigations, saying they are unfair and biased. But this time, Israeli leaders took the rare step of sending a high-level legal team — a sign of how seriously they regard the case and likely their fear that any court order to halt operations would be a major blow to the country’s international standing.

Still, Becker dismissed the accusations as crude and attention-seeking.

“We live at a time when words are cheap in an age of social media and identity politics. The temptation to reach for the most outrageous term to vilify and demonize has become, for many, irresistible,” he said.

In a statement from New York, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the case a “new moral low” and said that by taking it on, “the U.N. and its institutions have become weapons in service of terrorist organizations.”

Becker said the charges Israel is facing should be leveled at Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction and which the U.S. and Western allies consider a terrorist group.

“If there have been acts that may be characterized as genocidal, then they have been perpetrated against Israel,” Becker said.

More than 23,000 people in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. That toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Nearly 85% of Gaza’s people have been driven their homes, a quarter of the enclave’s residents face starvation, and much of northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble.

South Africa says this amounts to genocide and is part of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

“The scale of destruction in Gaza, the targeting of family homes and civilians, the war being a war on children, all make clear that genocidal intent is both understood and has been put into practice. The articulated intent is the destruction of Palestinian life,” said lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, adding that several leading politicians had made dehumanizing comments about people in Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry welcomed the case, saying in a written statement that South Africa “delivered unequivocal evidence that Israel is deliberately and systematically violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention.”

Malcolm Shaw, an international law expert on Israel’s legal team, rejected the accusation of genocidal intent and called the remarks Ngcukaitobi referenced “random quotes not in conformity with government policy.”

Israel also says that it takes measures to protect civilians, such as issuing evacuation orders ahead of strikes. It blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, saying the group uses residential areas to stage attacks and for other military purposes.

Israel’s critics say that such measures have done little to prevent the high toll and that its bombings are so powerful that they often amount to indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.

If the court issues an order to halt the fighting and Israel doesn’t comply, it could face U.N. sanctions, although those may be blocked by a veto from the United States, Israel’s staunch ally. In Washington, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called the allegations “unfounded.” The White House declined to comment on how it might respond if the ICJ determines Israel has committed genocide.

The extraordinary case goes to the core of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts — and for the second day protesters rallied outside the court.

Pro-Israeli demonstrators set up a table near the court grounds for a Sabbath meal with empty seats, commemorating the hostages still being held by Hamas. “We want to symbolize the empty chairs, because we are missing them,” said Nathan Bouscher from Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.

Nearby, over 100 pro-Palestinian protesters waved flags and shouted protests.

The case also strikes at the heart of both Israel’s and South Africa’s national identities.

Israel was founded as a Jewish state in the wake of the Nazis’ slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II. South Africa’s governing party, meanwhile, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Black people to “homelands.”

The world court, which rules on disputes between nations, has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide. The closest it came was in 2007, when it ruled that Serbia “violated the obligation to prevent genocide” in the July 1995 massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Britain's Sunak, in Ukraine, announces increase in military aid

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited wartime Kyiv on Friday to sign a new security agreement and announce an increase in military funding for Ukraine to buy drones, including surveillance, long-range strike and sea drones.

Britain, one of Ukraine's closest allies during President Vladimir Putin's Russian invasion, will increase its support in the next financial year to 2.5 billion pounds ($3.19 billion), an increase of 200 million pounds on the previous two years, Sunak said.

"Our opponents around the world believe that we have neither the patience nor resources for long wars. So waver now, and we embolden not just Putin, but his allies in North Korea, Iran and elsewhere," Sunak told a press conference.

His trip comes at an important juncture for Kyiv in the nearly two-year-old war. Political infighting in the United States and European Union has held up two major packages of assistance.

Kyiv has relied heavily on military and financial aid from the West since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the press conference he felt vital U.S. financial assistance would also materialise and that he felt more positive now than last month.

The two leaders signed what Zelenskiy described as an "unprecedented security agreement" - an arrangement the Ukrainian leader said would remain in place until Kyiv joined the NATO military alliance.

"This is not simply a declaration," Zelenskiy wrote on social media platform X.

In his nightly video address, the president praised the agreement as a "very serious and modern accord" providing help with weapons, intelligence, and cyber know-how, as well as sanctions and other punitive actions against Russia.

It was, he suggested, similar to Israel's longstanding relations with the United States.

"Many have heard about exemplary security agreements of the 20th century between the United States and Israel, as well as some other similar agreements," Zelenskiy said.

"Now we have formed such an example for our time - it is what gives us confidence now as we defend ourselves against Russian aggression."

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Putin ally, warned on Friday that Moscow would regard any move by Britain to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine as a declaration of war against Russia.

SUPPORT FROM LONDON

Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said the agreement set out the support that London would continue to provide, including intelligence sharing, medical and military training, and defence industrial cooperation.

The UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation follows an earlier agreement by the Group of Seven nations to provide Ukraine with bilateral security guarantees.

Ukrainian lawmakers posted short video clips of Sunak addressing members of parliament in Kyiv and receiving a standing ovation.

"We meet today at a difficult moment in the struggle for Ukraine's freedom. And as always during conflict there will be difficult moments. But we must prepare for this to be a long war," Sunak told the lawmakers.

Britain said it would provide the largest delivery of drones to Ukraine from any nation, with most of them expected to be manufactured in Britain.

Ukraine had been fighting for the principles of freedom and democracy for two years, Sunak said in a statement.

"We will stand with Ukraine, in their darkest hours and in the better times to come," he said.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainians dying while attempting to escape the country – The Times

More than 20 Ukrainians have died while trying to escape the country since the start of the conflict with Russia, The Times newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a Ukrainian border guard.

The deaths were registered by a single guard unit, responsible for a 320km stretch of the border with Romania and Hungary. The unit is based in the western Ukrainian city of Mukachevo, which has become a popular destination for people trying to flee, given its proximity to four neighboring states – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

Since the outbreak of the hostilities in February 2022, the Mukachevo border guard unit has found 19 bodies in the River Tisza – of people believed to have drowned during botched attempts to cross into Romania. A further five were found frozen to death in the woods.

More Ukrainians are expected to flee the country given the government’s plan to mobilize an additional 500,000 troops to bolster its military ranks, the newspaper noted.

A new mobilization bill was introduced in parliament late last year, seeking to lower the draft age from 27 to 25, and drop exemptions for some categories of disabled people, along with other measures. So far, parliament has failed to pass it into law, with the legislation presently shelved by MPs for amendments.

Over the past year alone, nearly 11,000 military-eligible men have been apprehended at the border while trying to leave the country, Ukrainian border guard spokesman Andrey Demchenko said in late December. The total number caught on the frontier since the start of the conflict has surpassed 17,000.

The number of men prosecuted for evading the draft, however, remains relatively low. Ukraine has more than 9,000 active criminal proceedings against such individuals, with some 2,600 having made it to court, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko revealed last week.

Deputy Defense Minister Natalya Kalmykova stated in October 2023 that“tens, hundreds of thousands of people” may have evaded military enlistment.

Reuters/RT

Chinese officials claim a Beijing company has cracked Apple's AirDrop encryption, a development that could enable police to trace dissidents who've used the app to spread anti-government messages.

• A Chinese tech company claims to have cracked Apple's AirDrop encryption. 
• Chinese authorities say the information helped catch people sending "inappropriate information." 
• Government critics have used the app to send information wirelessly. 

The company Wangshendongjian Technology was able to identify users by hacking encrypted device logs, according to China's Justice Bureau.

The information was used by police to trace people using AirDrop to send what the filing described as "inappropriate speech."

It was also used to investigate the use of the app for "malicious purposes" like sending "illegal pictures, videos, audio andillegally delivering and spreading bad information to nearby people in crowded places such as subways, buses and shopping malls."

According to the release, police were able to correlate data on the phones the information was sent to with phone numbers and other data from the sender's device.

Business Insider has contacted Apple for comment on whether its encryption systems have been compromised.

AirDrop is a tool that allows Apple devices to share information and images wirelessly with other Apple devices nearby.

The Justice Bureau did not specify the nature of the messages that sparked the investigation. CNN reported that AirDrop is sometimes used to send spam messages on Beijing subway to strangers — but it's also been used by dissidents and protesters.

According to reports, Hong Kong protesters have used AirDrop to send information critical of the government to strangers anonymously.

Vice News reported that the tool was used to share information in 2022 during a rare wave of protests in mainland China against Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the government's Covid-19 policies.

The Chinese government has control over the internet, and closely surveils online spaces for government critics.

Under pressure from Chinese authorities, Apple in 2022 introduced a new feature limiting the number of times users in China could receive information through AirDrop from people who were not on their contacts list, reports at the time said.

Business Insider

A Brazilian man tragically lost his life by plunging down a deep shaft he had dug in his kitchen after dreaming that there was gold buried deep under his house.

71-year-old João Pimenta da Silva’s dream of enrichment ended as a nightmare that claimed his life. His lifeless body was found at the bottom of an exceptionally deep well he and his neighbors had dug under his kitchen in Ipatinga, a municipality in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. The man had reportedly dreamt that there was gold deep under his home, and that all he had to do was dig to get to it. He even told his neighbor about his dream and though he was laughed at in the beginning, da Silva was actually able to convince the man to assist him with the digging. Unfortunately, the treasure hunt ended in disaster when the 71-year-old plunged to his death while trying to exit the 40-meter-deep hole.

According to Antônio Costa, the neighbor who helped João Pimenta da Silva dig, the old man was trying to get rid of the water and mud at the bottom of the shaft when he fell to his death. They had lowered a pump into the hole and managed to remove several buckets of water, but da Silva wanted to go down into the hole to check something for himself. As Costa was lowering him into the well, the would-be treasure hunter asked him to pull him back up, but as he started to ascend, João somehow slipped from the swing-like device, and his arm became entangled in the swing’s rope.

“I tried to hold him, alone, there was no way to ask for help,” Costa told the police. “But if I kept holding on, he would have dragged me down as well. I only heard the noise as he hit the bottom.”

Firefighters called to the scene found João Pimenta da Silva dead at the bottom of the deep well. He exhibited polytrauma, open fractures on both legs, a hip fracture, lacerations of the abdomen, widespread abrasions, and no signs of life.

After examining the deep shaft in João Pimenta da Silva’s kitchen, investigators were shocked by how the old man had managed to dig a well “so deep with a stable structure that borders on perfection”. Neighbors claimed that the pensioner had experience digging wells, but considering the extreme depth – the equivalent of a 13-story building – he would have needed advanced equipment to carry out such a dig. Meanwhile, all they found in his home were rudimentary digging tools.

There are still many unanswered questions about João Pimenta da Silva death and the hole that caused it, but since the man’s family didn’t even know about his treasure hunt, they will probably remain unanswered.

Oddity Central

Men in dusty workwear trudge through a thicket, making their way up a hill where sprawling plantations lay tucked in a Nigerian rainforest whose trees have been hacked away to make room for cocoa bound for places like Europe and the U.S.

Kehinde Kumayon and his assistant clear low bushes that compete for sunlight with their cocoa trees, which have replaced the lush and dense natural foliage. The farmers swing their machetes, careful to avoid the ripening yellow pods containing beans that will help create chocolate, the treat shoppers are snapping up for Christmas.

Over the course of two visits and several days, The Associated Press repeatedly documented farmers harvesting cocoa beans where that work is banned in conservation areas of Omo Forest Reserve, a protected tropical rainforest 135 kilometers (84 miles) northeast of the coastal city of Lagos in southwestern Nigeria.

Trees here rustle as dwindling herds of critically endangered African forest elephants rumble through. Threatened pangolins, known as armored anteaters, scramble along branches. White-throated monkeys, once thought to be extinct, leap from one tree to the next. Omo also is believed to have the highest concentration of butterflies in Africa and is one of the continent’s largest and oldest UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.

Cocoa from the conservation zone is purchased by some of the world’s largest cocoa traders, according to company and trade documents and AP interviews with more than 20 farmers, five licensed buying agents and two brokers all operating within the reserve.

They say those traders include Singapore-based food supplier Olam Group and Nigeria’s Starlink Global and Ideal Limited, the latter of which acknowledged using cocoa supplies from the forest. A fewer number of those working in the forest also mentioned Tulip Cocoa Processing Ltd., a subsidiary of Dutch cocoa trader and producer Theobroma.

Those companies supply Nigerian cocoa to some of the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers including Mars Inc. and Ferrero, but because the chocolate supply chain is so complex and opaque, it’s not clear if cocoa from deforested parts of Omo Forest Reserve makes it into the sweets that they make, such as Snickers, M&Ms, Butterfinger and Nutella. Mars and Ferrero list farming sources on their websites that are close to or overlap with the forest but do not provide specific locations.

Government officials, rangers and the growers themselves say cocoa plantations are spreading illegally into protected areas of the reserve. Farmers say they move there because their cocoa trees in other parts of the West African country are aging and not producing as much.

“We know this is a forest reserve, but if you are hungry, you go to where there is food, and this is very fertile land,” Kumayon told the AP, acknowledging that he’s growing cocoa at an illegal plantation at the Eseke farming settlement, separated only by a muddy footpath from critical habitat for what UNESCO estimates is the remaining 100 elephants deep in the conservation zone.

Conservationists also point to the world’s increasing demand for chocolate. The global cocoa and chocolate market is expected to grow from a value of $48 billion in 2022 to nearly $68 billion by 2029, according to analysts at Fortune Business Insights.

The chocolate supply chain has long been fraught with human rights abuses, exploitative labor and environmental damage, leading to lawsuits, U.S. trade complaints and court rulings. In response, the chocolate industry has made wide-ranging pledges and campaigns to ensure they are sourcing cocoa that is traceable, sustainable and free of abuse.

Companies say they have adopted supply chain tracing from primary sources using GPS mapping and satellite technology as well as partnered with outside organizations and third-party auditors that certify farms’ compliance with sustainability standards.

But those working in the forest say checks that some companies rely on are not done, while one certifying agency, Rainforest Alliance, points to a lack of regulations and incomplete data and mapping in Nigeria.

AP followed a load of cocoa that farmers had harvested in the conservation zone to the warehouses of buying agents in the reserve and then delivered to an Olam facility outside the entrance of the forest.

Staffers at Olam’s and Tulip’s facilities just outside the reserve, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to discuss their companies’ supplies, confirmed that they source cocoa from farmers in the conservation zone.

AP also photographed cocoa bags labeled with the names and logos of Olam and Tulip in farmers’ warehouses inside the conservation zone.

‘THEY BUY EVERYTHING’

The Omo reserve consists of a highly protected conservation zone ringed by a larger, partially protected outer region. Loggers, who are also a major source of deforestation, can get government licenses to chop down trees in the outer areas, but no licenses are given anywhere for cocoa farming. Agriculture is banned from the conservation area, except for defined areas where up to 10 indigenous communities can farm for their own food.

Nigeria is one of Africa’s biggest oil suppliers and largest economy; after petroleum, one of its top exports is cocoa. It’s the world’s fourth-largest producer of cocoa, accounting for more than 5% of global supply, according to the International Cocoa Organization. Yet it’s far behind the world’s largest producers, Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together supply more than half of the world’s demand and are often singled out in companies’ sustainability programs.

According to World Bank trade data and Nigeria’s export council, more than 60% of Nigeria’s cocoa heads to Europe and about 8% to the United States and Canada.

It passes through many hands to get there: Farmers grow the cocoa beans, then brokers scout farms to buy them. Licensed buying agents purchase the cocoa from brokers and sell it to big commodity trading companies like Olam and Tulip, which export it to chocolate makers.

In October, AP followed a blue- and white-striped van loaded with bags of cocoa beans along a road pitted with deep mud holes within the conservation zone to an Olam warehouse just outside the entrance of the forest. At the warehouse, which Olam confirmed was theirs, AP photographed the cocoa being unloaded from the van, whose registration number matched the one filmed in the forest.

Farmer Rasaq Kolawole and licensed buying agent Muraina Nasir followed the van to sell the cocoa, and neither expressed misgivings about the deforestation.

“We are illegal occupants of the forest,” said farmer Kolawole, a college graduate and former salesperson.

AP also visited four cocoa warehouses in the forest belonging to licensed buying agents: Kadet Agro Allied Investments Ltd., Bolnif Agro-allied Farms Nigeria Ltd., Almatem and Askmana. Managers or owners all told AP that they buy from farmers growing cocoa in protected areas of the forest and that they sell that cocoa to Olam. Three of the warehouse managers told AP that they also sell to Tulip and Starlink.

“They do not differentiate between cocoa from local — that is farms outside the forest — and the reserve,” said Waheed Azeez, proprietor of Bolnif, describing how “big buyers like Olam, Tulip and Starlink” buy cocoa sourced from deforested lands. “They buy everything, and most of the cocoa is from the reserve.”

Despite AP’s findings, Olam insists that it “forbids” members of its “Ore Agbe Ijebu” farmer group from “sourcing from protected areas and important natural ecosystems like forests.” That Ijebu farmer group is listed as a sustainable supplier on Olam’s website and is said to be in Ijebu Ife, a community near the reserve.

“Any farmers found not complying with the code and illegally encroaching on forest boundaries are removed from our supply chain and expelled from the OAIJ farmer group,” the company said in a statement emailed to AP.

However, Askmana manager Sunday Awoke said, “Olam does not know the farmers. We buy from the farmers and sell directly to Olam, and no assessment against deforestation takes place.”

Speaking to AP as a convoy of motorcycles brought bags of cocoa from the conservation area to his warehouse within the reserve, Awoke said he used to be a conservation worker who fought deforestation by farmers.

“But I am on the other side now. I wish to go back, but survival first, and this pays more,” he said.

Others agreed.

“The place is not meant for cocoa farming, but elephants,” said Ewulola Bolarinwa, who is both a broker and a leader of those who farm at the Eseke settlement inside the conservation zone. “We have a lot of big buyers who supply the companies in the West, including Olam, Tulip and many more.”

COCOA TO CHOCOLATE

Ferrero, which makes Ferrero Rocher hazelnut balls, Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread and popular Baby Ruth, Butterfinger and Crunch candy bars, lists a farming group in a community near the forest as the source of its cocoa supplied by Olam, the Italian company says on its website.

McLean, Virginia-based Mars Inc., one of the world’s largest end users of cocoa with brands from Snickers to M&Ms, Dove, Twix and Milky Way, uses Nigerian cocoa from both Olam and Tulip, according to online company documents.

Ferrero, Mars and Tulip say they’re committed to their anti-deforestation policies, use GPS mapping of farms, and their suppliers are certified through independent standards.

Ferrero also says it relies on satellite monitoring to show that its “cocoa sourcing from Nigeria does not come from protected forest areas.” Mars says its preliminary findings show that none of the farms it’s mapped overlap with the reserve.

Tulip’s managing director, Johan van der Merwe, said in an email that the company’s cocoa bags, which AP photographed in farmers’ warehouses inside the conservation zone, are reused and distributed widely so it’s possible they’re seen across Nigeria. He also said “field operatives” complete digital questionnaires about sourcing with all farmers and suppliers.

On the ground, however, farmers and licensed buying agents who said they supply Tulip told AP that they were not required to complete any questionnaire before their cocoa is purchased.

“Though we know they depend on our cocoa, we don’t directly sell cocoa to the exporters like Olam and Tulip, middlemen do, and there are no questions about deforestation,” said farmer Saheed Arisekola, 43, also a college graduate who said he turned to farming because he could not get a job.

As farmers, brokers and buying agents say cocoa from the conservation area flows into Olam’s export supply, U.S. customs records show a slice of where it might be going.

Olam’s American arm, Olam Americas Inc., received 18,790 bags of Nigerian cocoa shipped by its Nigerian subsidiary, Outspan Nigeria Limited, between March and April 2022, according to trade data from ImportGenius.

Olam and Tulip are both licensed to trade Nigerian cocoa certified by the Rainforest Alliance. However, Olam told AP that its license does not cover the Ijebu area, where it sources the cocoa it sends to Ferrero and is near Omo Forest Reserve. Ferrero says Olam’s sustainability standard in the area is verified by a third-party body.

Farmers who told AP that their cocoa heads to Olam and Tulip said they are not Rainforest Alliance certified. Tulip has only one farm with active certification in Nigeria, the nonprofit’s database shows.

The Rainforest Alliance says it certifies that farms operate with methods that prohibit deforestation and other anti-sustainability practices. It says farmers must provide GPS coordinates and geographic boundaries for their plantations, which are checked against public forest maps and satellite data.

The Rainforest Alliance told AP that Nigeria has “unique forest regulation challenges,” including incomplete or outdated data and maps that can “lead to discrepancies when comparing forest data with real on-ground conditions.”

It said it is working to get updated data from Nigerian authorities and would decertify any farms found to be operating illegally in conservation areas following a review. The organization also says companies it licenses can buy cocoa certified by other agencies or that isn’t certified at all.

Starlink Global and Ideal Limited — the Nigerian cocoa exporter that the farmers and buying agents said they sell to — doesn’t have its own farmland in the reserve, “only suppliers from there,” spokesman Sambo Abubakar told AP.

Starlink does not make sustainable sourcing claims on its website, but it supplies at least one company that does — New York-based General Cocoa Co., U.S. trade data shows.

Between March and April 2023, Starlink shipped 70 containers, each loading 4,000 bags of dried cocoa beans, to General Cocoa, according to ImportGenius trade data.

General Cocoa, which is owned by Paris-headquartered Sucden Group, supplies Mars, according to online company documents.

Jean-Baptiste Lescop, secretary general of Sucden Group, says the company manages risks to forest conservation by sourcing Rainforest Alliance cocoa, mapping farms and using satellite images but that it’s a “continuous process” because most farmers in Nigeria don’t have official land ownership documents.

Sucden investigates reports of problems and is working on a response to AP’s findings about Starlink, Lescop said.

WHERE’S THE ENFORCEMENT?

The conservation zone, which spans about 650 square kilometers (250 square miles), is the only remaining vital rainforest in Nigeria’s southwest, conservation officials say. Such forests help absorb carbon from the atmosphere and are crucial for Nigeria to meet its pledges under the Paris climate agreement.

Besides helping fight climate change, the forest is designated an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area by BirdLife International, with significant populations of at least 75 bird species.

“There are now more than 100 illegal settlements of cocoa farmers, who came from other states because the land here is very fertile,” said Emmanuel Olabode, a conservation manager who supervises the reserve’s rangers in the protected areas. “But after some years, the land becomes unproductive.”

The farmers know this.

“We’ll then find another land somewhere else or go back to our original homes to start new businesses,” said Kaseem Olaniyi, who acknowledges that he farms illegally in the conservation zone after moving in 2014 from a neighboring state.

The government in Ogun state, which owns the forest, said in a statement to AP that the “menace of cocoa farming” in the reserve dates back decades and that “all the illegal farmers were forcefully evicted” in 2007 before they found their way back.

“Arrangements are in the pipeline to engage the services of the Nigerian Police Force and the military to evict them from the Forest Reserve,” the government statement said.

However, Omolola Odutola, spokeswoman for the federally controlled police, said they do not have records of such a plan.

The farmers have been ordered not to start new farms, and those who spoke with AP said they are complying. But forest guards said new farms are sprouting up in remote areas that are difficult to detect.

Rangers — who work for the government’s conservation partner, the nonprofit Nigerian Conservation Foundation — and forest guards who are employed by the state government both told AP that lax government enforcement has made combating cocoa expansion a challenge.

They told AP that previous arrests have done little to stop the farmers from returning and that has led to a sense of futility when they encounter illegal farming.

The state government said it “has never compromised regulations” but acknowledged that farmers are in the forest despite its efforts. Homes and other buildings at farming settlements visited by AP have been marked for removal, including warehouses like that of licensed buying agent Kadet, one of the biggest there.

Farmers’ homes lack running water and toilets, forcing women and children to collect water from narrow streams to use while the men work.

The removals have not taken place because officials make money from the cocoa business in the forest, according to farmers and buying agents, who lament the difficult living conditions, with mud roads filled with holes creating high transportation costs that eat away their already meager profits.

The state government declined to comment about making money from illegal cocoa farming in the forest.

The agents have formed a lobby group that has “rapport with government officials” to ensure farmers remain in the conservation zone despite threats to evict them, said Azeez, the owner of buying agent Bolnif who is also chairman of a committee that monitors risks against cocoa business in the forest.

The European Union, the largest destination of cocoa from West Africa, has enacted a new regulation on deforestation-free products that requires companies selling commodities like cocoa to prove they have not caused deforestation. Big companies must ensure they’re following the rules by the end of 2024.

Experts at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria are launching a “Trace Project” in six southern states — though it doesn’t include Ogun state where Omo Forest Reserve is located — to advance efforts against deforestation in cocoa production and ensure Nigeria’s cocoa is not rejected in Europe.

“From the preliminary data collected, major exporters are implicated in deforestation, and it is their responsibility to ensure compliance with standards,” said Rasheed Adedeji, who leads the institute’s research outreach.

But farmers say they’ll keep finding places to work.

“The world needs cocoa, and the government also gets taxes because the cocoa is exported,” said Olaniyi, one of the farmers.

AP

Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) says it will spend N5.2 billion for the procurement of information communication technology (ICT) software.

This is contained in the 2024 government-owned enterprises (GOE’s) budget proposal submitted to the federal government.

In the proposed budget, the NDIC earmarked a total of N130.2 billion for expenditure and N260.5 billion for revenue.

Out of the proposed expenditure, the corporation intends to spend N5.2 billion on ICT software and N947 million on “IT infrastructure software”.

For the purchase of its fixed assets pegged at N2.1 billion, the GOE looks to spend N703 million on vehicles, N165 million on trucks, N180 million on buses, N330 million on office furniture and fittings, N498 million on photocopying machines, and N220 million on power generating sets.

More so, NDIC allocated N5.3 billion for welfare packages, N1.6 billion for publicity and advertisements, noting that refreshments and meals for the commission would gulp N991 million.

The agency further budgeted N1.3 billion for utilities. This amount will cover electricity charges (N541 million), telephone charges (N239 million), internet charges (N200 million), and software charges and licence renewal (N399 million).

Also included in the budget is N3.5 billion earmarked for maintenance and N3.9 billion for local training.

NDIC said it will also expend N4.8 billion for both local and foreign travel and transport costs.

The Cable

UN top court hears genocide allegation as Israel focuses fighting in central Gaza

The United Nations’ top court began hearings Thursday on South Africa’s allegation that Israel’s war with Hamas amounts to genocide against Palestinians. Israel strongly denies the claim.

Although the case is likely to take years to resolve, South Africa is asking the International Court of Justice to order an immediate suspension of Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli military operations in Gaza have recently focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and urban refugee camps in the territory’s center. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent days in strikes across the territory, including in areas of the far south where Israel told people to seek refuge.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been meeting with leaders across the Mideast, seeking to rally the region behind postwar plans for Gaza. The push came as the U.S. and British militaries launched retaliatory strikes on sites used by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack from Gaza into southern Israel that triggered the war killed around 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage by militants. Israel’s air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 people, 70% of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Currently:

— The U.S. and British militaries bomb more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. Who are the Houthis, and why did the U.S. and U.K. retaliate for their attacks on ships in the Red Sea?

— The U.N.‘s top court opens hearings on South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

— Friendly fire may have killed their relatives on Oct. 7. Israeli families want answers now.

— Palestinian viewers are captivated and moved by case at UN’s top court accusing Israel of genocide.

— The Israeli military says it found traces of hostages in an underground tunnel in Gaza.

— Nelson Mandela’s support for Palestinians endures with South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.

— Blinken sees a path to Gaza peace, reconstruction and regional security after his Mideast tour.

— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s what’s happening in the war:

ISRAEL ALLOWED JUST A FEW SUPPLY DELIVERIES TO NORTHERN GAZA THIS MONTH, U.N. OFFICE SAYS

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. humanitarian office says Israel allowed only three of 21 deliveries of food, medicine and other lifesaving supplies to northern Gaza between Jan. 1 and Jan. 10.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the deliveries also included missions to provide medical supplies and fuel for water and sanitation facilities in Gaza City.

“The U.N.’s ability to respond to extensive needs in the northern part of Gaza is being curtailed by recurring denials of access for aid deliveries and lack of coordinated safe access by the Israeli authorities,” he told reporters Thursday. “These denials and severe access constraints are paralyzing the ability of humanitarian partners to respond meaningfully, consistently and at scale.”

Dujarric said deteriorated compared with December, when more than 70% of planned U.N. missions to the north were undertaken, to about 14% in the first 10 days of January.

“Every day that we are unable to provide assistance results in the loss of lives and suffering for hundreds of thousands of people who remain in northern Gaza,” he said.

U.S., BRITISH MILITARIES LAUNCH RETALIATORY STRIKE AGAINST IRAN-BACKED HOUTHIS IN YEMEN

WASHINGTON — Several U.S. officials say U.S. and British militaries are bombing over a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, in a massive retaliatory strike using warship-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets.

The expected targets included logistical hubs, air defense systems and weapons storage locations, the officials said.

Associated Press journalists in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, heard four explosions early Friday local time but saw no sign of warplanes. Two residents of Hodieda, Amin Ali Saleh and Hani Ahmed, said they heard five strong explosions. Hodieda lies on the Red Sea and is the largest port city controlled by the Houthis.

The strikes mark the first U.S. military response against the Houthis for what has been a persistent campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships since the start of the war in Gaza. The officials confirmed the strikes on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

AP

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

US confirms Ukraine military supplies have stopped

The military aid Washington has been providing Kiev has come to a halt, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday. His remarks came amid the resurgence of debate in Congress about the importance of continuing support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

“We have issued the last drawdown package that we had funding to support, and that’s why it’s critical that Congress move on that national security supplemental request,” Kirby told reporters at a press briefing, admitting that “the assistance that [the US had] provided has now ground to a halt.”

The last aid package worth $250 million was authorized by President Joe Biden in late December through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows for urgent deliveries of weapons to allies without congressional approval.

Biden has been asking Congress to vote for his more than $100 billion supplemental budget request, of which more than $60 billion is slated for Ukraine. Republicans have blocked the measure, demanding that the White House and congressional Democrats agree to their plan of tightening security at the border with Mexico.

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young told the press in January that the drawdown authority “is not going to get big tranches of equipment into Ukraine,” describing the situation as “dire.”

Earlier in the month, Pentagon spokesman, Major General Patrick Ryder, warned that the army was running out of options “to replenish the stocks.” 

While Biden has publicly pledged to back Kiev for “as long as it takes,”some Republicans and the media have been questioning Washington’s existing strategy, given that Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive ended in a failure. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, admitted last year that the conflict was “at a stalemate.”

EU officials are also increasingly acknowledging that the deliveries of weapons to Ukraine have been delayed due to production and logistics issues.

“Europe doesn’t know how to fight wars,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in a recent interview. “Unfortunately, our friends spent too much time deliberating on how and when to ramp up their production of weapons and ammunition.”

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine builds barricades, digs trenches as focus shifts to defence

Rows of white concrete barricades and coils of razor wire stretch across an open field for more than a kilometre. Trenches with rudimentary living quarters are being dug under cover of darkness. Artillery rumbles not far away.

New defensive lines visited by Reuters near the northeastern city of Kupiansk on Dec. 28 show how Ukraine has stepped up construction of fortifications in recent months as it shifts its military operations against Russia to a more defensive footing.

The defences, which bear some similarities to those rolled out in the Russian-occupied south and east, aim to help Ukraine weather assaults while regenerating its forces as Moscow takes the battlefield initiative, military analysts said.

"As soon as the troops are moving, traversing fields, you can do without fortifications. But when the troops stop, you need to immediately dig into the ground," a Ukrainian army engineer with the call sign Lynx told Reuters near Kupiansk.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced that Ukraine was "significantly enhancing" fortifications on Nov. 28 after a counteroffensive that it launched in June was unable to rapidly punch through Russian lines.

Kyiv says it is unswayed in its ambition to retake all remaining occupied territory, but for now is focused on politically sensitive conscription reformsto replenish manpower and on addressing artillery shortages at the front.

Russia has been ramping up offensive pressure around eastern towns such as Kupiansk, Lyman and Avdiivka, and no longer needs to hold back its reserve troops for fear of a possible Ukrainian breakthrough, the military analysts said.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine's defensive constructions needed to be boosted and work on them accelerated around the three towns, in eastern parts of the Donetsk region, and in the regions of Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Rivne and Volyn.

Those regions stretch all the way up from Ukraine's east, along the border with Russia and Belarus, to its western ally Poland. Zelenskiy said the southern Kherson region, a swathe of which is still occupied, would also be reinforced.

DEFENSIVE POSTURE

There is no publicly available data for the intensity or scale of the fortification construction.

Ukraine has had defensive lines in some areas of the eastern Donbas region since 2014, when Russia backed militants who seized territory. It has been heavily dug in at places such as Avdiivka throughout the full-scale invasion.

Stronger fortifications would slow down Russian troops and suck fewer Ukrainian forces into defence, freeing them up from the front so they could, for instance, receive more training, said Jack Watling, senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute.

"The Ukrainians are now shifting onto a defensive posture because their offensive has culminated," he said in a telephone interview, adding that Russia had retaken the initiative on the battlefield and was able to choose where to attack.

With Ukrainian artillery ammunition stocks declining, the rate of Russian casualties was falling, making it easier for Moscow to generate new units, which in time could allow them to open up new lines of attack, he added.

"On the Ukrainian side, they are trying to minimise their own casualties, but also regenerate offensive combat power," said Watling.

He said fortifications could also be used to defend Ukraine's flanks when it goes back on the offensive.

DRAGON'S TEETH

On Wednesday, Reuters reporters visited trenches being dug with an excavator and shovels at an undisclosed location in the Chernihiv region near the Russian border.

"When the civilians have done their job (building the positions), we will densely mine it," Serhiy Nayev, Ukraine's joint forces commander who oversees the northern military sector, told reporters at the site.

The military has expanded its defensive fortifications in the north by 63% in the last few months, Ukraine's joint forces quoted Nayev as saying on Thursday.

Last month, Reuters reporters visited newly built Ukrainian trenches in Chornobyl near the border with Belarus, a Russian ally used by Moscow as a staging ground for the February 2022 invasion.

A large military engineering vehicle churned through the snowy ground as it carved out a wide anti-tank ditch.

"(The works are ongoing) along the whole Northern Operational Zone. These works are currently underway in Sumy region, Chernihiv region, here in the Kyiv direction," Nayev said at the site.

"Concrete structures, barbed wire, ... 'dragon's teeth' (concrete barricades)...; they will be mined and barbed wire will be put on them. This will be a continuous concrete obstacle for armoured vehicles," he said.

Near Kupiansk, Ukraine's military showed Reuters reporters newly built defensive lines, but said the exact location could not be disclosed publicly for security reasons.

A military engineer using the call sign "Lizard" said they typically put down the "dragon's teeth" first, followed by coils of razor wire and then mines, if they use them.

"I believe most of these barriers should have been built much earlier, probably in the spring. It takes too much time," he said.

Several hundred metres behind the "dragon's teeth", work was underway to expand a network of personnel trenches reinforced with wooden beams where there were also living quarters and wooden bunk beds.

Lynx, the other serviceman, said Ukraine was trying to minimise the use of mines for its fortifications to avoid leaving dangerous munitions on its territory.

"This is our land. We wouldn't want to litter it so much," he said.

RT/Reuters