CC™ VideoSpective
CREDITS - NOWTHIS IMPACT
Saturday
Friday
$700m Sugar investment will end Nigeria’s importation – Dangote
CC™ PersPective
By Gift Oba
The President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said the company is committed to ensuring that Nigeria ends the importation of raw sugar by “actively intensifying its execution of the Sugar Backward Integration.”
Dangote said the group has committed over $700 million to land acquisition, machinery, infrastructure, manpower, and other impactful activities to boost local production.
He spoke on Wednesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, during the ‘Dangote Special Day’ at the ongoing 14th Gateway International Trade Fair.
Represented by Tunde Mabogunje, Regional Director, Lagos/Ogun, Dangote Cement, the industrialist maintained that Dangote Sugar, as a leading brand, has made a remarkable impact on Nigeria’s sugar sector.
He said: “The company is committed to ensuring that Nigeria ends the importation of raw sugar by actively intensifying its execution of the Sugar Backward Integration. In this regard, it has committed over $700 million to land acquisition, machinery, infrastructure, manpower, community relations, corporate social responsibility, CSR, and other impactful activities.
“Similarly, to support the government in food security, we are also investing in the agricultural sector. These agricultural products will soon be in the market.”
Speaking on the trade fair, he said, “Our expectations, therefore, are that through this trade fair, we will be able to expand awareness of our innovative products, generate sales, attract prospective buyers, improve the image of our brands, and open new markets that will further translate to job creation and overall economic development.
“We are confident that this longstanding partnership with OGUNCCIMA will not only be beneficial to both of us but also to Nigeria and, indeed, the African economy as a whole.”
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Oludaisi Elemide, applauded Dangote Group for its various interventions and urged the company to improve its environmental friendliness.
DAILY POST
Thursday
Tesla’s Nemesis, Chinese auto giant, BYD, to integrate DeepSeek….
CC™ EVolution
Shares in Chinese automaker BYD jumped on Tuesday after it unveiled plans to unroll advanced self-driving technology on nearly all its cars, including budget models priced below $10,000.
The company also said it would integrate AI startup Deepseek’s software into its cars, following domestic peers such as Geely, Great Wall Motors, and Leapmotor.
BYD is Tesla’s biggest rival in China and increasingly abroad, and Monday evening’s announcement led analysts to suggest a new price war might be on the horizon.
BYD will install its “God’s Eye” autonomous driving system in at least 21 models, including the Seagull budget hatchback priced from 69,800 yuan ($9,550).
The system includes features such as remote parking and autonomous highway navigation previously found on more expensive vehicles. Tesla has similar features available in its EVs priced from $32,000.
“Autonomous driving is no longer a remote rarity, it’s a… necessary tool,” BYD founder Wang Chuanfu said at a livestreamed event on Monday.
Self-driving technology would become an “indispensable tool like safety belts or airbags” within a few years, he predicted.
The integration of DeepSeek, the company said, would help improve self-driving technology and provide a more personalised experience for consumers.
The AI firm made headlines last month when it unveiled a chatbot that can match its American competitors apparently at a fraction of the cost.
Shares in BYD jumped 4.5 percent to a record high in Hong Kong on Tuesday — having already risen almost 20 percent in the days leading up to Monday’s event.
China’s auto market, the world’s largest, has seen a prolonged price war among dozens of EV producers desperate to grab market share.
Almost 11 million electric and hybrid vehicles were sold in the country last year, up more than 40 percent from 2023.
BYD accounted for around 4.2 million of those sales, with its quarterly revenue overtaking Tesla’s for the first time in the third quarter.
AFP
Wednesday
White settlers in South Africa clamour for US resettlement after Trump order
CC™ PersPective
A deluge of more than 20,000 queries crashed the email server of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the United States after President Donald Trump said he would prioritize white South Africans in a refugee program, the chamber said Monday.
Trump and Pretoria are locked in a diplomatic row over a land expropriation act that Washington says will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.
Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said on Friday the law signed in January would “enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”.
It allows the government, as a matter of public interest, to decide on expropriations without compensation — but only in exceptional circumstances.
The Afrikaners are descendants of European colonists, mainly of Dutch extraction, and are mainly engaged in farming in South Africa.
English and Afrikaner colonists ruled South Africa until 1994 under a brutal system in which the black majority were deprived of political and economic rights.
“Our email server crashed over the weekend just due to the sheer volume of inquiries we have received,” Neil Diamond, head of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the US (SACCUSA) told AFP in an email.
“Given the scale of interest, SACCUSA estimates that this figure could represent over 50,000 individuals looking to leave South Africa and seek resettlement in the United States,” he said.
– Trump order ‘flawed’ –
Diamond warned that this could lead to a skills shortage in South Africa that would impact agriculture and other sectors of the economy.
“If we look at the EB-5, which is an investor visa, you need roughly about 15 to 20 million South African Rand ($800,000 to $1 million) to be able to immigrate… What is alarming to us is the large volume of people that is interested in taking up this opportunity,” he said.
South Africa’s foreign ministry has said Trump’s order “lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.
“It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship,” it added.
Trump has asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
There were no details of how the plan would be enacted as Trump halted refugee arrivals immediately after taking office.
Land ownership remains a contentious issue in South Africa, with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid.
However, some Afrikaner farmers say the new land laws could lead to the confiscation of white-owned farms as carried out in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
The second largest party in South Africa’s national unity government, the Democratic Alliance, on Monday launched a court bid to annul the land law.
AFP
Tuesday
God bought my first aircraft not Living Faith offerings – Bishop Oyedepo
CC™ PersPective
The founder of the Living Faith Bible Church, Bishop David Oyedepo has declared that God bought him his first aircraft and not church offerings.
Speaking during his sermon at the church’s headquarters in Ota, Ogun State, Bishop Oyedepo dismissed rumours of using church funds to acquire his aircraft.
He, however, revealed that God miraculously provided the aircraft without any prior planning or prayer.
According to Bishop Oyedepo: “He bought the first aircraft without any prayer, without any idea that the aircraft was coming. He said it, he delivered it nobody had any pressure on his life. There was no pressure on the offering
“The offering didn’t buy it, God bought it. There was person contacted under heaven? No! God said it and I believe it and that settles it.
“It wasn’t an ambition, it was a unveiled divine agenda. If God asked me David when do you want that aircraft to be bought I would have said “God take it easy, take it easy, we are not near ready. Aircraft?
“Okay, let me find out first how much they sell it, he didn’t give us the room to find out. Not the aircraft that would go from here to Ilorin or Ogbomosho, we travel the whole of Africa with the aircraft.”
GLOBAL NEWS DESK
Monday
Atiku, Tambuwal, Imoke in closed-door meeting with Obasanjo in Abeokuta
CC™ Global News
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is currently in a closed-door meeting with his former boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Atiku, who arrived Obasanjo’s residence, located on the premises of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) at exactly 12: 37p.m., was accompanied by the former governors of Sokoto and Cross Rivers State, Senator Aminu Tambuwa and Senator Liyel Imoke among other eminent political stalwarts from the northern region.
Upon arrival, Atiku alongside members of his entourage were received at the Obasanjo’s residence by the elder statesman, Oyewole Fasawe, before they all went straight into a private meeting with Obasanjo who had been waiting for his visitors.
GLOBAL NEWS DESK
Sunday
The Deception of AfriForum as Julius Malema debunks the Elon Musk engineered misinformation troll against majority African rule in South Africa
CC™ VideoSpective
CREDITS: WE LOVE AFRICA
Saturday
Has the great ‘American dream’ run its course?
CC™ Politico
By Muyiwa Adetiba
Decades ago, I had a colleague who later became a brother. He studied in the US and was besotted with the country. He often talked about life in the US in a way that tickled my curiosity and heightened my expectations. He talked about its system and its advanced technology.
Being young, I was interested by his narratives on the night life and his escapades with women. But mostly, he talked about America as the land of opportunities. He called America ‘ilu orun’. My reading of the words at the time, which might not be the literal translation, was ‘heavenly’. His constant renditions coincided with the era of Hollywood and its colourful portraits of America.
We watched the ‘cowboy’ films and fell in love with the swagger of the cowboy as one man battled ten ‘Red Indians’ to a standstill without feeling any empathy for the Red Indians who were being disposed of their land; we watched films of valour and freedom and films of romance. All of these made strong impressions on my young mind and I longed to see the US for myself.
It could be the timing – New York in winter; it could the company – I was with a fellow traveler; it could be that I was no longer a wide-eyed, neophyte traveler – I had by then, been to a few countries; or it could simply be an over expectation, but my first impression of the US was not that of ‘ilu orun’ (heavenly). In fact, subsequent visits gave more favourable impressions. But I remember traveling through Manhattan in the cold and thinking I had never seen so many high rise buildings in one place. I remember a city bubbling with life with attractive neon lights on my way to dinner. And oh yes, I remember my first visit to the Playboy Club and the seductive Bunnies. Those were some of the memories of my first visit to the US.
The US in the 60s, 70s and 80s was a shining country on a hill. Everybody saw it. Everybody admired it. Everybody wanted to emulate it. And almost everybody wanted to go there, if only for a visit. The US that was projected to the world was of democracy, the rule of law, and free enterprise. But more than that, the US projected human freedom and equality. A country of immigrants, it was a country where the first generation of immigrants felt the same sense of ownership as the fourth generation.
It also didn’t matter if your surname sounded Greek or Chinese or Italian; if your passport was American, then you were all supposed to have the same rights and entitlements. It was a melting pot of ideas and cultures with none seemingly more important than the other. From desert to swamp; from hot to cold; from oil to gold; it was a country that claimed to have everything.
It was God’s own country. It was on the cards that it would be the richest country in the world. It was inevitable that it would be the world’s first Superpower. It was a natural progression that it would become the world’s moral compass and eventually the Police Officer of the world, admonishing abusive governments which fell short of democratic or acceptable moral standards. For years, it used this enormous power so cleverly, so benignly, that it got away with many things even when it was protecting its own geo/political interests.
History tells us the US was originally home to the Red Indians. But it was such a vast, richly endowed country that it was soon home to people all over the world who wanted a better life and were not afraid of starting afresh. Its freedom was hard fought. History tells us of the war against its colonial master, against itself and against racism. The US acquitted itself on many fronts and emerged as a country where a child of a nobody could become a captain of industry, where a child of an immigrant could become the President or the Vice President, where an immigrant could become the wife of a President or the richest man in the world among many coveted positions.
It was called the Great American Dream and for years, held true to its promise. This promise was that America would give you a chance irrespective of what your background was. This promise was that if you were ready to keep your head down, your hands dirty and your nose clean, there would be a reward of a better life at the turn of the corner. This immigration flow has been America’s strength. It rejuvenates it. It gives it fresh oxygen, fresh ideas and fresh energy. At the time when Europe was aging and frankly decaying, America kept renewing itself. It has for years been the bastion of capitalism, rewarding enterprise and promoting trade without barriers – or tariff which is the new buzz word.
All of these are about to change drastically due to internal contradictions and demographic fears. Some of these fears are understandable. They could be primordial but natural fears of being overwhelmed and displaced. I mean, they almost had two Black Presidents in one decade which to the ‘owners’ was unthinkable. (It is now very convenient not to remember that America once belonged to a people who were not white.) So the fear that the current Lords of the Manor could easily be sidelined is real to them. But clamming down on immigrants could end up being an unenlightened self-interest. If America loses its ‘Great American Dream’, it will not only lose its allure and its cheap labour, it will lose its cutting edge. Trump with its isolationism might be what the White Americans want but is it what they need? Trade protectionism might be what they yearn for but would it really make their products competitive?
They might be romanticizing Trump as a strongman, but can they abide with a dictator? Speaking of dictators, am I the only one who sees a parallel between Trump, a descendant of a German and Hitler, the German who caused a World War? There is the same need to be loved and admired; the same feeling of grandeur, the same desire for racial purity bordering on xenophobia; the same disdain for checks and balances; the same thirst for territorial ambition. The perplexed world might find Trump’s stated desire to annex Panama, Greenland, Columbia, Canada and now Gaza as mere rhetoric. I hope it stays as rhetoric. Otherwise, it is a World War loading. Heaven help us all.
NEWSWIRE
Friday
Unchristian Trump unveils ‘anti-Christian bias’ Task Force
US President Donald Trump announced Thursday the creation of a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” in government, intensifying a right-wing crackdown since returning to power.
The Republican billionaire said he was putting new Attorney General Pam Bondi at the head of the force to end “persecution” of the majority religion of the United States.
Trump said its mission would be to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” in the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and other government agencies.
He also said it would prosecute “anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society.”
“We will protect Christians in our schools, in our military and our government, in our workplaces, hospitals and in our public squares,” Trump told a national prayer breakfast at a Washington hotel.
He also announced the creation of a “White House faith office” led by his spiritual advisor, the televangelist Paula White.
The announcements came amid a wider purge of the federal government at the start of Trump’s second term.
Trump has unveiled a slew of orders backing a conservative agenda, including several targeting diversity programs and transgender people.
Despite a criminal conviction for hush money payments in a porn star scandal and sexual assault allegations, Trump has long made himself a champion of right-wing Christians.
Trump’s cabinet contains several members with links to Christian nationalists, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
And while Trump is not seen as particularly religious, he said he had become more so after surviving an assassination attempt at an election rally in June 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“It changed something in me, I feel even stronger. I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it,” Trump told a separate prayer breakfast at the US Capitol on Thursday.
“We have to bring religion back.”
Trump said in his inauguration speech on January 20, referring to the assassination attempt, that he had been “saved by God to Make America Great Again.”
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