Hello @mekkaokereke or anybody else familiar with working with folks overseas in #Nigeria is there a clearly preferred way to make international payments there? Domestically we use Gusto but their international fees seem vague at best. It looks like @opencollective would let us use PayPal or Wise. Are there any labor or employment law issues to watch out for if the person doesn't have their own legal entity we can contract with? Is it hard to set up an LLC there?
As a twin, ( my mother had two sets of twins), whose maternal grandmother had twins, and with twins on both sides of my family, I found this article on Nigeria's self-proclaimed capital of twins fascinating.
"Since the start of this year, Africa’s most populous nation #Nigeria has faced prolonged stretches of severe #heat.
With records of heat and its impacts lacking in Nigeria, Carbon Brief speaks to doctors, farmers and meteorologists about how this episode of #ExtremeWeather is affecting the country."
"A searing #heatwave that struck west Africa in February was made 4C hotter and 10 times more likely by human-caused global heating, a study has found.
The heat affected millions of people but the number of early deaths or cases of illness are unknown, due to a lack of reporting.
Meteorological organisations in #Nigeria and #Ghana provided advance warnings about the heat but many of the other countries affected have not carried out planning for dangerous heat."
Things are unbelievably tough for people in #Nigeria, due to #hyperinflation. Food prices are staggeringly high. It is heartbreaking how old friends who used to do well are now really struggling. I sent one dear friend (with an MA, who used to have good jobs) some money and she said was going out straight away to buy garri, sugar, beans. And she is not one of the worst off. The majority in the country are really suffering.
The first thought reading this post was, is this a hostile takeover? Reading the article and recognizing the similarities I had to think, yes it is. It's like Germany in 1974 all over again. The Deutsche Mark became free floating too, it's value dropping and Germany couldn't import fossil fuels and other goods. It got help from France, they stopped the free floating, replaced the Deutsche Mark with the European currency unit ECU in 1976, which was later renamed EURO, and saved the economy. Nigeria has to do something similar, find neighboring countries willing to form a common market with a common currency. That could block the hostile takeover. Some foreign powers stir unrest and devastation to weaken a country and pick up the pieces. And the cheapest and easiest way is by destroying the currency, if it is unprotected.
🙌🏾 It's time to hear the stories made possible in 2024 with the #OpenDataDay mini-grants. Find out about the #Wikidata loves SDGs event in #Nigeria by the Learnovation Network / Bukola James
#Nigeria scientific journalists debunking popular anti #GMO narratives distributed in #Africa by Western “environmental” activists and the reasons why they were relatively successful over the last 30 years:
That’s unfortunately a classic case study of how #ClimateChange activism as done by #Greenpeace#WWF works exactly against its goals:
Making far-fetching and exaggerated statements about what the climate change symptoms, easily ridiculing the careful, well-sourced and conditional predictions
Turning carefully worded IPCC probabilistic statements into simplistic certainties, further ridiculing actual scientific forecasts
Rushing mitigation goals which are described as “ambitious” but in reality are simply impossible to implement in the declared schedule, ridiculing the actual mitigation scenarios as proposed by IPCC and IEA
Cherry-picking from IPCC and IEA research, praising some solutions and discrediting others (e.g. nuclear), thus further ridiculing their mitigation scenarios and presenting them in the usual “even scientists can’t agree” sauce
In short, I can only encourage you to simply ignore any popular media reporting on climate change because it’s 99% guaranteed to repeat activist narratives, thus repeating the above problems.
Instead, if you go and read the actual IPCC and IEA “net zero” scenarios, which are not only clearly written but also use balanced language and are factually correct, you will see that the actual climate science has nothing to do with the activism and most of the (valid) questions you asked are already answered by them.
Well, I can say that much at least, that whenever a scientist gets to talk freely, everything is "ifs and buts" and probabilities and uncertainties, and generally they are much more open to being wrong and alternative explanations.
But yes, you are right, all those nuances are completely stripped off as soon as a politician, activist or media gets their hand on a statement.
Shell is pulling out of #Nigeria after befouling it for 68 years, casting it off like a dirty oil rag.
"#Shell called it a way to streamline its business."
Looks more like it's running away from its cleanup responsibilities.
"Activists in the Niger Delta, where Shell has faced decadeslong local criticism to its oil exploration, plan to ask the government to withhold its approval if the company does not address its environmental damage."
A UK court ruled that "13,000 farmers and fishers from the Ogale and Bille communities in the Niger delta were entitled to bring legal claims against Shell for alleged breaches to their right to a clean environment.
The judge ruled it was arguable the pollution had fundamentally breached the villagers’ right to a clean environment under the Nigerian constitution and the African charter on human and people’s rights."
"Local activists and international environmental groups want #Nigeria's government to delay approving the sale of oil company #Shell's onshore assets, claiming Shell is trying to shirk its environmental and social responsibilities in the highly polluted Niger Delta.
Protesters have appealed to the government of Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, to halt the sale until environmental concerns are addressed."
Compilation “Afro Baby – The Evolution of the Afro-Sound in Nigeria 1970-1979”
Nigeria in the 1970s had one of the biggest recording industries on the continent as well as one of the most diverse. The fusion of African rhythms and culture with jazz, funk, soul and rock was an Africa wide phenomenon but nowhere was […]
♲ @mlansbury@despora.de:> ## First ship with humanitarian wheat shipment in 2024 leaves Ukraine
The Sky Gate bulk carrier is shipping 25,000 metric tons of wheat to #Nigeria.
The vessel is moving through the temporary #BlackSea corridor. The #shipping route was opened in August 2023, weeks after Russia's unilateral termination of the Black Sea grain deal threatened Ukraine's ability to ship out its grain.