WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Dozens injured in Kyiv in Russia's second missile assault this week -Ukraine

Russia's second missile assault on Kyiv this week injured at least 34 people and damaged homes and a children's hospital, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pleaded in Washington for more help for his country.

Ukraine's air defence systems downed all missiles targeting the capital about 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. The full scale of the attack was not immediately clear.

Falling debris caused injuries and destruction in three of Kyiv's districts on the eastern side of the Dnipro River that cuts through the capital, officials said.

Windows and entrances were shattered by debris at a children's hospital in Kyiv's Dniprovskyi district, but based on initial assessments, there were no casualties, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

Debris also hit several residential buildings in the Dniprovskyi district, injuring at least 34 people, with 15 requiring hospitalisation, including two children, Klitschko added. The district's water supply was also damaged.

The specific weapons Russia used in the attack were not immediately known. It followed a salvo of ballistic missiles that targeted Kyiv early on Monday and injured four people.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Republicans that they would give Russia a "Christmas gift" if they failed to provide additional military aid to Zelenskiy, whose meeting with a top U.S. lawmaker concluded without a commitment for more support.

There was no comment from Russia about the attack on Wednesday, which also damaged buildings in Kyiv's Desnyanskyi and Darnitskyi districts.

Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in the nearly 22-month-long war that Russia launched against its neighbour in February 2022.

Popko said 15 people, including four children, were evacuated from a residential building in the Dniprovskyi district after debris hit a building and nearby cars, causing a fire.

He added that most injuries came from windows blown out by the blast wave.

"There are many injured," Popko said, suggesting that the number of wounded may rise.

** Zelenskiy meets Republican doubts in push for US aid to fight Russia

President Joe Biden warned Republicans on Tuesday that they would give Russia a "Christmas gift" if they failed to provide additional military aid to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose meeting with a top U.S. lawmaker concluded without a commitment for more support.

Zelenskiy traveled to Washington to plead for money to back Ukraine in its war with Russia, but he faced a skeptical reception from key Republican lawmakers. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, would not agree to support Biden's request to give Ukraine $61.4 billion.

"What the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win and with none of the answers that I think the American people are owed," Johnson said after meeting with Zelenskiy.

Biden, who met with Zelenskiy later at the White House, said he would not walk away from Ukraine and neither would the American people. He warned lawmakers that they risked handing a victory to Russian President Vladimir Putin if they did not approve the request for aid.

"Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine," he said during a press conference with the Ukrainian leader. "We must ... prove him wrong."

Earlier in the Oval Office, Biden told Zelenskiy, "We're gonna stay at your side," saying that Congress needed to pass legislation approving the aid "before they give Putin the greatest Christmas gift they could possibly give him."

Zelenskiy said he heard "great many things" during his talks with political leaders in Washington and was thankful for the support of the Biden administration and lawmakers, but time will tell if the U.S. will continue to help fund its defense against Russia.

"There were signals. They were more than positive. But we know that there are words and there are concrete results. We will count on a great result," Zelenskiy said.

He also rejected any calls to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia.

"How can Ukraine simply give away its territory? This is absolutely insane," Zelenskiy said. "Let’s be honest. … Our people live there…our children. It’s a part of our society. We’re talking about people who live there."

IMMIGRATION DEBATE

Heading into winter, with tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead, a yawning budget deficit and Russian advances in the east, Zelenskiy is asking Washington to provide badly needed support.

Wearing a black shirt and olive drab trousers, Zelenskiy was met with sustained applause in Congress as he entered a closed-door meeting with U.S. senators, and the chamber's Democratic and Republican leaders pledged their support.

But some Republicans, particularly those with the closest ties to former President Donald Trump, oppose more aid. They say any further money must be paired with changes to immigration policy at home — an exceptionally divisive issue in U.S. politics.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who is leading the talks, said he thought lawmakers could reach an immigration deal and pass the spending package before Congress recesses for the year on Friday.

But Republicans said that was not likely.

"I'm becoming increasingly pessimistic," Senator Susan Collins told reporters.

Speaker Johnson said he would not act until the Senate passed legislation. "I implore them to do their job because the time is urgent and we do want to do the right thing," he told reporters.

Both the war and immigration issues are expected to be lightning-rod issues ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential and congressional elections. Trump and Biden are both seeking the presidency.

DEADLOCK STRATEGY

Biden said the U.S. wanted Ukraine to win the war, but one Republican lawmaker questioned whether additional aid would help Ukraine defeat Russia after a summer offensive that has failed to yield clear gains.

"I know everyone wants Ukraine to win. I just don't see it in the cards," Republican Senator Ron Johnson said.

Democrats in Congress accused their political opposition of aiding Putin. "He is delighting in the fact that Donald Trump's border policies are sabotaging military aid to Ukraine," Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Newly declassified U.S. intelligence shows that "Russia seems to believe that a military deadlock through the winter will drain Western support for Ukraine" and ultimately give Russia the advantage, said Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.

The White House told Congress on Dec. 4 the government will no longer have funding to provide more weapons for Ukraine after the end of the year. Congress has approved more than $110 billion for Ukraine since Russia's February 2022 invasion, but no new funds since Republicans took control of the House from Democrats in January.

Biden told Zelenskiy during the press conference that Ukraine's continued existence as an independent nation was a sign of success. "For you to be here today - again today - nearly two years later and for Ukraine to be staying strong and free is an enormous victory already," he said.

The United States cannot turn the tide of war in Ukraine by pumping tens of billions more dollars into the country, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

The war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops, nearly 90% of the personnel it had before the conflict began, according to a source familiar with a declassified U.S. intelligence report.

** Ukraine's top mobile operator hit by biggest cyberattack of war

Ukraine's biggest mobile network operator said it hoped to restore operations by Wednesday after coming under what appeared to be the largest cyberattack since Russia launched its war on the country in February 2022.

Tuesday's attack on Kyivstar, which has more than half of Ukraine's population as mobile subscribers, knocked out services, damaged IT infrastructure and put millions of people in danger of not receiving alerts of potential Russian air assaults.

It also disrupted the air raid alert systems themselves in parts of Kyiv.

The company's Chief Executive Officer Oleksandr Komarov said the attack was "a result of" the war with Russia.

"War is also happening in cyberspace. Unfortunately, we have been hit as a result of this war," he told national television.

"(The attack) significantly damaged (our) infrastructure, limited access, we could not counter it at the virtual level, so we shut down Kyivstar physically to limit the enemy's access."

Komarov did not say which Russian body he believed to be responsible, but said personal data of users had not been compromised.

Russian hacktivist group Killnet claimed responsibility for the attack via a statement on the Telegram messaging app, but did not provide evidence.

A source close to Kyivstar said the Ukrainian military was not affected by the outage.

Ukraine's SBU intelligence agency told Reuters one of the possibilities it was investigating was that of a cyber-attack conducted by Russian security services.

Russia's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kyivstar, which has 24.3 million mobile subscribers, as well as more than 1.1 million home internet subscribers, said late on Tuesday that fixed-line services were partially restored and it was working to restore other services by Wednesday.

"This isn't the first attempt to breach the perimeter of the country's telecom operator, but unfortunately, this attempt has been successful," Komarov told Forbes Ukraine.

STATE ACTOR

A source close to Ukraine's cyber defence agency also said that Russia was suspected to be the source of the attack, but no specific group had been identified.

"It's definitely a state actor," said the source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, adding that data cable interception showed "a lot of Russian controlled traffic directed at these networks".

"There's no ransom. It's all destruction. So it's not a financially motivated attack," said the source.

Komarov told Forbes Ukraine that Kyivstar's "working hypothesis" was that the goal of the attack was destruction and disruption.

"Perhaps it was aimed at disrupting the president's visit to the United States, perhaps to aggravate energy blackouts, or impact the morale of Ukrainians," he said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in Washington on Tuesday, pleading for more U.S. military support to fight Russia.

Ukrainian officials said air raid alert systems in more than 75 settlements in Kyiv region, which surrounds the capital, were affected by the cyberattack and they would announce aerial danger through loudspeakers until repair works done.

Millions of Ukrainians depend also on phone alerts to warn them of possible Russian air attacks.

In Kyiv, some people rushed to connect to other network providers and a small queue of customers formed at a store for Vodafone, Kyivstar's largest competitor.

One man who bought a new SIM was 25-year-old PR consultant Dmytro. "My connection has completely disappeared, my internet and my satellite navigation aren't working, I can't move around the city," he said.

Kyivstar, owned by Amsterdam-listed mobile telecoms operator Veon (VON.AS), said in a statement on Facebook it was cooperating with law enforcement bodies.

Veon said it was also investigating the attack and it could not yet quantify the financial impact.

Separately, the co-founder of Monobank, a major Ukrainian payment system, said in a social media post that his company was currently suffering a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, but that everything was "under control". He subsequently said that attack had been fought off.

Representatives of PrivatBank and Oschadbank, two major Ukrainian financial institutions, told media outlet Hromadske that some of their ATMs and card terminals had been affected by the Kyivstar outage.

Ukrainian state bodies and companies have often accused Russia of orchestrating cyberattacks against them in the past.

At the war's outset, a cyberattack hit Viasat Inc (VSAT.O), disabling thousands of satellite internet modems across Europe and causing a huge loss in communications for Ukraine.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

US lawmakers demand answers on Ukraine

Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky has failed to provide any new arguments in defense of his cause during his talks in Washington with American lawmakers, several senators and representatives, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have told the media in the wake of the meeting on Tuesday.

Zelensky arrived in the capital to hold a series of meetings with top US officials to save a $61-billion aid package for Kiev that remains in limbo. Last week, GOP senators blocked the Biden administration’s major $111-billion supplemental funding request, which included aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, citing the Democrats’ reluctance to address the tense situation on the US-Mexico border.

Some Republicans have also repeatedly pointed to the lack of accountability in terms of the funds Washington had spent on helping Ukraine.

According to senior GOP senator Lindsey Graham, Tuesday’s meeting has failed to bring about any changes in the lawmakers’ stance. “Nothing has changed,” he told journalists. The South Carolina senator, who emerged as a staunch supporter of Kiev amid its conflict with Moscow, explained that, although he would like to aid Ukraine, border security comes first.

“I admire him, but he didn’t change my mind at all about what we need to do,” Graham said, referring to Zelensky and adding that the Democrats were supposedly trying to “use” the Ukrainian leader “in a way that I think wasn’t helpful.” “I want to secure the border,” the senator said, adding that the number of people supposedly linked to various terrorist groups that were crossing America’s southern border was “just chilling.”

Another Republican Senator, Missouri’s Eric Schmitt, also said that the meeting was effectively reduced to “the same old stuff.” “There’s nothing new,” he told journalists, adding that the questions for the Ukrainian president “were very scripted.”

Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who also met Zelensky on Tuesday, pointed to the fact that the White House and Kiev were asking for billions of dollars with no oversight and no clear strategy that would allow Ukraine to prevail in the ongoing conflict.

“Their responses have been insufficient,” Johnson said, referring to the Biden administration and adding that he had been requesting details on Washington’s strategy for Ukraine “over and over since literally 24 hours after I was handed the gavel as Speaker of the House.”

Lindsey Graham also told journalists that he’d told Zelensky to be thankful to the House Speaker for even being willing to place military aid for Ukraine on the agenda. “I said you need to thank Mike Johnson for being willing to pass a package if border security is in it, because half his conference probably doesn’t agree with that,” the senator said.

The US has already provided Kiev with $111 billion in military and economic assistance since military confrontation between Moscow and Kiev began in February 2022. Washington has recently warned that funds for the government of Vladimir Zelensky have almost run out.

Last week, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Kiev can’t expect additional funding until the gridlock in Congress is resolved. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, then warned that delays in US assistance could lead to Ukraine’s defeat by Russia.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that any further assistance Washington decides to provide to Kiev is doomed to fail from the start. No amount of money can change the situation on the front lines, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

 

Reuters/RT

Outnumbered and outgunned, one front-line soldier has given a sobering account of Ukraine's struggle to cling on to its foothold on the east bank of the vast Dnipro river.

Several hundred Ukrainian soldiers have made it there as part of a counter-offensive launched six months ago.

Under relentless Russian fire, the soldier spent several weeks on the Russian-occupied side of the river as Ukraine sought to establish a bridgehead around the village of Krynky. The BBC is not naming him to protect his identity.

His account, sent via a messaging app, speaks of troop boats blown out of the water, inexperienced reinforcements and a feeling of abandonment by Ukraine's military commanders.

It highlights growing tensions as Ukraine's defence against Russia's invasion grinds to the end of another year.

Ukraine's military told the BBC they are not commenting on the situation in that area for security reasons.

The Ukrainian soldier's quotes are below in bold.

"The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I've seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro river.

"We must carry everything with us - generators, fuel and food. When you're setting up a bridgehead you need a lot of everything, but supplies weren't planned for this area.

"We thought after we made it there the enemy would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed, but it didn't turn out that way.

"When we arrived on the [eastern] bank, the enemy were waiting. Russians we managed to capture said their forces were tipped off about our landing so when we got there, they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us - artillery, mortars and flame thrower systems. I thought I'd never get out."

Yet the few hundred marines have been able to dig in, partly helped by Ukrainian artillery fire from the higher, western banks of the Dnipro.

The river separates the Russian-occupied and Ukrainian-controlled parts of the southern Kherson region.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has been keen to talk up this offensive, framing it as the beginning of something more.

Ukraine's General Staff reported in its daily update on Sunday that its forces were maintaining their positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, and were inflicting "fire damage on the enemy's rear".

This soldier's testimony, however, reveals splits between Ukraine's government and its generals over the state of the war.

Ukraine's commander-in-chief Gen Valery Zaluzhny told the Economist magazine in November that, "just like the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate."

President Zelensky's office swiftly rebuked the general for his comments, denying there was a deadlock on the battlefield.

"Every day we sat in the forest taking incoming fire. We were trapped - the roads and paths are all riddled with mines. The Russians cannot control everything, and we use it. But their drones are constantly buzzing in the air, ready to strike as soon as they see movement.

"Supplies were the weakest link. The Russians monitored our supply lines, so it became more difficult - there was a real lack of drinking water, despite our deliveries by boat and drone.

"We paid for a lot of our own kit - buying generators, power banks and warm clothes ourselves. Now the frosts are coming, things will only get worse - the real situation is being hushed up, so no-one will change anything.

"No-one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence had more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn't get into strategy."

There's no doubt this crossing has forced some Russian forces to redeploy from other parts of the front line, such as their heavily defended positions in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Kyiv hoped there would have been a breakthrough sooner.

BBC Russian recently spoke to some Russian troops who are defending the riverbank in that area. They said it was "suicide" for their soldiers to move there, saying they had lost many men in the fight and that they cannot dislodge the Ukrainians from their foothold.

Ukraine's military meanwhile says it wants to target Russian supply lines and force them back enough from the river to protect civilians from shelling.

It means both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are absorbing a lot of fire.

"Mostly our losses were mistakes - someone didn't climb in that trench quickly enough; another guy hid badly. If someone isn't switched on, he'll be immediately targeted from everywhere.

"But thanks to our doctors, if we can get an injured soldier to the medics - he'll be saved. They're titans, Gods. But we can't get the remains of the fallen out. It's just too dangerous.

"At the same time our drones and missiles inflict a lot of losses on the enemy. We took prisoners of war once, but where to put them, if we have no way to cross the river even with our own injured comrades?"

Like every other part of the front line, this operation has also turned into a battle of attrition.

While Russia is filling its ranks with conscripts and pardoned prisoners, Ukraine is struggling to find the manpower it needs.

A recent BBC investigation found that nearly 20,000 men have fled Ukrainesince the start of Russia's full-scale invasion to avoid the draft.

"Several brigades were supposed to be posted here, not individual companies - we just don't have enough men.

"There are a lot of young guys among us. We need people, but trained people, not the green ones we have there now. There are guys who had spent just three weeks in training, and only managed to shoot a few times.

"It's a total nightmare. A year ago, I wouldn't have said that, but now, sorry, I'm fed up.

"Everyone who wanted to volunteer for war came a long time ago - it's too hard now to tempt people with money. Now we're getting those who didn't manage to escape the draft. You'll laugh at this, but some of our marines can't even swim."

The village of Krynky has been turned to rubble.

The scenes of palpable relief when Kherson city and swathes of the Kharkiv region were liberated a year ago have yet to be replicated.

Instead, Ukraine's wins are chalked up in small parcels of devastated and abandoned land.

That makes President Zelensky's case for long-term Western support harder to sell politically.

But regardless, the anonymous soldier's fight will soon continue.

"I got out after getting concussed from a mine, but one of my colleagues didn't make it - all that was left of him was his helmet.

"I feel like I escaped from hell, but the guys who replaced us last time got into even more hell than us.

"But the next rotation is due. My time to cross the river again is soon."

 

BBC

They call him the Oracle of Omaha, and sure enough, thousands descended on the Cornhusker State to hear what Warren Buffett had to say at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting.

There's a lot to pull out of it, but Buffett, 92, has a way with words sometimes, and when he was asked at one point what the future looks like for investors, he had such a pithy answer that I think people will be repeating it among his other Buffett-isms for a while to come.

Are we running out of opportunities?

The exchange went like this:

• Buffett was asked about the rise of disruptive technologies and productivity, along with how it might affect investor strategy.
• Buffett's second-in-command, Charlie Munger, 99, jumped in to answer, with a fairly pessimistic answer – basically that since there are so many value investors out there that they're each going to have to be satisfied with a smaller piece of the pie: "Get used to making less."
• Then, Buffett got his say, and he disagreed a bit with Munger.

Keep in mind, they were talking about value investing here, but I think the comments Buffett offered cover more than that. Here's part of what he had to say:

"I would argue that that's going to be plenty of opportunities. ... [T]ech doesn't make any difference. ...

What gives you opportunities, is other people doing dumb things. And I would say that while the 58 years we've been running Berkshire, I would say there's been a great increase in the number of people doing dumb things."

"What gives you opportunity is other people doing dumb things"

I love this 10-word quote. Again, Buffett was answering in the context of investing, and he used the example of companies being motivated by short-term thinking that attracts investment and pumps up share price, as opposed to long-term thinking that actually creates value.

"I mean, that is a world made to order for anybody that's trying to think about what you do that work over five or 10 or 20 years," he added.

But, this advice really does make sense in so many other areas in business and in life. Maybe we want to be a little bit nicer and not refer to other people's decisions as "dumb," and instead, "limiting decisions," but the idea is the same.

When you start looking at things that way, you can see that letting other people do the hard parts and the pioneering – so that you can pick up on what they've done, and do more – is a really great way to look for opportunities.

A few examples – two business, one in another part of life, just to illustrate:

• You see a competitor that has done a very good job of catering to the budget buyer in your industry, but that makes it hard – or maybe just too much work – to cater to higher end customers. Their limiting decision; your opportunity.
• You're an employee of a local firm, and your boss turns down your idea of building a social media and review strategy to get more clients. You think it's just a matter of complacency. Could you go out on your own, or to a competing firm, and put your idea into practice? Their limiting decision; your opportunity.
• You're playing in a recreational soccer league, but there are so many good players that it's hard to get time on the field, and the coaches or organizers don't want to change. Could you attract some other teammates and form a new team? Their limiting decision; your opportunity.

Pretty good opportunities

It feels widely applicable, doesn't it? 

Of course Buffett also spoke about a few other things, like the state of Berkshire Hathaway, which reported net income of $35.5 billion for the first quarter, up from $5.58 billion last year. So that's a good amount of opportunity, and it's a number people will focus on in the short-term.

It's the pithy long-term thinking that winds up being remembered years later.

Bottom line: It's OK to do dumb things sometimes. Just pay attention to the opportunities you can see when other people do dumb things, too.

 

Inc

Naira weakened sharply on the official market against the dollar, pushing it above levels on the unauthorized parallel market despite government promises to stem volatility.

The currency slumped 23% to 1,099 naira per dollar on the official market on Friday, according to Lagos-based FMDQ, amid a local shortage of the greenback.

That was slightly cheaper than the naira’s level on the parallel market on Monday of 1,190, according to Umar Salisu, a trader who compiles the data in the commercial hub, Lagos.

Naira Turnover Falls

Liquidity in the official market dropped 48% to $71 million before the weekend, according to the investment bank Chapel Hill Denham.

The weakness was despite news Friday that Moody’s Investors Service had lifted the outlook on Nigeria’s Caa1 credit rating to positive, based on steps the West African nation has taken to improve its fiscal position and shore up foreign reserves.

The naira’s two exchange rates briefly converged in June at around 757 per dollar, after President Bola Tinubu eased complex currency controls to boost foreign investment. But it’s been on a steady slide ever since amid a persistent lack of local access to dollars.

Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso in November pledged to clear forward foreign-exchange contracts that have discouraged investor inflows, crimped liquidity and weighed on the currency.

The promise helped to steady the parallel market by encouraging residents who had been hoarding dollars to sell them to avoid losses. But liquidity in the much larger official market has remained constrained.

“Lack of liquidity is causing volatility, challenges in price discovery and stability in the official market,” said Ayodeji Dawodu, head of Africa sovereign and corporate credit research at BancTrust & Co. in London.

While the central bank wants the two rates to converge, at current levels the naira is significantly weaker than the official level of 750 per dollar used as a benchmark for the country’s 2024 budget.

The benchmark exchange rate will be far-fetched, unless “we see significant inflows from foreign investors and government agencies,” Dawodu said.

 

Bloomberg

Organised Labour and the Federal Government are on a collision course over the government’s failure to sustain the payment of N35,000 wage award to workers.

Workers in the Federal Civil Service, in separate interviews with our correspondent on Monday, noted that the Federal Government only paid N35,000 wage award for September.

Following the removal of the fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu on his assumption of office, the Federal Government agreed to pay N35,000 to each of its workers to reduce the hardship caused by the subsidy removal.

The government, in a memo signed by the Chairman, National Salaries Wages and Income Commission, Ekpo Nta, stated that the payment of the wage award would begin to take effect from September 1, 2023.

However findings by our correspondent indicated that the government only paid the wage award for September.

A senior civil servant in one of the core ministries, departments and agencies said, “The wage award was only paid once and I assume that was the one for September. Since then, we have not received another. We all are confused as there has been no official communication from the government as regards the matter. We are all confused at the moment.”

Another civil servant, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, said, “What you heard is true. We have not received anything else other than the initial wage award which was paid. The government cannot continue to let the citizens suffer. Our takehome salaries cannot even take us home any longer at this point.”

Also speaking with our correspondent, a civil servant in one of the Federal Government-owned schools in Abuja noted that the workers were only paid the wage award for one month.

“We only received for one month which I assume was for September. Though the peculiar allowance introduced by the former administration is still being paid alongside our salaries, we have not received any such thing as a wage award. The government needs to stop playing games with our emotions.”

Head of information at the Nigeria Labour Congress, Benson Upah, in an interview with our correspondent said, “This betrays the government’s dishonorable intentions and is completely unacceptable.”

When asked if the NLC would take action, he said, “Certainly, the congress will do something about this but what it will do will be dependent on the appropriate organs of the congress. On communication with the government, sure, we will. It usually precedes our actions.”

But the spokesperson for the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Bawa Mokwa, in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Monday allayed fears of civil servants. Mokwa noted that plans were ongoing to ensure that civil servants receive their wage awards.

“The process is ongoing. They will be paid. The process to pay the wage awards has commenced.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has budgeted N1tn  for minimum wage adjustments, promotion arrears and severance benefits for civil servants, an analysis of the 2024 appropriation budget released by the Budget Office of the Federation has revealed.

This is as the head of information of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Upah further explained to our correspondent that the congress would kick against any form of imposition of a new minimum wage by the Federal Government.

Upah told our correspondent in Abuja that negotiations had yet to commence, but he expressed optimism that talks on the new minimum wage would start soon.

“No, not yet but soon, I suppose,” Upah said when asked if the congress had received notice for the commencement of negotiations surrounding the new minimum wage.

Upah said, “The national minimum wage law is a product of collective negotiation by all the critical stakeholders, workers, employers (plus private sector), and government. It cannot be fixed by fiat by any stakeholder. Thus, any unilateral action by any party will not only be presumptuous but contemptuous and injurious to other parties and will certainly be at variance with the law and principles governing this variant of minimum wage-setting procedure.”

 

Punch

The national grid, on Monday, experienced another system collapse, throwing the country into darkness.

The grid collapsed at about 1 pm, according to Ndidi Mbah, general manager, public affairs at Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), who said the grid has been fixed.

“The collapse happened by 13.49 this afternoon. It is now fully restored by 18.51,” Mbah said.

This is the third time in recent months that the national grid has collapsed.

Efforts to confirm from TCN proved abortive.

In September 2023, the national grid system collapsed twice.

The grid had collapsed on September 14, 2023, and September 19, 2023, respectively,  but were restored in due time.

Meanwhile, earlier yesterday, Mbah said the company’s Gwagwalada-Kukwaba-Apo 132 kilovolts (KV) transmission line 1 was vandalised.

Mbah said the line between “towers 23 and tower 25” was vandalised.

She added that the act was suspected to have taken place at about 1 am on December 10, 2023.

Mbah said the company is making arrangements to effect repairs on the affected line.

 

The Cable

Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday dismissed reports alleging that some licensed commercial banks in the country failed to meet the Capital Adequacy Ratio, (CAR).

A statement by the bank’s spokesperson, Sidi Hakama, said that key financial soundness indicators which reflect the stability and resilience of the sector, as detailed in its most recent Economic Report of 2023, remain well within the regulatory thresholds.

The adequacy ratio offers a swift assessment of whether a bank holds sufficient funds to offset potential losses and maintain solvency amid challenging financial conditions.

“We wish to clarify that the Nigerian banking industry remains resilient as key financial soundness indicators were within the regulatory thresholds as captured in the CBN’s most recent Economic Report of 2023,” the CBN said.

The apex bank added that it is actively collaborating with various critical stakeholders to sustain the level of confidence in the Nigerian financial sector.

The CBN reassured Nigerians of the strength and reliability of the banking industry, urging them to rely on official communications from the CBN for accurate information.

Cash deposit

Meanwhile, the bank also on Monday announced the suspension of cash deposit processing fees above N500,000 until April 2024.

This was disclosed in a circular signed by Adetona Adedeji, CBN acting director of banking supervision.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria hereby suspends the charging of processing fees of 2 percent and 3 percent previously charged on all cash deposits above these thresholds with immediate effect. This suspension shall remain in effect until April 30, 2024,” the circular reads.

The CBN had on 18 September 2019 introduced a 3 per cent processing fee for withdrawals and 2 per cent for deposits of amounts above N500,000 for individual accounts to promote cashless transactions.

 

PT

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare the seats of the 27 lawmakers at the River House Assembly vacant, for defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The PDP said this in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, in Abuja on Monday.

Ologunagba said that by leaving the PDP, on which platform they were elected, their seats had become vacant.

He said this was by virtue of the provision of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

“For the avoidance of doubt, Section 109 (1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that “a member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if …

“(g) being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political Party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected…”

“By reason of the above Constitutional provision and its clear interpretation by the Supreme Court, the 27 defected members of the Rivers State House of Assembly have vacated

“They have lost their seats, rights, privileges, recognition and obligations accruable to members of the Rivers State House of Assembly,” he said.

Ologunagba added, “The PDP therefore demands that the Speaker of the Rivers State House Assembly immediately comply with the provision of the Constitution by declaring the seats of the 27 former lawmakers vacant.

“In view of the vacancy now exiting in the 27 State Constituencies in Rivers State, the PDP demands that INEC should within the stipulated period under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) conduct fresh election to fill the vacancies.”

He also cautioned the defectors from parading themselves as members of the House of Assembly as that would amount to impersonation.

Twenty-seven out of the 31 PDP members of the House defected to the APC on Monday.

 

NAN

Israeli defense chief resists pressure to halt Gaza offensive, says campaign will 'take time'

Israel’s defense minister on Monday pushed back against international calls to wrap up the country’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying the current phase of the operation against the Hamas militant group will “take time.”

Yoav Gallant, a member of Israel’s three-man war cabinet, remained unswayed by a growing chorus of criticism over the widespread damage and heavy civilian death toll caused by the two-month military campaign. The U.N. secretary-general and leading Arab states have called for an immediate cease-fire. The United States has urged Israel to reduce civilian casualties, though it has provided unwavering diplomatic and military support.

Israel launched the campaign after Hamas militants stormed across its southern border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping about 240 others.

Two months of airstrikes, coupled with a fierce ground invasion, have resulted in the deaths of over 17,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory. They do not give a breakdown between civilians and combatants but say that roughly two-thirds of the dead have been women and minors. Nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.

In a briefing with The Associated Press, Gallant refused to commit to any firm deadlines, but he signaled that the current phase, characterized by heavy ground fighting backed up by air power, could stretch on for weeks and that further military activity could continue for months.

“We are going to defend ourselves. I am fighting for Israel’s future,” he said.

Gallant said the next phase would be lower-intensity fighting against “pockets of resistance” and would require Israeli troops to maintain their freedom of operation. “That’s a sign the next phase has begun,” he said.

Gallant spoke as Israeli forces battled militants in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, where the military opened a new line of attack last week. Battles were also still underway in parts of Gaza City and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where large areas have been reduced to rubble and many thousands of civilians are still trapped by the fighting.

Israel has pledged to keep fighting until it removes Hamas from power, dismantles its military capabilities and gets back all of the hostages. It says Hamas still has 117 hostages and the remains of 20 people who died in captivity or during the initial attack. More than 100 captives were freed last month during a weeklong truce.

Gallant keeps a framed picture on the desk of his spacious office with pictures of all the children taken hostage. All but two are marked with small hearts, signaling their release from captivity.

HEAVY FIGHTING

In central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike overnight flattened a residential building where some 80 people were staying in the Maghazi refugee camp, residents said.

Ahmed al-Qarah, a neighbor who was digging through the rubble for survivors, said he knew of only six people who made it out. “The rest are under the building,” he said. At a nearby hospital, family members sobbed over the bodies of several of the dead from the strike.

In Khan Younis, Radwa Abu Frayeh saw heavy Israeli strikes overnight around the European Hospital, where the U.N. humanitarian office says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter. She said one strike hit a home close to hers late Sunday.

“The building shook,” she said. “We thought it was the end and we would die.”

Gallant blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian death toll, saying that the militant group maintains a network of tunnels underneath schools, streets and hospitals.

He claimed that Israel has inflicted heavy damage on Hamas, killing half of the group’s battalion commanders and destroying many tunnels, command centers and weapons facilities.

Israeli officials have said some 7,000 Hamas militants — roughly one-quarter of the group’s fighting force — have been killed throughout the war and that 500 militants have been detained in Gaza the past month. The claims could not be independently verified. Israel says 104 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive.

The result, he said, is that in the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas has been reduced to “islands of resistance” acting on the whims of local commanders.

In southern Gaza, he said the situation is different. “They are still organized militarily,” he said.

Gallant also said Israel has recovered “hundreds of terabytes” of information about Hamas from computers its troops have seized.

Despite the reported battlefield setbacks, Hamas on Monday fired a barrage of rockets that set off sirens in Tel Aviv, where Gallant’s office and Israeli military headquarters are located.

One person was lightly wounded, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. Israel’s Channel 12 television broadcast footage of a cratered road and damage to cars and buildings in a suburb.

HARROWING JOURNEY

The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, described a harrowing journey through the battle zone in northern Gaza by a U.N. and Red Crescent convoy over the weekend that made the first delivery of medical supplies to the north in more than a week. It said an ambulance and U.N. truck were hit by gunfire on the way to Al-Ahly Hospital to drop off the supplies.

The convoy then evacuated 19 patients but was delayed for inspections by Israeli forces on the way south. OCHA said one patient died, and a paramedic was detained for hours, interrogated and reportedly beaten.

The fighting in Jabaliya has trapped hundreds of staff, patients and displaced people inside hospitals, most of which are unable to function.

Two staff members were killed over the weekend by clashes outside Al-Awda Hospital, OCHA said. Shelling and live ammunition hit Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, killing an unknown number of displaced people sheltering inside, it said. It did not say which side was behind the fire.

HARSH CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH

With Israel allowing little aid into Gaza and the U.N. largely unable to distribute it amid the fighting, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.

Israel said it will start conducting inspections of aid trucks Tuesday at its Kerem Shalom crossing, a step meant to increase the amount of relief entering Gaza. Currently, Israel’s Nitzana crossing is the only inspection point in operation. All trucks then enter from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. Aid workers, however, say they are largely unable to distribute aid beyond the Rafah area because of the fighting elsewhere.

Israel has urged people to flee to what it says are safe areas in the south. The fighting in and around Khan Younis has pushed tens of thousands toward the town of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt.

Still, airstrikes have continued even in areas to which Palestinians are told to flee.

A strike in Rafah early Monday heavily damaged a residential building, killing at least nine people, all but one of them women, according to Associated Press reporters who saw the bodies at the hospital.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said people in the south are also falling ill as they pack into crowded shelters or sleep in tents in open areas.

Nicholas Papachrysostomou, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said “every other patient” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory infection after prolonged exposure to cold and rain. In shelters where hundreds share a single toilet, diarrhea is widespread, particularly among children, he said.

 

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Zelenskiy, in Washington, urges Congress not to play into Putin's hands

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a U.S. military audience on Monday that he hoped he can still count on the United States and urged Congress not play into Russian President Vladimir Putin's hands, as he started a critical visit to Washington to shore up security assistance.

"We won't give up. We know what to do and you can count on Ukraine. And we hope just as much to be able to count on you," Zelenskiy said in an address to the National Defense University.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has warned Congress that a failure to renew military assistance to Ukraine could tip the nearly two-year-old war in Russia's favor, creating national security threats for the West.

Zelenskiy, in an oblique reference to disputes in Congress over allocating aid, said it was "crucial that politics ... not betray the soldiers."

"Let me be frank with you, friends. If there's anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capital Hill, it's just Putin and his sick clique," Zelenskiy added.

Zelenskiy has been invited to meetings at the White House and with members of Congress on Tuesday. Many Republican lawmakers have questioned continued aid to Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine early last year, triggering a war that has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands and led to the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West in six decades.

Bolstered by billions of U.S. military aid, as well as U.S. intelligence, Ukraine was able to fend off Russia's initial attempt to sweep the country and roll Russian forces back in key towns. But Kyiv failed to break through Russian defensive lines in a major counteroffensive push this year and Russia is now on the offensive in the east.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that Putin still hoped to achieve victory in Ukraine, even as he offered assurances of "unshakable" U.S. support to the country.

"Despite his crimes and despite his isolation, Putin still believes that he can outlast Ukraine and that he can outlast America. But he is wrong," Austin said to applause.

He added, in apparent reference to Congress: "America's commitments must be honored."

Congress has approved more than $110 billion for Ukraine since Russia's February 2022 invasion but it has not approved any funds since Republicans took over the House from Democrats in January.

By mid-November, the U.S. Defense Department had used 97% of $62.3 billion in supplemental funding and the State Department had used all of the $4.7 billion in military assistance funding for Ukraine it had been allocated, U.S. budget director Shalanda Young said last week.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

West wants to replace Zelensky – Russia’s top spy

Western officials are discussing the potential removal of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky from power, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, claimed on Monday. The spy chief outlined there are numerous reasons why Zelensky is seen as undesirable, the most significant being his lack of flexibility regarding the interests of the West.

According to the SVR chief, the West believes the Ukrainian president has gone too far in fostering his image of an uncompromising hawk in the conflict with Russia. In the event of the need to “freeze” the hostilities, this would mean Zelensky is no longer useful in any potential negotiations, Naryshkin claimed.

“According to the US intelligence services, with the way the situation in the Ukrainian theater of war is developing, the need [to freeze the conflict] may come soon,” the spy chief stated.

Naryshkin further claimed that a replacement for Zelensky was being considered due to his unfulfilled promises to defeat Russia on the battlefield, widespread corruption in Ukraine, and the leader’s disrespect when dealing with foreign sponsors. Zelensky has officially decreed that any negotiations with Moscow are impossible as long as Russian President Vladimir Putin remains in power.

Alternatives to Zelensky were discussed on the sidelines of November’s meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, according to Naryshkin. Potential options purportedly include the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny, military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov, the head of the president’s office, Andrey Ermak, or even Kiev mayor and ex-boxer Vitaly Klitschko.

Following Kiev’s failed summer counteroffensive, Ukrainian Colonel General Aleksandr Syrsky said on Sunday that the Russian army is constantly “conducting offensive operations along the entire front.”

Zaluzhny last month referred to the situation on the front lines as a “stalemate,” admitting there was no hope for a breakthrough. Those comments reportedly fueled a growing rift between the general and the Ukrainian president.

According to the Ukrainskaya Pravda news outlet, Zelensky has resorted to creating alternative lines of command to give orders directly to officers such as Syrsky, thus bypassing Zaluzhny. “It seems that Zelensky has two kinds of the ZSU (Ukrainian armed forces): the ‘good’ guys commanded by Syrsky and other favorites, and the ‘bad’ guys who answer to Zaluzhny,”the outlet quoted a source close to the presidential administration as saying.

Ukrainians’ trust in Zaluzhny surpassed that of Zelensky even last year, the report claimed, while polls showed that the army general would beat the incumbent leader in a hypothetical presidential election. Earlier this year, Zelensky dismissed the idea of holding elections in 2024 as irresponsible at a time of war.

 

Reuters/RT