Super User
Normal practices and routines from the past that have Gen Z'ers confused and perplexed
I am not that old, but one time, I was telling my younger cousins about how Netflix used to be a mailing service, and they were absolutely gobsmacked. I myself was kinda shocked too, because I'd just assumed that was common knowledge. (Wait till I tell them about the mythical world of Blockbuster.) So when redditor u/MrDNLasked the people of r/AskOldPeople to share the common knowledge from their time that younger generations might have a hard time believing, I was all in. Here are some of the responses that will either make you feel totally nostalgic or completely puzzled:
1. "When the internet first came out, you couldn't talk on the phone and be online at the same time."
2. "Going to get gas was more of an experience. When you went, the gas station attendants would put gas in your car, clean your windshield, and check your oil. After that, you just paid them through your car window; you never had to get out of the car."
3. "I'm just old enough to remember smoking on planes. It still blows my mind that that was a thing!"
4. "We used to make our Christmas or birthday wishlists from looking in store catalogs, like Sears. You could actually order and pay for things via snail mail, and it was safe to do so."
5. "This wasn't that long ago, but there used to be no security screenings at airports. You could literally walk the person to the boarding area and watch them board the plane."
6. "Whenever you wanted to download something online, you'd have to basically threaten everyone in the house with their lives if they picked up the phone during the amount of download time it took. It would take hours to download a game or an image, and if someone used the phone, the download would START OVER from the beginning. Plus, in the mid-'90s, you'd have to pay by the hour."
7. "My 20-year-old son liked hearing this one: When driving in unfamiliar territory, you had to get directions by either stopping at the gas station and asking an attendant, or buying a map/atlas."
8. "Seatbelts weren't taken seriously by most people until the '90s."
9. "There were ashtrays everywhere: homes, businesses, restaurants, hospitals, malls, designated areas in schools, and more. Even if you didn't smoke, it was normal to have ashtrays available for your guests in the house — like on the coffee table or in the kitchen."
10. "My boss blew my young coworker's mind the other day when she explained that there is a special kind of black paper that you can put between two regular pieces of paper, and when you write on the top page, it also shows up on the bottom page."
11. "Drunk driving wasn't a serious crime until a group of moms got together and advocated (MADD)."
12. "There was a room called the 'coal room' in the basement of our house. We'd shovel coal from that room into a coal furnace whenever we needed to heat our house up. The coal was delivered by a truck that had a coal chute, which was inserted through a basement window in the coal room."
13. "It was normal for an entire household to share a single phone number."
"And you only had to dial seven digits — four, if you were in a small town."
14. "The drinking age was 18 back in my day, but you could walk into a bar at 16 and order a drink. Nobody really cared."
15. "People used to actually write letters, put a stamp on them, and mail them to their friends and relatives! As a kid, I would write letters to my school friends over summer break just to tell them how my summer was going, and most would write back telling me how things were with them. I still remember when stamps went from 18 cents to 20 cents, and my grandma complained about how outrageous that was. Today, a first-class stamp is 68 cents, and I only mail Christmas cards and thank-you notes nowadays."
16. "If you misbehaved in school, the teacher could — and would — dish out some corporal punishment. I had a couple of teachers who absolutely loved punishing kids with those big wooden paddles."
17. "When you watched TV, you had to watch what was on, and if you wanted to watch something in particular, you had to wait for it to come on."
"No pause, fast-forward, or rewind, either. If you missed it, you missed it."
18. "Phone numbers were memorized, and there was no speed dial, caller ID, or voicemail. I still remember my home number and my best friend's number from over 50 years ago."
19. "Kids could leave home, and people didn't bat an eye about it. My grandfather was 8 when he left home and made his way in the world. He had no education and worked jobs for people, and no one even questioned why an 8-year-old was alone. He signed up for World War II when he was 17 because no one checked for identification."
20. "Houses in the same area had to share a telephone 'party line' where you could listen in on everyone else's conversations."
21. "I remember that you couldn't know the sex of your kid until the baby was born. Apparently, there were ways to tell, though. I remember my mom's friends would hold a necklace with a weight over the woman's belly. They thought that you could tell the sex by whether the necklace swung up and down or back and forth."
22. "In the '50s, the milkman would come in through our always unlocked back door and put the milk straight in our refrigerator. Unbelievable."
23. "On the evening news, every night they would show the 'Doomsday Clock.' It's an analog clock that, when it hits midnight, means we're in a nuclear war. It was usually very close to midnight — like five minutes before. Imagine having the very real threat of nuclear war looming over your head every single day."
24. "There were telephones EVERYWHERE: streets, shops, sidewalk corners, etc. And you paid for calls with COINS."
25. "Cigarette machines were pretty much everywhere. As long as you put the money in, you could get a pack of smokes no matter what age you were."
26. Lastly: "My adult children and all of their friends didn't believe me when I first told them that married women weren't allowed to have a credit card in their own name until 1974. Before that, women could only have a card through their husband."
I don't know about you guys, but I'm still stuck on the fact that people were allowed to smoke on planes?! Alright, if you have some fascinating facts or experiences about life back then that younger people would be surprised to hear, drop them in the comments below, or you can submit anonymously using this Google form!
Buzzfeed
World’s largest cashew tree covers an area of 8,400 square meters
The Pirangi Cashew Tree in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte is considered the world’s largest cashew tree. It has a circumference of around 500 meters and covers an area of 8,400 square meters.
Legend has it that the Pirangi Cashew Tree was planted in 1888 by a local fisherman who later died at the age of 93 under the shade of the humongous tree. However, experts believe that, based on its growth characteristics, “the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old”. One thing is for sure, though, this is no ordinary cashew tree. It is the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees and actually has to be seen from a special lookout point high above to be truly appreciated. It produces over 60,000 cashew fruits per year and also attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over Brazil.
But just how did the world’s largest cashew tree get so big? Well, apparently, it has to do with a genetic anomaly that causes its branches to grow sideways rather than upwards. Weight and gravity cause the branches to bend toward the ground, and as they make contact with the soil, new roots begin to form and the tree continues to expand. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to distinguish the initial trunk from the rest of the tree.
Located on Pirangi do Norte beach, in Rio Grande do Norte, the Pirangi Cashew Tree became one of the main local tourist attractions after the tree was recognized by Guinness Records as the world’s largest cashew tree, covering an area of almost 8,500 square meters.
According to the Institute of Sustainable Development and Environment, which manages the famous Pirangi Cashew Tree, around 300,000 tourists visit the tree every year.
Interestingly, the Pirangi Cashew Tree has some home soil competition for the title of the world’s largest cashew tree. According to the state secretary of Tourism of Piauí, a cashew tree on the coast of Piauí is actually the world’s largest, covering an area of around 8,800 meters. However, that claim has yet to be officially verified by Guinness.
Oddity Central
Dangote accused NNPC officials of owning petroleum blending plants in Malta. The following data seem to be saying something
Nigeria’s petroleum products import from Malta increased by 342 percent in 2023 to $2.08 billion amid an allegation by the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote that officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited own blending plants in Malta.
Statisense disclosed this in data released through its X account outlining Nigeria’s petroleum imports in the last 10 years from 2013- 2023.
The data synchronized with that of Trade Map, a global database on International trade.
Further analysis of the data showed that from 2013-2016, Nigeria’s imports from the South European island of Malta were $237.81 million.
However, from 2017-2022, Nigeria did not import any petrol products from Malta.
Meanwhile, most recently, in 2023 Nigeria’s import from Malta swelled to $2.08 billion, according to Statisense data.
Nigeria’s imports from Malta were $2.25 billion in the same period, according to the United Nations Comtrade database on international trade.
Further insights from the National Bureau of Statistics data in the third Quarter of 2023 showed Malta was among the top five import destinations for Nigeria.
In Q3 alone, Nigeria’s import worth from Malta alone was N561.37 billion.
However, in Q1 and 2, Malta was not among the top five import destinations for Nigeria.
The data comes amid Chairman Dangote’s allegation on Monday that some officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and oil traders owned blending plants in Malta from where they import substandard products into Nigeria.
“Some of the terminals, some of the NNPC people and some traders have opened blending plants somewhere off Malta. We all know these areas. We know what they are doing,” Dangote said.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, dismissed Dangote’s claim.
He denied knowing of any blending plant in Malta, adding that he does not know of any employee of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited who owns a plant in Malta.
“To clarify the allegations regarding the blending plant, I do not own or operate any business directly or by proxy anywhere in the world except a local mini Agric venture.
“Neither am I aware of any employee of the NNPC, that owns or operates a blending plant in Malta or anywhere else in the world”, Kyari said through his official X account on Tuesday.
In the past few days, Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority have been embroiled in a dispute over the latter’s comment.
The Chief Executive Officer of NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed claimed that diesel from Dangote Refinery was of inferior quality compared to imported ones.
The accusation had spurred a wide range of outrage from Nigerians leading to a call for the suspension of the NMDPRA boss by the House of Representatives pending investigation into the matter.
The development comes on Dangote’s announcement that his refinery would commence petrol supply in the Nigerian domestic market from August 2024.
Daily Post
CBN still hasn’t settled all FX backlog contrary to claims, local businesses insist
Nigerian corporates and SMEs have decried the non-settlement of Foreign Exchange (FX) forwards by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The transactions which occurred between 2022 and 2023 are yet to be settled on maturity.
Analysts and stakeholders have expressed fears that the delay could have grave implications for the economy.
Reports indicate that affected companies could lose about N2.4 trillion which will impact Company Income Tax (CIT) for the next two to three years and also threaten federal government’s income.
The development could also exact a huge toll on the fragile FX market which is being rebuilt by the apex bank as it would come under severe pressure, and potentially drive exchange rates to about N3,000/$.
In addition, these losses could also trigger bank losses as confirmation lines used may not be serviced by the SMEs and corporates as well as put over one million jobs at risk.
Analysts further expressed concerns that the unsettled forwards could potentially erode investor confidence in a struggling economy with all the attendant implications. They were unanimous that the apex bank needed to act quickly to resolve the issues.
Earlier in March, the CBN announced that all valid FX backlogs owed to various sectors of the economy had been settled, fulfilling a key pledge of the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, to process an inherited backlog of $7 billion in outstanding liabilities.
In a recent interview with Arise Television, Cardoso revealed that about $2.4 billion out of the acclaimed $7 billion outstanding foreign exchange liabilities of the federal government were not valid for settlement.
He said while the bank had settled verified FX requests which amounted to $2.3 billion at the time, the total outstanding FX obligations remained at $2.2 billion.
The central bank governor further indicated that part of the headline $7 billion outstanding FX claims were not valid, citing the outcome of a forensic audit by Deloitte Management Consultant which the apex bank commissioned.
He maintained that the CBN would not pay for FX requests that are not validly constituted, adding that the bank had written to authorised dealers to explain the disparities identified.
Furthermore, Cardoso said the bank had contracted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate suspicious transactions to prosecute individuals and entities with fraudulent entries.
However, the affected companies had expressed worry that the outcome of the investigation was taking forever as most of them have used bank confirmed lines to open Letters of Credit (LCs), paid import duties, and received the goods, while suppliers were mostly settled by their banks’ correspondent banks.
“While CBN says EFCC is investigating, the corporates are bleeding and under intense pressure from their banks and their suppliers,” the stakeholders said.
They called on the central bank to settle the forwards and get EFCC to prosecute companies involved in any act of round-tripping or abuse in the utilisation of the liquidity.
They also warned that the continued delay in settling the outstanding liabilities of companies has far-reaching implications for the companies and the economy in general.
Director General, Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, explained that forward transaction is an agreement whereby a company credits the CBN through its bank for future supply of FX usually within 90 days.
He expressed dismay that data provided by JP Morgan & Co., had estimated unsettled liabilities at $6.8 billion in 2022, which certainly would be higher afterwards.
Oyerinde, said the development had already truncated the smooth running of production plans and capacity utilisation in industries, particularly that of SMEs that do not have the financial clout to explore other liquidity sources.
He further lamented that supply of raw-materials and production cycle had been broken due to the unsettled indebtedness by the central bank, which had ultimately led to low level of business activities, loss of revenues and low profit margins for corporate firms, including the SMEs.
He therefore urged the CBN to prioritise the settlement of outstanding forwards so that the companies involved could move forward and get on with their businesses.
He maintained that the involvement of EFCC in the matter was unnecessary.
Oyerinde said: “The CBN had informed the public that some of the FX Forward claims are not genuine and that the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) is investigating the issues.
“But the FX Forward is a transaction that involves the companies, their banks and the CBN with definite documentations and approvals as such. Therefore, due diligence by the CBN should be sufficient in determining the genuine cases.”
He said the CBN should engage “relevant banks on the claimed outstanding forwards to resolve unsettled cases rather than involving EFCC that is not part of the initial agreement”.
The Cable
Vehicle importation fell 60 percent in H1 2024 - Report
The number of vehicles imported into the country fell sharply by 60.4 per cent, year-on-year, YoY, to 10,991 in the first half of this year, H1 2024, reflecting the impact of the naira depreciation and general economic downturn.
This was contained in the report of the just concluded quarterly meeting of the Nigerian Port Consultative Council, NPCC.
The report stated: “Vehicle Traffic shows a total 10,991 units of vehicles was handled during the period under review, indicating a drop of 60.8 per cent from 28,024 units in 2023.”
Following the same trend, the number of ships that called at the nation’s seaports fell by 4.3 per cent, YoY to 251 in H1 2024 from 275 in H1 2023.
But despite the drop in vessel calls, the Gross Tonnage of ships rose 6.9 per cent to 32.614 million metric tons in H1’24 from 30,504, 276 in H1’23
The report added: “The cargo throughput, excluding crude oil, was 21.186 million metric tons against 18.234 million metric tons in 2023 indicating an increase of 16.1 per cent.
“Inward cargo traffic reached 13.563 million metric tons representing a 10.5 of cargo throughput in 2023. Outward cargo traffic was 7.6234 million metric tons, representing 27.7 percent.
Container traffic for the period under review was 398,447 between January and June showing an increase of 2.3 percent from 389,303 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units, TEUs handled in 2023.
“A further analysis of container traffic revealed that import containers accounted for 3.4 per cent with 198,415 TEUs while export container traffic was 195,106 TEUs representing a decrease of 1.2 percent of total container traffic.
“A breakdown of export container traffic revealed that empty containers accounted for about 36.3 per cent of total export container traffic. The average turn-around time of vessels was 4.6 days, compared with 5.1 days in 2023. The significant improvement in average turn-around time for vessels was brought about by the impact of the Lekki Deep Sea Port which achieved an average turn-around of only one day.
“The increase in Gross Registered Tonnage, GRT, despite the drop in the number of vessel calls revealed the berthing of bigger vessels, especially at Lekki Port where the average GRT of vessels is 3,801,191. This further gives credibility to the importance of a deep seaport to the Nigerian maritime or port development.
“Therefore, the collective efforts of all stakeholders are required to ensure that Lekki Deep Seaport does not suffer the same fate as Apapa for ease of cargo evacuation.”
Vanguard
Ohanaeze Ndigbo President Iwuanyanwu is dead
The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, is dead.
This was confirmed in a statement on Thursday by Jide Iwuanyanwu, the son of the late Emmanuel.
According to the statement, the 82-year-old Iwuanyanwu died on Thursday after a brief illness.
“The Iwuanyanwu family of Umuohii Atta, in Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State announces the demise of our patriarch, Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Iwuanyanwu-Ahaejiagamba Ndigbo,” the statement read.
“Iwuanyanwu died on Thursday July 25, 2024 after a brief illness. He was aged 82. Iwuanyanwu before his death was President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo worldwide and President of Owerri Peoples Assembly.”
Iwuanyanwu is survived by his wife, Frances, many children and grandchildren.
The statement stated that the burial details will be announced later by the family after due consultations.
CTV
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 294
Battered Hamas confounds Israel's bid to declare victory
Senior figures in Israel's government have said it is closing in on its war aims of defeating Hamas militarily and the return of hostages seized on Oct. 7. But Hamas' survival as a guerrilla force and its sway in Gaza may overshadow any deal.
After nine months of pummelling by one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, Hamas is much weakened from the force that carried out the cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Early in the war, Hamas propaganda videos showed well-drilled fighters in body armour and battle fatigues, their torsos wrapped with ammunition belts. Now, small groups of insurgents in T-shirts and trainers stage hit-and-run attacks in Gaza's bombed-out streets, the videos show.
Reuters spoke with three sources with knowledge of Hamas tactics, two former Hamas militants, three Palestinian officials, two Israeli military sources and an Israeli defence official to shed light on the group's losses and its strategy.
Two Israeli and two Palestinian sources told Reuters that a communications network built by Hamas before the war has been heavily damaged. That has left its command fragmented and reliant on messages delivered in person to avoid Israeli surveillance, the Palestinian sources said.
One Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas military tactics said personnel losses and the destruction of the communications network meant centralised decision-making had collapsed. Much of the vast tunnel network beneath Gaza has also been destroyed or compromised, the Israeli military has said.
But the guerrilla tactics adopted by Hamas cells in recent weeks are simply aimed at ensuring the group survives, ties down Israeli forces and inflicts losses, according to another Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas military tactics.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, speaking to soldiers in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israel was close to defeating Hamas militarily, according to a statement from his office.
"We're eliminating Hamas as a military organisation," Gallant told the troops. "We're creating a situation that will allow us to make a deal to free our hostages."
Hamas seized around 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas and other militants are still holding 115 hostages, around a third of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the U.S. Congress on Wednesday during a trip to Washington, pledged the hostages would be released soon and laid out a post-war vision of a "demilitarized and deradicalised Gaza" led by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel.
Hamas dismissed Netanyahu's comments as "pure lies" and accused the Israeli leader of thwarting negotiations to end the war and reach a ceasefire deal to release the hostages - outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
Netanyahu, who met with Biden on Thursday, has said that victory will only be achieved when the military and governing capabilities of Hamas are eliminated and Gaza poses no further threat to Israel.
Hamas' founding charter in 1987 called for the destruction of Israel and it subsequently directed suicide bombings in Israeli cities and, with Iran's help, built an arsenal of rockets that it has launched into Israel in frequent conflicts.
'VERY FAR' FROM DESTROYING HAMAS
Hamas has insisted that, despite losses, its command structure remains in place, even if weakened.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that Israel's accounts exaggerate the extent of its losses: "Facts on the ground are completely different," he said.
In a statement on July 16 to mark nine months of that war, Israel's military said that it has killed or apprehended at least 14,000 Hamas fighters out of the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 fighters that the group had at the start of the conflict.
By comparison, Israel says just 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground offensive - just above the roughly 300 killed in a single day during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
Crucially, the IDF has also said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam brigades, and it was pursuing Hamas' top leaders as part of its aim of dismantling the group's capabilities.
An Israeli airstrike on July 13 in a humanitarian area in southern Gaza targetted Hamas' military chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel says masterminded the Oct. 7 attack. The Gaza health ministry said at least 90 Palestinians were killed in the strike.
The Israeli military's chief spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said on July 19 there were increasing signs Deif was killed alongside another senior Hamas commander Rafa Salame, who Israeli officials believe was sitting next to him at the time and was also killed.
Palestinian sources have confirmed the deaths of several leading Hamas military commanders. They include Ayman Nofal, and Ahmed Al-Ghandour, both members of the Higher Military Council, the top decision-making body of Hamas' armed wing. Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy chief of Hamas, was also killed in Lebanon.
Yet Hamas fighters have drawn Israeli forces back into battle in the same areas of Gaza again and again, such as this week's fighting in Khan Younis, preventing the declaration of victory Netanyahu says he is determined to secure.
Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who leads Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, said Israel would need more boots on the ground across more areas of Gaza to achieve its aim of eliminating Hamas.
"We are very far from the goal of destroying Hamas' government and military capacities. We are really not close to that," Milshtein said. He noted, however, that a purely military victory would in any case ignore the group's social, political and economic influence.
"We're continuing to treat an enemy who is multi-dimensional in its behaviour as a military threat only."
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel called up around 300,000 reservists to mount its assault on Gaza, its largest mobilisation in decades. It began releasing them around four months later.
MOP-UP OPERATIONS
Israel's military response to Oct. 7 has turned Gaza into a chaotic wasteland. More than 39,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian figures.
Hamas' armed wing began the war with 24 battalions. An Israeli military source told Reuters on July 11 that four remaining battalions in Gaza's southern Rafah area, where Israel has focused its most recent offensive, are "close to being dismantled."
To achieve the government's war aims, the Israel Defence Forces planned a three-tier offensive encompassing an initial aerial campaign, followed by a ground offensive and a final phase of mopping up operations.
Most of Gaza has been in phase 3 for around six months. Once the Israeli forces have stamped out Hamas' remaining battalions in Rafah, then all of Gaza will essentially be in phase 3, according to Israeli officials.
Hamas' missile and rocket arsenal, once put at 15,000 to 30,000 has also been heavily depleted. Israel's military estimates 13,000 at least have been fired. It has also seized caches of projectiles as it has swept almost every city in Gaza.
Kobi Michael, of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said Hamas was no longer an institutionalised army divided into conventional military units, with weapons manufacturing, training, intelligence and air, naval and cyber forces.
"We need to carry on until Hamas has no ability to rebuild," Michael said, suggesting the Israeli military would need to have access to Gaza even after the war to carry out operations against any remaining militant cells.
"The groundwork is being laid now for the IDF to operate in a similar way to the way it does in the West Bank. We are not there yet," he said.
But one source close to Hamas said the group has been preparing for years for a scenario where it would need to shift to guerrilla-style tactics to survive a conflict with Israel.
Key operations - including a foundry to make bombs and other weapons - were still operational, the source said. New recruits were also constantly joining Hamas' military wing, while the switch to guerrilla tactics had allowed the group to contain its losses, according to another source familiar with Hamas' tactics.
The network of tunnels, even after sections have been destroyed or compromised by Israeli forces, continue to hamper Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas, experts and two sources close to Hamas says.
"They show up from one shaft, destroy a tank, or prepare an ambush for another before they disappear until they reappear at another shaft," said a former Hamas militant familiar with the group's operations.
Some new tunnels, sources close to the group say, are being dug by hand. Reuters was unable to verify this independently.
An Israeli military official on Monday told Reuters that while a lot of Hamas military infrastructure, including tunnels, has been destroyed there was still much more to be done.
Reuters
What to know after Day 883 of Russia-Ukraine war
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Kremlin names barriers to Ukraine peace talks
Russia is open to peace talks with Kiev but there are numerous issues that must first be resolved, including Vladimir Zelensky’s status and Ukrainian law, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press briefing on Thursday.
According to the spokesman, a number of points need to be clarified before negotiations can become possible.
“First, we need to understand how ready the Ukrainian side is and whether the Ukrainian side has permission for [peace talks] from its backers. So far, we are seeing very different statements,” Peskov stated, referring to Kiev’s Western sponsors and their outspoken reluctance to engage in talks with Russia.
The spokesman also reiterated that Moscow considers Zelensky’s legitimacy as head of state to be void, considering his term ended in May and elections were not held due to martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said that Zelensky’s legitimacy matters with regard to a potential peace treaty, since crucial documents must be signed with legitimate authorities.
Peskov added that another obstacle is the decree banning negotiations between Kiev and the current leadership in Moscow, signed by Zelensky in 2022. The Kremlin spokesman noted that as “these prohibitions still apply,” it makes the possibility of talks difficult from a legal point of view.
“But from a practical point of view, we are open to achieving our goals through negotiations,” Peskov emphasized. There are various options for launching the peace process and Russia is actively considering them, he added.
Ukraine’s rhetoric on peace talks has shifted in recent weeks. While Zelensky was previously adamant that he would not negotiate with Putin, earlier this week he signaled he wanted the diplomatic process to begin sooner rather than later. In order to do this, Zelensky said there is “no difference” regarding who he engages with, “Putin or not.”
Following a meeting this week between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Kiev’s representative had made it clear that “Ukraine is ready and willing to engage in dialogue and negotiations with Russia.”
It is unclear, however, if Ukraine would be willing to change the conditions it previously set in Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’, which demands that Moscow withdraw its troops from all territory claimed by Kiev. Russia has dismissed the plan as detached from reality. Putin voiced his own peace proposal last month, saying he was ready to start talks once Kiev commits to neutral status and cedes its claims to all five former Ukrainian regions that have chosen to join Russia. His overture was rejected by Zelensky as an “ultimatum.”
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Pentagon finds another $2 billion of accounting errors for Ukraine aid
The Pentagon has found $2 billion worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2 billion, a U.S. government report revealed on Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Defense has faced challenges in accurately valuing defense articles sent to Ukraine due to unclear accounting definitions, a new Government Accountability Office report showed.
In 2023, the Pentagon said staff used "replacement value" instead of "depreciated value" to tabulate the billions in materials sent to Ukraine. The $6.2 billion error created a path for billions more to be sent to Kyiv.
The Pentagon told the GAO that since then, $2 billion more in overstatements have been found. As a result, an additional $2 billion worth of arms can be sent to Ukraine to cover the amount of aid approved by the Biden administration.
The GAO said a vague definition of value in the Foreign Assistance Act and the absence of specific valuation guidance for Presidential Drawdown Authority have led to inconsistencies in the reported value of military aid.
In one example cited in the GAO report, 10 vehicles were valued at $7,050,000 when the supporting documentation showed they should have been valued at zero, their net book value.
The GAO has recommended that Congress clarify the definition of value in the context of defense articles under Presidential Drawdown Authority.
Additionally, the GAO has issued seven recommendations to the Defense Department, urging it to update its guidance to include a PDA-specific valuation section and develop component-specific valuation procedures. The department said it has concurred with all recommendations and outlined actions to address these issues.
RT/Reuters
NNPC v Dangote: Where the truth lies - Azu Ishiekwene
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is not a stranger to adversity or its more sinister cousin, sabotage.
One of the bitterest battles he has fought in the last 25 years – the cement war – was against his kinsman and founder of BUA Group, Abdulsamad Rabiu. Folks close to both men have tried to patch them up, but the embers are still smouldering.
Dangote’s face-off with the Kogi State Government under former Governor Yahaya Bello over rights and royalties from Dangote Cement, Obajana, for the local community, was a skirmish compared to the cement war with Rabiu.
Wealth and comfort can be strange bedfellows, often mutually exclusive in the quest to conquer one mountain after the other. Dangote knows this only too well. And nowhere has the lesson been more evident than his pursuit to own a refinery.
Just like that?
I told this story before in an article in May 2023. In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, the government sold off two of Nigeria’s moribund refineries – Port Harcourt and Kaduna – to Blue Star, a Dangote-led consortium. Blue Star paid $670 million for the plants and walked away, thinking the deal was done. It wasn’t.
In 2007, the government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua capitulated. It refunded Dangote under pressure from labour unions and vested interests in the refineries on the excuse that the assets were “national patrimony” that should not be sold, “just like that!” It didn’t matter that at the time of sale, both refineries produced less than 20 percent of capacity without hope or promise of improvement.
Dangote took his money and walked away, bruised but unbowed. Six years later, he announced plans to build a private refinery, first in Ogun State, and later, he moved it to Lagos with a capacity of 650,000 bpd – over 200,000 more than the installed capacity of Nigeria’s four refineries combined.
Single train revenge
Dangote’s single-train refinery, originally estimated to cost $12 billion but finished at around $20 billion, is now at the centre of another storm. It’s not about International Oil Companies (IOCs) he accused of trying to undermine him. It’s the more deadly variety of wars: the one from within.
The regulators, particularly the head of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, said in a television interview in the State House with the NNPC Group CEO, Mele Kyari, present, that Dangote Refinery was making products with unsafe Sulphur levels, and also trying to monopolise the industry.
Ahmed can raise valid safety concerns as a regulator and call out a monopoly. The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) provides safety standards and a price reflexive framework to prevent a monopoly. Under the Act, the regulator is empowered to act in the interest of consumers and fair play.
Sulfurous things and backstory
Ahmed didn’t say precisely what the tolerable Sulphur level was or provide evidence that Dangote was trying to become a monopoly. Instead, he contradicted himself by mentioning at least two other refineries, Waltersmith and Aradel, operating at different capacities. If this were a chat in a beer parlour, it would be pardonable.
But to think that the head of a regulatory agency would levy an accusation of unsafe Sulphur levels and offer no response when he was told that neither his agency nor the NNPC had a laboratory is scary. I’m not sure why Kyari stood beside him, grinning. Or why the State House posted the video on its official handle.
But the whole show leaves a bitter, corrosive aftertaste of sulfurous proportions.
Dangote has been accused of many things. He has been accused of feeding off government indulgences, from waivers to tax breaks and preferential forex allocations, even though he was not the only beneficiary. Even the 20 percent stake in the Dangote Refinery, which we are now told the government paid only 7.2 percent, left many questions about that transaction needing to be answered.
On another front, some have accused Dangote of hedging his bet poorly in the 2023 election that brought President Bola Tinubu to power, unlike his adversary, Rabiu, who appears to have hit the bull’s eye.
Unkindest cut
But none of these charges is as unkind as those of Ahmed, who, if shame still means anything, should not have uttered the first letter of the “S-word,” never mind the phrase “Sulphur levels.” I’m not sure he can find his way to a viable lab owned by NMDPRA or NNPC because there isn’t one. The regulators rely on third-party labs in Lagos, such as GMO, Sewort, SGS, and others, to vet its imported petroleum products.
Yet, Ahmed chooses to publicly discredit, without proof, products that we are told have been repeatedly ordered by TotalEnergies and BP, among others.
In response to a question from a LEADERSHIP reporter on Tuesday about whether NNPC has a lab, the corporation said, “NNPC conducts rigorous testing on all its products to ensure they meet global safety and quality standards,” adding that NMDPRA can provide verified data through regular official reports. What does that mean in English?
A regulator’s record
And Kyari seemed pleased with this scandalous drama even though NNPC, which he superintends, has spent about $25 billion in turnaround maintenance of moribund refineries in the last 25 years, plus the recent $1.5 billion spent on his watch for more turnaround. One of the subsidiaries, PHRC, employed 487 new staff four years ago and paid N23 billion in salaries without producing one litre of petrol.
All that consumers are asking for, after losing a significant part of the battle for price, is the availability of petroleum products. God knows what they are getting under the current monopolistic system, which permits NNPC to play around with import licences, are long queues, contaminated products, and a regulator mockingly claiming to be a public company.
Suppose Dangote Refinery is in breach of any regulations; what steps have the regulators taken to call the refinery to order or help them overcome, except if they claim there was evidence of a malicious default? Our officials spend hundreds of thousands of dollars touring the world for foreign investors only to chew local investors with a microphone in a fit of what? Rage, sabotage, indiscretion or stupidity?
Feuding parties
The closed-door meeting among the feuding parties, which Tinubu ordered on Monday, may keep them on a leash for a while, but it hardly addresses the underlying issues. If products from the Dangote Refinery currently exceed the Sulphur levels – as Dangote had also said on a different occasion – why can’t the regulator work with the refinery to fix it without a scandalous press conference?
And is the talk about monopoly a fear-induced trope? How can Ahmed even speak of a monopoly when supply is hardly available, and the current distortionist-in-chief is NNPC, the sole importer of petrol and sole awarder of import licences for diesel?
It doesn’t smell good. Dangote Refinery is only 45 percent complete – the entire plant? Yet, Kyari and Ahmed joined former President Muhammadu Buhari in commissioning the plant last year? Seriously?
After years of working with petrol importers in his former life as the chief executive of PPMC, Ahmed is struggling with his new role as a regulator. He deserves public sympathy and can get it without being a retailer of beer parlour gossip or a bagman for vested interests.
** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It
You need an advisory team more than ever. Here's why — and how to run one effectively
Kalon Gutierrez
Key Takeaways
- For founders, the need for strong advisors early is more pronounced now than ever — given that an increasing number are being funded at notably early stages of their careers.
- A winning advisory team needs to have a combination of capability, applicability and future flexibility.
- To support this team, founders must institute an incentivizing compensation package, proper goal setting and regular communication cycles.
For founders, building the right team is critical to lasting success. But the right one isn't always what we assume it to be, and choosing wrong can prove detrimental at best to a start-up and ruinous at worst. In fact, in his 2021 Harvard Business Review article "Why Start-Ups Fail," Tom Eisenmann, Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration, notes that "a broad set of stakeholders, including employees, strategic partners and investors, all can play a role in a venture's downfall." Put more bluntly, a "dream team" may end up being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
A critical component of this group should be a war chest of related experience, along with a high degree of self-awareness, emotional intelligence and on-the-ground maturity. Strong advisors will also integrate well with the cultural and leadership dynamics of a start-up — keeping it consistent with founders' visions — and provide a non-biased and knowing perspective when offering direction on integral decisions.
For founders, the need for strong advisors early is more pronounced today than it was even five years ago. A quick look at Forbes 30 Under 30 Venture Capital 2024 makes it clear that many founders are now being funded at notably early stages of their careers, without a host of prior ownership cycles to reference. And there's much on the line: According to Carta, the median early-stage seed check from venture capital firms in 2023 was $3.1 million, requiring greater founder-led financial responsibility earlier. Products, meanwhile, are continuing to become more specialized and complex, requiring a heightened level of subject matter expertise. All of this can increase the progress-based burn rate while shortening the time horizon for success.
All these dynamics make it even more imperative for founders to identify and hire advisory boards early on, and when they do, they must get it right.
Here are key ways of attracting, hiring and retaining the best.
1. Understand the puzzle and identify missing pieces
Every company is unique, with its own strengths and weaknesses. A 20-year-old founder may sport a high level of intelligence yet lack a track record of creating multiple companies and the necessary years of subject-matter-related development. An industry veteran, meanwhile, may be less in touch with next-gen consumer behavior. As a founder, it's vital to assess your company's early-stage landscape — identify areas of strength (the same qualities that likely led others to invest in you), spot the gaps, and hire advisors with particular relevant expertise to address them.
2. Develop an advisor-specific compensation system
A founder's inclination may be to formalize an advisory team only when a company is big enough or far enough along and instead be inclined to form an informal team of familiar colleagues early on who offer services and support free of charge. While this may buy time and save money/dilution in the short term, the reality is that it will ultimately amount to a lower value-added during a critical period of early development. A better move is to create an advisory compensation system — from the start — so that a team feels truly invested in the company and, in turn, can be held accountable. That can include a percentage equity grant and associated timeline (usually one to two years). The amount to grant depends on two factors: the value-add of the advisor (time and expertise) and the stage of the company (the earlier on, the higher the grant).
3. Create a mutually agreed-upon goals list
As a founder, the more clarity you provide to an advisor, the more empowered they will be to add value. So, before signing an agreement, you and a prospective candidate(s) should create a set of goals and expectations. The latter can include an estimated number of hours dedicated per month, required percentage of attendance at meetings and general availability for advice and reference calls. Outlining goals will be more akin to a high-level job description or a position overview. It will also identify critical areas where a candidate plans to add value, along with a map of how they intend to execute accordingly.
4. Introduce advisory team members to each other and communicate frequently
Once your team is identified and hired, it's essential to then host a meeting that allows members to get to know each other. The more each person feels a part, the more they will operate with investment. In addition, it's important to remember that the sum is greater than its parts: a multi-member brain trust usually results in members devising better solutions than if they worked independently.
Also, provide regimented communication cycles (with updates) that offer realistic assessments of the current state of company endeavors. Sugarcoating a challenging experience will only hinder an advisory team from adding critical value.
5. Continue to evaluate your team, and don't hesitate to make changes
As founders, we can become emotionally attached to advisors; after all, they are mentors, advocates and stewards who helped raise and nurture our "baby." But as that infant grows, needs naturally change. A company may increase in size, pivot product category, or align with a new partnership vertical. Some advisors may be capable of growing with you throughout, but others will not, so they need to be assessed on a regimented basis. The right team is not always simply the available one.
As we view today's founder through a 21st-century lens, we are reminded that no one founding person or group of people can do it all. That doesn't change the market demand and associated expectations, however. With make-or-break nearly always on the line, a properly established advisory team is often a foundational ingredient to lasting success, provided it's built the right way.
Entrepreneur