RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

NATO-supplied tanks destroyed in failed Ukrainian offensive – Russian MOD

Russian forces have repelled a renewed large-scale attack by Ukrainian troops in several parts of Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Tuesday, claiming that Kiev’s armed formations and military units suffered “significant losses.”

“Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate combined units, which continued the offensive operations close to Novodarovka and Levadnoye,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov. 

The renewed offensive mainly focused on the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region, but was stopped by missile, artillery and heavy rocket- propelled flamethrower strikes, according to Konashenkov.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ total losses in south Donetsk direction were over 1,500 servicemen, 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks and three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, as well as 109 other armored fighting vehicles,” the Russian military spokesman said.

It was unclear if the tally included the losses from Sunday's botched attack, which was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful” by the Russian military. In that attempt alone, Kiev lost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles, according to the ministry.

Some videos circulated by military bloggers on Telegram did show what appears to be several abandoned French AMX-10 light tanks, but did not include visual confirmation of the German-made Leopards lost in battle.

The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to release footage of the latest strikes on Ukrainian military vehicles. On Monday, it published a video of Ukrainian heavy equipment, supplied by the Western nations, being destroyed by Russian strikes the day before.

Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maliar confirmed that Kiev’s forces were moving to “offensive actions” in some areas, but provided no comment on the failed attacks and claimed that Moscow’s talk about the Kiev’s “counteroffensive”blunders was an attempt to to “divert attention” from its own alleged failures.

 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia says it thwarts another major attack in Ukraine, inflicting heavy losses

Russia said on Tuesday it had thwarted another major Ukrainian offensive in Donetsk, inflicting heavy losses, while Ukraine hailed progress in fighting in the east, although it was unclear if it marked the start of a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.

On Monday, Russia said Ukrainian forces over the weekend had begun a major offensive in the southern part of the Donetsk region, which it had also thwarted.

Ukrainian officials have made no mention of any broad, significant new campaign, although in his nightly address on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was enigmatic, hailing "the news we have been waiting for" and forward moves in Bakhmut in Donetsk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year in what the Kremlin expected to be a swift operation, but its forces suffered a series of defeats and regrouped in the country's east.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops dug in over the winter, besieging Bakhmut for months and bracing for an expected Ukrainian counter-attack to try to cut Russia's so-called land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.

The latest Russian defence ministry statement said Russian forces had inflicted huge personnel losses on attacking Ukrainian forces and destroyed 28 tanks, including eight Leopard main battle tanks and 109 armoured vehicles. It said total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1,500 troops.

"Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate consolidated units, which continued offensive operations," the ministry said on Telegram.

"A complex fire defeat was inflicted by army forces, assault and operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery, as well as heavy flamethrower systems."

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about Russia's assertions.

Russia and Ukraine have often made claims of inflicting heavy human losses on each other which could not be independently verified.

The Washington Post reported that some U.S. officials thought the counteroffensive was underway, but White House national security spokesperson John Kirby declined to say whether he thought this was the case.

"I'm not going to be talking for the Ukrainian military," he told a regular briefing.

"(But) whenever they decide to step up and whatever they decide to do, the president is confident that we did everything we could over the last six, eight months or more to make sure that they had all the equipment, the training, the capabilities to be successful."

In a promotional video released on Sunday and urging silence in regards to any military actions, Ukraine's defence ministry said: "Plans like silence - the beginning will not be announced."

HIGH STAKES

The success or failure of a counteroffensive, expected to be waged with billions of dollars worth of advanced Western weaponry, is likely to influence the shape of future Western diplomatic and military support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Reuters on Monday Ukraine now had enough weapons for a counteroffensive but declined to comment when asked whether it had begun.

Russia's defence ministry said previously Ukraine had launched a large-scale offensive on Sunday in five sectors of the front in southern Donetsk, an area where Moscow has long suspected Ukraine would seek to drive a wedge through Russian-controlled territory.

"The enemy's goal was to break through our defences in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front," it said. "It had no success."

In its evening report on Monday, Ukraine's General Staff made no mention of any large-scale offensive, nor did it suggest any deviation from the usual tempo or scope of fighting along front lines that have not changed significantly for months.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram Ukraine was "shifting to offensive actions" along parts of the front but dismissed suggestions of a major operation.

"The main focus now is on the Bakhmut sector," said Maliar. "This has resulted in certain successes, including advances. We have taken control of certain heights."

Russian Wagner group mercenaries captured Bakhmut last month and handed their positions there to regular Russian troops.

Writing on Telegram, Wagner militia leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has often clashed with the Russian defence ministry, said its latest statement and the huge Ukrainian losses it described was "simply wild and absurd science fiction."

Russia now controls at least 18% of internationally recognised Ukrainian territory and has claimed four more regions of Ukraine as Russian territory after annexing Crimea in 2014.

** Russian attempts to waste Ukraine's advanced air-defense missiles with cheap drones are failing, UK intel says

Russia launched more than 300 Iranian-made drones at Ukraine throughout May, in an attempt to get the country to use up its stockpile of advanced air defense missiles, but the efforts didn't work, according to UK intelligence.

In an intelligence update on Monday, the UK Ministry of Defence labeled the campaign Russia's "most intense use" of Iranian Shahed uncrewed aerial vehicles to date, and said Russia was likely firing the drones in "an attempt to force Ukraine to fire stocks of valuable, advanced air defence missiles."

But it said that Russia was "unlikely to have been notably successful: Ukraine has neutralized at least 90% of the incoming OWA-UAVs mostly using its older and cheaper air defence weapons and with electronic jamming."

Shahed drones are estimated to cost upwards of $21,000 — relatively cheap compared to the cost of missiles, which Russia has also been firing at Ukraine, and more advanced unmanned aircraft.

Russia's failure to get Ukraine to waste its advanced air defense missiles comes alongside Russia's inability to destroy Ukrainian air defence systems, the UK MOD added.

The MOD said last month that Russia was prioritizing trying to knock out Ukraine's advanced air defense systems after Ukraine shot down Kinzhal missiles that Russia had previously bragged were unstoppable.

Ukraine has a variety of air defense systems, including the advanced Patriot missile systems it received from the US and European allies.

Last month, Russia claimed to have destroyed one Patriot missile system, but the US said it was still functional and had been quickly repaired.

The UK MOD also said that Russia was likely trying to "locate and strike Ukrainian forces well behind the front line," but without much success.

"Russia remains very ineffective at hitting such dynamic targets at range because of its poor targeting processes," it said.

 

RT/Reuters/Business Insider

Shelling, looting in Sudan's capital as military factions battle for eighth week

Shelling and heavy clashes hit areas of Sudan's capital on Monday, residents said, with reports of spreading lawlessness in Khartoum and in the western region of Darfur after more than seven weeks of conflict between rival military factions.

Fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified after the expiry late on Saturday of a ceasefire deal brokered by Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

The war has uprooted more than 1.2 million people within Sudan and sent about 400,000 fleeing into neighbouring countries, inflicting heavy damage on the capital where the remaining residents are at the mercy of battles, air strikes and looting.

On Monday, residents reported a second consecutive day of fighting across the three cities that make up the nation's wider capital - Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri. They said there had been rare ground clashes in Omdurman as well as shelling, and fighting in East Khartoum district and on the southern rim of the capital.

"The neighbourhood where we live in the centre of Omdurman is looted publicly on a daily basis without anyone intervening to prevent it, with clashes and shelling continuing around us," said 37-year-old resident Mohamed Saleh.

In Khartoum East, RSF troops who have spread out in neighbourhoods across the capital were in full control and were looting extensively, said Waleed Adam, a resident of the area.

"You see them right in front of you, taking cars, money, gold - whatever they can get their hands on," he told Reuters by phone. "I guess it's just a matter of time until they come to my street."

The RSF says it has been working to protect civilians by arresting looters.

DARFUR VIOLENCE

Some of those who fled the war have headed to neighbouring countries including Chad, South Sudan, and Central African Republic (CAR) which are already struggling with poverty, conflict and a dip in humanitarian aid.

The arrival of nearly 14,000 people in northeastern CAR and a halt to cross-border trade "puts additional pressure on the limited resources available to the 130,000 extremely vulnerable people in the region," Mohamed Ag Ayoya, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for CAR, told a press briefing in Geneva.

The war has also triggered unrest in Darfur in Sudan's far west, a region that was already suffering from mass displacement due to earlier conflict and where residents in several cities and towns have reported attacks by militias linked to Arab nomadic tribes.

In recent days at least 40 people were killed and dozens more were wounded in Kutum in North Darfur State, according to activists who monitor the region. Residents have also reported widespread looting and insecurity in the area.

On Monday, the RSF, which has its power base in Darfur and its origins in the Arab-dominated militias, released a video purporting to show they had taken over the army headquarters in Kutum, a commercial hub and one of the larger towns in the state.

There was no immediate comment from the army, which had denied on Sunday that the RSF had taken the town.

There have been long communication blackouts in parts of Darfur, where aid groups have found it especially complicated to bring in humanitarian supplies.

In El Obeid, a city 360 km (220 miles) southwest of Khartoum and on a key route from the capital to Darfur, residents reported large deployments of RSF forces and the closure of some roads.

Recent days have brought the first showers of the year in Khartoum, marking the start of a rainy season that is likely to complicate a relief effort already hamperedby bureaucratic delays and logistical challenges.

 

Reuters

It’s disheartening to see a dubiously contrived consensus emerging among unsuspecting and otherwise critically-minded Nigerians on fuel subsidy.

The rhetorical offensive of successive governments on the issue is sadly proving successful. The debate has now shifted from whether petrol, the single most consequential product in our economy that directly or indirectly drives all economic activities, should be subsidised, to when and how subsidy should be removed, and how the government should invest the resulting revenue boost.

That’s exactly how the political elites want it. These are their preferred terms for discussing subsidy. This framing exculpates them, blames the nebulous and externalised concept of “subsidy corruption,” and demands nothing from them to help fix the fiscal mess we re in.

But the main issue is not about the corruption in the subsidy regime. They are trying to shape and shift the terms of the discussion to only focus on inflated subsidy invoices, which they had been paying to their favoured subsidy claimants.

Nigerians should stop falling into the political elites’ well-laid rhetorical trap for justifying the effort to transfer the cost of their greed, incompetence, and corruption to the masses.

A serious government that’s not implicated in the subsidy corruption and that truly wants to audit its subsidy waste will take measures to clean it up so that only legitimate subsidy claims are paid. This is the only sensible short-term fix that does not punish regular citizens for the financial sins of their political elite.

It is not about whether the proceeds of the so-called subsidy removal will be invested wisely. That is part of their rhetorical deception, their effort to distort the discussion to focus on wrong questions and wrong premises. We have seen how the savings of previous “subsidy removals” were frittered away or mismanaged, but that is the wrong conversation to be having.

There are real questions that need to be posed and which they are trying to keep Nigerians from asking by getting us to accept a flawed premise. They are trying to convince us that subsidising fuel by whatever means, which is popular in many countries, including the US, because of the positive ripple effects of affordable petrol on the real economy, is bad. They are doing so by steering you rhetorically to focus on the wrong issues. Here are the real questions and issues: 

1. If subsidy has been removed or partially removed multiple times in the past, why does the need to heavily subsidise fuel persist? Could it be that the idea of subsidy removal is a fraudulent distraction from the real issue of our loss of domestic refining capacity, despite spending millions of dollars on failed turnaround maintenance (TAM) contracts and our dependence, for the last two-and-a-half decades, on imported petrol?
2. Related to the above, why have successive governments not tackled the root cause of the problem by restoring domestic refining to meet our petrol consumption needs?
3. With the Federal Government being an investor, we are told, in Dangote Refinery, with the revelation by the CBN that it lent tens of billions of naira to the refinery project, and with the previous announcement by NNPC that it will supply about 400,000 barrels of our daily crude production to Dangote Refinery, which should eliminate the costs associated with purchasing and importing overseas petrol, why should fuel not be affordable in Nigeria, even if Mr Dangote adds something on top of his refining cost to make a deserved profit for his trouble? It is a mystery to us laypeople.
4. Given the reality that, for good or ill, in Nigeria, everything in the real economy (public transportation, home and small business power generation, the service industry, the movement of goods and labour, etc.) depends on petrol being affordable, is the subsidy not worth sanitising and preserving, whatever it takes, in the short-term, in order not to destroy what’s left of the battered economy and inflicting more suffering on our beleaguered masses?
5. Related to the above, why is it that every time the ruling political elites spend, borrow, and steal their ways into fiscal trouble, they try to raise revenue through “subsidy removal”, rather than cutting the perks of public officials and tackling the scandalous waste in the budgeting system of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government? Is it because stopping subsidy is the path of least political resistance and leaves intact the equally costly but disguised subsidies extended to the political elites in the executive, legislative, and bureaucratic realms of government?
6. Is the rhetoric of “subsidy removal” not a policy discourse or consensus informed by the out-of-touch narcissistic consumption habits of political and business elites who can afford expensive petrol and are thus unable to relate to how regular Nigerians will find their daily routines truncated and their survival hustles drastically curtailed?
7. Is it not the case that if Nigeria continues to import refined fuel and cannot refine its own, the discrepancy between the landing cost of imported fuel and the pump price will resurface intermittently, no matter how many times subsidy is “removed,” as crude prices, shipping costs, and other fluctuating variables in the international economy push the landing cost up or down? Does that not mean that no subsidy “removal” is final, as our history has shown, since unpredictable developments in the global petroleum demand and supply equation and supply chain will likely, even if temporarily, produce a new discrepancy and necessitate subsidy in the future? By the way, why do we pay subsidy even in times when global oil demand is down and there’s a slow down in global economic activity? Is that not fraudulent subsidy? Is that corruption, along with the graft of over-invoicing, not the real problem that needs to be tackled if government is not lazy or complicit? Again, why skirt the real problems to implement a measure that’s not a permanent fix and will inflict long-lasting, perhaps fatal, damage on the economy and citizens’ livelihoods? Why cut off your hand because you have a stubborn, painful, but treatable pimple on it?

In a nutshell, the political elites want to get us from “paying bogus subsidy claims is bad” to “subsidising petrol is bad.”

Once we naively make that rhetorical shift, we’ve given them undeserved rhetorical victory and they’ve coyly won us over to their side.

Once that happens, we’ll be stuck discussing tangential, atmospheric issues, questions, and scenarios, leaving aside the main issues of their unwillingness to tackle corruption in subsidy payments and their failure to restore domestic refining — the short- and long-term solutions to the problem.

In 2008, University of Chicago economist (and future Nobel laureate) Richard Thaler and Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein published their book Nudge, which popularized the idea that subtle design changes in the architecture of choice (“nudges”) can influence our behavior. The book became a global phenomenon and marked an intellectual watershed. But 15 years after its publication, the question remains: Has behavioral economics lived up to the hype?

Thaler and Sunstein based their thesis on the research and insights of psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, which they had previously applied to the field of law and economics in a Stanford Law Review article (co-authored with Christine Jolls). While the paper was one of the most cited law-review articles ever, it remained virtually unknown outside the discipline.

But following the publication of Nudge, and against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, behavioral economics burst into the mainstream, turning Thaler and Sunstein into superstars. Thaler received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2017. Sunstein was recruited by the Obama administration to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and translate the book’s findings into policy, spawning more than 200 “nudge units” around the world.

Acclaimed author Michael Lewis fueled further interest in behavioral science with his books Moneyball and The Big Short (the latter’s screen adaptation featured a cameo by Thaler). In just a few short years, behavioral economics went from niche specialization to cultural phenomenon.

Beyond the buzz, the behavioral breakthrough also promised to usher in a full-fledged epistemic revolution, fundamentally altering the sources of knowledge deemed valuable. In particular, behavioral economists underscored the importance of psychological factors, in addition to econometric analysis, in understanding how economic institutions work.

The integration of behavioral sciences into microeconomics, which focuses on the decisions and actions of individual actors, has led to a growing recognition that consumers’ and firms’ own heuristics and biases may cause their behavior to deviate from the economic model of rationality. Nowadays, most major universities incorporate behavioral economics into their curricula, and the majority of mainstream textbooks cite behavioral approaches (even if cursorily). Moreover, by exposing the flaws in the prevailing rational-actor approach, behavioral economics has amplified other perspectives, such as Ernst Fehr’s work on “strong reciprocity,” Robert Shiller’s Narrative Economics, and Nathan Nunn’s scholarshipon cultural economics.

But the impact of the behavioral revolution outside of microeconomics remains modest. Many scholars are still skeptical about incorporating psychological insights into economics, a field that often models itself after the natural sciences, particularly physics. This skepticism has been further compounded by the widely publicized crisis of replication in psychology.

Macroeconomists, who study the aggregate functioning of economies and explore the impact of factors such as output, inflation, exchange rates, and monetary and fiscal policy, have, in particular, largely ignored the behavioral trend. Their indifference seems to reflect the belief that individual idiosyncrasies balance out, and that the quirky departures from rationality identified by behavioral economists must offset each other. A direct implication of this approach is that quantitative analyses predicated on value-maximizing behavior, such as the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that dominate policymaking, need not be improved.

The validity of these assumptions, however, remains uncertain. During banking crises such as the Great Recession of 2008 or the ongoing crisis triggered by the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the reactions of economic actors – particularly financial institutions and investors – appear to be driven by herd mentality and what John Maynard Keynes referred to as “animal spirits.”

Even without a financial panic, as Keynes notes in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, “anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be” is fraught with error and uncertainty. But, despite George Akerlof’s persistent advocacy for a behavioral macroeconomics that considers “cognitive bias, reciprocity, fairness, herding, and social status,” the real-world foundations of macroeconomic theory remain shaky, and the scope of efforts to systemize our understanding of contagion-type phenomena through tools like network analysis remains limited.

The roots of economics’ resistance to the behavioral sciences run deep. Over the past few decades, the field has acknowledged exceptions to the prevailing neoclassical paradigm, such as Elinor Ostrom’s solutions to the tragedy of the commons and Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph E. Stiglitz’s work on asymmetric information (all four won the Nobel Prize). At the same time, economists have refused to update the discipline’s core assumptions.

This state of affairs can be likened to an imperial government that claims to uphold the rule of law in its colonies. By allowing for a limited release of pressure at the periphery of the paradigm, economists have managed to prevent significant changes that might undermine the entire system. Meanwhile, the core principles of the prevailing economic model remain largely unchanged.

For economics to reflect human behavior, much less influence it, the discipline must actively engage with human psychology. But as the list of acknowledged exceptions to the neoclassical framework grows, each subsequent breakthrough becomes a potentially existential challenge to the field’s established paradigm, undermining the seductive parsimony that has been the source of its power.

By limiting their interventions to nudges, behavioral economists hoped to align themselves with the discipline. But in doing so, they delivered a ratings-conscious “made for TV” version of a revolution. As Gil Scott-Heron famously reminded us, the real thing will not be televised.

 

Project Syndicate

Criminals are using a remarkably straightforward tactic to try and direct victims to phishing links - but the bad news is that it appears to be working.

Usually, hackers would draft this elaborate email trying to convince the victims to click on a link found at the bottom of the message. These emails would either tell the recipients they urgently needed to download an antivirus or cancel a pending transaction that will leave them broke, or something similar.

However, cybersecurity researchers from Check Point Harmony Email have uncovered that some hackers are replacing all of that with a simple image. Instead of typing out a long email and risking being found out by typos or bad grammar, these attackers simply generate a promotional image - a flyer informing the recipients they’ve won a prize or are invited to participate in a some kind of competition.

Obvious scam

The picture would then be hyperlinked and would direct the victims to a phishing page where they’d give away sensitive information. Sometimes it’s just an email address, and sometimes it’s passwords, personally identifiable data that can be used in identity theft, and more.

Recipients with a keen eye would be able to quickly see through the fraud: all it takes is a hover of the mouse over the image for the hyperlink to appear. These links have nothing to do with the brands impersonated in the images, which is a clear red flag that a scam is afoot.

However, the researchers are saying the trick is working and that many people - instead of deleting the phishing email - end up clicking the image and falling prey to the attackers. 

Furthermore, by not displaying a link at all, hackers are succeeding in bypassing URL filters, one of the more popular methods of safeguarding inboxes.

To defend against such attacks, the researchers say IT teams should implement security that looks at all URLs and emulates the page behind it. They should also leverage URL protection that uses phishing techniques as an indicator of an attack, and deploy AI-based anti-phishing software capable of blocking such content across the entirety of the productivity suite.

 

TechRadar

Creating strong boards can help propel a board forward. Weak and ineffective boards hold a company back.

As a CEO, one of the most important (yet overlooked) tools in the playbook is building and leading a board of directors. Throughout my 20+ years of entrepreneurship, I’ve led four companies (including Bolster, where I’m a co-founder and CEO today) and served on eight boards. I’ve learned that strong boards can help propel a company forward and I’ve also witnessed how weak and ineffective boards can hold companies back. Mediocre or mismanaged advice, plus lack of accountability, can do long-term damage to a business as well.

Drawing from personal experience and anecdotes from dozens of Bolster’s client CEOs, here are some tried and true “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Boards.”

Habit 1: Begin with the board in mind

A lot of CEOs treat board curation as an afterthought, which means that boards tend to consist largely of who happened to be in their network at the company’s inception: investors. CEOs also tend to treat their boards as a distraction or an annoyance. Both of these lines of thought are problematic. 

Boards should be viewed as a CEO’s second team (along with their management team), as a strategic weapon that helps the company succeed and as an opportunity to bring new voices and perspectives. Research has shown the more independent and diverse a board is, the better it performs.

Habit 2: Be proactive about board recruiting

Devote as much focus to building a board as to building the executive team. This process is time-consuming and can’t be delegated to anyone else. Aspire to reach people who may feel out of reach. Asking someone to join the board is a big honor, so that ask becomes a good calling card. When recruiting, interview as many contenders as possible, don’t be afraid to reject those who aren’t a good fit and have finalists audition by attending a board meeting. Source broadly, too. Diversity is really important for many reasons; challenge any recruiter, agency or platform to surface diverse board candidates.

Habit 3: Keep your board balanced using the Rule of 1s

Whether it’s a three-person startup board or a seven-person scale-up board, it should include representation from all three director types: investors, management directors and independents. A few basic principles on board composition that work well are what I call the Rule of 1s: First, boards should include one, and only one member of the management team: the CEO. Even if co-founders or C-level managers are shareholders, don’t burn a board seat for a perspective that you have access to regularly. Second, for every new investor to the board, add one independent director, which is the biggest opportunity to introduce external perspectives. If your board gets too crowded with subsequent funding rounds, ask one or more investors to take observer seats to make space for independents. And don’t be afraid to change your board composition over time. Companies are dynamic and boards should be, too.

Habit 4: Cultivate mutual accountability and respect

While a board might seem intimidating, work past the power dynamic and push toward collaboration and mutual accountability. To ensure board members are prepared for meetings, keep commitments and leverage their networks, set the example by demonstrating preparation, consistency and reliability. By regularly delivering pre-read materials to the board several days in advance, the board will build a new habit. By soliciting feedback from board members after each meeting (and even offering them feedback), you’ll show the board that you’re listening. Over time, they’ll lean in, too.

Habit 5: Drive intellectually honest discussions

Even on the healthiest leadership teams, it can be scary to disagree with or challenge a sitting CEO (after all, they are still the one in charge!). But this power dynamic flips in a boardroom, which gives that group a unique opportunity to push and challenge business assumptions. While it may be tempting to look for board members with softer dispositions, it can be more beneficial to have tough, direct board members who aren’t afraid to express their opinions, but who are also good listeners and learners. My favorite discussions are conversations where I’m pushed to consider a different direction. It helps get more done, surfaces better ideas and increases the effectiveness of the company.

Habit 6: Lean in on strategic, lean out on tactics

Even board members who are talented operators have a hard time parachuting into any given situation and being super useful. Getting operational help requires a lot of regular engagement on a specific issue or area. But they must be strategically engaged and understand the fundamental dynamics and drivers of your business: economics, competition and ecosystem. This is an easy habit to reinforce in meetings. If board directors drift toward getting too tactically in the weeds, that’s great feedback to offer after the meeting.

Habit 7: Think outside the box

Good board members understand all the pieces on the chess table; great board members go one step further and pattern match to provide advice, history, context and anticipated consequences. This is an enormous benefit to CEOs focused on the minutiae of the day-to-day, particularly if a business operates in a trailblazing industry where many of the rules may not yet be written. As a CEO, if you’ve never seen something first hand before, it’s hard to get clarity and external perspectives, which is why it's crucial that great board members bring pattern recognition and “out-of-the-box thinking” to their role.

At the end of the day, boards are there to support and direct a company. There’s no perfect formula, but by implementing these steps with a few healthy habits, CEOs can cultivate strong, dynamic boards for their companies.

 

Entrepreneur

National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) on Sunday directed its members to withdraw their services nationwide over the sudden removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government.

NUEE in a notice signed by its acting general secretary, Dominic Igwebike, urged its members to comply with the directive and stop work from the early hours of Wednesday.

President Bola Tinubu, on Monday, in his inaugural address at Eagle Square, Abuja, declared that there would no longer be a petroleum subsidy regime as it was not sustainable.

Following the announcement, NNPCL on Wednesday directed its outlets nationwide to sell fuel between N480 and N570 per litre, an almost 200 per cent increase from the initial price below N200.

In its reaction Friday, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) announced it would embark on a nationwide protest next Wednesday if the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) refuses to reverse the new price regime in the oil sector. Nigerian Union of Journalists also threatened to join the strike action on Wednesday.

Reacting in a letter to its member on Sunday, NUEE said its decision was a sequel to the NLC emergency national executive council (NEC) meeting held on 2 June at the Labour House Abuja over the sudden removal of fuel Subsidy, which it said brought untold hardship to Nigerians as well as increased inflation in the economy.

“To this effect, all National, State and Chapter executives are requested to start the mobilisation of our members in total compliance with this directive,” the statement said.

“Please note that withdrawal of Services nationwide commences from 0.00 hours of Wednesday, June 7, 2023.

“You are encouraged to work with the leadership of State Executive Councils (SEC) of the Congress in your various states with a view to having a successful action,” the letter said.

 

PT

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was absent as the Federal Government met with a section of the labour union, yesterday.

But the Trade Union Congress at the reconvened meeting presented a list of demands in the aftermath of the petrol subsidy removal and hike in petrol price.

The demand include increase in minimum wage to cushion effects of the increase in petroleum prices, tax holiday for some categories of people as well as revert to status quo as negotiations continued.

While government side acknowledged the feasibility of the demands, they stated that they would be presented to President Bola Tinubu with immediate effect and assured that it is actively engaging with the umbrella union body, the NLC, which had recently announced a nationwide strike starting from Wednesday.

The NLC had insisted that government must revert to the previous petrol pump price.

NLC, in a statement signed by its President, Joseph Ajaero, last Wednesday, had said the new pricing template was vexatious and an ambush and warned that it may scuttle its ongoing dialogue with government.

“This is an ambush and runs against the spirit and principles of Social Dialogue which remains the best platform available for the resolution of all the issues arising out of the petroleum down-stream sector.

“This negates the spirit of allowing the operation of the free market unless the government has as usual usurped, captured or become Market forces.

“It is, therefore, unacceptable and we seriously condemn it. Good faith negotiation is key to reaching agreement. What the government has done is like holding a gun to the head of Nigerian people and bring undue pressure on the leaders thus undermine the dialogue.”

At yesterday’s parley, spokesman for the government’s delegation, Dele Alake, told State House Correspondents that most of the demands were not impracticable and would be tabled before the president whose decisions would be reverted to labour leaders at the next round of negotiations fixed for today.

Asked if the other demand by Labour that the new pump price of petrol be reversed pending conclusion of negotiations, Alake said the decision would likely be taken when the meeting reconvene.

On NLC’s absence, Alake said maybe it was unable to finalise with its NEC before the meeting.

Nonetheless, negotiations would continue with all labour unions and stakeholders, he said.

Alake told reporters: “We said we were going to reconvene today to keep the engagement on in order to diffuse the tension in the land as a result of the withdrawal of subsidy, which is a reality.

“Now, we are very happy to announced to Nigerians that this engagement has been very productive.

On whether the team is also negotiating with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Alake said they were making efforts to reach the congress..

“No. We are not. but we are making efforts to reach NLC. We all agreed that we are going to meet here but again, in this game there are dynamics. Sometimes, they could be meeting with their own executives and not able to meet with us, or they could want to postpone or they have not actually articulated their list of demands as the TUC.

“But we cannot second guess why they are not here. But efforts are being made to reach them, we are not isolating them at all.”

On whether the meeting discussed the claim by one of Tinubu’s spokesmen, Bayo Onanuga’s claim that NLC was working for the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the just-concluded elections, Peter Obi, Alake declared: “No not at all. It has no relevance to the discussion on the concrete terms of the welfare of the workers. Our discussion was majorly on the welfare of workers, how to cushion the impact of this subsidy removal on workers - that’s all. Not on any political partisanship.”

TUC president, Festus Osifo, told journalists after the parley that while some progress has been made in the negotiations, the union would still brief its members ahead of today’s meeting.

He declined to give a full list of the demands presented to government on the grounds that the union wants to continue negotiating in good faith, as government delegation also did not reveal details of its own side of the meeting.

Asked why NLC was not at the meeting, he said: “Because when you call an organ meeting and organ takes a life of its own, the decision of your organ is what you are expected to implement. All of us here today are agents of NEC of TUC, the NEC of TUC took a decision and that decision is what we’re trying to push through.”

 

Sun

Nigeria's state oil firm NNPC Ltd is winding down crude swap contracts with traders and will pay cash for gasoline imports, its chief executive told Reuters, adding that private companies could begin importing petrol as soon as this month.

The move is part of new Nigerian President Bola Tinubu's plans to deregulate the gasoline market and reduce the burden on government finances.

Tinubu has already scrapped a costly fuel subsidy, effective from last Tuesday, a decision which tripled petrol prices, angering labour unions who have called for a strike starting on Wednesday if the decision is not reversed.

NNPC has been importing gasoline from consortiums of foreign and local trading firms and repaying them with crude oil via what are known as Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) contracts since 2016 because it does not have enough cash to pay for the purchases, data and trading sources said.

"In the last four months we practically terminated all DSDP contracts. And we now have an arm's-length process where we can pay cash for the imports," Kyari told Reuters in an interview late on Saturday.

This is the first time NNPC has said it is terminating crude swap contracts. By importing less gasoline as private companies import the bulk, NNPC will be able to pay for its purchases in cash, Kyari said.

Nigeria is Africa's biggest crude producer but imports most of its refined products after running down its refineries.

A significant drop in oil production last year coupled with high global fuel prices due to the war in Ukraine pushed NNPC's debt to traders higher. It owed the consortiums about $2 billion, a September 2022 NNPC report to the Federation Account Allocation Committee shows.

An industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said NNPC was still allocating crude for fuel swaps for July loading, though less than in previous months. In its report detailing March crude oil loadings, NNPC also allocated crude to the swap contracts held by the consortiums.

Kyari said NNPC's monopoly on gasoline supplies was ending and private firms could start importing as early as this month.

Kyari said Nigeria's total crude and condensate output was at 1.56 million barrels a day (bpd) as of Friday. Nigeria has struggled to meet its OPEC oil quota of 1.742 million bpd due to grand oil theft and illegal refining.

That has raised doubts on whether Nigeria can meet supplies for the 650,000 bpd newly commissioned Dangote Refinery. NNPC has a contract to supply 300,000 bpd to the refinery.

 

Reuters

Oil advanced at the week’s open after Saudi Arabia said it will make an extra 1 million barrel-a-day supply cut in July, taking its production to the lowest level for several years following a slide in prices.

West Texas Intermediate futures jumped almost 5% early in the session before paring gains to trade under $73 a barrel while global benchmark Brent changed hands at about $77. Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman said he “will do whatever is necessary to bring stability to this market” following a tense OPEC+ meeting over the weekend.

“The voluntary cut, in my view, is notable more for downside protection” rather than to spur a sustained rally, said Vivek Dhar, director of mining and energy commodities research at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Markets could return to focus on the broader outlook of macroeconomic weakness, he said.

Oil in New York tumbled 11% last month as demand concerns weighed on the outlook, especially in China. Most market watchers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. had expected OPEC+ to keep output unchanged, and the rest of the 23-nation coalition offered no additional action.

That’s left Saudi Arabia sacrificing further market share to stabilize the market. While others in the group pledged to maintain their existing cuts until the end of 2024, Russia made no commitment to curb output further and the United Arab Emirates secured a higher production quota for next year.

The OPEC+ deal came after a long dispute with African members over how their cuts are measured, which delayed the start of the meeting by several hours. Next month’s additional cut could be extended, but the Saudis will keep the market “in suspense” about whether this will happen, Abdulaziz said.

The minister has repeatedly sought to hurt bearish oil speculators, warning them to “watch out” in the buildup to Sunday’s meeting.

“Saudi Arabia would ideally want prices to be above $80 a barrel, and it is now trading around $77 a barrel,” said Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights, on Bloomberg TV, referring to Brent. If the health of the global economy falters, the short sellers “will be back in no time,” she said.

 

Bloomberg