Nigeria's central bank governor optimistic over $8.1 bln MTN transfer dispute

ABUJA, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said on Tuesday he was optimistic the bank would resolve a dispute linked to allegations that South African telecom firm MTN moved funds out of the country illegally.

The bank month ordered MTN and its banks to bring $8.134 billion back into the country that MTN allegedly had sent abroad in breach of foreign exchange regulations. 

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Nigeria Needs 9,000 Weather Stations, Says NiMet

As a result of Nigeria’s huge landmass, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has said that to effectively cover the entire country, it will need not less than 9,000 weather stations.

This comes as the European Commission has decided to allocate €85 million for climate service development in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

The Director General of NiMet, Prof. Sani Mashi, disclosed this in Abuja during the visit of the Secretary General of World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Prof. Peterri Taalas, to Nigeria to sign Host Country Agreement with the country.

According to Mashi, “Nigeria needs about 9,000 weather stations to effectively cover the entire country because of the huge landmass. Though I met 54 weather stations upon assumption of office over a year ago, we have been able to grow that number to over 100 stations and we are currently targeting 200 stations before 2018 ends and 1,000 station in four years.”

Speaking further, he revealed that the agency intends to establish forecast offices in Kaduna and Enugu airports, adding that: “Ethiopian Airlines goes to Kaduna now and Turkish Airline  goes to Enugu now.

“Now that they are international airports,  it means we must raise the standard of the airports to start rendering forecast services. It is standard practice for an international airport to have forecast office and that is what we are trying to do.”

Mashi stated that the agency was also targeting to generate about N20 billion annually from commercial meteorological services, noting that the agency has the capacity to remit revenue to the federal government.

He stressed that most Nigerians have telephones and most of them use it to buy songs.

“If we can market our products to be selling meteorological information through phones and the product becomes so attractive, we can sell it to Nigerians and we have over 100 million Nigerians that have access to telephone.

“So even if it is half of the 100 million people we get everyday, we will get one naira from subscribers for selling meteorological services and it means everyday, we can have N50 million and in a month, we can have N1.5 billion and in a year, we can have about N20 billion which is about 10 times the annual budget of the Agency.

“This means that through this simple innovative merger, we can end up having so much money than what we need to run the agency.

“It means we can deploy any kind of sophisticated system and even the federal government will start getting benefit because we will be remitting revenue to the federal government,” he said.

Similarly, the Secretary General, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Prof. Peterri Taalas, said: “The European Commission has decided to allocate €85 million for climate service development in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries and they have started building new partnership with the World Bank and the Green Climate Fund to get up to $2 billion investment portfolio for meteorological services in Africa.”

According to him, “What we have started seeing in the atmosphere is quite striking. At the moment, Nigeria is suffering because of flooding and there have been two tropical cyclones in USA called Hurricane Florence which is causing lots of damage and the other one, Manghut in Phillipines and now it is hitting China and Hong Kong.”

Prof. Taalas attributed the flooding witnessed in some states in Nigeria to poor meteorological data, adding that the rise in global temperature shows that there is need for stronger meteorological and hydrological services and that the European Commission in partnership with the World bank has decided to allocate $2 billion for meteorological services in Africa.

“Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in the amount of natural disasters and there has been an increase in the storms and events leading to flooding.

“We have more humidity in the atmosphere which is giving more power to rainfall events and also flooding as seen now in Nigeria.Temperature has risen and we have exceeded 1.1degree warming and sea level rise is 26 centimetres so far.

“This is demonstrating that there is need for a stronger national meteorological services and stronger WMO and that is why we have the feeling that there is more demand for WMO expertise and demand for national expertise of meteorological services.”

He said: “Unfortunately, Africa is the most sensitive when it comes to natural disasters and impacts of climate change and it is partly related to the variation of rainfall amounts and flooding and many African countries are highly dependent on agriculture and it is a major employment issue in many countries.

“We are investing in instrument dealing with disaster reduction and we have about €50 million and the aim to reach €100 million very soon.”

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Binge Drinking Affects Male And Female Brains Differently

In a study with mice, researchers found repeated binge drinking produced different responses in the brains of males versus females. Of more than a hundred genes regulated by binge drinking, only 14 were regulated in both sexes.

The findings are said to have implications for the treatment of alcohol use disorder, estimated to affect 16 million people in the United States.

The study titled "Binge Ethanol Drinking Produces Sexually Divergent and Distinct Changes in Nucleus Accumbens Signaling Cascades and Pathways in Adult C57BL/6J Mice" was published in Frontiers in Genetics on Sept. 10.

"We show that repeated binge drinking significantly alters molecular pathways in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain linked to addiction," explained Deborah Finn, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University.

She and her research team decided to examine how repeated binge drinking affected the brains of mice and if there were differences between male and female mice. They looked at the genes that were activated in the nucleus accumbens, specifically 384 genes which were previously identified as important in addiction and mood disorders. 

"Of a total of 106 genes regulated by binge drinking, only 14 were regulated in both males and females, representing common targets to binge drinking. Interestingly, only 4 of these 14 genes were regulated in the same direction and the top 30 genes regulated by binge drinking in each sex differed markedly," Finn revealed.

As per the findings, genes associated with hormone signaling and immune system function were affected by repeated binge drinking in the female brains. Meanwhile, genes associated with nerve signaling were found to be a "central target" in the male brains.

Earlier this year, a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed nearly 20 percent of adults in the U.S. participate in binge drinking. If left uncontrolled over a long period, the practice can be considered an early warning sign for alcohol dependence. Binge drinking can eventually lead to a high tolerance for alcohol, which also brings complications.

The new findings may be worth considering when providing treatment to someone diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, the authors say. Therapies and interventions have the potential to be more effective if they were tailored based on whether the patient is male or female.

"We have shown that pharmacologically manipulating a pathway in both sexes that only was affected by binge drinking in males did not decrease binge drinking in females; binge drinking was only decreased in males," Finn said.

"A consideration of sex is critical in the development of potential pharmacological therapies for the treatment of alcohol use disorder," she added.

In further studies, the research team hoped to explore and determine if these gene expression changes also correspond to behavioral and/or physiological differences.

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Innovative combination of hard and soft materials improves adhesion to rough surfaces

Scientists have developed a new adhesive structure that improves adhesion, even to rough surface. Adhesion is involved whenever industrial components are moved without leaving any residues behind. But the surfaces of these objects are never completely smooth. Even those surfaces that appear smooth to the human eye tend to be rough when observed under a microscope. Scientists at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials have developed a new adhesive structure ensuring adhesion, even to these types of rough surfaces. They determined that the combination of hard and soft materials adheres significantly better to rough surfaces compared to structures produced from only a single soft material.

As a result, industrial handling processes can be improved and made safer. Additionally, the materials are promising for on-skin applications such as self-adhesive wound closures or "wearables—networked computers that can be applied directly to the skin. The scientists presented their findings in Applied Materials & Interfaces.

As part of their investigations, the research scientists developed two-millimeter pillars as a model system and brought these into contact with rough surfaces. The used the force required to peel the pillar away again as the measure of adhesion. "The pillars that we used were made of a hard material, but their ends had a layer of soft plastic. In order to peel away this pillar, we needed to apply a force that was five times greater compared to peeling away a pillar composed entirely of the soft material. Therefore, it clearly adheres better," explains René Hensel, the Deputy Head of the Functional Microstructures program division.

The research scientists established that the quality of adhesion corresponds to the softness and thinness of the coating applied to the ends of the pillars. The softer the material, the better its ability to adapt to rough surfaces. The fact that adhesive strength correlates to how thin the coating is goes hand in hand with the delayed formation of cracks during contact: The adhesive structure detaches from the surface whenever a crack forms. These cracks take longer to form due to reduced stress peaks. As a result, cracks and detachment only occur under higher loads. "Surprisingly, the thinner the coating is, the more pronounced this phenomenon," adds Hensel. Adhesion is also affected by the shape—how two materials of varying hardness are combined. A rounded boundary layer between both materials improves adhesion. This also appears to affect the formation of cracks.

The thickness of the soft coating should simultaneously match the degree of roughness: "The surface of woodchip wallpaper is far rougher than skin, for instance, so in order for something to adhere to woodchip wallpaper, a much thicker soft coating must be selected compared to adhesion to skin," says Hensel. The research scientists are currently very interested in adhesion to skin. This is central to future research as it appears to play a particularly important role in the development of "wearables" as well as for treating wounds.

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When anti-waste campaigns backfire

Waste has become a serious problem in Western societies. About a third of the food produced in countries such as the United Kingdom Australia and the United States is wasted. About 40% is wasted by consumers, who buy too much, forget what's in their refrigerator or cupboards, or throw away food that is past its expiration date yet perfectly edible.

Immense amounts of food is discarded by stores or restaurants because they weren't sold before the official selling date, or for esthetic reasons – vegetables or fruit that have unusual shapes or are too big or too small, or food packages that are distorted… Waste also occurs with electronic goods that are discarded even though they work just fine and millions of tons of usable paper that are thrown away every year.

Blaming consumers doesn't work

To reduce waste, most governments run communication campaigns. Many try to make consumers feel guilty by telling them how much people like them waste (food, paper, water…). For instance, campaigns in the UK state that "Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food as the entire food production of sub-Saharan Africa", or that "50% of the total amount of food that is thrown away comes from the homes". In the United States, consumers are told that "Letting the water run while you shave wastes 32 of these" accompanied by the image of a bottle of water. The idea is that once people realise how much they waste, they will stop.

Unfortunately, research has shown that when people are told that people like them misbehave, this makes them act worse, not better. In a June 2018 study, we confirm this backfiring effect in a series of studies on waste: indeed, people are ready to waste even more (and do so), when they are told that people like them waste food or paper. So the messages of the type "consumers waste a lot" backfire and lead to more waste.

There are better ways

The objective of our study was to develop and test anti-waste messages that would not backfire. We followed two ideas. First, we looked at what happens when instead of blaming consumers, stores or restaurants take responsibility for waste and implicitly ask consumers for help. So we tried messages of the type "stores waste a lot", "restaurants waste lots of food", "schools waste lots of paper". We found that these messages worked much better: consumers wasted less after being exposed to these messages. Even better, the image of the stores or restaurants using these messages improved. Consumers were ready to help the stores and saw them more favorably.

The second idea was to reassure people that avoiding waste was easy. Indeed, we found that backfiring effects of anti-waste messages happened because of difficulty. When consumer read that everyone wastes a lot, they think that it must be difficult to cut waste – so they don't even try. We decided to test whether taking this concern away would work. We used the classic message, "consumers waste a lot", but added a new tag: "it is easy to stop wasting". This worked well: people who saw this additional tag wasted less.

These are encouraging results, because they show that with a few word changes, anti-waste campaigns could be improved so that they achieve their objective: reduce consumer waste.

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Suicide blast in Afghanistan kills at least 25

A suicide bomber in Afghanistan killed at least 25 people at a gathering on Tuesday on the highway between the eastern city of Jalalabad and the main border crossing into neighbouring Pakistan, officials said.

The blast, less than a week after a suicide attack killed more than 20 people in the capital, Kabul, came as violence has flared across the nation, with heavy fighting in northern provinces.

Officials have warned violence is likely to intensify ahead of parliamentary elections next month and a presidential election in April.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Tuesday's attack, although the Taliban issued a statement denying involvement.

At least 25 bodies were taken to hospitals but the final total was unclear and could rise, said Inamullah Miakhel, a spokesman for the provincial health department.

Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the Nangarhar provincial council, said at least 56 bodies were taken to hospital, with 43 more wounded.

The violence has dampened hopes of peace talks to end Afghanistan's 17-year conflict but two Taliban officials on Tuesday told Reuters the movement was preparing for another meeting with US officials following one in July.

Nangarhar, one of the main strongholds of Daesh terror group since early 2015, has been one of the most volatile regions this year, with a string of suicide bombings and attacks on its capital, Jalalabad.

Officials and elders said Tuesday's attack targeted a gathering to protest against a police commander, adding that hundreds of people were present when the blast happened.

The blast dispersed the crowd, but more people gathered after the explosion to continue the protest.

Qaderi said rescue efforts were being hampered by reports of another suicide bomber in the area, making police and emergency services cautious about approaching the scene.

The explosion followed a series of smaller blasts on Tuesday that targeted schools in Jalalabad and surrounding districts, killing at least one person and wounding three.

In the northern province of Sar-e Pul, hundreds of armed men assembled to boost the city's defences as security forces fought to push the Taliban back from the city centre, said Zabihullah Amani, the provincial governor's spokesman.

There were no reports of US strikes in Sar-e Pul on Tuesday but there were three strikes on Monday, a spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan said in an emailed statement.

Two air strikes in Baghlan province on Tuesday followed six the day before and American advisers were on the ground supporting Afghan troops, the spokesman added.

Ghulam Mohammad Balkhi, deputy spokesman for the Afghan army's 209 Corps, said at least 30 Taliban fighters were killed in the joint operation. 

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World hunger on the rise for a third year

Hunger levels have been rising for three years in a row, states a new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. In 2017, Africa and South America saw the highest increase.

One in nine people in the world is affected by hunger. That is what the latest report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has found. Heavy droughts and conflict are some of the main drivers behind the rise. If the trend continues, the FAO warns, the world will fall far short of achieving the UN's 2030 goal of eradicating hunger.

The report points out that a few advances have been made. Stunting levels in children have for instance decreased and the practice of exclusive breastfeeding has risen in Africa and Asia, while they have declined in North America. DW spoke to Cindy Holleman, a senior economist at the FAO about the report.

DW: In your report,you say that the number of hungry people in the world is rising. But how serious is the situation in Africa?

Cindy Holleman: The key finding that's coming out this year is that indeed world hunger globally is rising for the third year in a row. And this is very worrying because it basically sets us back to the levels of hunger for almost nearly a decade ago. So it is quite an alarming situation. Hunger is continuing to rise especially in Africa. We also see this in South America and a stagnation of hunger in Asia. But Africa keeps coming out on top in terms of the most vulnerable and also the highest rises in terms of hunger.

Why is a situation not changing in Africa?

There are three reasons that are driving the rise in hunger. The first is a conflict which is contributing to the rise in hunger. The second reason is the economic slowdown in some countries. And the third is the increasing climate variability and extremes we see. In the Horn of Africa and other countries, you have both the fact happening. However, the underlying problem with hunger and why we see so much hunger is also poverty, income inequalities and the marginalization of populations. But what's new is we're seeing increasing climate variability and Africa has been hard hit in the last 10 years especially with climate variability and extremes.

Which are the most affected countries in Africa?

If we focus on climate variability in extremes, we see that there is there are a few regions that have been hard hit from this. The El Nino [weather phenomenon] of 2015 and 2016 hit many parts of Africa with very extreme droughts. Southern Africa is a good example. It's an area that's not really affected by conflict like the Horn of Africa but they experience three consecutive years of drought in 2015, 2016 and 2017. It was the worst drought in 35 years and resulted in a problem of the availability of cereals which is quite significant. There was a cereal deficit of almost 8 million tons (8 billion kilograms) in 2016. And then you had rising food prices and as a result, SADC (Southern African Development Community) called out a regional drought emergency which affected 26 million people. But also we see in the Horn of Africa,conflict combined with climate variability. When you have the two together the severity of the situation is quite extreme.

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Turkey pleads for Idlib accord as displaced people mass

fresh Russian bombardments in northwestern Syria have sent tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes in recent days, prompting a Turkish outcry over an anticipated assault and an inevitable new wave of refugees on its border.

UN regional coordinator for Syria Panos Moumtzis on Tuesday voiced concern over an uptick in air strikes and shelling that has sent more than 30,000 people fleeing, mainly to locations within the contested province of Idlib. He said strikes on multiple healthcare facilities have compounded the crisis.

“Our fear as humanitarians is the worst may be ahead of us. The safety and protection of some 2.9 million civilians residing in Idlib and surrounding areas is at risk,” said Moumtzis.

Roughly half of Idlib’s population are people who have already been displaced from other parts of the country or the province.

“Idlib is the last exit before the toll,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, warning an assault for the neighboring province would have disastrous consequences.

He called instead for an “international counterterrorism operation” in cooperation with Turkish-backed opposition factions to weed out groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that have been blacklisted by the international community.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff over the weekend raised the prospect of American counterterrorism operations in Idlib, though with the caveat he was “not talking about cooperating, but about using US capabilities to spot the terrorists … and take them out.”

Erdogan did not directly warn of a new wave of refugees to Europe in his op-ed, but the prospect is a common theme in the state-dominated press. In recent days, Turkey’s Daily Sabah published an infographic mapping “possible routes out of Idlib to Europe.”

Camps on the border

On the ground in Idlib, Aleppo Media Center photographer Zein al-Rifai has been documenting new arrivals to northern border camps.

“As the Russian strikes have intensified over the past 10 days, there’s been a major displacement from southern Idlib and northern Hama (province) toward the Syrian-Turkish border. The numbers of IDPs aren’t clear, but the influx of people is continuing with the bombing,” he told Asia Times.

Only a “limited number” of people have sought shelter in Turkish-held areas in neighboring Aleppo province, which Ankara has touted as bastions of stability.

The Turkish border has meanwhile been closed since late 2015.

“Getting smuggled across is almost impossible, and there have been several cases of displaced people being shot dead while trying to enter Turkey illegally,” Rifai said.

Ankara is seeking to avoid a repeat of 2014, when it was forced to allow in tens of thousands of desperate refugees who massed against its border fence after fleeing Islamic State advances.

Astana unravels

For Ankara, Idlib was meant to remain a de-escalation zone – agreed with its Astana partners Iran and Russia nearly one year ago and guaranteed by 12 Turkish military observation points.

But last week’s Tehran summit between the Astana partners failed to preserve the status quo, with Russian President Vladimir Putin insisting his allies in Damascus had the right to retake their national territory.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose forces and proxies have remained on the sidelines in Idlib to avoid alienating Turkey, nonetheless acquiesced to Russia, saying that countering terrorism in the province was “unavoidable.”

Turkish columnist and Middle East expert Cengiz Candar suggests in Al-Monitor that Erdogan may be out of options to prevent the unavoidable.

“Perhaps Putin has come to the conclusion that the gap between Turkey and the West has reached an unbridgeable distance, and that he can disregard Ankara’s wishes regarding Idlib because he sees that Turkey has nowhere to go in addition to being ever-more dependent on Russia and Iran for energy,” he said.

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Japan earthquake: Death toll rises after devastating tremor

The death toll in the magnitude 6.7 earthquake that struck Japan on Thursday has risen to 39, the country's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

Two people remain missing, and at least 641 people were injured, the agency said Sunday. Evacuation centers are still holding 2,544 people.

The quake is the latest in a string of natural disasters that have hit Japan recently, including deadly floods, typhoons, earthquakes, landslides and heatwaves.

The number of confirmed dead and injured in the quake on the northern island of Hokkaido has risen steadily from the nine reported Friday.

Lasting almost a minute, powerful tremors jolted people from their beds early Thursday, collapsing roads and causing landslides that buried homes and other buildings.

Near the epicenter, landslides wiped out houses in the tiny town of Atsuma, home to 40 residents.

Almost 3 million households lost power initially, the Hokkaido Electric Power Company said. Almost half had power restored Friday.

Photos from Sapporo, Hokkaido's main city on the western part of the island, showed huge cracks in the street and buried houses.

This picture shows an aerial view of houses damaged by a landslide in Atsuma, Hokkaido, on September 6, 2018, after an earthquake hit the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

As many as 40,000 people, including 22,000 troops from the country's Self Defense Forces, have been involved in the rescue efforts.

Thursday's earthquake comes as much of Japan is still dealing with the effects of Typhoon Jebi, the strongest such storm to hit the Japanese mainland in 25 years.

High winds smashed a tanker into a bridge, forcing one of the country's largest airports to close and leaving at least 10 people dead.

On Japan's main island of Honshu, nine cities and towns issued compulsory evacuation orders. A further 53 issued non-compulsory evacuation orders.

Before it made landfall, the storm had sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour (87 mph) and gusts of 165 kilometers per hour (102 mph), the equivalent of a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane.

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Media: Germany considers an attack on Syria

The German Defense Ministry is considering a possibility to participate in the United States, Britain and France attacks on Syria in case of chemical weapons use there, wrote the tabloid Bild on Monday, September 10.

The report noted that the head of the department Ursula von der Leyen gave orders to look into the possibility of Germany's participation  in strikes against the Syrian government forces in case of the use of chemical weapons.

"The Tornado aicraft of the Bundeswehr could perform air strikes against the military infrastructure side by side with the U.S., Britain, France and probably other new allies," writes Bild.

The publication emphasizes that Germany’s participation in the operation can play a "historical" role and lead to the first direct confrontation with Russia.

At the same time, as Bild points out, even if the Defense Ministry works on these plans, the Chancellor makes the final decision. In the event when Germany needs to join this operation promptly, due to lack of time, the parliament will be asked already after the fact.

Earlier reports stated that the U.S. and its allies are going to respond quickly if Syrian authorities used chemical weapons.

 Russia’s Ministry of Defense warned about staged provocations with the use of chemical weapons in Syria. On Sunday, September 9, the Russian military accused the US of using prohibited phosphorous ammunition in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. The Pentagon denied the accusations.

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