WORLD

The record government expenditure of 20.5 trillion naira ($47.3 billion) budget, passed by the Senate on Dec. 28, aims to end the west African nation's security woes during the next fiscal year.

Two major oil spills took place in 2021, with 250 barrels spilled into inland waters and over 500 barrels spilled on land, swamps, shorelines, and open sea.

Under UK's Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) program teachers who are qualified in South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria can straight away head towards UK classrooms without further training from February next year.

"When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds. Quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well," U.S. President Biden said.

Since the U.S. still views China as its main long-term challenger, Chinese benevolence in Africa still looms large over Biden's policy.

Airtel Africa, Nigeria's third largest telecom operator with 27.57 percent market share, emerged as the sole bidder for a 5G high-speed spectrum license in the second licensing round.

Governors from 36 provincial states charged the federal government with giving up its duty to address the security challenges and poverty in the country.

Illegal mining, rampant corruption, extortion and violence linked to the extraction of diamonds, coal, gold and chromite are costing the industry billions each year.

As Nigerians have proved good at English language skills, it is a lot easier for them to seek new green pastures in rich countries.

For the ANC, Ramaphosa, who is facing a parliamentary inquiry on allegations of theft of millions of dollars, is seen as the safe bet to improve its electoral chances.

Nigerians have earned notoriety in the narcotic trade and in large-scale peddling rackets that stretch from Europe to India.

Biden, facing dwarfing popularity, found Africa good to champion the cause of War on Terror against the Islamic State (IS) ahead of elections in the country which will determine who controls the Congress.

If South Africa is added to the greylist, it will take years to get out of the devastating impact on the economy. The country was placed on a one-year observation period, which ended in October.

Currently, state-owned Eskom enjoys a near monopoly in power generation.

Climate change will cost between six percent and 30 percent of GDP by 2050 in Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, according to experts.

Though South Africa and Nigeria downplayed the U.S. warning of a possible terrorist attack, other Western nations like Britain, Canada and Australia took the threat seriously and repeated the warnings.

The slow pace in achieving the target has forced the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to replace high-value currency notes, starting Dec. 15, to make more Nigerians banked.

Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, in Egypt in November, South Africa is betting big on the hydrogen economy with world’s largest green ammonia project under the South African Hydrogen Society Roadmap (HSRM), announced by the government in February 2022.