Newscast - Africa

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has announced new US sanctions targeting networks accused of supplying military technology for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Yellen says the measures would target 14 individuals and 28 entities.
Yellen declined to provide details of the identity or location of the alleged network or the technologies involved but said a more detailed announcement would be made later on Monday.
The US has already rolled out a raft of sanctions against Russia in response to its war in Ukraine, including measures focusing on Russian military suppliers and US-based manufacturers of components used by Moscow in its military hardware.

Mozambique has started exporting liquefied natural gas for the first time, in a move the country’s President Filipe Nyusi has described as historic.
The gas has been produced at an off-shore plant run by Italian energy firm Eni, but British oil giant BP has the purchasing rights over it.
Mozambique hopes to become one of the world's biggest exporters of natural gas, following its discovery in the northern Cabo Delgado province in 2010.
The government believes the discovery of gas will boost the economy, but Mr. Nyusi says Mozambique would continue to focus on traditional activities such as agriculture, fishing, and tourism, to achieve development.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has accused Western countries of reprehensible double standards when it comes to commitments to stop climate change.
Mr. Museveni highlighted the partial dismantling of a wind farm in Germany to make way for the expansion of a coal mine.
He says the move made a mockery of Western commitments towards climate targets.
The Ugandan leader also said European countries were happy to take Africa's resources for their own energy needs but were against the development of fossil fuel projects which were for the benefit of Africans.

The Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Faruk Yahaya has assured the nation, that the Nigerian Army will not fail Nigerians in delivering on its constitutional mandate to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation, as well as provide support to civil authority in mitigating threats to national security.
Gen Yahaya says that it is only through training that troops could internalise, practice and perfect the employment of skills and competences, along with requisite equipment, communication and other enablers for the effective conduct of operations and discharge of the constitutional mandate of the NA.
Gen Yahaya urged the troops to put lessons learnt from the exercise into practice in their respective formations and units, as they tackle threats to national security.

The head of Nigeria's electoral commission, Mahmood Yakuba, says that he's worried about attacks intensifying as the country prepares for February's upcoming presidential elections.
There are concerns that next year’s tightly contested race could be more turbulent than usual, with Mr. Yakuba adding that the commission had already tracked 50 attacks related to the polls in the first month of campaigning alone.
Last month, the US embassy evacuated all non-essential staff from Abuja, citing an elevated risk of a terror attack in the capital.

The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, says Nigeria must work for all its citizens.
Obi noted that Nigerians must be able to dwell securely and safely irrespective of where they live.
He says Nigeria works for a small minority of people; Nigeria must work for ALL Nigerians. Nigerians must be able to dwell securely and in safety wherever they live.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has pledged to protect Nigerians in the unbanked, underserved, and rural areas as it plans to redesign the naira.
The apex bank says that it had been collaborating with relevant agencies and other stakeholders in the financial system to ensure that vulnerable citizens were not disenfranchised.
The bank says that some progress had been as there had been increased currency deposits across banks and other financial institutions.

European countries are making plans to ramp up gas importation from Nigeria to the tune of 22 million tons per year, providing an opportunity for Africa’s most populous nation to earn revenues.
A document from the Global Gas Monitor says Africa was the next gas hub for European countries.
The document put Nigeria as the country attracting the biggest European interest after Algeria (29 million tons).
Apart from Nigeria and Algeria, the report identified eight other African countries to also benefit from the plan including Mauritania, 10 million tons; Mozambique, 19 million tons; Democratic Republic of Congo, 1.2million tons; and Tanzania, 4 million tons.

The Central Bank of Nigeria revealed that Nigeria’s educational sector suffered massive capital flight during the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The CBN’s balance of payment statistics, Nigerians have spent a hefty sum of $3.5bn on foreign education in the past seven years (June 2015 to August 2022).
Data gathered from the CBN from the amount spent on educational services under the sectoral utilization for transactions valid for foreign exchange, a sum of $375.99 million was released by the apex bank between June 2015 and December 2015,
Further analysis of the data revealed that a total of $269.1 million was released in 2016.

The most senior US general estimates that around 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured in the war in Ukraine.
Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that around 40,000 civilians had died after being caught up in the conflict.
He says that signs Kyiv were willing to re-enter talks with Moscow offered a window for negotiations.
Ukraine has signaled a willingness to hold some discussions with Moscow after President Volodymyr Zelensky dropped a demand that his opposite number, Vladimir Putin, must be removed from power before negotiations could resume.
Gen Milley added that for any talks to be successful, both Russia and Ukraine would have to reach a mutual recognition that a wartime victory is maybe not achievable through military means, and therefore you need to turn to other means.