COGO Int'l News

 Gunmen attacked a local mining site in central Nigeria, killing “many security personnel” and abducting some workers including four Chinese nationals, authorities said on Thursday. The State Commissioner for Internal Security Emmanuel Umar said security forces had responded to a distress call on Wednesday after gunmen invaded a mining site at Ajata Aboki village in Niger state’s Shiroro area. In a statement made, Umar said “Consequently, the joint security team engaged the terrorists and there were yet to be determined number of casualties from both sides,”  “However, a yet to be ascertained number of workers in the mining site, including four Chinese nationals, were reported to have been abducted.” Authorities did not disclose the name of the company, the latest affected in attacks targeting foreigners over the years in Nigeria though not as frequent as they used to be. Three Chinese nationals were abducted in an attack in Niger state earlier this year while working at a hyd...

  There was confusion in the early hours on Tuesday, when fire gutted a room in a warehouse, located at 118 Broad Street, Lagos Island. According to eyewitness the incident occurred at about 8am with several items, mostly shoes burnt to ashes. Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, who confirmed the incident said no casualty recorded.

  Russia is believed to be in debt for the first time since 1998  after missing a key deadline. Russia has the money to make a $100m payment, which was due on Sunday, but sanctions made it impossible to get the sum to international creditors. The country had been determined to avoid the default, which is a major blow to the nation's prestige. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, said "statements of a default were absolutely unjustified". He added that an intermediary bank had withheld the money and that the reserves were blocked "unlawfully". The White House said that Russia had defaulted on paying yields on its international bonds, crediting sanctions for effectively cutting Russia off from the global financial system. Russia's finance minister called the situation "a farce" and said the situation is not expected to have short-term impact. This is because Russia does not need to raise money internationally as it is reaping revenue from high-priced ...

The Federal Government has threatened to sanction any fuel stations or depot selling above the stipulated approved pump price of of petrol also know as Premium Motor Spirit (PMS). The threat followed the persistent fuel scarcity being witnessed in the FCT and its environs as well as in other parts of the country. Mr Farouk Ahmed, Authority Chief Executive, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) gave the warning on Monday during an inspection on fuel stations in Abuja. The exercise was carried out in with some top officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Petroleum Pipeline and Marketing Company (PPMC) and the NMDPRA. He said the inspection is focused at taking action to enforce the regulations given to the oil marketing companies, particularly those selling over the official price of N148 kobo. He explained that the pump price of PMS was still N165 per litre and remained sacrosanct, adding that nothing had changed and govern...

Lil Tjay, 21, was shot in Edgewater, New Jersey on June 22. The New York rapper suffered multiple gun shot wounds in an attempted robbery last Wednesday. The suspect, Mohamed Konate, was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree attempted murder. The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office shared a tweet that day claiming the incident "does not appear to be [a] random act." They also added that one victim was in good condition, while another – believed to be Tjay – was "upgraded from critical to stable condition." TMZ reported Thursday that the rapper was in the hospital unconscious: "We're told he's scheduled for a CAT Scan and outside of moving his legs yesterday, he's made no other bodily movements." An unsubstantiated post shared over the weekend on both Twitter and Instagram claims that Tjay "will be paralyzed for the rest of his life" and that "he also has only a 15% chance to survive the attack." The claims...

The Nigerian government on Wednesday approved a proposal for the construction of a gas pipeline connecting Nigeria and Morocco. Africa's gas reserves have come under consistent survey. Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as the European Union seeks replacements to its gas supplies from Russia. A gas pipeline passing through a community in southern Nigeria Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Timipre Sylva announced on Wednesday that the federal government had given "its approval for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to enter into an agreement with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for the construction" of this gas pipeline. The minister said the project was still "at the initial technical design stage", which should determine its cost. "It is at this point that we will talk about financing," he said. The pipeline would be an extension of a gas pipeline that has been carrying gas from southern Nigeria to...