World leaders pay tribute to Gorbachev, last rare leader of USSR, who dies at 91 – Newstrends
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World leaders pay tribute to Gorbachev, last rare leader of USSR, who dies at 91

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World leaders have paid tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who oversaw the collapse of the USSR and lifted the Iron Curtain, marking a pivotal turning point in world history.

Gorbachev, Nobel prize winner, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91, hospital officials in Moscow said.

The passing of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union and for many the man who restored democracy to then-communist-ruled European nations, was mourned Wednesday as the loss of a leader who changed the world and for a time gave hope for peace among the superpowers.

Here are some of the reactions to his death from across the world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin expressed his “deep sympathies” over Gorbachev’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

“Tomorrow he will send a telegram of condolences to his family and friends,” said Peskov.

UN chief Antonio Guterres

Guterres in a statement praised Gorbachev as “a one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history” and “did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War”.

The statement, which was posted on Twitter, said the world has lost “a towering global leader, committed multilateralist and tireless advocate for peace”.

French President Emmanuel Macron

Macron praised Gorbachev as a “man of peace” and sent his “condolences for the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, a man of peace whose choices opened up a path of liberty for Russians. His commitment to peace in Europe changed our shared history”.

US President Joe Biden

Biden hailed Gorbachev as a “rare leader” who made the world a safer place.

“These were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it,” Biden said in a statement, referring to Gorbachev’s democratic reforms.

“The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people. Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of remarkable vision,” Biden added.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed Gorbachev as a “trusted and respected leader” who “opened the way for a free Europe”.

His “crucial role” in bringing down the Iron Curtain, which symbolised the division of the world into communist and capitalist blocs, and ending the Cold War left a legacy “we will not forget”, she wrote on Twitter.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he “always admired the courage and integrity” Gorbachev showed to bring the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion.

“In a time of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all,” he said in a Twitter post, referring to Moscow’s offensive in its former Soviet neighbour.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida

Kishida noted Gorbachev’s important role in the reduction of nuclear weapons held by the Soviet Union and United States, saying he had made “great achievements.”

“Mr. Gorbachev, who possessed great strategic vision and decisive execution, played a very important role,” he said.

Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany.

But his internal reforms helped weaken the Soviet Union to the point where it fell apart, a moment that President Vladimir Putin has called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century.

After decades of Cold War tension and confrontation, Gorbachev brought the Soviet Union closer to the West than at any point since World War Two.

“He gave freedom to hundreds of millions of people in Russia and around it, and also half of Europe,” said former Russian liberal opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky. “Few leaders in history have had such a decisive influence on their time.”

But Gorbachev saw his legacy wrecked late in life, as the invasion of Ukraine brought Western sanctions crashing down on Moscow, and politicians in both Russia and the West began to speak of a new Cold War.

“Gorbachev died in a symbolic way when his life’s work, freedom, was effectively destroyed by Putin,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He will be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, said Tass, citing the foundation that the ex-Soviet leader set up once he left office.

“We are all orphans now. But not everyone realizes it,” said Alexei Venediktov, head of a liberal media radio outlet that closed down after coming under pressure over its coverage of the Ukraine war.

When pro-democracy protests rocked Soviet bloc nations in communist Eastern Europe in 1989, Gorbachev refrained from using force – unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

But the protests fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion.

Gorbachev – who was briefly deposed in an August 1991 coup by party hardliners – struggled vainly to prevent that collapse.

“The era of Gorbachev is the era of perestroika, the era of hope, the era of our entry into a missile-free world … but there was one miscalculation: we did not know our country well,” said Vladimir Shevchenko, who headed Gorbachev’s protocol office when he was Soviet leader.

On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, aged just 54, he had set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms, but his reforms spun out of control.

“He was a good man – he was a decent man. I think his tragedy is in a sense that he was too decent for the country he was leading,” said Gorbachev biographer William Taubman, a professor emeritus at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

-FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters

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Nigeria to reduce electricity supply to Niger Republic, Benin, Togo

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Nigeria to reduce electricity supply to Niger Republic, Benin, Togo

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has ordered the System Operator (SO), a department in the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to commence the capping of power supply to cross-border customers in Benin Republic, Niger and Togo, in a bid to increase power availability to Nigerians.

This is coming as the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has disclosed that the federal government and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) will make capital injections of N750 billion and N250 billion annual debt financing, respectively, to bride the huge electricity metering gap in the country that currently stands at about seven million.

In a document tagged: ‘Interim Order on Transmission System Dispatch Operations, Cross-border Supply and Related Matters’, the power sector regulator stated that the directive will last for six months in the first instance before review.

Nigeria supplies a portion of the electricity it generates to some of its neighbours, including the Benin Republic, Niger Republic, and Togo.

NERC’s order, dated April 29, 2024, and which became effective from May 1, 2024, was signed by the commission’s Chairman, Sanusi Garba, and Vice Chairman, Musiliu Oseni andIn the order, the regulatory agency directed that power delivery to Nigeria’s neighbours must not exceed six per cent of total grid electricity at any point in time.

The electricity sector regulator stressed that following the implementation of the April 2024 supplementary order, the commission had observed sub-optimal grid dispatch operation practices.

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It argued that this has compromised the Distribution Companies’ (Discos) ability to deliver on its Service Based Tariff (SBT) committed service levels to end-use customers with a significant impact on market revenues.NERC said the system operator’s sole reliance on limiting Discos’ load off-take/allocation in managing recurring grid imbalances while prioritising international off-takers and Eligible Customers (ECs) is neither efficient nor equitable.The practice so far adopted by the operator in managing generation availability, it said, has caused significant hardship to Discos’ customers, comprising industrial, commercial, and residential, especially during peak demands while prioritising delivery to other bilateral contracts, including export to international customers.

The commission noted that the current international and bilateral contracts with Generation Companies (Gencos) were based on best-endeavour and with loose terms that are often below the minimum contract standards currently operated in the industry.

It said many of the off-takers contracted bilaterally by Gencos often abuse this prioritisation and raise their off-takers during peak operations beyond their contracted levels at the expense of other grid users without attendant penalties for violation of grid instructions.

According to NERC, the order serves as an interim measure to guide the operations of the system operator and the TCN to implement Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to improve transparency and fairness of grid operations in delivering better services to all customers.It urged the system operator to place interim caps on capacities supplied to international customers for six months from the effective date of the order, thus minimising the displacement and impact on domestic supply obligations by Gencos.

“The commission hereby orders as follows: The system operator shall develop and present to the commission for approval within seven days from the issuance of this order a pro-rata load-shedding scheme that ensures equitable adjustment to load allocation to all off-takers — Discos, international customers, and eligible customers — in the event of a drop in generation and other under-frequency related grid imbalances necessitating critical grid management.

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“The system operator shall implement a framework to log and publish hourly readings and enforce necessary sanctions for violation of grid instructions and contracted nominations by off-takers in line with the grid code and market,” it stated.Among others, it further directed that the system operator shall publish and notify all market participants and the commission of the previous day’s hourly log readings of off-take by market participants and the market settlements report by 12:00 noon of the next day.

“The system operator shall ensure that the maximum load allocation to international off-takers in each trading hour shall not be more than six per cent of the total available grid generation.

“The aggregate capacity that can be nominated by a generating plant to service international off-takers shall not be more than 10 per cent of its available generation capacity unless in exceptional circumstances a derogation is granted by the commission.

“The system operator shall henceforth cease to recognise any capacity addition in bilateral transactions between a generator and an off-taker without the express approval of the commission,” it added.

It urged the system operator and TCN to immediately initiate and install integrated Internet of Things (IoT) meters at all off-take and delivery points of eligible customers, bilateral supplies, cross-border trades, and outgoing 33kV feeders of the Discos to provide real-time visibility of aggregate offtake by grid customers.“The installation of and streaming of data from the IOT meters should be completed within three months from the date of this order,” it added.

Nigeria to reduce electricity supply to Niger Republic, Benin, Togo

(THISDAY)

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Edo, Delta areas to experience two-week power outage – TCN

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Edo, Delta areas to experience two-week power outage – TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has announced a two-week power outage starting on May 4 in parts of Edo and Delta states.

In a statement released in Benin by Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager of Public Affairs at TCN, it was revealed that the outage is necessary for the safe erection of two 132KV transmission towers at the Amukpe substation.

Benin DisCo will not receive bulk power supply during this period through several feeders, including Adeje, Industrial Woodland, Mosogar, Sapele, and Abraka.

“The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), hereby states that it will commence the erection of two number 132kV transmission towers at its Amukpe Transmission Substation.

”And will equally restring a portion of the Benin-Delta and Delta-Oghara 132kV double circuit transmission lines from Saturday, May 4 to May 17, 2024.

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“Consequently, Amukpe Substation will be out of power for the work.

“Also, there will be no bulk power supply to Benin DisCo (BEDC) through the following feeders: the Adeje, industrial Woodland, Mosogar, Sapele and Abraka feeders.

“The outage is necessary to create a safe working environment for the contractor. Completion of the projects will establish N-1 redundancy, which would enable TCN to supply bulk electricity to the substation from either the Benin or Ughelli transmission line.

“This means that when one transmission line is faulty, bulk electricity can still be received in the substation from the second line,” Mbah said.

These developments, once completed, will ensure a more reliable and flexible bulk power supply through the Amukpe transmission substation.

It’s important to note that BEDC is responsible for the retail distribution of electricity in Delta, Edo, Ekiti, and Ondo States, covering an area of 57,353 square kilometres.

Edo, Delta areas to experience two-week power outage – TCN

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Coastal highway project to disrupt DStv, GOtv services

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Coastal highway project to disrupt DStv, GOtv services

DStv and GOtv customers in Nigeria have been notified to expect disruption in service from Sunday, May 5, to Tuesday, May 7, due to the ongoing construction project on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.

In a notice shared on social media on Friday, DStv assured customers that its technical team will be working to relocate its facility and minimise service disruptions during the process.

The statement read, “Our uplink facility will be impacted by the ongoing Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road construction project. As a result, we are forced to relocate.

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“From Sunday, May 5, 2024 to Tuesday May 7, 2024, our technical team will be working tirelessly to relocate and minimise disruptions during the exercise.

“We appreciate your patience and understanding during this period and remain dedicated to delivering the quality service and support you expect from DStv and GOtv.”

Recall that demolition for the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway commenced on Monday.

According to the Minister of Works, David Umahi, the duration of the construction is eight years, and it will be constructed for N15 trillion.

Coastal highway project to disrupt DStv, GOtv services

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