Borehole levy in Delta state: citizens call on UN, AU to prevail on Gov Okowa.
The Delta state government recently updated an order for the collection and payment of borehole levy and other water-allied levies in the state, and reiterated commitments to pursue offenders.
The order stipulates that domestic, industrial and commercial boreholes are to be levied.
While the State government license fee for domestic boreholes according to the order will cost citizens of the state N2,500.00 per annum, the license fee for commercial boreholes costs N35,000 per annum, and for industrial and government establishments, the license fee is N50,000.00 per annum.
“All Nations must enact and domesticate the law that water is life, availability is compulsory and it is human rights.
“The Delta State Government must stop and revoke its order for the collection and payment of borehole levy/levies and other water-allied levies,” the President of MAP, Chief Bobson Gbinije said.
Chief Gbinije said governments must provide drinkable, clean, clear and hygienic water for the vast majority of its citizenry.
He said the recent discovery of a sieve and sift system that can de-salinize water very effectively must be interrogated and put to good use globally, stressing that the menace of water pollution through pipelines vandalization must be forestalled.
“The apocalyptic narrative of water scarcity in Nigeria and nay our world should now be addressed with soldierly brevity by the United Nations, African Union, OAS, ASEAN countries and governments all over the world,” Gbinije submitted.
He said water is life and every government worth its salt should provide it to the people free of charge.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned that ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have sharply deteriorated food security and reduced nutrition levels, leaving approximately 30 million people unsure of their next meal.
The FAO Regional Overview of Food Insecurity in the Near East and North Africa, released on March 27, stated that the intensity of conflicts and protracted crises have led to the prevalence of food insecurity in the areas over the past five years.
“Countries such as Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Yemen have rates that are among the highest in the world, reflecting the devastating impacts of the ongoing conflicts on their food security and nutrition situation,” the UN agency’s report pointed out.
“The region is facing unprecedented challenges to its food security due to multiple risks arising from conflicts, water scarcity and climate change,” FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa Abdessalam Ould Ahmed said.
The FAO Regional Overview underlined that water scarcity and climate change are the most fundamental challenges to ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030.
The numbers of people suffering from food insecurity and internally displacement are also rising in Iraq and Yemen, the FAO said.
The United Nations has said that a third of Yemen’s 22 provinces are on the brink of famine, warning that more than half of the country’s population is going hungry.
Luescher stressed that even the Yemenis that are lucky enough to get aid are not receiving all the nutrients they need as full rations cannot be afforded.
Yemen’s Legal Center of Rights and Development announced on Saturday that the Saudi campaign against its impoverished southern neighbor has claimed the lives of over 12,040 Yemenis and left more than 20,000 others wounded.
The center added that there were a total of 2,568 children and 1,870 women among the fatalities, noting that the atrocious onslaught had also destroyed 757 schools and institutes, 111 university facilities, 271 factories besides 1,520 bridges and roads.

woman-in-foodline-16-9.jpg The United Nations announced this month that more than 20 million people in four countries are teetering on the edge of famine, calling the situation “the worst humanitarian crisis” since the end of World War II. The key for avoiding the worst outcomes? Political will, experts say. Modern famines are different from those the world faced 60 to 70 years ago. In the past, with less warning and less international support, more people died from hunger. In the early and mid-20th century, famines killed millions in Europe and Asia, in areas with much larger populations than areas which suffer from food insecurity today. According to estimates from the World Peace Foundation, the deadliest famine in recorded history actually did take place after World War II. During China’s Great Leap Forward, about 30 million people died from hunger between 1958 and 1962. What explains the UN’s statement, then? They may be counting famines by decade, which would have split the Great Leap Forward crisis between the 1950s and the 1960s: These days, famines cause death by the thousands, and are mostly confined to the Horn of Africa. Improvements in transportation and communications infrastructure have been successful in eliminating large-scale famines in virtually all other parts of the world. But the current situations in Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria and South Sudan are undeniably harsh. “Those people will suffer, their children will be malnourished, they will likely be displaced, lose their livelihoods, and some people will no doubt die as a result of this crisis,” says Dan Maxwell, a food security professor and director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Maxwell exphasizes that modern-day famines are rarely caused by a lack of food. “There has never been a case that agricultural production causes famine alone,” he says. “It only causes a famine if someone lets it cause a famine.” And that’s where data become especially important. Measuring early indicators is crucial for averting famine, as is early investment. In its March announcement, the UN asked for $4.4 billion in emergency funding for…

Just hours after Somalia’s new prime minister named his first cabinet at the presidential compound in Mogadishu Tuesday, a massive explosion occurred just a few hundred yards away. Footage of the aftermath of the blast shared on social media showed several burnt-out vehicles and a crater-like dent in the ground where the explosion occurred outside Somalia’s national theater. Somali police said that at least 10 people were killed in the blast, which happened when a suicide attacker rammed a car bomb into a security checkpoint. On Wednesday, a familiar foe claimed responsibility for the attack: Al-Shabab, an extremist militant group affiliated to al-Qaeda, which is waging war on the Western-backed federal government. The assault is the latest obstacle to meaningful engagement between the new Somali government and Al-Shabab, at a time when analysts and diplomats have said it is most needed: the current drought in Somalia, which is at risk of escalating into famine, is part of what a senior U.N. official recently called the “worst humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations” in 1945. Internally displaced Somali families rest as they flee from drought-stricken parts of the Lower Shabelle region before entering makeshift camps in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on March 17. Many Somalis suffering from the drought are living under al-Shabab, which controls many rural parts of southern Somalia. Somalia’s government is barely a month old: The new president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, was only inaugurated on February 22, and the cabinet ministers appointed Tuesday have not yet been approved by Parliament. And yet the challenge facing it is huge. Not even six years after a famine that claimed the lives of more than a quarter of a million people, Somalia is again at risk of human disaster on an enormous scale. Some 6.2 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, and the United Nations is appealing for $825 million to avert a catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country. There are increasing reports of Somalis across the country starving to death, along with pictures of skeletal livestock, left to perish without pasture. As clean water becomes more scarce, Somalis are turning to unsafe water sources, resulting in cholera outbreaks. The new government has formed a National Drought Response Committee and has urged Somalis in the diaspora to donate; the committee’s chairman tells Newsweek that around $2 million has already been raised, and a further $3 million in donations has been pledged. Aid has started to come from the international community, and the United Nations has also been active in opening drought relief centers in some of the worst-affected areas. But any national response in Somalia is being hampered by the fact that the government does not control all its territory—Al-Shabab still controls significant portions of Somalia, particularly in the South and in rural areas. Former Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told Newsweek in September 2016 that the militants held around 10 percent of territory in the country. Analysts say that, even in areas that Al-Shabab does not fully control, the militant group still exerts a semi-territorial presence that can deter government or…

World Water Day, celebrated on March 22 of every year, was designated by the United Nations to focus on the importance of fresh water and promote the sustainable management of freshwater resources in the world. ACTED Lebanon, through a project funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) to mobilise neighbourhoods and local institutions to meet emergency water, hygiene, sanitation, shelter and protection needs, is joining in on the effort by organising water forums in several regions of Beirut and Mount Lebanon with the Lebanese community as well as Syrian and Palestinian refugees. Lebanon has abundant reserves of freshwater unlike its neighbouring countries but the different communities (host and refugee communties) living in the country suffer from water scarcity during summer due to the poor water management and infrastructure. In addition to this, according to the UN, 70% of the freshwater resources are polluted and have continued to decline in health since the start of the garbage crisis in July 2015. Hygiene promotion, an integral…

UN opens regional drought operations coordination centre in Baidoa.
Baidoa, 19 March 2017 – The UN has opened a drought operations coordination centre in Baidoa, the administrative capital of South West state, to promote effective and timely delivery of humanitarian assistance in the region.
The Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Vincent Lelei presided over the official opening of the centre, which will be instrumental in coordinating humanitarian efforts in the state that has been hardest hit nationwide by the drought.
The centre was opened three weeks after a similar facility was established in Mogadishu.
“The humanitarian crisis in South West state has become the worst in the whole country, particularly in Bay and Bakool and Lower Shabelle,” noted Mr. Lelei.
“Priority number two is to work with officials at the regional state and at the district level to make sure our effectiveness is at its best in ensuring that all those who need assistance for water and sanitation, health, food and nutrition are reached very, very quickly,” said Mr. Lelei.
“We know that very many children are malnourished, and we need to reach them very quickly,” Mr. Lelei said.
“I am pleased today that the discussions we have had with the Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Peter de Clercq, his deputy Vincent Lelei, humanitarian actors and volunteers, and the UN team in Baidoa, have culminated in the opening of a centre that will address the unique humanitarian needs of the people of South West State,“ Mr Fiqi stated.
The acting ISWA President noted the advantages of establishing a drought operations centre in the epicentre of the ongoing humanitarian crisis instead of a distant national or foreign capital.
Latest statistics indicate that about 6.2 million people – half the total population in Somalia – are in need of humanitarian aid, and of them almost 3 million are facing crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity.

United Nations investigators have accused Syria’s air force of deliberately bombing water facilities in December on the outskirts of Damascus, a war crime that cut off water for 5.5 million people in and around the capital.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria on Tuesday said it had found no evidence of deliberate contamination of the water supply or demolition by armed groups, as the Syrian government maintained at the time.
"While the presence of armed group fighters at (the) spring constituted a military target, the extensive damage inflicted to the spring had a devastating impact on more than five million civilians in both government and opposition controlled areas who were deprived of regular access to potable water for over one month," the commission’s report, which based its conclusions on interviews with residents and satellite imagery, as well as publicly available information, said.
Syrian forces block aid to eastern Ghouta "The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks."
On January 8, civilians were wounded in Baseemeh village near Damascus when pro-government forces used chlorine munitions.
In January and February, the UNáinvestigators documented four additional chlorine attacks in the eastern Ghouta area, which were aimed at frontline fighting positions.
There was no evidence of Russian involvement in chlorine attacks, the report said.
Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the rebels, said they had taken a final decision not to go to the talks as a result of Russia’s failure to end what the opposition says are widespread violations of a Turkish-Russian brokered ceasefire last December.
For its part, the Syrian government blamed Turkey for opposition forces boycotting the Astana meeting.
"Turkey should bear the responsibility for the failure of the opposition to attend Astana 3," Syrian government representative Bashar Jaafari said in comments carried by state news agency SANA.

‘The world must act now to stop this,’ UN chief Guterres says on visit to drought-hit Somalia.
He said that 3.3 million people are in need of health support and that cholera has been developing and making hunger even worse and more dangerous.
In the last two months, there were 7,731 cases of cholera with 183 people dying.
“It’s a process in acceleration,” he warned.
But now is also “a moment of hope” because Somalia is turning the page, with a new President elected and a new Prime Minister appointed, he said.
Leving the capital, Mr. Guterres met and spoke with victims of the current drought when he visited a settlement for internally displaced people (IDPs) today in the town of Baidoa.
“If we have stability and if it rains, we can avoid famine and we’ll return home,” she told UN News.
According to OCHA, estimates indicate that over 80 per cent of these newly arrived IDPs are women and children.
For over an hour, he walked through the camp, asked question and listened to the stories of men, women and children who had come to Baidoa to seek food and water.
Some had recently resettled from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya only to be forced to move again because of the drought.

Drought emergency spirals in Ethiopia amid major aid shortages.
NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Millions of drought-stricken Ethiopians needing food, water and emergency medical care are not receiving it due to funding shortages, the United Nations said, warning the crisis will worsen if spring rains fail as predicted.
Some 5.6 million people need food aid in the Horn of Africa nation, which has been hit by a series of back-to-back droughts.
"The needs relating to the developing emergency exceed resources available to date," the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.
"Each day without food assistance exponentially increases human suffering, lengthens the recovery period of affected people, puts increasing pressure on humanitarian and development systems, and the interventions become that much more expensive."
It is three times cheaper to treat children who are moderately, rather than severely, malnourished, it said.
But it takes at least four months to procure, ship and deliver emergency supplies to Ethiopia, it said.
Humanitarians are already short of cooking oil to distribute to hungry Ethiopians, with pulses and cereals likely to run out in the next few months, OCHA added.
(Reporting by Katy Migiro @katymigiro; Editing by Astrid Zweynert.
Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)

UN agencies supporting Kenyans in drought-hit areas.
3 March 2017 – The United Nations humanitarian chief today urged international support for the estimated 2.7 million people in parts of Kenya who urgently need food and water following the onset of a severe drought.
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, saw the devastating impact of drought on rural communities in northern Kenya.
“Crops are failing, food prices are rising, and families are going hungry.
The spectre of hunger and disease is haunting East Africa again.
We need to put a stop to this,” Mr. O’Brien said.
The office he heads, OCHA, is working with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and other partners to save lives in the region, according to a press release.
“Our efforts should not only alleviate the current suffering brought about by this emergency, but should also aim to build the resilience of families and the capacity of local governments to deal with future droughts and other calamities,” the Representative of UNICEF in Kenya, Werner Schultink said.
UN efforts of support include dispatching 12,000 cartons of ready to use therapeutic foods for the severely-malnourished children, for example.
The President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, recently declared the drought a national disaster and has called for international support.