China upgrades commercial districts with digital technologies for better experiences for consumers

By Wang Ke, Du Yifei, People’s Daily

China’s Ministry of Commerce recently unveiled the first batch of 12 national demonstration intelligent commercial districts and 16 national demonstration intelligent stores, which mirrored China’s determination to upgrade and transform commercial districts with technology.
Commercial districts across the country have established big data platforms for smart operation, and shopping malls are integrating online and offline retailing. They have constantly upgraded service facilities to build immersive consumption scenarios.
The accelerated application of digital technologies in the sector is bringing new experiences to consumers.
Intelligent commercial districts are an important part of the urban commercial system, as well as a carrier for promoting distribution innovation and fostering emerging consumption.
Intelligent commercial districts, centered on big data platforms and employing modern information technologies, build a smart service system for consumers, merchandising enterprises, operating institutions and government departments.
Such districts are able to obtain relevant data, offer consumption services, guide surrounding traffic and push information. Besides, they also integrate mobile payment, delivery, and public services.
In the northern section of Beijing Road, Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong province, an intelligent robot is always seen standing outside a smart service center – the “brain” of the Beijing Road commercial district.
The center is not only a big data platform, but also a service platform for merchants and tourists. It provides 179 efficient and convenient government services in public security, civil affairs and human resources.
As one of the busiest commercial districts in Guangzhou, Beijing Road is visited by over 600,000 people per day on holidays. Therefore, finding parking space has always been a headache for citizens.
Under the coordination of the smart service center, parking lots in the commercial district are put into centralized management with inquiry and guidance services. Nowadays, citizens visiting Beijing Road can check available parking spaces on a WeChat mini-program, which saves much time and has improved the utilization of parking lots to over 90 percent.
The construction of intelligent commercial districts enriches smart scenarios and better promotes traditional consumption with digital technologies.
“Many promotion activities have been held in our shopping mall, but we still could not find customers. Digital management well solves the pain points of traditional retailing,” said Wu Shengjun, vice general manager of a shopping mall on West Nanjing Road in Shanghai’s Jing’an District.
The shopping mall records information about 200,000 products from over 500 suppliers in a digital management system it has developed, which presents real-time data on inventory and consumer habits. The system helps the mall adjust the structure of its commodities in a more targeted manner, and thus better meet the demand of customers.
Artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies have built interactive and immersive consumption scenarios and offered convenient public services for many commercial districts. The tech-ish and fashionable commercial districts are bringing new experiences to consumers, and further activating their own development.
In June 2021, the first naked-eye 3D LED display of east China’s Anhui province was installed in a pedestrian zone in the province’s capital Hefei. The LED display has soon become a landmark, attracting huge attention from citizens. On New Year’s Eve of 2021, over 450,000 citizens in the city gathered around to celebrate the New Year.
A shopping mall owned by major Chinese retailer Suning.com Co. in Xinjiekou, a central business district of Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province, has upgraded its facilities, sales models and consumption scenarios, to offer new interactive experiences for customers. The digital transformation, integrated with technological and fashion elements, has more than doubled the mall’s average monthly foot traffic.
Experts believe that in the future, intelligent commercial districts will continue to bring more convenience to the people, coordinate the demands of market entities, upgrade themselves with modern information technology, and improve their management capacity, to better meet the diversified demands of consumers.

Chinese tourism bucks trend in 2022

By Zhao Shan

Recently, China Tourism Academy issued seven reports on Chinese tourism to summarize the performance of the sector this year.
According to the academy, new products and business models have emerged in the domestic tourism market, and niche sub-markets such as study tours, family trips, road trips and camping have seen flourishing development.
A report on domestic tourism said that there was an obvious shrinkage in both the distance of trips and the radius of tourists’ activities at their destinations this year, adding that 81.24 percent of domestic trips were made within provinces.
It said domestic trips this year present features of short time, short distance and high frequency, with new highlights such as mini vacations and hotel-staycations.
New products and business models of domestic tourism are favored by tourists. Driven by the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, outdoor tourism is thriving, especially in Beijing and Zhangjiakou, where the Winter Olympics was hosted. More and more people have joined skiing, camping, hiking, mountaineering, horse riding, grass skiing and rafting to get close to nature.
In summer this year, waterside activities, countryside leisure, and trips for escaping the heat were popular among tourists.
A report on leisure tourism said the national leisure time has been significantly improved, and leisure activities at weekends are becoming regular. Short-distance trips have been frequently made across the country since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and leisure activities were often carried out in places one to three kilometers from homes.
Leisure activities of Chinese people were diverse and prevalent in the life of urban residents. The number of urban residents visiting museums, exhibitions and science museums was on a rise.
Cultural tourism has gained bigger popularity among Chinese residents. More and more museums started exploring new methods to present visitors with individualized and immersive experiences and vitalize history and culture, bringing people closer to culture. During the National Day holiday this year, 93 percent of tourists joined cultural activities.
Consumption scenarios of tourism became diversified. Various activities can satisfy people’s different demands for tourism and leisure, including open spaces such as community gardens, urban pedestrian lanes, urban and suburban parks and national parks, commercial places such as restaurants, bars, coffee shops, shopping centers, wet markets, hotels and B&Bs, as well as cultural venues such as libraries, cultural clubs, museums, art galleries, cinemas, concert halls and cinemas.
The changing demands of tourists gave birth to new business models of leisure tourism. For instance, the Dewey Center Beijing has launched a light show themed on the works by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet; Jiaxing in east China’s Zhejiang province has built a chocolate-themed town. These new consumption scenarios have created infinite possibilities for the innovation and construction of scenic spots.
Scenic spots in China have also contributed to rural vitalization and played an important role in promoting common prosperity.
In the past three years, tourism bucked the trend in suburban areas in the country. Rural tourism used to depend on local scenic spots, but now villages have become part of the scenery.
The pattern of rural tourism has been changed by consumption scenarios defined by tourists. Every attractive scene in the countryside, be it an idyllic rural resident building, a time-worn countryside passage, or a tavern in the woods, is a great place to go to for urban tourists.

Assent to NYSC-Trust Fund bill will institutionalise Buhari’s achievements – Msuaan

A member of the governing council, Federal Polytechnic Wanune, Mike Msuaan, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Trust Fund bill to institutionalise his achievements.

Msuaan, who is the North Central Coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council spoke at an APC Presidential rally.

According to him, the NYSC Trust Fund will address the challenges bedeviling the scheme.

He said: “I see the Trust Fund law as a very apt one because there was an urgent need to address identified challenges bedeviling the scheme over the years, as nothing can be compared with the paucity of matching funds to discharge the lofty mandate of the scheme.

“It is believed that economic progress achieved by any society is strongly associated with the quality of its human capital and social interaction.”

He said the NYSC is still fundamental to the unity and survival of the entity called Nigeria.

“This scheme has continued to remain the most formidable, organised, and well-composed youth organisation in the country, without deviating from its mandate of integrating and unifying the country as one indivisible entity,” he said.

Msuaan, therefore, urged President Buhari to
assent to the NYSC Trust Fund bill that has been placed before him as his parting present to Nigerian youths.

He reiterated that the bill will further strengthen the responsibility of expelling the erroneous conception and the few misguided expressions about the nobility of the intent of the NYSC scheme, and Nigerian youths in general.

“It is worthy of note that the Trust Fund will help prioritise human capital development and social inclusion as a central anchor of our nation’s development agenda.

“The effect of the Fund Is predictably foreseeable. Nigerian youths are creative, resilient, upwardly mobile, and ambitious.”

COP15: Countries Reach Agreement To Protect Land, Water Resources

By Abdulhammed Sakariyau Korede

About 190 countries at the United Nations Biodiversity conference, COP15, reached an agreement to protect 30 per cent of the world’s lands and oceans amidst ongoing efforts to protect and reverse declining biodiversity.

The Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, who is leading the COP15 meeting disclosed this on Monday.

His announcement came shortly after a representative of the delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo objected to the text, causing some African nations to protest at the manner in which the outcome was proclaimed.

The passing of the deal comes a day before the end of COP15 in Montreal, Canada, and over a decade ago after parties failed significantly to fulfil COP10’s ambitious targets agreed upon in 2010.

During COP10, governments agreed to strive for ambitious targets by 2020, including halving natural habitat loss, and implementing plans for sustainable consumption and production. But none of these targets were fully met, according to a 2020 UN report.

This year, the UN Biodiversity Conference, billed for 7-19 December, is where negotiators will set new targets and goals aimed at arresting the destruction of nature, due to human activity.

COP15 is expected to lead to the adoption of a new Global Biodiversity Framework, guiding actions worldwide through 2030, to preserve and protect our natural resources.

Heralded as a sweeping deal to protect biodiversity loss, the most significant part of the agreement is the commitment to protect 30 per cent of land and water considered important for biodiversity before the end of the decade.

Meanwhile, scientists have posited that only 17 per cent of terrestrial and 10 per cent aquatic areas (marine) are protected currently.

The agreement envisages putting $200 billion toward supporting biodiversity by 2030, with another $500 billion to be possibly raised by phasing out or reforming subsidies, such as those for food or fuel.

The COP15 deal also calls for giving low-income countries far more than is currently provided for their efforts to protect nature. This amount is envisaged to reach at least $20 billion annually by 2025 and might subsequently increase to $30 billion by 2030.

Negotiators also agreed to manage the remaining 70 per cent of the planet to prevent losing areas of high importance to biodiversity and to ensure that big businesses disclose biodiversity risks and impacts from their operations.

China will definitely achieve its Second Centenary Goal: Vietnamese politician

By Yang Ye, People’s Daily

The book “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” mirrors the rich connotation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, such as adhering to the people-centered philosophy, exercising law-based governance on all fronts, and enforcing full and rigorous Party self-governance, said Nguyen Xuan Thang, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).
Nguyen Xuan Thang, also Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council of the CPV and Director of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, said the book is a masterpiece that reflects Xi’s governance ideas and practices.
The chairman has long been engaged in the theoretical studies of the CPV. He pays close attention to the theoretical innovation made by the Communist Party of China (CPC) during its hundred-year struggle.
He told People’s Daily that the first volume of “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” was published in 2014, and the Vietnamese version of the book was launched by the National Political Publishing House of Vietnam together with China’s Foreign Language Press, on the occasion when Xi paid a state visit to Vietnam in November 2015.
“This book impressed me very much. It systematically and profoundly expounds on the governance experience of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core. President Xi has raised a series of new philosophies, ideas and strategies of groundbreaking significance in the book,” he noted.
Nguyen Xuan Thang attaches high importance to the theoretical exchanges between the CPV and the CPC. He has attended multiple theoretical seminars between the two parties and dialogues between the think tanks of the two countries.
He said the book “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” provides important reference for CPV cadres and Vietnamese scholars engaged in theoretical and practical studies, helps its readers deepen their understanding of the CPC and the top leader of China, enhances their knowledge of scientific socialism, and presents to them the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
He spoke highly of the people-centered development philosophy proposed by Xi, as well as Xi’s emphasis on comprehensively deepening reform and opening up as well as carrying forward the fighting spirit.
Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, China has completed the historic feats of eradicating absolute poverty and finishing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, he said.
He said Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era not only serves as a guide to action for the CPC and the Chinese people to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, but also contributes Chinese wisdom and Chinese approaches to promoting world peace and development.
“It needs to be emphasized that Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era bears important significance to the development of socialism around the world. It makes important contributions to enriching and developing Marxism and sheds light on other socialist countries,” he remarked.
Nguyen Xuan Thang said China has made remarkable achievements in the past 10 years, and he was deeply impressed by the country’s policies ensuring that rural poor people have no worries about food and clothing and have access to compulsory education, basic medical services and safe housing.
“China has achieved its goal of eradicating absolute poverty as scheduled. The 98.99 million people in rural areas who were living below the current poverty threshold all shook off poverty. China has embarked on a new journey of fully building a modern socialist country, and is marching toward its Second Centenary Goal. I believe that under the leadership of the CPC, China will definitely achieve this goal,” he told People’s Daily.
He said China made such achievements because the CPC takes the Chinese people’s stance as its fundamental political stance, and because the CPC and the Chinese people always seek truth from facts and make determined endeavor.
Just like Xi says in the book, “The successes of yesterday do not guarantee future successes, and the glories of the past do not guarantee glories in the future.”
China will always ride out the storm with its people and stay heart to heart with them. Taking their priorities as its own and acting on their wishes, China will continue the hard work to turn its people’s aspiration for a better life into a living reality.

Chongqing vigorously develops green finance

By Wang Xinyue, People’s Daily

Green finance enjoys huge potential in improving environment, tackling climate change, and promoting efficient utilization of resources. In recent years, southwest China’s Chongqing municipality has worked vigorously to develop green finance and establish a long-term mechanism synergizing local governments, banks, and enterprises.
Having launched a series of innovative reform measures, the municipality is seeing fruitful economic and ecological results.
Developing green finance is now a priority for many banks in the municipality, and it covers a wide range of fields, from waste incineration to sewage treatment, from comprehensive governance of coastal lines to energy upgrading, and from green transportation credit to rural housing loans.
“Green finance means high-quality assets for banks,” said an executive with the Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank.
As of the end of this September, Chongqing’s balance of green loans stood at 497.23 billion yuan ($71.63 billion), up 40.2 percent year on year and 32.5 percentage points higher than that for all kinds of loans issued in the municipality. Green loans accounted for nearly 10 percent of all loans, and the municipality issued over 35.7 billion yuan of green bonds, 2.7 times higher than those in early 2019.
“It’s hard to imagine that we were still worrying about our project fund a year ago,” said Luo Li, who heads an ecological tea garden project in Dingshi township, Youyang Tu and Miao autonomous county, Chongqing.
In April 2021, the project had just started and needed a large investment. Therefore, capital shortages remained a major problem.
When the project team was at the end of its tether, it was reached by the Bank of Chongqing, which issued loans to the project.
“Identifying green projects is not an easy job. In the past, it was artificial, which was inefficient,” said Tian Pan, an account manager at the Bank of Chongqing.
Now the bank has launched an intelligent system that is able to perform automatic calculation of projects’ environmental costs and benefits, which significantly improves the efficiency of green project identification, Tian told People’s Daily, adding that Luo’s ecological tea garden project was exactly recommended by the intelligent system.
The intelligent system is a big data-enabled comprehensive service platform for green finance developed by the Chongqing Operations Office of the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank.
“Together with the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform and the municipality’s bureau of ecology and environment, we made an evaluation standard for recognizing green projects and enterprises, and developed a smart recognition system based on it, which pushes identified green financing demands to financial institutions,” said Han Xintao, deputy director of the financial research department of the PBC Chongqing Operations Office. The system can better match banks with enterprises, he noted.
As of this September, the system had collected and published information about 1,860 green projects and enterprises at the municipal and county levels. In particular, nearly 1,000 of them had gotten in touch with banks.
Chongqing, as one of the six major traditional industrial bases in China, faces a heavy task of industrial upgrading. Therefore, the municipality has constantly upgraded its mechanisms to encourage financial institutions to optimize the allocation of low-carbon resources and advance the green transition of the real economy.
“I never thought that I could apply for loans with pollution discharge rights, and the interest is lower than that of regular loans,” said an executive of Chongqing Polycomp International Corporation, which manufactures fiberglass, after receiving a pledge loan of 100 million yuan.
The company is recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as a “green factory.” It introduces advanced waste disposal technologies to control pollutants.
Upon learning the company’s demand to expand its scale, the Bank of Chongqing reached it and volunteered to provide a pledge loan, which turned the company’s “fixed” pollution discharge rights into flexible capital that helps it reduce energy consumption and improve the ecological environment.
“In the future, Chongqing will keep promoting supply-side structural reform and upgrading its traditional industries. Green transition is an inevitability, and green finance enjoys rich opportunities for development,” said Huang Yingjun, professor with the School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University.

Over 2000 CSOs Shutdown NASS, call for Kazaure’s arrest over unfounded allegations against Emefiele

Over 2000 Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, under the auspices of Coalition of Civil Society Organizations on Good Governance, CCSGG, Friday, staged a protest that blocked gate of the National Assembly, and called for arrest of a Member of House of Representatives from Jigawa State, Hon Gudaji Kazaure, over unfounded allegations on the alleged N89 trillion stamp duty fraud against the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele.

The CSOs were led by its President, Etuk Bassey, who spoke on behalf of members of the CSOs, described Kazaure as liar who is out on a mission to tarnish the image of Emefiele.

The group in their large numbers displayed different sizes and shapes of placards with inscriptions reading; “We support CBN Gov policies”, “Plans to discredit cashless policy will be resisted”, “Cashless policy a solution to poverty”, “Corrupt Nigerians are after CBN Governor, “Civil Society and youths support CBN Governor”.

Other placards read, “Cashless policy a pass mark to Buhari’s administration”, “Buhari and Emefiele carry go!”, “Security arrest Hon Kazaure now. He is a blackmailer”, “N89trn stamp duty is a blackmail”.

Bassey said: “Political propaganda and as well as witch-haunting against the person and image in person of the Governor of the CBN.

“Again, this man has been lying that he is investigating the Governor of the CBN and has been dropping names and that he met with the President, and we have so much respect for President Muhammadu Buhari, and we know that the President loves Nigerians and would not allow this to happen.

“We are saying here today that Hon Kazaure should be arrested forthwith and be prosecuted.

“We will not allow that to happen again, these lies are too much. We will not allow these miscreants to take over our commonwealth.”

He also accused Kazaure playing the script of his paymasters to tarnish the image of the CBN Governor and that of the President.

He vowed that the CSOs will not allow that to happen at all as they will stop that move

“Election is around the corner, we cannot allow them to take us for granted.

“We want to believe the actions of Hon Kazaure is perpetrated by his fellow cohorts band politicians that want to bring down the CBN Governor and as well tarnish the image of Mr President. We will not take that.

“Enough of this rubbish, enough of these lies, we will not take it. How on earth an Honourable Member come out and start lying?”

It will be recalled that Hon Kazaure made an allegation against the CBN Governor over N89 trillion Stamp Duty Fraud, which Presidency dismissed his claims.

2000 CSOs Back Emefiele, Condemn Kazaure Over Stamp Duty Fraud Allegation

….blast CBN Gov’s critics, say they’re caught by reform policies

…urge Nigerians to discard cheap blackmails

Over 2000 Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, under the auspices of Coalition of Civil Society Organizations on Good Governance, CCSGG, Thursday, blasted critics of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, on lies and founded allegations.

The CSOs in a statement jointly signed by its president, Etuk Bassey Williams and Abubakar Ibrahim, secretary of the group, said the persons who are taking to some media houses to ooze out lies against Emefiele are those whose evil deeds of corruption are being exposed and strangled by the recent Naira Design and Withdrawal policy.

The statement reads in part, “It is very important for us at this point to voice out over the lies and cheap blackmail some corrupt politicians and so-called business men and women are peddling on the pages and websites of some media houses alleging what they have conspired against the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele.

The false allegations by a Member of House of Representatives from Jigawa State, Hon Gudaji Kazaure, of the alleged N89 trillion stamp duty is a lie from the pit of hell.

Kazaure is a serial and pathological liar and he is publicly known for his stock in trade.

“The Presidency recently defused him on this allegation of N89 trillion Stamp Duty, and he is shamelessly going to media houses to fly his kite of lies to woo Nigerians to his side.

“His personality is already marred and destroyed by his lies. His paymasters have failed already, and if his Buhari’s Government they want to rubbish with such lies they have goofed.

“Kazaure and his lies should be discarded band taking for nothing because he is just ranting his frustration.

“This conspiracy is very clear and it is not far-fetched, which is because
of the policies implemented by the Emefiele-led CBN.

“You can imagine the stolen and hidden monies in water tanks, underground, hug sacs, and bank accounts they have kept at the detriment of Nigerians and the economy is now become useless.

“These terrible people who are speaking all sorts of lies are shameless and wicked because those monies they stole could not be taken to banks for fear of being arrested, and now are frustrated and made foolish.

“Their fraud allegations against the wise and foresighted strategist Mr President have placed at the CBN are all tissues of lies, baseless and unfounded.

“These people are not speaking in the interest of Nigerians but for their selfish and evil aims that does not hold water.

“They are angry because they were taken unawares and surprisingly.

“We want to tell them that as credible Civil Society Organizations number over 2000 are solidly behind the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, and we are ready to go at any length to unearth these unscrupulous elements who are have stolen this country dry via their dirty ventures. We will not take these clandestine moves to win the sympathy or support of unsuspecting and innocent Nigerians they want to sway to themselves against a workaholic and patriotic Nigerian in the person of Godwin Emefiele.

“We have met and resolved that corrupt politicians whom we know make such baseless allegations will be stopped by our structures across the country from winning any elective position ahead of 2023 general elections.

“They cannot intimidate the CBN Governor who have put in his very best to stabilize the economy, and have worked hard to rescue the economy from recessions.

“His monetary policies have helped to sustain the Naira from being killed by these evil minded persons tarnishing the image of the CBN Governor.

“Our farmers have received a better deal under the CBN Governor, and also a lot of businesses have received boost to continue bin business and also ensured that economic activities are moving unhindered.

“His reforms have kept the economy afloat as non-oil exports have experienced tremendous growth and development, and more investors are coming into the country for business.

“Also we can see that there is stabilisation of the currency and that has been sustained for long.”

The CSOs, also called on Nigerians not to be carried away by the false allegations leveled against the CBN boss.

“We want to call on Nigerians to discard the false and fake news these unscrupulous elements are peddling on the social media and conventional media.

“These are people who are seeking your attention and sympathy for no cause. They have stolen your wealth and starched in banks, water tanks, burial grounds, and other place but the good policies of the CBN Governor have exposed them so they are reacting to tell lies to destroy this good work that is in your interest.

“These are politicians who are drowning and want to hold anything and get lost, hence the intentional moves to tarnish the image and personality of the world respected Governor of Nigeria’s Apex Bank.

“They will continue to get frustrated. Don’t accept their lies and allegations published online and on pages of newspapers because they cannot prove their falsehood”, the statement added.

Peter Obi and his IPOB terrorists

By Eseh Edeh

There is scant any country in the world that will allow a terrorist leader to emerge as its president, which is why Nigerians must be circumspect in their choice of who leads the nation when they go to the polls in February 2023. Of the four leading candidates, some analysts pegged that down to three, the Labour Party candidate, Mr Peter Obi has openly shown his pro-terrorism outlook but the demagoguery he has built around him has inured his followers into a fanatical frenzy that has erased all sense of reason to question his terrorist credentials.
Supporters of the other candidates have latched onto Obi’s unrivalled penchant for telling lies as a basis to distrust his candidacy, they often fact-check him with the inevitable outcome that he sells cram to the electorate. They have also accused him of being an irredeemable bigot, who is incapable of seeing beyond running a patronage system that favours his Catholics of Igbo descent – so pathetic is this trait that Obi chose a Mr. Ifeanyi Ezeagu, an Igbo, to lead his campaign team in Sokoto State in the northwest of the country.
Obi is also known not to be straight in his dealings as the Pandora Papers revealed that he broke extant legislation without remorse. He would do anything to game the system, including stashing his assets in tax havens while gunning to superintend funds raised from taxes paid by diligent honest Nigerians. He is okay with sabotaging the Nigerian economy, into which he admitted importing Heinz products on a gargantuan scale, without ever thinking of obtaining a licence or franchise to locally manufacture here in Nigeria – his focus is on profit-taking, and he is proud to display his importation racket as an achievement that makes him electable.
However, these negative attributes and chronic addiction to infamy are not the reason the electorates should be wary of electing Peter Obi. The real reason Obi should not be allowed anywhere near power is the reality that he plans to use the position to supervise the balkanization of Nigeria or at the very least run a vengeful government that would provoke other ethnic nationalities to break away from Nigeria and leave the Igbo behind inside whatever is left of the country.
To understand how this apprehension is a legitimate concern, one needs to only make a historical review of all the interventions Obi has ever made on the contrived revival of the agitation for the defunct Biafra republic, the subject of a civil war that pitched Nigerians against each other for over three years in the late 60s when the Igbo attempted to secede. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPoB), which the court ruled is a terrorist organization, is at the forefront of the renewed agitation; it has a militant arm, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), which alternates identity as ‘Unknown Gunmen’ when it is convenient.
Even though IPoB’s rhetoric has directly led to ESN and Unknown Gunmen unleashing a murderous anti-Nigeria campaign in the southeast, Peter Obi has never marshalled the courage to openly condemn the separatist bend of these criminal entities. Instead, he is on record saying that IPoB is not a terrorist group even when ESN and Unknown Gunmen always make it abundantly clear that they are pursuing IPoB’s agenda. As the patron of IPoB, Obi glosses over their atrocities, which is not surprising since the brand of beer produced by his company, Hero Larger Beer, bears the Biafra flag depicting the rising sun. A man, who at significant risk to his business, persists in using a terrorist-linked insignia as the label for his product is conspiring with the terrorists. He has even said IPoB is not a terrorist group, which implies he considers himself superior to the court that had ruled that this group is a terrorist organization.
As further proof of his affiliation with IPoB, including with the rogue faction of the group, Peter Obi shamelessly structured his presidential campaign itinerary in the southeast to exclude Mondays, the day that the terrorist group enforces a crippling sit-at-home order in solidarity with IPoB’s leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who is in custody and on trial for treasonable charges. Avoiding campaigning in Igboland is not an act of cowardice as people surmised, it is evidence of Peter Obi showing solidarity with IPoB, an organization that says Nigeria must be destroyed, the same country Obi is seeking to lead.
In addition, anyone that has been paying attention to trends online will notice that the account handles behind the rabid IPoB’s anti-Nigerian vitriolic are the same accounts that are now pushing the OBIdient propaganda. The other accounts that have switched sides to support the OBIdient propaganda are those belonging to the people that incited the destructive #EndSARS protests, which again were in part directed by Nnamdi Kanu, as evidenced by a recording of his voice ordering his followers to destroy businesses owned by other ethnic nationalities and to kill law enforcement officers. The terrorist component of the OBIdient Movement is the reason Obi’s supporters persistently exhibited intolerance for other Nigerians to independently hold ideas that vary from theirs, which is responsible for the online trolling of those that differ with the OBIdients, threats to supporters of other political parties and isolated instances of actual physical attacks. On this, Obi has been silent.
Obi’s continued silence on IPoB’s atrocities is exceptionally deafening considering that weeks before the elections, ESN and Unknown Gunmen have intensified attacks on federal government locations, notably facilities belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security organizations, to prevent the election from holding because they know their patron cannot win. They are targeting INEC as part of an alleged plot to write all the votes in the southeast to Peter Obi after destroying facilities for conducting elections in the region, which is a hare-brained plan since the 2023 General Election is too digitized to be so manipulated.
Given the foregoing, the ongoing arson, killings, and violence against citizens who exercise their right of choice to support candidates other than IPoB’s Peter Obi are of concern since the candidate that these murderers are supporting, on whose behalf they claim to be committing these crimes has not come out to properly disown them. It is logical to then hold Peter Obi, as a sponsor of IPOB, responsible for the recent atrocities being committed by the group.
Nigerians must look beyond the populism upon which Peter Obi is riding to interrogate his tolerant views and stance on terrorism so that they do not empower someone who will see Nigerians of other ethnic nationalities as fair game to be terrorised by his lackeys in IPoB and ESN. We must not make the patron of a terrorist organization our next president.

Edeh wrote this piece from Uwani, Enugu.

Tea gifts from China at COP15-2 mirror country’s progress in biodiversity

By Feng Xuan, Sun Yong, Li Xiaohang, People’s Daily

On the “Zhejiang Day” sub-event held at the China Pavilion of the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15-2) in Montreal on Dec. 9, small cans of black tea attracted attention from the representatives attending the conference.
These tea cans were gifts brought by Chinese representatives. On the red cans, it was printed “Official Collection of COP15” in Chinese, as well as “Haishu Longguan” that indicated the tea’s place of origin – Longguan township of Haishu district, Ningbo, east China’s Zhejiang province.
The COP15-2 came just days after China’s traditional tea-making techniques and associated social practices were officially added to the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage for Humanity by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The tea in the red cans, picked in April this year, was a local specialty of Longguan township. It is a top prize winner at the Zhejiang Agricultural Fair.
Yu Ting, the party head of Longguan township, said the philosophy of carbon reduction was embedded in all production procedures of the tea, from planting to picking and from processing to transportation. He called the tea “an outcome of the biodiversity protection of Longguan township.”
The tea was grown in a 66.7-hectare plantation on Siming Mountain in Longguan township. The plantation, which also grows green tea and white tea, is activeand busy all year.
Yang Jinliang, owner of the plantation, told People’s Daily that the plantation is a beneficiary of the sound ecology and also contributes to further improving the ecology.
Under the guidance of local authorities, Yang and other tea farmers have been striving to reach the carbon reduction goals in all industrial chains of tea production. Today, carbon emissions by the plantation in tea planting, processing, transportation, consumption, and waste gas treatment are monitored online.
Yang has also joined the making of Chinese carbon labelling standards for tea products. “In the future, the labelling will not only improve products’ added value but also enhance people’s awareness of purchasing low-carbon agricultural and sideline products,” he said.
The Guideline for Biodiversity-friendly Township Planning was published at COP15-2, in both Chinese and English. The guideline was compiled by the government of Haishu district and mirrored the experience in biodiversity protection gained by the district over the years.
The guideline proposed to include biodiversity conservation in township planning in a systematic, eco-friendly, economic, and inclusive manner and provided eight steps to implement biodiversity protection, such as establishing planning teams, evaluating resources, developing partnerships, and collecting ecological information. It covered four aspects of planning, including developing eco-based industries, advocating close-to-nature lifestyles, restoring authentic ecology, and carrying out inclusive treatment.
The guideline drew experience of Longguan in building a biodiversity-friendly township. At the end of 2021, Haishu district launched China’s first pilot project of the construction of biodiversity-friendly township, which attempted to integrate biodiversity conservation into rural governance, production, and people’s daily lives.
Guided by the vision of biodiversity protection, Longguan replanned the construction of a local mountain road to maximally reduce the transport project’s damage to local forests.
It moved over 100 rare plants to the botanical garden of Ningbo and ensured minimum intrusion into the living space of plants and animals when building plank roads and observation decks.
The township also set up some 20 small protection bases for ferns, Isoetes sinensis Palmers, and other plants, and built over 300 artificial bird nests and “insect hotels.”
Longguan township, covering an area of 73 square kilometers, now boasts a forest coverage of 85 percent and 25 plant and animal species under first-and second-class national protection.
From the perspective of global development, townships are an important part of biodiversity construction, said Yu Wei, one of the makers of the guideline and the executive director of the research center for carbon neutrality and green development at China Jiliang University.
He said the biggest highlight of the guideline is that it offers a standard that guides townships to incorporate biodiversity into their planning, which is a key issue in the construction of biodiversity-friendly townships.
“It sheds light on the sustainable development of townships around the world,” he added.