APRIL 16, 2024

Nigeria’s commercial capital boasts miles of white sand along the Atlantic Ocean that once teemed with locals looking to beat the heat. So what happened?

Before the rains come this month, living in Lagos can feel like walking around in intense heat while wrapped in a blanket.

And for a city on the Atlantic Ocean with a vast coastline of white sand, it’s the sort of weather that calls for a swim to endure the tropical savanna climate.

But in Nigeria’s commercial capital, there are no free public beaches.

Lagos’s capitalist bent and decisions by city officials mean that many of its 25 million residents can’t afford the simple joy of dipping in the ocean on its many hot days. It’s not that the beaches disappeared — although at least one did. It’s that the ones that are available are no longer free.

Private resorts and developers charge entry fees ranging from 3,500 naira ($2.70) to 60,000 for a single-day pass to access the waterfront, which is unaffordable in a country where millions of poor people are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis or living on less than $1 a day.

These businesses have walled off 76 kilometers (47 miles) of coastline from Lagos toward Epe in the east. While indigenous fishermen in the area can still find a way through, others have to pay a fee.

“Lagos is probably the only city on the West Africa coast where residents can’t go to a public beach without paying,” said Loveth Ifeoma Okafor, a tour agent who organizes budget trips across West Africa, comparing the region’s biggest metropolis to other cities in the Gulf of Guinea such as Takoradi in Ghana, Cotonou in Benin, and Abidjan in Ivory Coast — all of which are known for beautiful, free public beaches.

Nigeria has a poor track record in managing public infrastructure, and a scarcity of funds means that recreation ranks far down the list of spending priorities.

In many cases, the government’s response is to privatize what it struggles to manage, letting private investors take the lead in providing schools, hospitals — and access to the beach.

City officials say private beaches are cleaner, more secure and better managed than they were under government management.

“We have had several engagements with those in charge of the beaches in Lagos to see how we are not just giving unnecessary cost when it comes to accessing the beaches,” said Idris Aregbe, senior aide on tourism to the Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. “But what we currently have in the state compares with international standards, which wasn’t so in the past.”

He pointed out that free public beaches remain on the western front toward Benin Republic in the Badagry area, which is some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from central Lagos.

Temperatures that exceeded 34 Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) across Nigeria in February prompted warnings from authorities about a heat wave. While that in itself was nothing new, a stifling humidity above 83% in places like Lagos increased the heat index — which measures temperature and humidity — to more than 50 Celsius.

The privatization of beaches is in many ways a reflection of Lagos’s hustle culture, with the commercialization of public services excluding the poor.

During colonial rule, the British built three breakwater piers known as moles to ease the passage of ships into Lagos Harbour. This had a devastating effect on the city’s coastline, with what was once its most popular shoreside venue — Bar Beach — suffering severe erosion over time and forcing an end to open access for Lagos’s last free-entry strand.

“The beach was right there when I first came to Lagos 12 years ago,” said Rachael Osim, a staffer at a Best Western Hotel in upmarket Victoria Island, where Bar was located. The hotel served the throng of visitors that frequented Bar, and guests could walk barefoot right off the hotel lobby, across the road, and onto its six-kilometer stretch of sand.

“Now, we even climb to the fifth floor and we can’t even see the water,” said Osim.

Bar Beach had been a cornerstone of Lagosian life for decades: It was once a rendezvous for public executions during military rule in the 1970s and 1980s, and in other phases attracted violent gangs, overnight parties and fervent religious practitioners who deified its salty, frothy waters.

City officials said the beach posed a threat to buildings and infrastructure close to the coastline. In 2007, investors led by controversial billionaire Gilbert Chagoury began reclaiming nine square kilometers of land in the area for a sprawling new city that would — on completion — house about 250,000 people and accommodate another 150,000 jobs.

In place of the beach stand columns of skyscrapers, dredgers and other machinery as investors develop the Eko Atlantic City, an enclosure for the ultra-rich that has been dubbed Africa’s Dubai.

Tenants at the enclosure have a concrete boulevard on the edge of the ocean which is separated by a jut of rocks, known as the Great Wall of Lagos, to keep the Atlantic in its place.

— With assistance from Jody Megson and Karolina Sekula

APRIL 16, 2024

Flights arriving into Dubai airport - the world's busiest for international travel - are being temporarily diverted this evening to other locations as the city-state is hit by major flooding after heavy rainfall.

More than 120mm (4.7 inches) of rain came down on Tuesday, which is the typical yearly average in the desert nation - with more expected in the coming hours.

Homes and roads were flooded and partially submerged cars were left abandoned.

The tarmac at Dubai International Airport was also flooded as planes made their way around what looked more like a lake.

Earlier, it was announced airport operations were suspended for 25 minutes due to the bad weather, with at least 21 outbound and 24 inbound flights cancelled during the day, and three flights diverted to other airports.

Despite the disruption, the airport said in its latest announcement that departure flights were continuing to operate.

The airport said that inbound flights would be diverted until weather conditions improve.

An airport spokesperson was quoted by Gulf News as saying the flights would go to the nearest "available airports".

"The airport is working hard with its response teams and service partners to restore normal operations and minimise inconvenience to our customers," said the spokesperson.

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Passengers are being urged to check with their airline about the latest information on their flight status.

There was also heavy rainfall in other parts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a federation of seven emirates that consists of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.

Sky News weather producer Joanna Robinson said: "Intense showers and thunderstorms have been affecting eastern parts of the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran today, with further flooding rains possible on Wednesday.

"The risk will also extend into southwestern parts of Pakistan.

"It's not unusual to see flash flooding events in the Gulf region, it happens most years, but usually between December and March.

"It looks like over 40mm of rain fell at both Dubai airports earlier today, potentially making it the wettest April day in Dubai according to the Met Office.

"Urban areas and baked ground both increase the risk of surface water flooding as the water is unable to soak through the ground easily."

Lightning flashed across the sky, and it sometimes touched the tip of the world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa.

Rain is unusual in the UAE - but it happens periodically during the cooler winter months.

Many roads and other areas have insufficient drainage due to the lack of regular rainfall, causing flooding.

APRIL 17, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- Emirates is halting all check-ins for passengers for the day as bad weather in Dubai disrupts travel in one of the busiest aviation hubs in the world. 

The biggest international airline said that check-ins for all passengers would be halted from 8 am local time and run through midnight. Transit passengers are permitted to proceed to their connecting flights, the carrier said in a statement.

“Emirates is working hard to restore our scheduled operations, and our teams will provide all possible support to affected customers,” the airline said in the statement. 

Strong rainfall and storms that have battered Dubai have caused travel chaos, disrupting public life and affecting travel plans. The record rainfall has resulted in delayed or diverted flights, while cars have been left stranded on flooded roads. Dubai airport, one of the world’s busiest, is suffering from “significant disruption,” it said Wednesday in a statement.

APRIL 17, 2024

Verity Ratcliffe and Kateryna Kadabashy, Bloomberg News

A taxi navigates floodwaters in Dubai. Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images , Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP

(Bloomberg) -- Dubai flights have been severely disrupted and cars were left stranded on flooded roads after record rainfall over the past day brought the city to a standstill.

The United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest downpour since records began in 1949, Dubai’s media office said in a statement. It caused chaos for residents as water entered the city’s expensive homes and underground car parks, left some buildings without power and resulted in widespread flooding even a day later.

One person died after being swept away by flash floods in the north of the country, the National newspaper reported. In neighboring Oman, at least 18 people have died in recent days as the heavy rains caused flooding, AP reported, citing a statement from the country’s National Committee for Emergency Management.

Dubai airport, one of the world’s busiest, is suffering from “significant disruption,” it said Wednesday on X. Online departure boards showed most arrivals or departures as canceled or delayed as of 1 p.m. local time. Emirates, the biggest international airline, said it was halting all check-ins for passengers for the day. 

The heavy rains across the desert nation came after cloud seeding. The UAE has been carrying out seeding operations since 2002 to address water security issues, but the lack of drainage in many areas can trigger flooding, including in cities such as Dubai that’s a global financial and business center. 

The Gulf state’s National Center of Meteorology dispatched at least seven seeding planes from Al Ain airport between Sunday and Monday, the government agency said. That technique involves implanting chemicals and tiny particles — often natural salts such as potassium chloride — into the atmosphere to coax more rain from clouds.

With global warming threatening a surge in heat-related deaths in the UAE, Dubai’s media office on Tuesday dubbed the downpours “rains of goodness,” despite the flooded houses and overflowing swimming pools.

The latest storms followed heavy rains earlier this year that had also caused flooding and traffic snarls. Dubai’s government told its employees to work from home again on Wednesday due to the weather conditions and urged private employers to do the same. Schools have been directed to remain closed.

People took to social media to share updates on the aftermath of the weather. Some videos showed cars being swept off roads, one showed the ceiling of a shop collapsing as water inundated one of Dubai’s most popular malls, while another claimed to have footage of a collapsed road near the eastern city of Al Ain. 

There was some rainfall elsewhere in the region as well. Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia saw the heaviest showers in the country in the past 48 hours. Riyadh was hit with sand and wind storms that at one stage led to near-zero visibility but otherwise faced dry conditions on Tuesday.

Saudi’s flagship carrier Saudia and budget airlines Flynas scrapped two dozen flights between them, according to FlightAware. Some early Wednesday flights from Bahrain’s main airport were canceled but departures resumed mid-morning, according to the Bahrain International Airport website. Qatar’s Hamad International Airport was also operating normally.

(Updates with Saudi, Bahrain weather in the penultimate paragraph.)

APRIL 17, 2024

Report finds there are now 135,200 millionaires on continent

Wild currency depreciations have chipped away at their wealth

by Adelaide Changole, Bloomberg News

, Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The number of millionaires living in Africa dropped by nearly 20,000 in the past decade as the continent’s ultra-rich either moved away or saw dramatic currency depreciations eat away at their wealth.  

There are now just 135,200 individuals with wealth of $1 million or more, an 8% decline from 2013, according to a report by Henley & Partners. Along with the continent’s 342 centimillionaires and 21 billionaires, those individuals have total wealth of $2.5 trillion, the consultancy found. 

“Currency depreciation and underperforming stock markets have chipped away at Africa’s wealth compared to global benchmarks,” Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at Henley & Partners, said in the report. “With African stock markets underperforming against global peers, local property markets facing headwinds, and currencies depreciating against the dollar, African investors have seen their wealth eroded on multiple fronts.”

Africa’s economies have faced multiple challenges over the past decade that have put strain on their budgets and currencies, from Covid-19 to rising interest rates to geopolitical tensions. South Africa, which has more than twice as many wealthy individuals as any other African country, has lost 20% of its millionaires in the last 10 years as the country battled logistics constraints, rolling blackouts and endemic crime and corruption. 

During that time, the South African rand has fallen 43% against the greenback and the FTSE JSE All Share Index has also trailed the S&P 500. 

Egypt and Nigeria, which are home to the next highest number of rich people after South Africa, have been grappling with runaway inflation, foreign-exchange shortages and multiple currency devaluations to allow their local units to trade more freely. 

Despite all the challenges, Africa’s millionaire population is expected to rise by 65% in the next decade, according to the report. The gains will be driven by a surge in wealth in Mauritius, Namibia, Morocco, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, which are all expected to experience at least 80% millionaire growth, the report said. 

“Mauritius, with its stable governance and favorable tax regime, is projected to experience a remarkable 95% growth rate, positioning it as one of the world’s fastest-growing wealth markets,” the report said. “Namibia, too, is poised for impressive high-net-worth growth.”

APRIL 18, 2024

The Central Bank governor, Olayemi Cardoso, has said the recent decline in the nation’s foreign reserves was used to settle debts owed to international creditors and not to defend the naira.

The governor made this known during an interactive session with Abebe Aemro Selassie, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) director of the African department, on Wednesday.

Concerns have been raised by Nigerians recently regarding the significant decrease in the country’s exchange reserves, dropping by around $2.16 billion in just 29 days, despite robust efforts to stabilize the naira.

Data retrieved from the CBN website regarding the movement of foreign reserves reveals that as of April 15, 2024, the FX reserves stand at $32.29 billion, marking a notable decline from the $34.45 billion recorded on March 18, 2024.

This decline, the lowest in six years, signifies a definitive halt to a period of consistent growth. During this time, the reserves experienced a 43-day surge, accruing $1.28 billion between February 5 and March 18, 2024.

However, speaking at the event, Cardoso stated that there were no intentions to defend the currency with the external reserves, as it was counterintuitive.

The CBN boss clarified that the depleting external reserve is due to the payment of debts.

“As much as I have read in the recent few days, some opinions with respect to what is happening with our reserves, and the central bank defending the naira, if you think back to what our overall policy and philosophy has been, you can see is counterintuitive,” he said.

“What you see with respect to the shifts in our reserves, is the shifts that you will find in any country’s reserve situation where, for example, debts are due and when certain payments need to be made, they’re made because that is also part of keeping your credibility intact.

“Other times, money comes in and you know, takes it up again, and if you watch the next couple of days, I think between yesterday and today, we had about 600 million that came to the reserves account.

“All I will say is that we are looking towards ensuring that we have a market that operates on its own: willing buyer, willing seller and price discovery. That’s where we’re going to be.”

APRIL 18, 2024

BY  Yinka Ibukun, Bloomberg News

Source: World Weather Attribution , Source: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Climate change contributed to an unusually intense heat wave that hit West Africa’s Sahel region this month, with numerous deaths reported in at least two countries, according to a study by the World Weather Attribution.

“The burning of fossil fuels is playing a huge role” for the Sahel’s prolonged intense heat, said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, who contributed to the study. With continued global warming, events like these will become more common, she said.

The most severe heat was recorded on April 3, with temperatures rising to 48.5°C in the town of Kayes in Mali, the WWA reported. 

“What is unusual for heat waves in an Africa country is that we have reports about mortality already now for this specific event,” Otto said.

In Bamako, Mali’s capital, the Gabriel-Toure Hospital recorded 102 deaths in the first four days of April, compared with 130 deaths during all of last April. In neighboring Burkina Faso, four people a day were reported dead-on-arrival at the capital’s main teaching hospital in the early part of this month, according to local media reports.

The Muslim Ramadan fast made it more difficult for people to cope because they weren’t meant to drink water or other beverages, said Kiswendsida Guigma, a meteorologist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, which also participated in the study.

Read more: ‘Hot Continent’ Perception Downplays Africa’s Heat Wave Dangers

The data suggested that climate change made maximum temperatures in Mali and Burkina Faso, where the heat was the most extreme, 1.5 degrees hotter and the amount of days for which they stayed unusually high made it a one-in-200 year event, according to the WWA statement published Thursday. 

In the broader Sahel region, maximum temperatures were slightly lower on average, representing a one-in-30 year event. The group said it used peer-reviewed methodologies to reach the conclusion, though the study itself wasn’t peer-reviewed.

The El Niño weather phenomenon wasn’t the main cause of the Sahelian heat, the way it was in the case of a drought that hit southern Africa in February, according to the scientists.

APRIL 20, 2024

South Africa has approved the enactment of its digital nomad visa regulations, extending the right to work to foreign skilled workers, including Nigerians.

Under the new policy, foreign workers earning an annual income exceeding R1 million ($53,665) would be qualified for visa relocation to South Africa.

“The introduction of a remote working visa responds to the rapidly evolving world of work, where increasing numbers of skilled workers, notably in the tech industry, are attracted by the lifestyle benefits of working from a remote location,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa during the initial announcement of the policy.

“It also caters to so-called digital nomads, who can work virtually from any location in the world. A remote worker who wants to work in South Africa while being employed by a foreign company will be able to receive such a visa,” he added.

Last month, when the government published the draft regulations for the visas, it invited the public to share feedback and comments.

Some South Africans supported the digital nomad visa with hopes that it would attract foreign talents into its tech ecosystem, while some others believe it could sponsor an increased cost of living, inequality, and tax evasion.

Mixed public opinion did not falter plans however, as the bill was passed into law and to begin operation this year.

The new law follows the same criteria introduced by different countries with similar visa requirements, such as Canada, the Czech Republic, Japan, Spain, and South Korea.

South Africa also joins other African nations offering remote work visas including the Seychelles Cape Verde, Namibia, and Mauritius.

APRIL 20, 2024

BY Laura Millan, Coco Liu and Zainab Fattah, Bloomberg News

An ambulance abandoned in floodwater in Dubai. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The heavy rains that flooded Dubai this week halted air traffic, damaged buildings and streets — and left climate experts and common citizens asking whether one of the world’s hottest and driest cities should be better prepared for extreme storms. 

Weather forecasters knew days in advance that a major storm was heading for the United Arab Emirates and authorities issued warnings asking citizens to stay home. Yet its largest city Dubai was still brought to a halt this week, with one of the worst rain events in decades flooding streets, homes and highways.   

“Stormwater management systems were historically deemed an ‘unnecessary cost’ due to the limited rainfall” in the UAE, said Karim Elgendy, an associate fellow at the Environment and Society Centre at Chatham House. “As the variability of rainfall increases across the region and as the likelihood of such events rises, the economic case for such systems becomes stronger.”

Human-caused climate change is making extreme weather events like heat and rain more intense, frequent and harder to predict. The Middle East is forecast to face higher temperatures and a decline in overall rainfall, according to long-term scientific projections. But these very arid places will also experience storms that drop unprecedented rain, according to researchers. That’s forcing governments to consider whether to adapt to rare but destructive events — and how.   

Representatives for the UAE government didn’t immediately reply to a written request for comment.

“It’s a real tradeoff in thinking about the cost and the opportunity costs,” said Linda Shi, an assistant professor specializing in urban climate adaptation at Cornell University in the US. “These events are likely to be erratic and unpredictable.”  

The UAE was battered on Tuesday by its heaviest downpour since records began in 1949. Scientists and weather forecasters attribute the storm to a large amount of moisture rising from warming seas to the atmosphere, before falling as rain over to the Arabian Peninsula.

El Niño, the climate phenomenon that makes seas warmer and alters weather patterns globally, may have affected the storm. Climate change can’t be ruled out as a factor, though more detailed studies are needed to establish its exact influence, several climatologists and forecasters told Bloomberg Green. 

“While massive floods like this have occurred in the past, the huge scale and intensity of the rainfall that caused it are exactly what we are seeing more of in our warmer world,” said Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading in the UK. “With so much rain falling all at once, even carefully designed drainage systems will struggle to cope.”   

The floods drew immediate attention to the UAE’s cloud-seeding program, which involves injecting particles into clouds that can influence rainfall. But it will take “significant data analysis” to ascertain the role, if any, it played in making the rains more extreme, according to Auroop Ganguly, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Northeastern University in Boston. “Often major floods in a city relate to urban drainage and related infrastructures,” he said.

Dubai and the UAE more broadly were unprepared for such a large amount of water falling over such a short period. Drainage systems quickly proved insufficient to absorb the deluge. Underground garages completely flooded, with water flowing into streets, highways and homes.

Tankers were deployed to pump water from streets once the storm passed, but some communities, lakes and local football grounds remained waterlogged days later. The impacts continue to ripple outward. Shelves in some local supermarkets were still empty on Thursday evening. Schools were shut for four days and government employees were asked to work from home where possible. Dubai’s international airport said Friday afternoon it was allowing departures to operate but it was limiting the number of inbound flights for the next 48 hours.

“Cities in arid regions may be especially ill-prepared for heavy rain events because buildings, landscapes and infrastructure have not been designed with drainage capacity as a primary concern,” said Zachary Lamb, an assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley in the US. “Climate change is unsettling long-held assumptions about landscape and climate conditions that have informed the design and planning of buildings and cities for generations.”    

Dubai is not alone in facing that problem. Last year, a superstorm burst dams in Libya, causing floods that wreaked havoc in the city of Derna and killed at least 5,000 people. Parts of Beijing were also submerged last year after the Chinese capital was battered by the heaviest rainfall in 140 years of weather records. The flooding washed away homes and caused dozens of fatalities.

“Dubai can only prepare for what it sees as being within the range of probability for the future,” said Lisa Dale, a climate adaptation specialist at Columbia University in the US. “Predictions for future weather patterns foundationally rely on past weather patterns, leaving many governments unprepared for climate change impacts that are not historically common.”

--With assistance from Rakteem Katakey, Verity Ratcliffe, Olivia Rudgard and Leen Al-Rashdan.

APRIL 23, 2024

After a failed attempt back in 2013, Milan is once again trying to get late-night ice cream eaters off its streets - with local government proposing a new law that could come into effect next month.

By Kieren Williams, news reporter

Milan is proposing a new law to ban ice cream after midnight in an effort to protect the "tranquillity" of residents.

For many, a late-night gelato is a part of Italian culture, but this is in danger under a new law being introduced in the city.

A legislative starting paper has been filed by the city's local government, and if passed it could see late-night ice creams banned as soon as next month.

Covering 12 districts, the proposal would ban all takeaway food, including pizza, and drink after midnight in an effort to clamp down on noisy groups crowding on the streets of the Italian city, keeping local residents up.

Marco Granelli, deputy mayor, said: "The goal is to seek a balance between socialising and entertainment, and the peace and tranquillity of residents."

The proposal would be effective from "mid-May" and last until November.

It would kick in at 12.30am on weekdays and 1.30am on weekends and public holidays, applying to outdoor tables only in an effort to clear the streets.

Citizens have until early May to appeal and suggest changes to the law.

The proposal would apply in the following areas: Nolo, Lazzaretto, Melzo, Isola, Sarpi, Via Cesariano, Arco della Pace, Como-GaeAulenti, Porta Garibaldi, Brera, Ticinese, and Darsena-Navigli.

However, this is not the first time Milan has tried to ban ice cream after midnight.

Back in 2013, the then mayor Giuliano Pisapia tried to implement similar measures but after a fierce backlash, including a reported 'occupy gelato' movement, he U-turned.

He was reported as having said after backtracking: "People can eat ice cream day and night, anywhere they like."