Sunday 5 February 2017

Nosak Group holds management retreat


By Editor   |   29 January 2017 
The Chairman  of Nosak Group,  Dr. Toni Ogunbor
The Chairman of Nosak Group, Dr. Toni Ogunbor

Introduces Nosak Family Vegetable Oil
Nosak Group, a diversified business group with interests in agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceuticals and supermarket, recently held a two-day management retreat in Lagos.
Speaking at the event, the Chairman, Dr. Toni Ogunbor, said hard work and commitment are essential values that can take the company to a higher level.
Enjoining staff to be focused and achieve the company’s objectives, he noted that the global economic recession that occurred about 10 years ago is still having its negative effect in many countries’ economy, including Nigeria. He added that the 2009 banking sector reforms carried out by then CBN Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (now Emir of Kano) aimed at strengthening Nigerian banks, but in the end it saw stronger banks taking over weaker ones.


Commending staff for their cooperation during the company’s trying period, he stated that Nosak Group has built structures that help it ‘weather the storm,’ saying that over 80 per cent of businesses lost out during the global recession, but Nosak Group survived, as a result of judicious management of its resources and the diversification of its business interests. Urging members to embrace hard work, the Group Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Thomas Oloriegbe, said doing this would enable staff to run with the company’s vision and mission statement of fostering an environment of success.
Highlight of the event was the introduction of Nosak Family Pure Vegetable Oil.
Speaking on the product, Managing Director, Nosak Farm Produce, Mr. Robert Ogiri, said although there is stiff competition in the vegetable oil sector in the country, the company’s latest product would lead others because of its premium nature. Ogiri disclosed that the product is cholesterol free and has zero trans fat, apart from its triple filter.

The Guardian

Agribusiness Workshop Opens In Benin City

on:

Agribusiness Workshop Opens In Benin City
BENIN CITY:A 3 day workshop on Agricbusiness Organised by Edo State Government in line with the vision of the Godwin Obaseki led administration of creating jobs for Edo youths in the Agricultural Sector has commenced in Benin City the Edo State Capital.
Delivering a key note address at the workshop with the theme : “Harnessing Resources And Opportunities To Optimise Agricbusiness in Edo State” the Chief of Staff to Edo State Government Mr. Taiwo Akerele thank participant in the Agricbusiness for desiring to join the government of the state to develop it through Agriculture. He said the government is ready to invest in the Agricultural sectors to create job for the people of the state saying that the government is ready for the business of developing the state.
Akerele said the government is ready to create an enabling environment for investor to come into the state to invest without fear of being harassed as the Obaseki’s administration has put modalities on ground engaging with communities that have crises with investors encouraging such communities to ensure they create the enabling environment and atmosphere for business to thrive in the state.
“Edo state is an investment friendly state and the governor is investment friendly. He is set to position Edo on the part of process as he assured the people that in 3 years Edo will be made one of the biggest competing state in the area of Agricbusniess with Lagos or Ogun State”.
He urged the participants to take the workshop seriously as the Agricbusiness in the state is for serious investors that will join hands with the government of the state to develop the state. He wishes the participant a fruitful deliberation.
Earlier the chairman of the occasion Mr. Tony Ogunbor commended the governor of Edo State Godwin Obaseki for organizing this workshop barely 70 days in office. He said the governor has done well in the few steps he has taken including organizing this Agricbusiness workshop, he has hit the ground running.
Ogunbor x-ray the Journey of Lagos Industrialization to the input of experienced men from the private sectors bringing their wealth of experience to bare in developing the state. He said people like Babatunde Fashola contributed to the development of Lagos. Ogunbor said Obaseki is in the line of such great men coming from the private sector who can use his wealth of experience to turn the fortune of Edo State around for the better.
“Translating the management skills in the private sectors to the public sectors is what is needed to transform Edo state; Obaseki has that skill to move the state to enviable height in the country. This is not the time to lament in missed opportunity but to harness the Agricultural potentials of the state and put it to good use creating jobs for the youths.
Speaking further he said in time past Edo State was in the fore front of oil palm, rubber and cassava production. If we develop the Agric sector, it well leads to industrial development. “Edo State can become the food basket of the nation if we all put effort to develop the Agric sector and through this sector we can equally generate revenue for the state” he concluded.
The Agribusiness workshop which commenced today 26th will last till 28th of January 2016.
Nigeria Observer

Saturday 4 February 2017

Meet the Bush-nominated federal judge who halted Trump’s executive order

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fposttv-thumbnails-prod%2F02-04-2017%2Ft_1486218472365_name_20170204_ruling_thumbnail.jpg&w=480
Watch the ruling temporarily blocking Trump’s trPlay Video4:48
U.S. District Judge James L. Robart on Feb. 3 issued a ruling temporarily blocking the enforcement of President Trump’s executive order barring entry to the United States for citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees. (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington)
Judge James Robart wore a bow tie to the hearing, opened with a joke and finished with a thunderclap.
He was known for that sort of thing.
“The amicus law professors,” Robart said Friday, noting the many groups that waited in his Seattle courtroom to argue for or against a motion to halt President Trump’s travel ban. “Sounds like the three amigos.”
People laughed, despite the tension. The federal judge had a habit of mixing soft speech and extraordinary pronouncements.
At the end of the hearing, with no jokes or spare words, Robart halted Trump’s ban and potentially changed the fate of tens of thousands of refugees, Muslims and others around the world who had been denied entry into the United States.
His order challenges a White House that had spent all week defending the ban.
“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday morning.
But Robart had been called judge for more than a decade. President George W. Bush nominated him to the federal court for Washington’s western district court in 2004. Though he had held no judgeship before, senators of both parties praised him.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced him to the judiciary committee as a man who had fostered six children with his wife.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) went over Robart’s 30 years as a lawyer — up to his work at the time as managing partner at Lane Powell Spears Lubersky, where he handled mostly commercial law cases.
Utah’s Sen. Orrin G. Hatch noted Robart’s “representation of the disadvantaged” — including his work representing “southeast Asian refugees.”
“I was introduced to people who, in many times, felt that the legal system was stacked against them or was unfair,” Robart replied.”Working with people who have an immediate need and an immediate problem that you are able to help with is the most satisfying aspect of the practice of law.”
“Well thank you,” Hatch, a Republican, said. “That is a great answer.”
No one opposed his confirmation.
In his 13 years on the federal bench, the judge handed down criminal sentences no lighter than the law recommended — 78 months in prison for a crack dealer, life for a man who murdered a woman on a Native American reservation two decades earlier.
His job as a federal judge got more complicated after Seattle police shot and killed John T. Williams — a partially deaf woodcarver who did not put down his carving knife one day in 2010.
Hundreds surrounded a Seattle police station to protest Williams’s death, which had followed other accusations of police brutality in the city. A Justice Department investigation “found routine and widespread use of excessive force by officers,” the Seattle Times reported. That led to a long series of settlements and lawsuits — the bow-tied Robart presiding.
“Well, there certainly are a lot of you!” he said last August. His tie was green, his beard as white as ever.
In the years since Williams’s death, the Seattle case had evolved from passionate protests and a federal investigation into an endless string of hearings to oversee police reforms.
August’s hearing was one of many, and Robart gave no indication at the beginning that it would be anything of special note. He listened to each side argue, as he had done many times before. When it was his turn to speak, he went over schedules, comments and consent decrees to come.
Then he took a deep breath.
“I will now step back from my very precise legal practice and give you the following observation — from me,” he said.
He spoke of the police — training and accountability and leadership: “The men and women who go out and walk around Seattle and proudly wear the Seattle Police Department uniform,” he said. “They are entitled to know what they may and may not do.”
He breathed in again. Then he spoke of protests against police that had spread across the country, and FBI statistics showing that black people are twice as likely to be shot dead by police as their share of the population would warrant.
“Black lives matter,” the judge said.
His words, the Seattle Times noted, caused “a startled, audible reaction” in the courtroom. Here was a federal judge echoing a slogan used by protesters.
Robart was not done. “Black people are not alone in this,” he went on. “Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans are also involved. And lastly and importantly: police deaths in Dallas, Baton Rouge, Minneapolis and let’s not forget Lakewood, Washington, remind us of the importance of what we are doing.”
If his words were extraordinary, he gave no indication that day. Robart thanked everyone before him “for your hard work” and walked out the door behind him.
Half a year later, a country troubled by different matters waited on the judge’s word.
Robart listened for nearly an hour to arguments of the federal government and to those who oppose its travel ban, then thanked everyone for their “thoughtful” remarks.
He tried to tramp down any anticipation. A judge’s job, Robart said, “is not to judge the wisdom of any policy,” but only whether it was legal.
He would not even do that at the moment, he said, but merely consider whether Trump’s order should be blocked temporarily to prevent “immediate and irreparable injury” to the people it affects.
Robert looked down at his papers and issued his order.
The travel ban must be halted not just in Washington, he said, but for all “federal defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys and persons acting in concert … at all U.S. borders and port of entry, pending further order from this court.”
No one said a word. In his manner, Robart recessed and walked away.

The Washington Post