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Trump Pleads Not Guilty To 34 Count Charge

Published

1 year ago

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Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday accused Donald J. Trump of covering up a potential sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign, unveiling 34 felony charges that open a perilous chapter in the long public life of the billionaire businessman who rose to the presidency and now faces the prospect of a shameful criminal trial.

 

Mr. Trump was indicted last week for orchestrating a scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election through hush money to a porn star — becoming the first former American president to face criminal charges.

 

According to New York Times, He surrendered to the authorities in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon and later appeared before a judge for his arraignment, where he entered a not guilty plea, a surreal scene for a man who once occupied the Oval Office and is mounting a third run for the White House.

 

In a remarkable spectacle playing out before a divided nation, Mr. Trump’s 11-vehicle motorcade arrived just before 1:30 at the district attorney’s office. While in custody, he was fingerprinted like any felony defendant, but special accommodations were made for the former president: He spent only a short time in custody, and he was not expected to be handcuffed or have his mug shot taken.

 

When Mr. Trump, visibly angry, entered the courtroom, he was accompanied by his legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn, and the lawyers handling this case, Todd W. Blanche, Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina. Mr. Trump declined to speak, despite aides indicating that he might.

 

The case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, charges the former president with 34 counts of filing false business records in the first degree, a low level felony that carries a maximum of four years in prison for each count, though if he is convicted a judge could sentence him to probation.

 

The case against Mr. Trump stems from three hush money deals. One of them involved the National Enquirer, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, paying $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to know that Mr. Trump fathered a child out of wedlock.

 

The tabloid made another payment to Karen McDougal, Playboy’s playmate of the year in 1998, who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the National Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

 

The final payoff, which is the focus of the indictment, involved a $130,000 deal between Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, and a porn star in the final days of the campaign. The payment, which Mr. Cohen said he made at Mr. Trump’s direction, ensured the porn star, Stormy Daniels, would not go public with her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump.

 

While serving as the commander in chief, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen, and that’s where the fraud kicked in, prosecutors say. In internal records, Mr. Trump’s company falsely classified the repayment to Mr. Cohen as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. Yet there were no such expenses, the prosecutors say, and the retainer agreement was fictional as well.

 

Read full count charge here.

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NNPC JV Unveils New Crude Oil Grade ‘Nembe’, Commences Exports With 1,900 Barrels

Published

6 months ago

on

November 8, 2023

By

Precious ADELOLA

The NNPC/Aiteo Joint venture has announced the introduction of Nembe Crude Oil Grade, a new crude oil grade into the international crude oil market.

 

The announcement of the Nembe Crude Oil Blend, produced by Aiteo, the Operator of the NNPC/Aiteo Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 Joint Venture (JV), was made at the ongoing Argus European Crude Conference in London, on Tuesday.

 

OML 29, an asset located onshore Nigeria, is operated by Aiteo Eastern Exploration & Production Ltd, Africa’s leading indigenous hydrocarbon producer, following a historic acquisition from Shell in 2014.

 

NNPCL Boss, Engr. Mele Kyari

The Nembe Crude was previously blended with the popular Bonny Light grade and exported via the Bonny Oil & Gas Terminal.

The unique selling point of the Nembe Crude Oil grade with an API gravity was highlighted by both the Aiteo E & P and NNPC Limited Leadership at the Argus Conference in London.

The Nembe Crude Oil grade also has a low sulphur content and low carbon footprint due to flare gas elimination, fitting perfectly into the required spec of major buyers in Europe.

Two cargoes of 950,000 barrels each of the Nembe Crude Oil grade have since been exported to France and the Netherlands. With its attractive Assay of API 29 and low sulphur content, the Nembe Crude Oil grade commands a premium to the global Brent benchmark.

 

With the NNPC-Aiteo OML 29 JV back on-stream, Nigeria now boasts of an additional crude oil export of 2 Cargoes at 950,000 barrels each per month and 1.2 Bcf of export gas monthly.

 

This remarkable achievement signals the commencement of activities at Nigeria’s newest crude oil terminal, the Nembe Crude Oil Export Terminal (NCOET), which was licensed in line with the extant laws and Crude Oil Terminal establishment regulations.

 

The terminal was conceived as a Floating Storage and Offloading Vessel (FSO) with a storage capacity of two (2) Million Barrels and the ability to offload crude oil to any export tanker from AFRAMAX to Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC).

 

It has a loading capacity of 25,000 barrels per hour and will be exporting over 3.6 million barrels of Crude oil monthly at full scale of operation.

 

Currently, hydrocarbon production from OML 29, which was hitherto constrained due to evacuation challenges owing to the security issues around the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) corridor, has now been resolved through a collaborative and creative approach that led to the innovation of the Alternative Crude Oil Evacuation Solution.

 

The Argus European Crude Conference 2023 in London is a gathering of energy majors, refiners, NOCs, traders, financial institutions, and other representatives from across the global oil markets. The event also provides a critical opportunity for business leaders to connect, discuss, share and learn from one another.

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Nigeria Owes NNPCL US$3.1bn, As Subsidy Hits US$921.5m Monthly

Published

6 months ago

on

November 7, 2023

By

Nigeria is not refining crude locally – NNPC GMD
Modupe ASUDO
THE Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has announced that contrary to rumors making the rounds that it owes the federal government unpaid accrued funds, amounting to billions of dollars, the company has stated that the reverse is the case, as the federal government of Nigeria is still indebted to it to the tune of US$3.1 billion.
In a statement to address the lingering controversy, made available to Biztellers, NNPCL spokesman, Olufemi Soneye, noted that the company would continue to collaborate with the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and all relevant stakeholders in the Reconciliation Committee set up by President Bola Tinubu to investigate, review and reconcile the financial records on alleged indebtedness to the Federation by both NNPCL and Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).
This is coming on the heels of calls by a non-governmental organisation for a probe of several monies allegedly owed to the Federation by the national oil company.
Refuting the claims by the NGO as baseless, he pointed out the fact that NEITI itself had dismissed many of the allegations in the said 2021 report, following a series of engagements with NNPCL.
The statement further reads that “NNPC Ltd states that at the outset of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, it was made to sell Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) imported into the country at one third of its value, a development that gave rise to an average of N400bn monthly subsidy bill, which subsequently put a strain on its revenues and finances. That subsidy bill accumulated up to N3.736 trillion as at May 31st 2023.
“With respect to gas-to-power debts, the non-payment of NNPCL’s share of upstream joint venture gas supplied to the government-owned plants had led to the accumulation of indebtedness of N174.07 billion by the Federation.
“Similarly, the receivables due from the Federation to NNPC Exploration & Production Limited (NEPL) as of 31st May 2023 amounted to $712 million (equivalent to N309.07 billion at N434.08/US$1) for revenues not remitted to NEPL but paid into the Federation account.
“While the Federation owed NNPCL the sum of N4.207 trillion as net indebtedness, the Company was only indebted to the Federation in the sum of N2.852 trillion, made up mainly of outstanding Good and Valuable Consideration (GVC) in respect of government upstream divestments, royalties and Petroleum Profit Taxes (PPT).
“We would like to also use this opportunity to clarify that over the years, our relationship with NEITI has been very cordial, as seen in August 2020 when we became an EITI supporting company in 2020, joining a group of over 65 extractive companies, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), commodity traders, financial institutions and industry partners committed to observing the EITI’s supporting company expectations.
“Indeed, aside being a signatory to several EITI’s global ethics and standards, NNPC Ltd had on the sidelines of the United Nation’s General Assembly (UNGA) in Washington DC, in September this year, signed up to the United Nations Global Compact on human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption, thereby becoming the first state-owned oil company to join the global initiative.
“NNPC Ltd’s book remains open to all our stakeholders as we remain committed to delivering value to Nigerians with integrity and as espoused in our principles of Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE), the bulwark of the Mele Kyari leadership of the company”.
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JUST IN: Tribunal Sacks Gov Uba Sani, Declares Election Invalid

Published

8 months ago

on

September 28, 2023

By

Governor Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was removed from office on Thursday by the governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Kaduna State.

The panel ruled that the state’s 2023 governorship election was invalid.

According to information gathered by Biztellers, the judges avoided the actual auditorium and instead communicated the decision via zoom.

It commanded the holding of new elections in seven wards across four local government units in the State.

Isa Ashiru, a candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party, and the PDP filed the petition.

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