Monday 7 December 2015

Gates, Branson, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Ma Launch Breakthrough Energy Coalition

December 4, 2015

Image Credit: Breakthrough Energy Coalition

“We need innovation that gives us energy that’s cheaper than today’s hydrocarbon energy, that has zero CO₂ emissions, and that’s as reliable as today’s overall energy system. And when you put all those requirements together, we need an energy miracle,” Bill Gates recently told The Atlantic.
Luckily, what The Atlantic article called Gates’ “solo global lobbying campaign,” is starting to snowball. The political outcomes of the United Nations climate conference, COP21, may still be unknown, but at least we can expect substantial investment in clean energy following major announcements from earlier this week.
Some of the world’s richest and most influential people committed to support the commercialization of clean energy ideas as part of the newly formed Breakthrough Energy Coalition. Meanwhile, over 20 countries will participate in Mission Innovation, a commitment to double their governmental and/or state-directed clean energy research and development investment over five years.
Gates spearheaded the Coalition, and is joined by 26 other investors from 10 countries. Among them: Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group; Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, CEO of The Primary School; Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon; Jack Ma, Founder and CEO of Alibaba Group; Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO of Salesforce; Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock; Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Indian megacorp Reliance Industries Limited; Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard; and Saudia Arabian HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
“The world needs to be carbon neutral by 2050. This CAN and HAS to be achieved by governments, business and others coming together to create an energy revolution. The Breakthrough Energy Coalition will help make this a reality,” Branson is quoted on the Coalition’s website. “The next decade presents a great opportunity to invest in businesses and technology aimed at tackling climate change. We must produce an abundance of clean, renewable energy and drive further innovation to make the next generation of energy more efficient. It will benefit the environment, our society and the economy.”
“Our primary goal with the Coalition is as much to accelerate progress on clean energy as it is to make a profit,” Gates wrote in the blog post that broke the news. He further explained the rationale for clean energy investment in a video.

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Shell wants ex-Nairobi Councillor jailed over Sh180m land case

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A Shell petrol station opposite MP Shah Hospital on Parklands road in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE

By BRIAN WASUNA

Posted Sunday, December 6 2015 at 14:45

Oil marketer Vivo Energy, which trades in Kenya as Shell, wants a former Nairobi councillor jailed for interfering with a disputed piece of land along Ngong Road despite a court order directing that the plot should be left untouched until a suit it filed is heard.

SPACE

The oil marketer says former Woodley Ward representative Mohammed Peter Nyutu has dumped a storage container on the land which is valued at Sh180 million and is laying concrete around it in defiance of Justice Lucy Gacheru’s court order.

Vivo sued Mr Nyutu’s company Red Kaka Limited in August, accusing it of grabbing the prime land which is adjacent to its Woodley outlet. It says Mr Nyutu used forged documents to trick the Registrar of Titles and City Hall into validating Red Kaka’s occupation of the land.

“Red Kaka through Mr Nyutu has commenced acts contemptuous of the court process by placing a massive container on the suit property with the sole intention of seeking to pursue ownership rights in means other than those envisaged in these proceedings,” Vivo says.

Vivo has sued Red Kaka, City Hall, the Registrar of Titles and Ayan Enterprises — a firm that was in the process of buying the land from Mr Nyutu’s company. A defence filed by the Registrar of Titles indicates that the land belongs to Vivo.

Red Kaka in 2008 leased the land to Ayan Enterprises, and successfully registered the lease with the registrar, who now says documents used in the transaction were forged.

The registrar says in defence papers that it only registered Red Kaka as the owner of the land because City Hall issued it with a seemingly genuine lease to the firm.

City Hall, however, claims that it has never owned or dealt with the land. The registrar wants City Hall and Red Kaka to settle any damages it may be ordered to pay as it only went on documents from them in issuing a provisional title deed to Mr Nyutu’s firm.

Joseph Kamunyu, a land registrar, says records show that Vivo is the registered owner of the property.

He adds that City Hall hoodwinked it into believing that the county government had authority to allocate the land to Red Kaka.

“Upon checking the indenture, it indicated that the property belongs to Kenya Shell Limited.

“City Hall had misrepresented to the registrar that it had authority to allocate the said land when knowingly it did not,” Mr Kamunyu says.

Wednesday 29 July 2015

Ugochukwu Omeogu

Ugochukwu Omeogu is a mentor and a career coach. He is the principal consultant and the prime facilitator of Joseph consult(J C company), a career management and business development company. He is the Dean of Academy One Executive Business School. He also runs private executive mentoring and coaching programs for top corporate executives, group heads, branch managers and team leaders.
Ugochukwu Omeogu ‘s mentoring and coaching experience and skills were developed in J P Morgan Chase bank in the United States of America where he was the lead facilitator in the Performance Management Review Team(PMR). He was trained in Customer Service, leadership and organizational strategy in J P Morgan Chase Bank in the United States. He also worked in Access Bank of Nig Plc, where he established the regional Private Banking unit in Port Harcourt and facilitated the culture integration training s.
He designed the Train-the -Trainer mentoring program adopted by Lagos states government for the secondary teachers and students in Lagos state.
He was the regional group leader with World Lending Group in Dallas Texas in the United States where he functioned as the lead Loan Originator while mentoring junior officers to higher job performance and also a Senior Customer Relationship manager.
Ugochukwu Omeogu holds a bachelors degree in accounting and he is a certified tax specialist in the United States America.
Over 10 years of practice and experience in facilitating Management and business trainings in Customer Service, Sales and marketing techniques, Deposit mobilization, Leadership, Change Management and Customer Relationship Management, equips him with a holistic Value Chain Management exposure, and his marketing communication practice strengthens his balanced and objective view as regards marketing communication efficiencies and deliverables.
Several local and international trainings and project handling opportunities inform Ugochukwu Omeogu’s multiple perspectives to analyzing and synthesizing everyday business challenges, opportunities and performance.
He has facilitated and trained for J P Morgan Chase USA, Zenith bank Plc, Oceanic bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Access Bank, Century Micro Finance Bank, Itex Integrated Software and Systems ltd, Angel Foundation USA, Neimeth pharmaceuticals plc, TF Financial services Ghana amongst others who he helps in developing their change management and leadership training and also in the development of their sales and marketing strategy and trainings.
He can be reached on his twitter handle @UgoOmeogu and contacted through www.josephconsultingng.com

Thursday 23 July 2015

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Exclusive: Trump threatens third-party run

NEW YORK — Donald Trump says the chances that he will launch a third-party White House run will “absolutely” increase if the Republican National Committee is unfair to him during the 2016 primary season.“The RNC has not been supportive. They were always supportive when I was a contributor. I was their fair-haired boy,” the business mogul told The Hill in a 40-minute interview from his Manhattan office at Trump Tower on Wednesday. “The RNC has been, I think, very foolish.”
Pressed on whether he would run as a third-party candidate if he fails to clinch the GOP nomination, Trump said that “so many people want me to, if I don’t win.”
“I’ll have to see how I’m being treated by the Republicans,” Trump said. “Absolutely, if they’re not fair, that would be a factor.”
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called Trump earlier this month asking him to tone down his controversial rhetoric. More recently, the RNC rebuked him for saying that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is not a war hero. Trump didn’t apologize but has since said that the 2008 Republican presidential nominee is a war hero.
Trump told The Hill that the GOP establishment in Washington dislikes him because he’s not part of the political class.
“I’m not in the gang. I’m not in the group where the group does whatever it’s supposed to do,” he said. “I want to do what’s right for the country — not what’s good for special interest groups that contribute, not what’s good for the lobbyists and the donors.”
The real estate magnate has upended the Republican presidential primary, with recent national polls showing that he is leading the 16-candidate field. Many in the party’s establishment, pointing to his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants and McCain, say that Trump is badly hurting the GOP brand.
Yet he is connecting with a significant chunk of GOP voters. And despite criticism from party leaders and other presidential candidates, Trump appears fueled by controversy.
His office, which has a stunning view of Central Park, is filled with family photos, golf trophies and sports paraphernalia.
At various times during the interview, Trump pointed out that he isn’t a politician. But the reality TV personality has politician-like skills, answering questions he wants to answer and driving the conversation to where he wants to take it. Trump doesn’t shy away from eye contact, and while prone to complaining about reporters, he is comfortable in his own skin.
The 69-year-old, of course, is no stranger to the media, and on Wednesday he complimented his questioners while also urging them — on more than one occasion — “to be fair.”
He insisted that his remarks about McCain and immigration have not and will not hurt him, and pointed to several recent polls to make his point.
Not surprisingly, Trump is a big fan of polls now.
At one point, he whipped out a survey that he had inside his suit pocket, and later he called on an aide to print out the latest poll numbers showing him leading former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).
“I’m surprised that I’m this high,” he said.
Unlike former Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) four years ago, Trump is not predicting victory. He won’t utter the former Speaker’s famous “I’m going to be the nominee” statement, saying that would be “presumptuous.”
He attributes his rise to being frank with voters.
“I’m not surrounded by all sorts of pollsters and PR people,” Trump said. “I speak the truth. Our country is in big trouble, and I know how to turn it around.”
“Competence” and “leadership” are what voters are looking for, he says.
While some of his Republican rivals, such as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, must do well in Iowa, and others are looking to New Hampshire, including Bush, Trump doesn’t see his path to victory as state-specific. And he was tight-lipped on how he’s preparing for the Aug. 6 Fox News debate, which will only allow for the top 10 candidates by poll standing to appear on the stage.
“I’ve got a lot of knowledge having to do with government. For the debates, I’ll work on that,” he said. “As far as the debate is concerned, these politicians debate every night. That’s all they do is talk. I don’t do that. I do other things. I’m a job creator.”
He said he’d appoint judges to the Supreme Court with a “conservative bent,” praising Justice Samuel Alito and criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts.
“Jeb Bush was the one that pushed Roberts through his brother, and Roberts gave us ObamaCare,” Trump said. “Roberts was a terrible choice. We wouldn’t be talking about ObamaCare right now if we didn’t have Roberts.”
He spoke favorably of setting term limits in Congress without offering specifics and didn’t rule out endorsing congressional candidates in 2016. Trump did not show his hand on whether he might endorse a primary challenger to McCain, who has one such competitor in his Arizona race.
Trump said he agreed with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in opposing President Obama’s trade policy.

“You know the funniest thing about Bernie Sanders? The one thing we agree on is trade,” the billionaire said with a smile. “He knows the country is ripped off. And I know the country is being ripped off. The difference is that I can do something about it and he can’t. He’ll never be able to negotiate with China.”
Trump said that despite his tough talk about China, he’d be able to have a working relationship with its leaders. To accentuate his point, Trump brought The Hill six floors down to note that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China rents space in his building.
“They just renewed their lease and you know why? They love Trump,” he said.
He said that Sanders is a sort of “duplicate” of liberal favorite Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who he said has pushed Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for 2016, to the left.
“She’s had a huge impact on Clinton,” Trump said. “Hillary is going way left, and I sort of laugh because I know Hillary very well. ... The interesting part about Hillary is that her donors are all the hedge fund guys and the business guys and the real estate guys. And they’re all saying, ‘Do you think she means it?’ And I say, ‘Of course she doesn’t mean it — you know her.’ ”
Trump has long said he loves his job of striking deals and making money. But now that job is on hold as he attempts to become the 45th president.
Trump says he’s enjoying running for commander in chief, though he knows it’s early in the game.
“It’s very hard for a very successful person to run for political office — especially for president,” he said, after asking for business cards. “I get that now more than anything.