Ecuador
CONCACAF postpones start of World Cup qualifying until 2021 due to pandemic
CONCACAF has confirmed that the body’s member nations will have to wait until 2021 in order to begin qualifying for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. The federatin announced in August that the competition’s first group stage would commence with four rounds of fixtures to be played in the October and November international windows. Six qualifiers would then advance to the second round, from which a further five teams are planned to advance to the final stage alongside top-seeded CONCACAF nations Mexico, United States, Costa Rica, Honduras and Jamaica to determined the region’s 3.5 spots for Qatar. Now, though, the tournament faces further rescheduling as it was deemed that the planned 2020 fixtures will not take place due to the lingering danger of the coronavirus pandemic. “CONCACAF has held recen...
Britain announces more flights to evacuate nationals from Nigeria
The British government has announced three more charter flights for more hundreds of its citizens set to return home from Nigeria. Already, more than 1,700 British travellers had been evacuated out of Nigeria back to the UK on special charter flights between April and May from Lagos and Abuja airports. Details of the coming new flights include the charter flight slated for Friday 29 May from Lagos to London. The other special flights will be operated on Monday 1st June between Lagos and London while the third flight which comes up Saturday 6th June from Abuja to London. According to information gathered, the UK organised special internal charter flight will travel from Port Harcourt to Abuja on Saturday 6th June to enable British nationals based in, or near, Port Harcourt to join the 6th J...
17 megadiverse countries of the world
We profile the world’s megadiverse countries, from obvious contenders like Ecuador and Brazil to one or two surprise entries It should be comforting to know that a mere 17 countries hold more than 70% of the world’s species. It should be easy to rally this small group of ‘megadiverse countries’ to protect the planet’s extraordinary biodiversity. Alas, some of these countries are also the world’s biggest consumers and polluters. In July 2000, the UN’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre recognised 17 megadiverse countries which hold the majority of Earth’s species and high numbers of endemic species (i.e. those unique to an area or country). To be termed megadiverse, a country must have at least 5,000 of the world’s plants as endemics and have marine ecosystems within its borde...
