Business

Zimbabwe is facing "man-made" starvation with 60 percent of the people failing to meet basic food needs, a UN special envoy said Thursday after touring the southern African country.

Hilal Elver, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, ranked Zimbabwe among the four top countries facing severe food shortages outside nations in conflict zones.

"The people of Zimbabwe are slowly getting to a point of suffering a man-made starvation," she told a news conference in Harare, adding that eight million people would be affected by the end of the year.

By Valentine Amanze

The Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, and other environmentalists have raised the alarm over the pressure from foreign companies to flood Nigerian market with products of agricultural biotechnology known as GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms).

They also appealed to the Federal Government, regulatory authorities and the lawmakers not to yield to the pressure to force Nigerians to consume food items that are injurious to their health.

The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, is closing in on the $200 million deal for a textile industry to be operated by the anchor tenant at the Benin Enterprise Park (BEP), as part of efforts to industrialise the state.
The governor held meetings in China, during which Edo State's Public Private Partnership (PPP) team and the developers of the BEP, Amaya Capital, visited the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shandong Provincial People's Government for final talks with investors. The meeting targeted at attracting more companies to expand into the BEP.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange, Africa’s second-largest bourse, plans to introduce trading in financial derivatives next year as it seeks to deepen the market.

“We will launch with equity index futures and then grow the list from there,” Chief Executive Officer Oscar Onyema said in an interview in Abu Dhabi Tuesday. The exchange plans to introduce futures and options to enable investors to hedge and manage risks, he said at the Africa Investment Summit organized by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

AUTOMOBILE dealers under the aegis of Automobile Dealers Friends Association on Monday protested the sealing of their businesses by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) as a result of a crackdown on cars suspected to have been smuggled through the land borders.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that over 100 protesting members of the Association had from 10am walked from Awolowo Road Ikeja to the State House of Assembly.