02042019 - Military uncovers arms factory in Benue

Women queue for food in a camp for people displaced in the aftermath of
Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
Hunger stalks Mozambique after
deadly cyclone destroys farmland
Fulai Joaquim has
enough food to feed
his 10 children for another
week, maybe two.
Then, he says, it is in the
hands of God.
A cyclone ripped his
cassava crop from the
ground, leaving the roots
to rot in the field, and the
floods that followed
washed away his maize.
“There have been a lot
of tears,” said Joaquim,
45, as he trudged past the
small plots of land that
hug the mud and stick
homes of Nhampuepua,
also destroyed by the
storm. “Everyone is hungry.”
Hundreds of rural communities
were plunged
into food crisis after Cyclone
Idai tore through
central Mozambique on
March 14, humanitarian
workers say. The government
estimates that more
than 700,000 hectares of
agricultural land was
flooded, leaving many
farmers with nothing to
harvest.
From the air, the kilometres
(miles) of flattened
crops look like thinning,
slicked-back hair.
More than 750 people
died in the storm and
heavy rains before it hit
Mozambique and two
other southern African
countries, Zimbabwe and
Malawi. Two weeks later,
as search and rescue operations
wind down, the
focus is shifting to feeding
the survivors.
Maize imports to Mozambique
could double
this year from the usual
100,000 tonnes, said
Wandile Sihlobo, an
economist with the South
African agribusiness association,
Agbiz. How
that might impact prices
is uncertain. “Food-security-wise,
it’s been devastating,”
the World Food
Programme’s director for
Southern Africa, Lola
Castro, told Reuters at
the airport in the cyclonehit
port city of Beira.
“We have to scale up
fast.” WFP has delivered
food aid to some 200,000
Mozambicans and aims
to reach a million in the
next two weeks, Castro
said. But that is not
enough. Farmers also
need seeds to re-plant as
quickly as possible.
“It needs to be done
yesterday,” Castro said.
The storm could not
have come at a worse
time, barely a month before
the main maize harvest,
the region’s principal
crop. In countless villages,
Reuters saw
households desperately
trying to dry green, unripe
cobs salvaged from
the flood waters. But villagers
said eating the
cobs was making them ill.
In Bebedo, 100 kilometres
(60 miles) northwest
of Beira, dozens of families
came out to see a Russian-made
helicopter
land in a cloud of dust,
carrying a WFP delivery
of fortified food.
Within 20 minutes, they
had carried more than a
hundred brown boxes of
Plumpy’sup, a fortified
peanut paste used to
treat malnutrition in
young children, as well as
white sacks containing a
soy and corn flour blend.
It was the second delivery
that day. The village
is being used as a distribution
centre to feed
neighbouring communities
— 17,000 mouths in
all.
But residents said
Nhampuepua, an hour
and a half’s drive from
Beira, was falling through
the cracks. The only aid
that had reached there by
Saturday was donated by
a local petrol company.
Nhampuepua’s suffering
highlights the scale
of the task confronting
humanitarian agencies
and the government.
The United Nations
humanitarian coordination
agency, which is
overseeing the disaster
response, estimates that
1.85 million people scattered
across an area of
3,000 square kilometres -
roughly the size of Luxembourg
- were affected
by the storm in Mozambique
alone.
The subsistence farmers
of Nhampuepua, hardened
by years of poverty,
are already replanting
what they can, using
cuttings from the uprooted
cassava plants that
now litter the village.
But the land has its
rhythm and will not be
rushed, however great
the need. Only in eight
months will the cassava
be ready to eat.
Until then, hunger is a
real threat.
On Saturday, Diniz
Jeronimo, 28, and his
family of five shared a
bowl of plain boiled spaghetti
for their only meal.
Their crops were devastated.
Like most of the
community, the family’s
only immediate income
comes from selling charcoal,
which takes seven
days to make.
On the slow, sandy
road to Dondo, the nearest
town, a stream of bicycles
carried sacks of the
fuel. Now Diniz is worried
the price will come
down.
At the same time, the
cost of food has shot up.
A 25-kilogram sack of
corn flour that sold for 850
Mozambican meticais
($13) before the cyclone
now sells for 1,200
meticais, villagers said.
President Filipe Nyusi,
who described the storm
as one of the worst natural
disasters in Mozambique’s
memory, said
during a visit to Beira last
week that 100,000 agricultural
tools and 1,000
tonnes of seed for shortcycle
crops would be distributed
to help get farmers
back on their feet.
But the devastated villagers
around Dondo and
Nhamatanda had not received
anything as of Saturday
and were doubtful
they ever would.
In Nhampuepua,
Joaquim said he would
travel to Dondo that afternoon
to buy corn flour.
That would keep his children
fed for now, at least.
*Culled from Reuters
Lawmakers sought to
break a stalemate
over Britain’s departure
from the European Union
on Monday by trying
to force Prime Minister
Theresa May to
pursue much closer economic
ties than the deal
she negotiated envisages.
After a tumultuous few
weeks in which May’s
divorce strategy was rejected
by lawmakers for
a third time, despite her
offer to quit if it passed,
the future direction of
Brexit remains mired in
confusion and acrimony.
Three days after the
date on which Britain
was originally due to
leave the EU, it is still
uncertain how, when or
even whether the
United Kingdom will say
goodbye to the bloc it
joined 46 years ago.
In a bid to break the
impasse, lawmakers took
control of parliamentary
proceedings and were
set at vote at 8 p.m.
(1900 GMT) on four options
ranging from staying
in the EU’s single
market to revoking the
formal divorce papers to
avoid a no-deal exit.
The third defeat of
May’s withdrawal
agreement on Friday left
one of the weakest British
leaders in a generation
facing a spiralling
crisis over Brexit, the
United Kingdom’s most
far-reaching policy
change since World War
Two.
May’s government
and her Conservative
party, which has been
trying to contain a
schism over Europe for
30 years, are in open
conflict between those
VANGUARD, TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2019 — 39
British parliament breaks Brexit
stalemate
Five Nigerians, who
allegedly robbed a
bureau de change in
Sharjah, United Arab
Emirate (UAE), have
been arrested.
The suspects reportedly
fled with cash of different
currency worth Dh2.3
million (N226,182,000).
According to the
Sharjah police, the men
barged into the exchange
and smashed the glass
barrier between the customers
and the staff, stole
the money in multiple
*Urges May to seek close
economic ties
Venezuelan opposi
tion leader Juan
Guaido on Monday
called on supporters to
continue taking to the
streets in protest of
power and water shortages,
as the government
of President Nicolas
Maduro appeared prepared
to begin a rationing
program.
Scattered protests continued
throughout several
working-class
neighborhoods of the
Five Nigerians captured robbing
bureau de change in UAE
By Ebunoluwa Sessou
As part of efforts to
strengthen business
relationship between
the United States
of America and African
countries, especially Nigeria,
the AGCO Corporation,
a global leader in
the design, manufacture
and distribution of agricultural
equipment, is
teaming up with consortium
of U.S-Nigeria
Trade Council and other
partners across Africa and
pushing for a customs
union with the EU and
eurosceptics demanding
a cleaner break with the
bloc.
From EU officials
watching from Brussels,
there was one plea -
make up your minds.
“A sphinx is an open
book compared to the
UK,” said Jean-Claude
Juncker, European Commission
president. “Nobody
knows where it is
heading. Would like to
make the sphinx talk
and tell us in which direction
they would like
to go.”
In the 2016 Brexit referendum,
17.4 million
voters, or 51.9 percent,
backed leaving the EU
while 16.1 million, or
48.1 percent, backed
staying.
Venezuela's Guaido pledges
more protests over power,
water shortages
*Guaido
currencies and fled.
Two employees at the
exchange were injured as
they resisted the robbers.
One of them managed to
notify the police.
The Sharjah police coordinated
with forces
from Abu Dhabi, Ras Al
Khaimah and Ajman to
arrest the suspects within
48 hours after the robbery
was committed.
A top police official said
the suspects came to the
UAE on visit visas on
March 18.
capital Caracas on Monday,
with small groups
of people blocking roads
demanding water be returned
after a week of
intermittent blackouts
that have left many areas
without electricity.
That followed demonstrations
around Caracas
on Monday night
when police fired
gunshots after residents
set up burning barricades,
according to
Reuters witnesses. The
oil-rich South American
country has been hit by
two waves of crippling
blackouts since March 7.
“Every time the power
goes out, or we do not
have water, or we do not
have gas, guess what we
are going to do?” Juan
Guaido, the leader of the
opposition-controlled
National Assembly, said
at a rally at the country’s
Catholic University. “We
are going to protest, we
are going to make demands,
we are going to
take to the streets of
Venezuela, because it is
our right.”
Guaido invoked the
country’s constitution to
assume an interim presidency
in January, arguing
Maduro’s 2018 reelection
was illegitimate.
He has been recognized
by most Western and
South American countries
as the OPEC nation’s
rightful leader.
Maduro, a socialist,
calls Guaido a puppet of
the United States who is
attempting to oust him in
a coup. He has blamed
both the U.S. government
and the domestic
opposition for “attacks”
on the country’s main
hydroelectric facility,
US-Africa trade and investment summit
holds on Sept 26 United States, to present
a continental edition of
the hitherto successful
U.S.-Nigeria AgribusinessTrade
Summit.
The upscale version
tagged U.S.-Africa Trade
and Investment Global
Summit, USATIGS, has
as its theme “Expanding
the Frontiers of U.S.-Africa
trade and Investment”,
and holding September
26-28 in Atlanta,
Georgia, USA.
For the past two years,
the Summit organisers
have brought together
business leaders and representatives
of the Nigeria/
US government for a
yearly gathering in the
United States,
Top speakers at this
year’s event include AG-
CO’s Senior Vice President
for Asia-Pacific and
Africa, Gary Collar; Iyalode
Alaba Lawson, the
President of the Federation
of West African
Chambers of Commerce
and Industry (FEWAC-
CI), Mr. Olufemi Boyede,
Founder/President of the
Nigeria Trade and Investment
Centre in Canada
among others.