The BlackBerry Z3, Jakarta Edition will go on sale from 15 May for 2,199,000 Indonesia rupiah ($191; £113). It the first phone to be launched under new chief executive John Chen. Once a dominant player in the sector, BlackBerry has struggled in recent years amid increased competition from rivals such as Apple and Samsung.
Updated 5 Years ago

A doctor will stand trial for the first time in Egypt on charges of female genital mutilation after the death of a 13-year-old girl last year. The girl's father, who took her to the clinic, is also being tried in the landmark prosecution. It was June 2013, and Suhair al Bataa was burdened by punishing heat, and a feeling of foreboding. Friends say the youngster was frightened. They recall that when she went to repair her shoes, she said it would be for the last time. She told one of her sisters to look after the other.
Updated 5 Years ago

At any one moment some 800,000 people are flying on aircraft. So, imagine just how many air passengers there are in any 24-hour period, let alone a month or a year. And, think of how all these millions have to be processed - a horrid but appropriate word - through thousands of airports. No matter how hard even the world’s best architects have tried, the airport is a difficult building type with which to fall in love. The reality is that many passengers rarely give much of a second glance at the quality of the architecture around them.
Updated 5 Years ago

The US is also sharing commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerian government, officials said. It comes after militants released a video of about 130 girls, saying they could be swapped for jailed fighters. Boko Haram seized them from a school in the northern Borno state on 14 April.
Updated 5 Years ago

The 12.5 per cent leap in the total value of non-oil export recorded in the month of February may have raised the prospect of bumper revenue earnings and foreign exchange accumulation by the Federal Government this year. This is because provisional data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria to cover the nation’s economic performance for the month of February this year has indicated that total non-oil export, which was put at $426.46 million, represents a 12.5 per cent increase above the level in the preceding month.
Updated 5 Years ago

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, told Dele Ogbodo, that with the hosting of the World Economic Forum on Africa, Nigeria is attracting about $4 billion private investments into the agriculture sector What is the ministry’s plan to forestall the likelihood of food shortage by 2015, due largely to insecurity in some parts of the North? Well, first and foremost, we are producing more food than ever before as a country. In the last two years, we have produced 15 million metric tonnes of food which is compared to 20 million metric tonnes of food that we say that we are going to produce by 2015. For this year alone, we have achieved about 80 to 85 per cent in paddy rice production and we have been self-sufficient. We had produced 2.9 million additional rice paddy last year and in 2012, it was 1.4 million metric tonnes. If you look at what we are going to do this year, we should be able to do additional three million metric tons and in maize, we are hoping to do additional 3.5 million metric tonnes.
Updated 5 Years ago

Emirates Group has announced its 26th consecutive year of profit and company-wide growth, ending the year in a strong position despite competitive pressure and a global economic environment that is only slowly recovering. The financial year ending March 31, 2014, also marked an unprecedented level of investment across the Group, continued expansion of its global footprint, and the achievement of new capacity milestones. The Emirates Group posted an AED 4.1 billion equal to $ 1.1 billion profit, up 32 percent from last year. The Group’s revenue reached AED 87.8 billion, equal to US$23.9 billion, an increase of 13 percent over last year’s results, and the Group’s cash balance remained strong at AED 19.0 billion ($5.2bn).
Updated 5 Years ago

The President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, on Sunday said the group was partnering with the government of Tanzania to complete a $600m cement factory in the east African country. He said the plant in Tanzania had already reached 25 per cent completion, adding that when completed, it would have annual 3,000,000 metric tons of cement production capacity.
Updated 5 Years ago

In a move aimed at improving Nigeria’s health indices and reducing maternal mortality ratio by three quarters by 2015, in line with the Millennium development Goal (MDG 5), the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PHN) has announced a $24.2 million commitment to drive a private sector emergency response to Saving One Million Lives initiative and invest in critical segments of healthcare value chain that benefits the underserved. This initiative, billed to span within a two year period, is targeted at advancing Nigeria’s progress in meeting the health MDGs in the short term and advance the health sector from being an economic drag to a net contributor to economic growth and job creation in the mid-term.
Updated 5 Years ago

Diamond Bank Plc has launched Season 4 of the Building Entrepreneurs Today (BET4) programme, a corporate social responsibility initiative of the bank aimed at enhancing the growth potentials of Nigerian entrepreneurs through capacity building. Speaking at the official launch of the fourth season of the programme in Lagos, head, Consumer Propositions Group, Diamond Bank Plc, Mr Olumide Akindele, said, “the Building Entrepreneurs Today programme is a strategic initiative of Diamond Bank to invest in the micro, small and medium enterprises segment of the economy by increasing the capacity of these small businesses to run thriving businesses.
Updated 5 Years ago