- The Federal Government says it is determined to complete Nigeria’s National Rail Network, one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s priority projects, and connect major cities in the country with rail lines by 2019.
Originally envisioned as a freight-only line to link key industries and ports in the iron ore and steel producing belt, the project has been reconfigured into a Passenger and Freight rail line to form the Central Line of the country’s railway network.
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- Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, says the Federal Government is working towards providing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises a credit facility of N2milion to N10million without collateral.
Osinbajo said that the initiative, in partnership with the Bank of Industry, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigerian Export-Import Bank and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, would provide enterprises with access to fully equipped cluster style facilities at an affordable fee.
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- The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria says it will not compromise standard, quality and hygiene in feeding the 10,687 Nigerian pilgrims during the 2018 Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
During an inspection of its kitchen at Al-Andalus Company for Hajj and Umra Services in Madinah, NAHCON said it was determined to ensure that all companies rendering services to Nigerian pilgrims meet the required quality and standard of packaging pilgrims’ food from production to delivery.
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- 75 year-old President Emmerson Mnangagwa has called on all parties to embrace peace and unity after he clinched 50.8 per cent of votes polled to emerge winner of the just concluded July 30 presidential elections.
Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission, in its final result, declared that Mnangagwa polled 2,460,463 votes to win while his closest challenger, Nelson Chamisa of the MDC Alliance, polled 2,147,437 or 44.3 per cent of votes.
The opposition MDC Alliance has described the election of Mnangagwa as based on a `fake result’ and vowed to challenge it in court.
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- Chinese Province of Jiangxi has begun to phase out burials to reduce space needed for graveyards and discourage people from spending excessive amounts on ornate coffins.
The province which collated thousands of coffins in the region, set about destroying them, including those already bought and paid for.
The authorities are pushing for people to favour cremation over the traditional burial to reach a target of having all dead be cremated by Sept 1.
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