News Release: Vincent Enyeama Receives Award Of Sports Person Of The Year 2010

Vincent Enyeama(Left) Receiving Award From Joseph Yobo

At the 6^th edition of The Future Awards, known as Nigeria’s most influential youth event, Vincent Enyeama, the 28-year-old international footballer was declared Sports person of the Year 2010 and rewarded alongside other exceptional young Nigerians aged 18-31 years.

Enyeama who was out of the country could not personally receive his award, which was reserved on his behalf by sports journalist, Shina Okeleji, at the event held on January 30, 2010 at the Landmark Village in Lagos.

He was however presented with his award in February by his colleague and national team mate, Joseph Yobo. Both kitted in the nation’s team gear, Yobo presented Enyeama with his plaque as Sports person of the Year 2010.

“I am very excited about this award,” Enyeama said by phone from his base outside the country. “I am glad to be recognised and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

28-year-old Enyeama, who currently plays football as a goalkeeper for the Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv was named the Israeli player of the year 2009, the third foreigner ever to win it since 1965 and the first foreign goal keeper.

Vincent Enyeama justified claims as one of the best shot-stoppers in football at the moment, with a defiant display to restrict Argentina to a 1-0 win in their Group B 2010 FIFA World Cup match. Enyeama, who was playing his 56th international for the Super Eagles, made six fine saves, four of them from Lionel Messi, and was the major reason for Nigeria coming so close to almost pinching a draw against the two-time world champions,Lionel Messi described him as ‘phenomenal’ after this match. Despite the loss, he was named Man of the Match and Goal.com’s World Player of the Week.

From The Publicity Unit

News Report: Arab Protests Sign Of World Hunger Threat

A fruit vendor drinks tea as he waits for customers at a market in Amman, January 2011. Photo Credit: Reuters

Uprisings across the Arab world are just a foretaste of the instability facing other poor states unless a global food crisis is tackled, leading development economist Jeffrey Sachs said on Saturday.

Popular anger at rising food prices has been an explosive ingredient in the mix of grievances that triggered the fall of leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, and is now putting the heat on authorities in Algeria and Jordan.

Sachs, a long-time adviser of governments and world agencies on the fight against poverty, said the root causes applied right across an already unstable belt of states stretching from Iraq through the Sahara to the shores of West Africa.

"This isn't just about the Muslim Brotherhood and it isn't just about politics," Sachs said in an interview of what he called an overly narrow concern among some in the West on the current mood benefiting the influential Islamist group.

"This is about hunger, about poverty, about food production about a change of world economy. ... This is one large swathe of 10,000 miles of potential instability," said Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute in the United States.

Global food prices tracked by the U.N. Food and Agriculture hit their highest level on record in January, as growing demand combined with erratic weather conditions to drive key staples such as wheat to 2-1/2-year highs. Sachs, whose 2005 bestseller "The End of Poverty" argued it was feasible to eradicate extreme poverty by 2025, said the possible emergence this year of China as a food importer would only make matters worse for poor African states already heavily reliant on food imports because of weak farming sectors.

"They cannot afford to live on imports of grains at world prices, and those prices are going to remain high and unstable," he said, warning of social strife possibly sparking political instability in an already restive part of the world.

Rhetorics Vs Practice:
Sachs said such conditions created a breeding ground for insecurity, pointing to recent attacks and kidnappings blamed on al Qaeda allies in Niger and Mauritania as a sign the group's influence was spreading west along the Sahel semi-arid belt.

He urged African governments to take the rug from under those groups by ensuring basic food needs of their populations were met, a goal Sachs said would also require rich countries keeping promises to tackle world food shortages.

Citing Group of Eight (G8) commitments made at a 2009 summit in Italy to channel around $3 billion a year into moves such as boosting productivity among Africa's smallholder farmers, Sachs said not even a tenth of that had so far materialised.

"The rich countries have recognised this reality in rhetoric but they haven't followed through in practice," he said, calling on U.S. President Barack Obama and other players including China to put their weight behind a new push to tackle hunger.

Sachs said doubling Africa's current annual grain output of one million tonnes would even turn the continent into a net food exporter, and suggested such an ambitious target was achievable within five years with international backing for relatively cheap schemes to ease access to water, seeds and fertilisers.

"Anything less than this approach is going to be scrambling with mass food aid in the midst of instability," he warned.

Credit: Reuters