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Palm Oil's Push To Control More Land In West Africa

There are claims communities in Liberia are under pressure to give up land for palm oil plantations. And the Financial Times newspaper is bought by the Japanese publisher Nikkei.

There are claims communities in Liberia are under pressure to give up land for palm oil plantations. We discuss the allegations with the campaign group Global Witness and hear from David Rothschild, the co-founder of Golden Veroleum, the company that has signed a contract with the Liberian government to exploit palm oil. Born in 1888, the Financial Times billed itself as the friend of the 'Honest Financier and the Respectable Broker'. Five years later it was published with its famous yellowish pink pages and today the FT has turned a new page in its history. It is being sold by its current owner, Pearson, to one of Japan's biggest media corporations, Nikkei, for $1.3 billion. Richard Lambert, who edited the Financial Times for 20 years, until 2001, tells us what he thinks about its change of ownership. A big international advertising agency is testing an electronic billboard, which claims to use artificial intelligence to react to your emotions when you look at it. David Cox, chief innovation officer at M&C Saatchi, explains what people see when they walk past the billboard. (Picture: Forest cleared in Liberia for palm oil plantation. Credit: APF)

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28 minutes

Last on

Thu 23 Jul 2015 22:32GMT

Broadcast

  • Thu 23 Jul 2015 22:32GMT