{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 14 mai 2010 – www.sudantribune.com- May 14, 2010–Lawmakers in the United States Congress passed a bill calling on the White house to develop a vigorous policy to end atrocities committed by the Ugandan rebels in Congo Central Africa and Southern Sudan.
RWANDA
Apprentice adviser Nick Hewer’s Rwanda mission
By Neil Bowdler /Health Reporter, BBC News /Friday, 14 May 2010
Nick Hewer is the silver-haired adviser of Lord Sugar in The Apprentice and Junior Apprentice.
He can usually be seen grimacing in the corner of car parks as would-be apprentices try to outshout each other – or squinting his eyes incredulously in “the boardroom” as the contestants’ claws come out.
But there is another side to Hewer. He has a love of France, travel and vintage tractors – and he works as a patron for a children’s charity.
Last year, that role took him to the Great Lakes region of Africa and specifically to post-genocide Rwanda.
Killing spree
He first became involved with Hope & Homes for Children when he took part in a charity rally and drove from London to Mongolia. En route, he stopped off in Romania to see one of their projects and decided to get more involved.
The charity tries to help with housing and healthcare for vulnerable children and their families in 10 Eastern European and African countries.
“They’re essentially ensuring that children grow up in a family environment, but in Rwanda particularly that they’re taken out of malnutrition and grow up to be healthy kids – that’s the core objective,” says Hewer.
In Rwanda, he found what he describes as a repressed population still living with the legacy of the 1994 genocide in which tribal militia went on a killing spree. An estimated 800,000 people were killed in 100 days.
“Rwanda is a country that’s got a lot of problems. One million are orphans. Sixty percent of the whole population is malnourished.
“Something like one in five children dies under the age of five. Of what? Malnutrition, malaria, HIV/Aids. It’s inexcusable that children should die of malnutrition.”
His visit took in “hubs”, built to provide shelter, clean water, food and healthcare for children and vulnerable families.
“What do they get? Inoculations, HIV testing, the weighing and the follow-through with the children so they come back again and again, so they’re brought back up to proper weight levels.”
Self-help is also part of the project. Families are encouraged to keep rabbits as a low-cost source of protein, and there are small “micro” loans to encourage enterprise in the most difficult of circumstances. Something that clearly appeals to the business adviser in Hewer.
“I saw one young kid, he was 14, he looked about eight because he was so malnourished, he was tiny. He was sleeping in the corner of a mud hut that is about the size of a potting shed without anything in it.
“He’s now clothed and back in school, but critically, they gave him £20 so he could start a peanut business, roasting them in his little hut and selling them in the market.
“That little kid can now afford to feed himself, clothe himself and pay his school fees… and suddenly he’s a little businessman. Wonderful.”
High-profile names can help raise awareness of a disease or condition, and bring it under the spotlight. This video series talks to those in the public eye about their personal reasons for speaking out.
UGANDA
The Wavering War on AIDS
May 14, 2010/www.nytimes.com
The global war on AIDS has racked up enormous successes over the past decade, most notably by providing drugs for millions of infected people in developing countries who would be doomed without this life-prolonging treatment. Now the campaign is faltering.
Donations from the United States and other wealthy countries have leveled off while the number of people infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, grows by a million a year. By one informed estimate, only $14 billion will be available of some $27 billion needed this year to fight the disease in the developing world. Fewer than 4 million of the 14 million people infected with the AIDS virus are getting drug treatment — far short of the goal of universal access set by the United States and others.
Donor nations cite the economic crisis and tight budgets as reasons to slow their contributions to the global fight against AIDS. The Obama administration and many donor nations apparently believe that more lives could be saved by fighting other cheaper diseases, such as respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, malaria and measles.
The results of those decisions can be seen in Uganda and other countries where, as Donald G. McNeil Jr. recently reported in The Times, the campaign against AIDS seems to be falling apart.
Although the number of Ugandans receiving drug treatments jumped from fewer than 10,000 a decade ago to nearly 200,000 today, hundreds of thousands more Ugandans need the drugs and likely can’t get them because clinics now routinely turn new patients away.
That is partly because American funds have been frozen and clinics were told to stop enrolling new patients unless the government has a plan to pay for their treatment. It is also because Uganda has badly skewed its own priorities, such as negotiating to buy a squadron of fighter-bombers from Russia for $300 million.
The United States has been a leader in providing financing for the war on AIDS through bilateral programs and a multilateral global fund. Now, instead of a sharp increase in donations, as once planned, the administration proposes only a slight increase in bilateral financing and a modest reduction in its multilateral contribution.
It has shifted its focus to childhood diseases, keeping young mothers alive, and interrupting the transmission of H.I.V. between mother and child. It is pushing countries to improve their medical delivery systems, manage their own AIDS programs and contribute more of their own funds.
Those are good goals. But the AIDS pandemic is still spreading. And the goal of universal access to treatment remains a distant dream.
New Members Elected for Human Rights Council
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR/www.nytimes.com/May 14, 2010
The United Nations General Assembly elected 14 new members to the Human Rights Council on Thursday, including several countries accused of human rights violations. Dozens of human rights organizations criticized the selection of Libya, Angola, Malaysia, Thailand and Uganda. The American ambassador, Susan E. Rice, expressed “regret” that a number of countries with “problematic” records had gained seats. Washington still views the council as “flawed,” she said, but will stay on it to help shape its agenda.
TANZANIA:
Singida Regional and District Commissioners Want Lake Victoria Mining Company to Open A Gold Mine at Londoni Town, Tanzania
www.marketwatch.com/May 14, 2010
GOLDEN, COLORADO, May 13, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — On May 3rd, 2010 directors from Lake Victoria Mining Company /quotes/comstock/11k!lvca (LVCA 0.52, -0.03, -5.46%) , Heidi Kalenuik and Ahmed Magoma, along with Senior Geological Consultant Mr. Clive King, met in Singida, Tanzania with the Honorable Dr. Parseko Kone Regional Commissioner and District Commissioner Paschal Mabiti. Discussions focused on the progressive exploration activities of Lake Victoria Resources (T) Ltd., the wholly owned Tanzanian subsidiary of Lake Victoria Mining Company, and the Commissioner’s desire for the company to advance to the point of opening a commercial gold mine in the nearby Londoni project area.
During the meeting both the Regional and the District commissioners expressed their gratitude for the international investment that Lake Victoria Mining Company has brought to the country and the commitment of Tanzania to support all foreign investment. Dr. Kone further reiterated that Lake Victoria Mining Company could expect the full support and co-operation from himself and his office in the company’s advancing exploration activities in the Singida region.
The commissioner also highlighted some of the infrastructure enhancements and developments that were underway through government in the region to attract foreign investment and enhance the investors experience in the area. One such improvement is the completion of new paved roads connecting Singida to the three major Tanzania cities of Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Mwanza, making it a crossroads for development.
The Regional Commissioner acknowledged the investment that had already been felt by the exploration activities of Lake Victoria Mining Company on the Singida Gold Project, in the areas of Londoni and Sambura, known as one of the poorest areas in Tanzania. There was further discussion on other areas in the region that are highly prospective for gold exploration in the region and the Company’s ability to acquire mining licenses in these locations if desired.
About the Company
Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc. is working to create another gold mine in the world famous Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt, Tanzania, East Africa. Tanzania produced 1.75 million troy ounces of gold during 2007 and is the 3rd largest gold producer in Africa behind South Africa and Ghana. Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc. currently holds both gold and uranium exploration licenses in Tanzania. Additional information regarding the Company is available on the corporate website at: www.lakevictoriaminingcompany.com.
Disclaimer
This news release may contain forward looking statements, relating to the Company’s operations or the environment in which it operates, which are based on Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc.’s operations, estimates, forecasts and projections. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict, and/or beyond Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc.’s control. A number of important factors could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Consequently, readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contacts:
Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc.
Dr. Roger A. Newell
303-586-1390
info@lvcamining.com
www.lakevictoriaminingcompany.com
SOURCE: Lake Victoria Mining Company, Inc.
CONGO RDC :
US lawmakers pass legislation to end LRA rebels atrocities
Friday 14 May 2010 / www.sudantribune.com /By Richard Ruati
May 14, 2010 (JUBA) – Lawmakers in the United States Congress passed a bill calling on the White house to develop a vigorous policy to end atrocities committed by the Ugandan rebels in Congo Central Africa and Southern Sudan.
US Congress has passed the long awaited bill with broad bipartisan support calling upon the Obama administration to lead international efforts to end the threat to civilians posed by the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA.
The legislation demands the Obama administration to develop a comprehensive strategy to help regional governments disarm the LRA rebels and protect civilians. The bill also call to increase humanitarian aid to the affected populations.
“I urge President Obama to sign this bill into law and quickly develop a plan to stop Joseph Kony and the LRA from committing further atrocities by bringing a lasting resolution to this conflict,” said Senators Russ Feingold who is one of the Congressmen who introduced the bill.
“The removal of Kony and his top leadership would decapitate this group. This legislation ensures US leadership in making that happen. The day can’t come soon enough,” said Rep. Ed Royce, a former Africa subcommittee chairman.
Blamed for widespread human rights violations over the years, the rebel group has most recently been accused of killing hundreds of civilians in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and southern Sudan.
Pressure groups have hailed this historic legislation demonstrates Americans’ broad and deep determination to see new action from President Obama to help apprehend Joseph Kony and other top LRA commanders who are wanted by the International Criminal Court.
The bill provides support to disarm and disband Kony’s militia, and to restore stability to those areas of Africa that have been terrorized by their history of mass atrocities, child abductions, and other horrific acts.
During the last eighteen months, the LRA has been killing and abducting civilians in DRC, CAR and South Sudan, becoming a destabilizing force in an already volatile region. Despite an ongoing military offensive led by the Ugandan military with the support of regional armies, the rebels have continued to wreak havoc. In the last year and a half, the LRA has killed close to 2000 civilians and abducted over 2600 people. More than 700 abductees are children who were forced into fighting or sexual slavery.
The House of Representatives passed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 (S.1067) by voice vote. This vote constitutes the most significant action Congress has taken to date to end the LRA’s long reign of terror and restore lasting peace for the central African communities devastated by war.
(ST)
KENYA :
Kenyan Constitution Opens New Front in Culture Wars
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN/www.nytimes.com/Published: May 14, 2010
NAIROBI, Kenya — The push to pass a new constitution in Kenya, a cornerstone of the effort to correct longstanding imbalances of power and prevent the kind of upheaval that followed deeply flawed elections here, has attracted some unexpected interference — from more than 7,000 miles away.
Before Kenyan lawmakers had even finished drafting the proposed constitution, American Christians organized petition drives in Kenya against it, objecting to a provision recognizing Islamic courts.
Now that the draft is done, three Republican members of Congress contend that it significantly expands abortion rights, and are accusing the United States Embassy in Kenya of openly supporting it in violation of federal rules.
It is the latest battle in the American culture wars playing out in Africa. Last year, American Christians helped stoke antigay sentiments in Uganda; later, Ugandan politicians proposed the execution of some gay people. That debate is still raging, though it looks as if the Ugandan government is backing down and will not pass the antigay bill after all.
In Kenya, a new constitution is a crucial part of the broader reform package that all Western donors, including the United States, have been aggressively supporting. Western ambassadors have consistently stood in front of Kenyan crowds and delivered speeches about the urgent need for judicial reform, land reform, constitutional reform and an end to impunity.
These are widely seen as steps Kenya must take if it is to avoid a repeat of the political and ethnic bloodshed set off by the disputed election in 2007. The abortion question, though a contentious social issue here, has not been part of that reform agenda.
In April, the Kenyan government passed a proposed new constitution, and it will be put to a yes-or-no referendum later this year. So far, polls show the public is firmly behind it.
The proposed new constitution, which curtails the sweeping powers of Kenya’s presidency and addresses questions about dual citizenship and other issues, may not be as pro-abortion as many of its critics contend. It still outlaws abortion, which is currently illegal under Kenya’s current penal code, though it spells out exceptions if “in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law.”
Those caveats have set off an intense debate, with American groups on both sides of the abortion issue weighing in and sending representatives to Kenya. Abortion opponents complain that the new constitution allows “abortion on demand,” while abortion rights adherents, concerned about the thousands of Kenyan women who die each year in secretive, botched operations, think the constitution is too weak on the issue. They wanted stronger protections and are upset that the constitution says, “The life of a person begins at conception” — a clause that was included in a late version of the draft after bitter debate.
The American Embassy here, one of the biggest in Africa, has tried to walk a fine line, financing a voter registration drive and urging Kenyans to pass a new constitution, but saying it has not told Kenyans specifically how to vote in the coming referendum.
Yet public statements by the generally outspoken ambassador, Michael E. Ranneberger, leave little doubt about his preference. “The government of the United States welcomes Parliament’s overwhelming approval of Kenya’s harmonized draft constitution,” he said in April. “Unity in support of the draft will bring the Kenyan people together.”
Pronouncements like these apparently caught the eye of three Republican members of Congress: Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey; Darrell Issa of California; and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
The three wrote a letter on May 6 to auditors at the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and the Government Accountability Office, saying that “the Obama administration’s advocacy in support of Kenya’s proposed constitution may constitute a serious violation of the Siljander Amendment.” The little-known amendment, named after a former Michigan congressman, Mark D. Siljander, prohibits foreign aid from being used to lobby for or against abortion.
The letter says that the new constitution would “enshrine a new constitutional right to abortion” and “dramatically change Kenya’s abortion law.”
But many people closely following the constitution say the new constitution is actually more restrictive on abortion than the one it would replace.
“The proposed constitution,” said Yash Pal Ghai, a constitutional scholar in Nairobi who has helped write constitutions for several countries, is “about as hard on abortion as you can get.”
Some analysts fear that vested interests in Kenya that are threatened by the constitution for other reasons, including owners of large property who may have acquired their land illegally and are worried about new laws meant to correct this, may be using the abortion issue as cover.
“It’s just become a rallying point of opposition,” Mr. Ghai said.
Unilever plans to spend $39 million in Kenya
May 14, 2010 /234next.com
Unilever plans to spend at least 3 billion shillings in the next five years to boost production capacity in Kenya. This is to meet growing demand in east and southern Africa, a company executive said on Thursday.
The local subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch consumer products group manufactures goods like detergent, margarine, bath soap, and toothpaste and sells in Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, among others.
“Given the volume of growth that we have seen, our investment is expected to grow faster, so it is likely that in the next five years … we would spend at least 3 billion shillings in investment,” David Mureithi, chief executive for Unilever in east and southern Africa, told a news conference.
Mureithi said the company had already invested 2.2 billion shillings over the last five years to bolster production.
ANGOLA :
BP extends Transocean GoM rig contract at cut rate
May 14 /Reuters
* BP extends ultra-deepwater rig by nearly 1-1/2 years
Stocks | Global Markets | Energy
* Deepwater rig, jackup “stacked” due to lack of demand
SAN FRANCISCO, May 13 (Reuters) – Transocean Ltd (RIGN.S) (RIG.N), still reeling from last month’s loss of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, said on Thursday that BP Plc (BP.L) had extended a contract for another rig in the region at a reduced price.
Transocean also said it set aside a deepwater rig and a jackup rig due to lack of demand, but signed a handful of deals for others.
The company said BP, the Horizon operator when it sank last month after an explosion and caused a massive oil spill, has signed up the ultra-deepwater Discoverer Enterprise for about another year and half, from February 2011 to July 2012 at a day rate of $423,000, down from $523,000 currently.
Among other new deals, a two-year contract with Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) for the ultra-deepwater-class Deepwater Frontier at a rate of $475,000 per day, starting in November 2011 in Australia, was broadly unchanged from its previous price.
The deepwater market generally has become much more competitive, and day rates are starting to reflect that.
The Transocean Richardson deepwater rig was extended at a day rate of $340,000, down from $459,000, from June until November of this year by Chevron Corp (CVX.N) in Angola.
The Jim Cunningham deepwater rig had also been working off the coast of Angola, for Exxon, but Transocean said it had been “stacked” in Malaysia — or temporarily taken out of service.
The company, the world’s largest offshore rig contractor, said in its latest fleet update that it had also stacked a shallow-water jackup rig that had been idle, GSF Rig 134, while one of its jackups in India was now idle.
But a midwater rig that had been stacked, the GSF Arctic III, got a contract with Exxon in the UK North Sea for about a year at $247,000 per day. (Reporting by Braden Reddall, editing by Matthew Lewis)
SOUTH AFRICA:
A safari ends in tragedy for lone crash survivor
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY (AP)/14052010
TRIPOLI, Libya — The Dutch family — mom, dad and two young sons — were headed home from a dream safari in South Africa when their plane plunged to Earth in Libya. Rescuers found a single passenger alive: 9-year-old Ruben, still strapped in his seat.
The sole survivor slept peacefully Thursday, a stuffed orange Tigger tucked under his arm in a hospital room filled with bouquets of flowers. His left eye, forehead and slim torso were marked with bruises and scrapes; his left leg was immobilized in a blue and white cast.
Ruben smiled and spoke briefly to an aunt and uncle who rushed to his bedside from Holland, but has yet to be told his parents and 11-year-old brother are dead.
“He’s awake. He’s talking. He is listening,” a Dutch Foreign Ministry official, Ed Kronenburg, told The Associated Press after visiting the boy. “Of course he also sleeps quite a lot because he got anesthesia yesterday and is still a bit dizzy.”
The child was recovering well after 4 1/2 hours of surgery to repair multiple fractures to his legs, Kronenburg said.
Ruben, his brother Enzo and their parents Trudy and Patrick van Assouw had gone to South Africa during the boys’ spring school vacation to celebrate the couple’s 12 1/2-year wedding anniversary, a Dutch tradition.
In his travel blog, Patrick Van Assouw, wrote about the camping trip that took them through some of the world’s most spectacular natural wonders — South Africa’s Mac Mac Falls, the Kruger National Park game reserve and across the border into Swaziland and on to Lesotho.
Pictures he posted included one showing Ruben and Enzo posing in front of the waterfalls.
“We ran into a very large number of impalas, which we nicknamed deers,” he wrote. “Enzo’s second find was the elephant. Also saw buffalo, gnu, fox, zebra, more deer, ostrich, a lot of birds, turtle, giraffe, apes, boar, more deer.”
The following day the family encountered two rhinos, and later in the trip they saw a hippo, he wrote in the entry posted Monday — the day before the family boarded the ill-fated return flight.
Their Libyan-owned jetliner was minutes from landing in Tripoli on Wednesday after a more than seven-hour journey across Africa when it crashed into a sandy field at the edge of the runway, killing 103 people.
Ruben was found still strapped in his seat by rescuers who noticed the boy was breathing, said a Libyan safety official, Col. Baloul al-Khoja. The bodies of three crash victims were nearby.
The child was semiconscious and unresponsive, bleeding from wounds to his legs, al-Khoja said. As rescuers moved him, he grimaced in pain.
Kronenburg said the child was discovered about half a mile from the tail section of the Airbus A330-200, indicating he may have been sitting in the front of the aircraft when it broke into pieces.
Aside from the tail, little was left of the Afriqiyah Airways plane. A trail of wreckage more than 150 yards (meters) long lay scattered Thursday in the sand.
Among the bits of fuselage were a romance novel, “Zoete Tranen,” — Dutch for “Sweet Tears” — open to page 225. A charred boot, black high-heeled shoe and a motorcycle jacket with Marlboro and Ferrari logos were nearby. The carcass of a dog buzzed with flies; trees were shredded to chunks of wood.
The walls of a house just yards from the site were pockmarked by debris. The 54-year-old owner, Ramadan al-Seid, said he and his family heard the crash and when they looked out the window they saw a massive cloud of smoke and dust, with an overwhelming smell of fuel. Then they heard the ambulances coming.
“Thank God it didn’t strike the house,” said the shaken al-Seid, a school administrator.
In a quiet room in the pediatric wing of Tripoli’s Al-Khadra Hospital, Ruben lay sleeping Thursday, a gauze bandage across his bare torso and the leads of a heart monitor stuck to his chest.
A large black-and-white stuffed tiger was draped across the foot of the bed and a half-dozen bouquets of red and white roses, carnations and lilies lined the window sill. The shades were drawn against the bright sunlight.
Ruben’s aunt, Ingrid van Assouw, and an uncle, Jeroen van der Sande, visited him at the hospital, where they were presented with flowers by a group of Libyan Boy Scouts.
Kronenburg also visited the boy. “I spoke to the doctors who are treating him and they are very satisfied about his condition. Actually, I’ve seen for myself that he’s OK,” he said.
Ruben suffered four fractures to his legs and lost a lot of blood, Dr. Hameeda al-Saheli, head of the pediatric ward, told the Libyan news agency JANA. But his neck, head and face were not seriously injured, and a large bandage placed on his head after the crash had been removed Thursday.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, met with the boy’s relatives, Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Ward Bezemer said.
Dutch officials said Ruben could be flown back to Holland as early as this weekend.
In the boy’s hometown of Tilburg, a bouquet of white flowers wrapped in pink tissue was propped Thursday against the door of the van Assouw’s home, a two-story brick town house in a quiet neighborhood of the city south of Amsterdam.
In his blog posting, 40-year-old Patrick van Assouw wrote that Ruben started out the journey sick, throwing up on the plane trip to South Africa and again in the car at the start of the family’s safari.
There was one other mishap — a flat tire in a desolate spot near Sani Pass, which connects South Africa and Lesotho. After changing the tire, the family stood on a remote bluff overlooking a stunning panorama of Lesotho. It was the final day of the safari, May 9.
“Beautiful Mother’s Day gift,” he wrote.
Associated Press writers Toby Sterling and Arthur Max in Amsterdam and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.
Travel blog posted of crash survivor’s last safari
By TOBY STERLING (AP)/14052010
AMSTERDAM — Ruben van Assouw had a dream vacation. His father’s travel blog offers a poignant look at the 9-year-old’s journey with his family, witnessing the spectacular natural wonders of South Africa’s Mac Mac Falls, a vista called “God’s Window,” and a tableau of rhinos, impalas and other wild animals.
The holiday ended in an incomprehensible disaster. The crash of Afriqiyah Airlines Flight 711, which slammed into the ground upon landing in Tripoli, Libya, left Ruben the sole survivor.
His father’s diary of the Dutch family’s once-in-a-lifetime safari gives a glimpse into the family’s last days — some mundane, some inspiring — as they celebrated an important anniversary.
The trip began on a rough note. Ruben was sick on the plane to South Africa, and on the first day of the safari he “puked the car full,” Patrick van Assouw wrote on his blog. But the family soon made their way through some of the most spectacular nature areas in the world. Their route took them through parts of South Africa, across the border into Swaziland, and finally into the mountainous nation of Lesotho before they turned back for their return home.
The family from the small city of Tilburg, Patrick, 40, wife Trudy, 41, and 11-year-old son Enzo were among the 103 dead in Wednesday’s crash. Rescue workers found Ruben, unconscious but breathing, still strapped to his seat at the far end of a field of debris.
An aunt and uncle went to Ruben’s bedside Thursday after doctors operated to repair his shattered legs. It was unclear when he would go home — or when he would be
told he would go home without his parents and older brother.
The safari was a celebration of his parents’ 12 1/2-year wedding anniversary — a major milestone in Dutch tradition.
Patrick set up a blog about the vacation, and his hometown newspaper, Brabants Dagblad, posted a link to the web address Thursday.
“The boys have been counting the days and minutes and can’t wait. Just three more nights’ sleep, boys!,” Patrick wrote in an entry dated April 23.
Although most of the Dutch victims booked package trips through tour operators, the Van Assouws bought their plane tickets directly from Afriqiyah, flying from Brussels, Belgium through Libya and on to Johannesburg, South Africa.
The father didn’t attempt to update the weblog during the trip: the bulk of the entries were posted in the early morning of May 10, just a day before the family boarded the ill-fated return flight.
“Finally we’re back in the inhabited world: we have Internet,” he wrote. “Here’s the whole diary posted with some photos too.”
One shows two boys — apparently Ruben and Enzo — posing in front of waterfalls. Others show wildlife and sunsets.
Patrick posted about cheap meals and panoramic views, but the highlight of the trip was Kruger National Park.
“It is exiting, after all, to drive around here — just like that — with the idea that there are all kinds of wild animals to meet,” he wrote.
“We ran into a very large number of impalas, which we nicknamed deers. Enzo’s second find was the elephant. Also saw buffalo, gnu, fox, zebra, more deer, ostrich, a lot of birds, turtle, giraffe, apes, boar, more deer.”
The following day the family encountered two rhinos, and later in the trip they saw a hippo.
Patrick gave the place of honor on his blog to a flat tire in a desolate spot near Sani Pass, which connects South Africa and Lesotho, possibly thinking it would be the worst misfortune the family would suffer on the trip.
“We had to unpack half the car to find the stuff, but we did it,” he wrote.
Earlier the same day, the family stood on a remote bluff overlooking a stunning panorama of Lesotho. It was the final day of the safari, May 9.
“Beautiful Mother’s Day gift,” Patrick wrote.
UPDATE 2-SAfrica transport strike hits more industries
By Agnieszka Flak and Shapi Shacinda/Reuters/May 14
* Some 59 pct of Transnet’s staff involved in labour action
Stocks | Global Markets
* Unions to press for 15 pct pay rise
(Recasts, adds industry, economists)
JOHANNESBURG, May 13 (Reuters) – A national transport strike in South Africa took its toll on the country’s exports of metals and fruit as unions planned to meet with logistics group Transnet [TRAN.UL] on Friday to try resolve the pay dispute.
The strike at Transnet, now in its fourth day, widened on Wednesday after a second union joined the stoppage, the latest public protest ahead of next month’s soccer World Cup tournament, being held in Africa for the first time.
Nearly two-thirds of Transnet’s 54,000-strong workforce joined the labour action, bringing the country’s rail and port operations to a halt and threatening deliveries of metals, fruit and wine to customers in Europe and Asia.
Pradeep Maharaj, Transnet’s HR Executive, said the container sector in ports and rail operations were hardest hit so far.
“However, we are continuing to meet our critical requirements in terms of exports through the ports and movement of bulk commodities,” he told Reuters on Thursday.
Transnet does not operate passenger services and is not a big transporter of coal to power plants, but a prolonged strike could affect imports, internal fuel supplies and exports of fresh fruit, grains, iron ore and coal.
“We have enough store capacity to take fruit until the weekend, but if it goes past the weekend, we start running into capacity problems,” said Justin Chadwick, Chief Executive of the Citrus Growers Association.
He said the country’s citrus industry, worth an annual 4.5 billion rand ($600 million) and second-largest producer after Spain, is currently storing oranges and grapefruits destined for Europe and Middle East in fridges, but space is limited.
The National Chamber of Milling said most of the country’s maize was transported by road, but wheat imports could be hit.
The impact on coal and iron ore exports has been limited due to built-up stocks at ports, but the firms have said they would start feeling the crunch if the strike goes beyond this week.
Miners also said they were running out of space and would need to curtail production if they cannot ship products to ports. [ID:nLDE64B1GM]
South Africa is one of the world’s biggest coal exporters, mainly to power stations in Europe and Asia.
Global miner Xstrata (XTA.L) on Wednesday declared a force majeure, halting shipment of ferrochrome, a key ingredient in stainless steel, and chrome ore. Samancor, the world’s 2nd-biggest producer, did the same, traders said.[ID:nLDE64B2B7]
FIFTEEN PERCENT
The United Transport and Allied Trade Union (Utatu) and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) represent 85 percent of Transnet’s workforce of 54,000 people.
Utatu said it would stick to its 15 percent pay rise demand when talks reopen, above the 11 percent offered by Transnet, fuelling criticism among analysts who say pay rises triple the inflation rate of 5.1 percent would hamper South Africa’s recovery from its first recession in 17 years.
“This strike is a show of power … we don’t see them wanting to budge for less than 15 percent and that’s outrageous,” said Freddie Mitchell, an economist at Efficient Group.
Economists said it was too early to put a figure on losses from the strike, especially given built up stocks ahead of the strike, but said it could be in the millions of rand per day.
Central Bank Governor Gill Marcus said on Thursday high wage settlements not matched by productivity increases could pose a risk to the country’s inflation outlook.[ID:nLDE64C1A8]
Utatu and Satawu met the mediator from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration on Thursday, and are due to meet with the mediator and Transnet on Friday.
Transnet said it was willing to discuss options other than a further wage raise to end the strike, but stressed that going beyond 11 percent was unaffordable and unsustainable.
In a separate move, Satawu said it may strike over pay on Monday at the passenger transport service Metrorail, with Utatu expected to join, which could affect millions of commuters. (Editing by Giles Elgood)
AFRICA / AU :
Africa’s Biggest Fund Manager Invests to Help Eskom, Economy
May 14, 2010/By Janice Kew/Bloomberg
May 14 (Bloomberg) — Public Investment Corp., Africa’s biggest money manager, plans to invest as much as $1.2 billion in the expansion of South Africa’s power utility that is needed to keep pace with economic growth.
The investment by the state pension-fund manager of about 1 percent of its more than 900 billion rand ($121 billion) in assets in Eskom Holdings Ltd. is part of $6 billion in planned expenditure to spur South Africa’s economy.
PIC intends to allocate 5 percent of its holding development projects, up from about 1 percent currently, Chief Investment Officer Dan Matjila said in an interview in the capital, Pretoria, yesterday. PIC will also be looking to boost direct investment in other state companies, including ports and rail operator Transnet Ltd. and the South African National Roads Agency Ltd.
“We’ve been working on increasing black economic empowerment, but now we need to look at the country’s developmental needs,” Matjila, 48, said. “Our strategy in the next few months is to move more into unlisted instruments in areas such as energy, water, transport, schools and affordable housing.”
Eskom, which supplies 95 percent of South Africa’s electricity, may sell a majority stake in its largest project and issue international bonds by August to plug a 190 billion- rand shortfall of funds needed to develop plants and avoid a repeat of outages that shut mines and factories for five days in January 2008.
‘Must Happen’
Assistance for Eskom “must happen this year,” and talks may conclude within a month, Matjila said. Returns of 3 percent above inflation, which is currently 5.1 percent, will be expected from investments such as the ones being discussed with the power utility, he said.
Transnet postponed plans to sell $2 billion of international debt to fund infrastructure spending because of market volatility amid concern that contagion from Europe’s widening debt crisis may spread, driving borrowing costs higher, Absa Capital, which advised on the transaction, said yesterday.
South Africa’s government expects growth to reach 2.3 percent this year, compared with a contraction of 1.8 percent in 2009. Africa’s largest economy seeks to reduce poverty, inequality, unemployment and crime. The investment by PIC, which manages almost 90 percent of the assets of South Africa’s Government Employees Pension Fund, will help boost the country’s growth rate as well as its own returns, Matjila said.
Brian Molefe, chief executive officer of PIC, said May 6 that he will leave at the end of June. PIC, which increased assets under management by 24 percent in the fiscal year through March, hasn’t yet named anyone to succeed Molefe.
–Editors: Ana Monteiro, Antony Sguazzin
UN /ONU :
Warning of troop build-up in Darfur
The Irish Times / JODY CLARKE in Nairobi/Friday, May 14, 2010
THE JOINT United Nations/African Union (Unamid) peacekeeping mission has warned of a build-up of Sudanese army and rebel troops in North Darfur.
The build-up is reportedly under way in the Shangil Tobay region, where a UN-run camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) housing 2,000 people is located.
“There have been no reports of armed confrontation but we have observed armed personnel and vehicles moving into the area,” said Saiki Kemal, Unamid’s spokesman in Darfur.
According to a Unamid patrol team, some 70 per cent of IDPs there have already left the camp.
“The civilian population is a bit jittery. When people start arriving with guns they take precautions. They are not going to sit and wait for something to happen.”
Shangil Tobay is 70km (44 miles) south of the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, a government stronghold and hub for aid workers and peacekeepers.
The Sudanese government and Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) signed a ceasefire deal in February.
It was hoped this would bring an end to the conflict in Darfur, where an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and another 2.7 million forced from their homes since 2003.
But peace talks between both sides appear to have broken down, as Khartoum looks to capitalise on JEM’s weakening support base by deploying troops in the areas it controls in west Darfur.
“Now that the elections are over, the government is under a lot less scrutiny and pressure so it feels like it has a free hand to engage in these sorts of activities,” said EJ Hogendoorn of the International Crisis Group in Nairobi.
As the region’s longest-established and most-organised rebel group, the JEM originally positioned itself as the representative voice of Darfuris.
However, support has begun to drift to a rival coalition of rebel groups, which claims to be more representative of Darfuris than JEM, which is dominated by the Zaghawa ethnic group.
The Sudanese government now looks to be playing the two groups off against each other.
To add to the JEM’s woes, Sudanese officials have asked Interpol to arrest their leader, Khalil Ibrahim, for planning an attack in Omdurman in 2008. The JEM has in turn threatened to go back to war with Khartoum.
“This is just another way of sticking it to the JEM,” said Mr Hogendoorn.
“If the Sudanese government really wanted to, they could defeat them. The JEM are not in a very advantageous military position.”
AngloGold, Mwana Security May Be Harmed by UN Congo Withdrawal
May 14, 2010/By Franz Wild and Michael J. Kavanagh/Bloomberg
May 14 (Bloomberg) — Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s insistence that United Nations peacekeepers end their decade- long mission may hamper the operations of companies including AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Mwana Africa Plc and deter further investment in the country’s mining industry.
A UN Security Council delegation arrives in the Central African country today to set out security objectives it says must be met before 20,500 troops are pulled out by the end of 2011. The UN officials are expected to leave by May 16 and the council will meet in New York before the end of the month to discuss a phased withdrawal from the Congo.
Mwana, based in London, is among companies that say the withdrawal of the force, known as Monuc, may create a security vacuum in the east of the country, leaving their operations vulnerable to armed groups. AngloGold, the Johannesburg-based company that in 2008 evacuated staff over security fears, and Toronto-based Banro Corp. operate there.
“If there is no good security this could jeopardize the mining projects,” said Jean-Prosper Ngandu, Congo country manager for Mwana. “There is a risk. This is scary for investors.”
Kabila says the UN is impinging on Congo’s sovereignty and the country will be ready to take care of its own security needs when elections are held next year, Guillaume Lacaille, an analyst at International Crisis Group, said in an interview on April 15.
‘Resolve Problems’
“Even though there are problems, we can resolve the problems to ensure the security of our economic partners,” Communications Minister Lambert Mende said in an interview. “We don’t need Monuc. We’ll be able to resolve the problems ourselves.”
The majority of Monuc’s forces are based in Congo’s eastern borderlands, which are rich in gold, tin and coltan, an ore containing tantalite that is used in the manufacture of mobile phones. Various rebel groups roam the region, which stretches about 1,000 kilometers (622 miles) along the border with Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan, frequently attacking civilians and mines.
“The security situation isn’t totally guaranteed,” Guy- Robert Lukama, AngloGold’s representative in Congo, said in an interview. “However, we invested long-term, so we calculated that Monuc will leave at some point.”
Tin, Copper
Congo is Africa’s biggest tin producer, holds a third of the world’s cobalt reserves and 4 percent of all copper, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The Mines Ministry projects gold production may increase 16-fold to 3.6 metric tons by 2012 when Banro and AngloGold mines begin operations. Randgold Resources Ltd., based in Jersey in the Channel Islands, also plans to invest about $480 million in the country.
Mining exports from Congo last year were estimated at $3.1 billion, making up four-fifths of total exports, according to International Monetary Fund statistics.
Since Monuc’s arrival in Congo in 1999, Kabila has been able to consolidate his power across most of the country, in step with an economic recovery. Growth is forecast at 5.4 percent this year, compared with a 10.4 percent contraction in 1999, and inflation is projected to slow to an annual 15 percent in 2010, from 280 percent in 1999.
The UN mission arrived in the middle of a conflict that would eventually kill about 5 million people, mostly from disease and starvation. The peacekeepers helped end the war in 2003 and secured the country’s first multiparty vote in four decades in 2006. Still, since the end of the war, Monuc has been criticized by groups including Human Rights Watch and Oxfam for not doing enough to protect civilians in Congo.
‘Too Early’
“It’s too early for Monuc to leave,” Emmanuel Ndimubanzi, head of the national Mines Ministry in the North Kivu province, said in an interview on May 6. “There’s no safety yet. With Monuc leaving, the situation could get worse.”
Congo wants to boost the revenue it earns from mining to help fund its $5 billion annual budget. Those plans may be stymied by Monuc’s withdrawal, said Philippe de Pontet, an analyst at New York-based Eurasia Group.
“Investors are concerned about a precipitous Monuc withdrawal and the possibility of new security vacuums arising in the east,” De Pontet said.
Monuc’s presence in Congo hasn’t been enough to end all conflict in Congo. In the eastern Kivu provinces, Rwandan rebels control swaths of territory and mines, and attack civilians. Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army killed 1,100 people in the northeastern Orientale province last year. Last month, insurgents briefly took control of the airport in Mbandaka, the capital of the northern Equateur province.
Conflict Minerals
Monuc’s withdrawal may also set back efforts to prevent so- called conflict minerals from entering the international market. Armed groups, including members of the Congolese army, fund their operations by exploiting minerals or taxing their trade, according to Global Witness, the London-based advocacy group, and UN investigators.
“The situation remains extremely fragile, so we have to do it right rather than do it quickly,” Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador to the UN, who is leading the Security Council delegation to the Congo, said of the withdrawal timetable. “We won’t leave if we are really not sure the Congolese authorities are able to do the job,” he said in an interview last month.
–With assistance from William Varner in Washington. Editors: Paul Richardson, Karl Maier.
Elections to UN Human Rights Council Send Shameful Message to Victims
newsblaze.com/ May 14, 2010
Freedom House is extremely disappointed by the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to elect conspicuously unqualified candidates-including Libya-in today’s Human Rights Council elections.
In a secret ballot of all members of the UN General Assembly, each of the 14 candidates received the necessary 97 affirmative votes to win seats on the Council. According to a recently released report by Freedom House and UN Watch, five of the candidates are considered “not qualified” due to sub-par human rights records at home and poor voting records in UN venues on serious human rights violations: Libya, Mauritania, Malaysia, Qatar and Angola.
“These elections are a slap in the face to victims of human rights abuses around the world,” said Paula Schriefer, advocacy director of Freedom House. “The new process, instituted in 2007, was meant to improve the composition of the UN human rights body, but instead, we are again seeing uncompetitive elections in which the perpetrators of systemic human rights abuses take seats in a body they seek only to subvert and they do so with the shameful blessing of the General Assembly.”
Only 14 candidates presented themselves for the 14 available seats, as within each of the UN’s five regional groups-Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Western Europe and Others-the number of candidates was equal to the number of available seats according to the Council’s membership procedures. Despite the lack of competition, Freedom House and other human rights groups urged the UN member states to abide by the mandate in the Council’s founding resolution by only electing states that “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights,” and voting against Libya and other “unqualified” candidates.
According to the report, of the 14 candidates that presented in the election, only five were considered t
o be “qualified” to serve on the Council, including Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Guatemala and Maldives. Additionally, four candidates are identified as having “questionable” records, including Moldova, Ecuador, Uganda and Thailand. Nonetheless, all candidates were easily elected, with Libya receiving lowest number of votes at 155.
“It shocks the conscience that a mere 37 out of 192 UN member states demonstrated the willingness to stand up for human rights victims by voting against one of the world’s most repressive regimes,” Schriefer continued. “The regional groups and the entire membership of the GA are playing into the hands of oppressors by their acquiescence to the routine of “clean” election slates. We call on the United States and other democracies to show leadership by pushing strongly for competitive elections in which champions of human rights outnumber and outcompete the world’s abusers.”
Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights
Freedom matters.
Freedom House makes a difference.
www.freedomhouse.org
USA :
US crash investigators launch for Tripoli
By John Croft/SOURCE:Air Transport Intelligence news/www.flightglobal.com/DATE:14/05/10
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has sent a team of investigators to help the government of Libya determine what caused an Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 to crash on approach to the Tripoli airport early on the morning of 12 May. There was one survivor of the 104 passengers and crew on board.
The aircraft, equipped with General Electric CF6-8E1 engines, was arriving from Johannesburg, South Africa.
The US team, set to arrive in Tripoli Friday afternoon, will include a lead investigator as well an engines specialist and technical advisors from the US Federal Aviation Administration and General Electric.
Attorney seeks to bar Goldstone from US
By E.B. SOLOMONT, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT /14/05/2010
Ex-Justice Department official cites judge’s rulings under apartheid.
Talkbacks (11)
NEW YORK – A well-known American Jewish attorney who worked to deport former Nazis from the US is urging American officials to bar former judge Richard Goldstone from entering the country over his rulings during South Africa’s apartheid regime.
In a letter sent to US officials, Neal Sher, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said that recently disclosed information about Goldstone’s apartheid-era rulings raised questions about whether he was eligible to enter the United States. The letter was sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Attorney-General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Individuals who admit to acts that constitute a crime of moral turpitude¨are ineligible to enter the US, Sher charged. The recent public revelations, to which Goldstone has reportedly admitted, would appear to fit within this provision. At a minimum, there is ample basis for federal authorities to initiate an investigation into this matter, Sher said.
Goldstone, the author of a report accusing Israel of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, sat as a judge in South Africa during the apartheid regime. He has faced recent charges that he sent 28 black South Africans to their deaths. Goldstone has defended his rulings, saying he was part of the system and had to respect the laws of the land at the time, including enforcing laws he opposed.
In his judicial position, according to Sher, Goldstone was instrumental in effectuating and legitimizing a regime universally known for its widespread human rights abuses.
Sher, formerly director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, was instrumental in deporting dozens of Nazi war criminals. He played a major role in placing Austrian president Kurt Waldheim on a watch list of people ineligible to enter the US.
Sher had his own brush with trouble later, when he was investigated for misappropriating funds from the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.
CANADA :
AngloGold devising model to mine below 5 km, SA gold to have ‘day in sun again’ – Gold Fields, Australia tax a boost for S Africa, Canada, Brazil
By: Martin Creamer/www.miningweekly.com/14th May 2010
South Africa’s largest gold-mining company, AngloGold Ashanti, is devising a new mining model to enable it to operate safely and profitably at depths of 5 000 m and beyond.
Read on page 12 of this edition of Mining Weekly of AngloGold Ashanti executive vice-president Robbie Lazare’s 12-month operating strategy that is expected to make a significant operational impact. Lazare reports that the company is in “active contact” with a range of leading service providers to help to apply technologies that allow mining at ultra depth. All existing AngloGold Ashanti mines are also in line for extreme makeovers as part of the company’s so-called Project One.
South African gold-mining companies will have their “day in the sun again”, Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland predicts in a report on page 14 of this edition of Mining Weekly.
A more balanced analysis of South Africa’s gold companies would place their market valuations at far less of a discount to those of their foreign peers than is currently the case. Gold Fields’ Beatrix, Driefontein and Kloof mines alone have a collective 26-million ounces of gold within reach of existing infrastructure, and has South Deep on track to produce 750 000 oz/y at the end of 2014.
Australia’s new mining tax is encouraging for mining investment in South Africa, Canada and Brazil, which are major competitors to Australia in the mining field, says AngloGold Ashanti CEO Mark Cutifani. Read on page 12 and 14 of the comments on Australia’s new 40% super-profits mining tax, which, at this stage, looks unlikely to cause Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti to alter their growth plans Down Under.
There does appear to be the hope, however, that the tax will not go ahead in its current form. Australia-born Cutifani currently sees South Africa as a country of less sovereign risk than Australia.
Editor: Creamer Media Reporter
AUSTRALIA :
EUROPE :
Dutch Boy Survives Libyan Airliner Crash
Written by Lincoln Matthews / www.viscosimedia.com/14 May 2010
A Libyan commercial plane carrying 104 people on Wednesday crashed on approach to Tripoli’s airport. The plane was obliterated except for the tail and only one person survived. The survivor was a 10-year old boy from the Netherlands. The survival was hailed as a miracle. The surviving Dutch boy was taken to a Tripoli hospital where he was being treated for multiple injuries, including broken bones.
Libyan television showed the Dutch boy (Ruben van Assouw) lying in his hospital bed with a bandaged head, oxygen mask, and intravenous lines in one arm. A Dutch embassy official planned to visit the boy as soon as possible. Royal Dutch Tourism announced that 61 of the dead were from the Neltherlands. Most of the victims were vacationers on spring break that took a tour to South Africa. There were also victims from France, Germany, South Africa, Finland, Great Britain, and Libya.
Dutch flags were lowered and the ongoing political campaign for the June 9 elections was suspended. The crash itself left a large field of scattered and smoldering debris that included the flight recorder and seats from the plane. The flight that originated in Johannesburg and Tripoli was to be its final stop as the passengers were to have made connecting flights home. The weather was good at the Tripoli airport and the cause is yet to be determined.
The ashes of the Icelandic volcano that have caused numerous flight and travel problems were not considered a reason for the crash. To this point Afriqiyah Airways, who operated the flight, is not on the banned list for European Union airlines that has nearly 300 air carriers considered unsafe by the EU. The airline was recently inspected and there were no serious flaws found. The plane itself was an Airbus.
CHINA :
China to build plant in South Africa
May 14, 2010/234next.com
A Chinese-South African joint venture will build a $221 million cement plant in South Africa, marking the latest collaboration between the two countries in resources and construction.
The plant, which will initially produce 2,500 tonnes of cement a day, could put more pressure on local producers such as Pretoria Portland Cement.
China’s Jidong Development and the China-Africa Development Fund will hold 51 percent of the venture.
South African investment group, Women Investment Portfolio Holdings, or Wiphold, and limestone miner Continental Cement will hold the remainder.
The 1.65 billion rand plant will be constructed and operated by Jidong, the companies said in a statement.
PPC said this week that demand could worsen in the coming months as World Cup-related construction ends and the housing market remains weak.
Libya to Strengthen Co-op with China on Oil, Development Aids: FM
english.cri.cn / Xinhua Web Editor: Han Yueling /2010-05-14
Libyan Foreign Minister Mousa Kousa said here Friday that Libya is willing to strengthen cooperation with China on issues like energy, trade and African development aid.
He told Xinhua at the on-going fourth China-Arab Cooperation Forum that China-Libyan cooperation has “great potential.” Africa especially needs foreign aid and assistance to develop infrastructure and improve people’s livelihoods, he said.
The foreign minister said China has done a great deal to help Africa.
It is Kousa’s first visit to China since he was appointed Libyan foreign minister in March last year. Kousa is the co-chairman of this year’s two-day forum, themed “Deepening All-Round Cooperation for Common Development.”
The forum was initiated in January 2004, when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the Arab League headquarters in Cairo. It has since served as a platform for exchanging views between China and Arab nations and for enhancing mutually beneficial cooperation.
Increases in Child Trafficking Feared in South Africa
www.soschildrensvillages.ca/14/5/2010
– Many fear that the influx of prostitution to the site of this summer’s World Cup will engender increased human trafficking activity.
South Africa is experiencing an increase in prostitution. Many point toward the fact that the country is performing much better economically than other African countries, attracting economic migrants. Others point toward the cash of the 500 000 fans that the World Cup will garner.
In total, South Africa’s domestic authorities estimate that 40 000 sex workers will enter South Africa. So far, most of the women who have arrived in anticipation of the World Cup, which starts on June 11, have come from Zimbabwe, which is right next door to South Africa, but much poorer. However, some of them have come from as far as China, Pakistan, India, and Venezuela.
It has even been reported that in Zimbabwe, some women are divorcing their husbands and leaving their families in order to enter the sex trade in time for the World Cup, which they feel is a more profitable use of their time.
The influx of prostitutes into the city has made development workers wary about the possibilities of increases in human and child trafficking. At any rate, the moving of mothers has a direct effect on the children they leave behind or bring with them. Swaziland, a small kingdom in southern Africa, has taken precautions against this by mandated that children must have their own travel documents. It has amped up border controls to prevent children from being moved illegally as best they can.
According to one member of the country’s Counter Trafficking in Persons Desk, “We need to seize the opportunity of the World Cup, the first on the African continent, to draw the attention of the media and the fans to the tragedy of women and children all over the world being trafficked.”
Another important consideration is the fact that currently more than 5.7 million people are living with HIV or AIDS in South Africa. An increase in prostitution in the country is always dangerous from the perspective of public health officials trying to keep the AIDS pandemic under control. Many groups have been working to increase the use of condoms in the country because of this fact.
The “rainbow nation” has much to celebrate this summer. Yet, it remains imperative to up hold the rights, freedoms and dignity of its citizenry, and those vulnerable groups living within its borders.
INDIA :
StanChart expects Indian profits to exceed Hong Kong’s
By James Fontanella-Khan in Mumbai /www.ft.com/Published: May 14 2010
Standard Chartered, the UK-listed emerging markets bank, expects profits in India to surpass those from its core Hong Kong market for the first time next year, Richard Meddings, finance director, told the Financial Times.
Standard Chartered, which derives nearly 90 per cent of its income from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, says that India has a very good momentum to become its new biggest single market.
“India looks well set to overtake Hong Kong [next year],” Mr Meddings said in an interview with the Financial Times in Mumbai, the country’s financial hub.
StanChart executives, including Peter Sands, the group’s CEO, were in Mumbai yesterday to announce that the bank had obtained regulatory approval to become the first foreign company to list on an Indian stock exchange.
The bank also reaffirmed that it was interested in exploring the possibility of a Chinese listing, without giving any further details. The Indian share sale will open on May 25 and close on May 28, and is aimed at raising between $500m and $750m through the listing of the first Indian Depositary Receipts (IDRs), said Mr Meddings.
“I want to raise enough [capital] to ensure that the instrument itself is liquid so that people can trade within it, so I need it to be deep enough” said Mr Meddings.
StanChart will issue 240m rupee-denominated IDRs – where every 10 IDRs represents one share of the entire bank – that will allow Indian investors to buy the bank’s stock on the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges.
The bank has hired Goldman Sachs, UBS, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, JM Financial Consultants, Kotak Mahindra Capital and SBI Capital Markets to manage the IDR offering.
The Mumbai listing indicates StanCharts’s desire to boost its business in Asia’s third-largest economy, which is expected to expand between 7 and 8 per cent in the financial year ending March 2011, according to local economists.
The UK bank has been operating in the subcontinent since 1858, when it first opened a branch in Calcutta. It now has 94 branches in 38 cities and employs more than 17,000 people, making it the biggest foreign bank in India.
Last year India generated $1.06bn in operating profits for the bank, just $2m less than Hong Kong, out of $7bn reported globally.
However, India’s operating profits were hit by a negative translation in currency exchange of about 12 and 13 per cent last year, which means that the underlying numbers are better than the headline ones, said Mr Meddings.
“India has got very good momentum and last year’s underlining momentum was stronger than the headline numbers given the negative [foreign currency] exchange,” he said
Rumors of Conspiracies Rattle Madagascar
www.nytimes.com/By BARRY BEARAK/May 14, 2010
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — A few weeks ago, 22 provocateurs — among them five connivers from the military itself — planned a predawn mission to murder the prime minister. Fortunately, their seditious scheme was discovered before the plot could unfold.
Or, maybe not. Was this all a fiction, a “cinema” as the scoffers contend?
“No, no, this was real,” Prime Minister Camille Vital insisted. “They were coming to assassinate me. We know this. They have confessed.”
The prime minister is also a brigadier general, recently promoted from colonel. He leaned forward across his big desk as if he had something special to confide. “I sleep with a gun under my pillow, and also a grenade,” he said boldly. “I wish they had come for me. I would have given them a training lesson.”
Antananarivo, the capital of this vast island, is a nervous and peculiar place these days. Rumors pass up and down the winding cobblestone roads that climb to the city’s scenic ridges. Did you hear the military is meeting with the gendarmes? We’ve heard they plan to seize the government this week, if not the next. So-and-so will be in charge.
For more than a year now, Madagascar has been a renegade nation trying to return to the good graces of the world. There was a coup here in March 2009. Mutinous members of the military provided the muscle. The twice-elected president, Marc Ravalomanana, fled into exile. His position was then handed to the 33-year-old mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, who was pleased to get such a momentous promotion. According to the Constitution, he was too young for the job.
For international observers, this was backsliding of the worst sort, the fourth coup in Africa in eight months. Mediators soon tried to maneuver a U-turn toward democratic elections. Mr. Rajoelina and three of the nation’s past presidents — their mutual hatreds barely suppressed — have met in Maputo, Mozambique; in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; in Maputo once again; and in Johannesburg. Deals are made. Hands are shaken. Deals are broken.
On Wednesday, Mr. Rajoelina unilaterally announced that there would be a constitutional referendum in August, legislative elections in September and a presidential vote in November in which he would not run. But he has proposed several ballots before, then postponed them, canceled them, rescheduled them, put them off again.
In the meantime, the government, such as it is, has stumbled along. Mr. Rajoelina does not seem to be in charge of very much. Many of his ministers don’t respect him. Some skip cabinet meetings.
“I don’t think anyone is really running the country,” said the American ambassador, R. Niels Marquardt. “It’s kind of a free-for-all.”
Tales of corruption compete with rumors of a coup.
“The young president is not that powerful, and the ministers — some of them anyway — don’t know how long they’ll be around, so they chase the money while they can,” said Ramilison Guilot, a journalist who is now deputy minister of telecommunications.
Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, is also one of its most precious, a landmass in the Indian Ocean that broke free of the African mainland 165 million years ago and developed in splendid isolation.
Nearly the size of California and Oregon combined, it is a wonderland of nature: goggle-eyed lemurs, delicately perfumed orchids, baobab trees that seem stuffed into the soil upside down. By most estimates, 80 percent of its plants and animals exist nowhere else on earth.
But many do not thrive absent a government to protect them. “It’s difficult to work without a state,” said Guy Suzon Ramangason, director general of the organization that manages many of the national parks.
The Malagasy, like most people, love a good myth, and they seemed to have one in their former president, Mr. Ravalomanana. So the story goes, he once sold yogurt off the back of a bicycle and steadily built his business until he was the island’s dairy king. This was a great rags-to-riches tale, but it later came to seem that he pulled himself up by his bootstraps only to stomp out the competition. As president, his conglomerate, the Tiko group, elbowed its way into construction, radio and television, rice, energy and a dozen other things.
To his credit, while Mr. Ravalomanana was gobbling up the economy he was also gnawing away at the nation’s poverty rate. The island became a favorite of international donors. Money was provided for roads and other infrastructure; half the government’s budget arrived from the outside.
But after the coup, Madagascar was reclassified as a pariah. Humanitarian aid continued but other funds were withheld. The new government was being punished; the nation’s 20 million people were the collateral damage.
The island is a former French colony, and the heart of Antananarivo has the feel of a European town rising up a hillside, its brightly colored buildings ornamented with gabled windows. But the city then spreads out into the less quaint: rock quarries, hideous slums, paddy fields, clusters of factories.
Recently, garment manufacturers were a flourishing source of jobs, in part owing to favored, duty-free treatment from the United States. But in January this special status was withdrawn as a result of the retreat from democracy. Tens of thousands of workers have been sidelined.
“They just told us to stop and go home,” said Ravololonjatovo Ariane Nirina, a single mother with three young children.
Now, each day, she joins the hundreds waiting outside another garment factory. The bosses sometimes hire for two or three days. “Nothing will be normal again until our politicians make up their minds,” she said.
The stilled factories are dismal in their emptiness. One of them, MKLEN International, used to turn out as many as 35,000 blue jeans each day, said the manager, Suresh Sakhrani. The pants were destined for stores like Wal-Mart and J. C. Penney, readied for American consumer, sandblasted to look old, sprayed with potassium to look dirty, splattered with glitter to look chic. “We had 4,500 employees,” said Mr. Sakhrani. “Now we’re down to 500, and they’re probably soon to go.”
It is not hard to find casualties of the newly choked economy. At the city’s biggest hospital, the ward for children with acute malnutrition still provides therapeutic milk but no longer antibiotics or diagnostic tests. Infants with twig-thin legs languish like lifeless dolls in oversize beds.
“Sometimes — even if we try to convince them otherwise — parents sneak out and take their children home to die,” said Dr. Raobijaona Honoré. “It’s less expensive for them. A living child can go home in a bus. A dead one needs to go in a car or taxi.”
Aban Offshore Falls as Venezuela Starts Rig Probe (Update1)
May 14, 2010/By Archana Chaudhary and Daniel Cancel/Bloomberg
May 14 (Bloomberg) — Aban Offshore Ltd. shares fell the most in about 18 months in Mumbai as investigations started in Venezuela into the sinking of a natural-gas platform leased by a unit to state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
Aban fell 16 percent to 850.80 rupees at 10:58 a.m. after losing as much as 20 percent, the biggest decline since Oct. 24, 2008. The stock has dropped 34 percent this year compared with a 1 percent fall in the benchmark Sensitive Index.
PDVSA said a failure in Aban Pearl’s floatation system caused the rig to sink yesterday after a “massive” inflow of water. The incident occurred three weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, leased by BP Plc, exploded on April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, and sank two days later, killing 11 workers.
“We need to see the technical reasons behind these two” accidents, said Nitin Bhasin, a Mumbai-based analyst at Execution Noble, who has a “sell” rating on Aban Offshore. “What will happen is that insurance premium for such assets may go up in the near term. Although there is a short supply of deepwater assets at the moment, over the next nine months, 28 deepwater rigs are coming into the market.”
Aban Offshore, based in Chennai, is assisting in finding the causes of the incident, the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange today. C.P. Gopalkrishnan, deputy managing director of Aban Offshore, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment in Singapore. A.P.S. Sandhu, president of drilling, declined to comment, saying the incident didn’t fall under Indian operations.
Workers Safe
“We’re going to open an investigation into the causes behind this with the owners of the platform because this was an incident that happened very quickly,” Oil Minister and PDVSA President Rafael Ramirez said on state television. “The most important thing is that with the violence of the incident all of our workers are safe.”
Technicians avoided a leak by sealing the gas well with a security valve before the platform sank, PDVSA said in an e- mailed statement yesterday. The rig’s 95 workers were safely evacuated, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said earlier yesterday in a message posted on his Twitter account.
Chavez is trying to tap offshore gas reserves to power thermoelectric plants amid an energy crisis. Repsol YPF SA, Eni SpA and Chevron Corp. are also exploring offshore.
Venezuela, which has Latin America’s largest natural-gas reserves at 170 trillion cubic feet of gas, is certifying reserves and expects to reach 400 trillion cubic feet which would give it the fourth-largest reserves in the world, behind Russia, Iran and Qatar, according to BP data.
Ramirez said the platform sank at 2:20 a.m. local time and that the last few workers had to jump into the sea.
No Environmental Risk
PDVSA forecast production would reach 600 million cubic feet a day in the offshore area near Trinidad and Tobago where it is drilling for gas.
The PDVSA platform was leased from an Indian company, Aban Offshore Ltd., Ramirez said.
“Fortunately the well poses no environmental risks,” Ramirez said in an e-mailed statement from the Information Ministry.
Aban Pearl started drilling operations on Jan. 19, Aban Offshore said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Jan. 22. Aban Offshore said in September 2007 it agreed with Bulford Dolphin Pte to buy the rig for $211 million.
A unit of Aban Offshore agreed to deploy the rig in Latin America for five years and the estimated revenue from the deployment was about 31.5 billion rupees ($699 million), Aban Offshore said in a statement Sept. 16, 2008.
Gulf Coast Threat
A Gulf oil well failed a pressure test hours before a drilling rig exploded last month, an executive for BP told the U.S. House Energy Committee that’s investigating the incident. The committee is investigating the explosion that triggered a spill that threatens the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida with more than 3 million gallons of oil.
More than 5,000 barrels of oil a day have been leaking from the damaged well in the Gulf, 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast and about 300 miles off Mexico’s Yucatan coast.
Chavez said on April 27 that the drilling in the Dragon gas fields, where the rig was located, is “historic” for PDVSA as it was the first offshore project developed by the company without foreign partners. “This is historic, because everything was done by PDVSA on its own,” he said. “We already have pipelines, remote- controlled robots and underwater technology that our PDVSA is doing on its own.”
‘Big Setback’
The accident will delay PDVSA’s plans to boost gas production, Diego Gonzalez, former head of the company’s natural-gas division, said today in a telephone interview from Caracas.
“This is a big setback for the company’s plans since the equipment is lost and they’ll have to hire another platform,” Gonzalez said.
Ramirez said that the $8.3 billion offshore project known as Mariscal Sucre, which includes the offshore Dragon fields, will proceed on schedule, and that a new platform should arrive within two months.
Venezuela is talking with potential partners including OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas export monopoly, to develop the fields and produce and transport gas to onshore terminals by 2012.
Venezuela imports gas from Colombia to cover a deficit and to supply power and petrochemical plants in Western Venezuela. Chevron ships between 50 million and 200 million cubic feet of gas a day to Venezuela from Colombia, Ali Moshiri, the company’s head of exploration and production for Africa and Latin America, told reporters yesterday in Caracas.
–With assistance from Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York, Joe Carroll in Chicago and David Wethe in Houston. Editors: John Chacko, Clyde Russell.
Vedanta becomes world’s largest zinc producer after $1.3bn deal
Online PR News/14-May-2010
Vedanta Resources will become the world’s biggest zinc producer after a $1.3bn deal to buy assets from Anglo American.
Online PR News – 13-May-2010 – Vedanta Resources will become the world’s biggest zinc producer after a $1.3bn deal to buy assets from Anglo American.
Anglo is selling mines in Namibia, South Africa and the Lisheen project in Ireland, and adding these to Vedanta’s existing resources will give the latter 11% of the global zinc market. Vedanta is funding the cash deal from its own resources – at the end of March it had $7.2bn in cash and liquid investments. Anil Agarwal, Vedanta’s chairman, said:
These high quality assets complement Vedanta’s existing portfolio, creating the largest zinc and lead producer in the world.
As for Anglo, the disposal is part of its strategy to focus on its core businesses. In the market Vedanta has climbed 255p to £25.71 while Anglo is up 222.5p to £27.24.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
BRASIL:
9 Year Old Ruben van Assouw Sole Survivor of Plane Crash in Libya
By Bridget Tyler / www.kidglue.com/May 14, 2010
A deadly plane crash in Libya on Wednesday morning has left 103 people dead. The sole survivor was a young boy. There has been some confusion over his identity, but Dutch newspapers indicate this morning that he is 9 year old Ruben van Assouw, a Dutch national. At least 61 of the casualties were also Dutch citizens returning from vacation in South Africa.
At least 96 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage so far according to Libya’s transport minister, Mohammed Ali Zaidan. Investigators are still on the scene, but have ruled out terrorism thus far.
The plane was an Airbus 330-200, the same model as the Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic off the coast of Brazil last year according to ABC News. It belonged to a Libyan carrier, Afriqiyah Airways. The crash apparently occurred during landing around 6am local time. According to the airline’s website, “Every effort is being done to address any failure in our safety management system. At this moment we cannot speculate further.
Sole survivors of plane crashes are almost always children about Ruben’s age or crew members. This disproportionate survival rate is still something of a mystery to experts.
“I can’t figure out for the life of me why crew members and children tend to be disproportionate in these sole-survivor events,” Todd Curtis of the Airsafe.com Foundation told CNN.
Professor Ed Galea, director of the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich, believes that being the right size is a big factor.
“With an adult with their head above the seat and legs on the floor, the chances are you’ll receive some sort of injury from debris landing on your head and legs flailing around. You’re more prone to broken limbs,” Galea told the BBC. “A youngster in their own seat . . . might be less likely to receive body injuries. They are more or less cocooned in a solid, rigid environment.”
EN BREF, CE 14 mai 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,14/05/2010
