{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 08 février 2010 – NewsWithViews.com- February 08, 2010–Ugandan Christian minister Martin Ssempa has issued a strong rebuttal to President Obama’s criticism of his country for considering passage of a law to discourage and punish certain homosexual practices.
RWANDA
UGANDA
Heritage Oil Provides Update On Proposed Disposal Of Ugandan Interest – Quick Facts
2/8/2010 /RTTNews
(RTTNews) – Heritage Oil Plc (HOIL.L: News ) issued an update on the proposed disposal of the company’s entire interest in Block 1 and Block 3A in Uganda. Also, the company stated that ENI International B.V. has terminated the sale and purchase deal entered into with Heritage on 18 December 2009 with immediate effect.
Meanwhile, the termination followed Tullow Uganda Ltd’s exercise of a pre-emption right with respect to the transaction and was allowed under the terms of the Eni SPA, Heritage Oil added.
In addition ,the company said that Eni’s termination should expedite completion of the sale and purchase agreement entered between Heritage and Tullow on 26 January 2010. A formal request for consent to transfer the Disposed Assets to Tullow was submitted to Government on February 2, 2010 and the transaction is expected to complete within the first quarter of 2010.
UGANDA REJECTS OBAMA’S PRO-HOMOSEXUAL “CHANGE”
By Cliff Kincaid/ NewsWithViews.com/February 8, 2010
Ugandan Christian minister Martin Ssempa has issued a strong rebuttal to President Obama’s criticism of his country for considering passage of a law to discourage and punish certain homosexual practices. “Sodomy is neither the change we want nor can believe in,” says Ssempa, who runs the Family Policy and Human Rights Center in Uganda.
Ssempa, a major player in the country’s successful anti-AIDS program, says that Obama has an “obsession with the spread of sodomy in Africa,” in contrast to the efforts of the George W. Bush Administration to help Uganda resist the dangerous sexual practices which facilitate the spread of the deadly disease. The Ugandan anti-AIDS program has emphasized abstinence and monogamy.
Ssempa’s website declares, “HIV/AIDS is not an allergy. It is not a gay disease. It is not a badge of honor. It is a cold-blooded, indiscriminating killer that can only be stopped by a proven solution—abstinence until marriage and faithfulness within marriage.”
Partly because of the continuing need to avoid AIDS—and the practices which can spread it—Ssempa and many other Ugandan pastors have united to form a task force against homosexuality and support new legislation to curtail the negative health impact of the so-called “lifestyle.” The task force states that “Practices like homosexuality and bisexuality are associated with serious, yet preventable public-health risks. The risk of HIV transmission in male homosexuality is, for example, about 10 times that of heterosexual sex, simply due to use of parts of the body for inappropriate functions. Other diseases and medical complications are also associated with these practices. Secondly, by its nature, behavior spreads in the population through experimentation, modeling and social affirmation. Increase in homosexual and bisexual practice could thus rapidly reverse Uganda’s success against HIV/AIDS.”
But at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Obama, capitulating to pressure from the “gay rights” lobby which helped elect him, condemned the prospect of “odious laws in Uganda,” after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made similar comments. The proposed legislation has drawn international condemnation from the Obama Administration, the global gay rights lobby, homosexual activists in the media, and dozens of “progressive” members of the U.S. Congress.
Clinton said that she had called President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda to express “our strongest concerns about a law being considered in the Parliament of Uganda.” But Clinton failed to disclose that he had told her that he had received reports that foreign homosexuals have been targeting Ugandan children for sexual abuse. Museveni has expressed puzzlement that Clinton and other representatives of Western nations have seemed so preoccupied with the subject of “gays.”
But because of the power of the well-funded homosexual lobby, the campaign has taken the form of a global effort to isolate Uganda and even cut off aid to the poor country because of its stand against homosexuality. Under this pressure, American pastors such as Rick Warren have denounced the anti-homosexual legislation. Ssempa and other Ugandan pastors, in turn, have accused Warren of succumbing to “hysteria” generated by the homosexual lobby.
In his statement, Ssempa expressed concern that Obama failed to understand the nature of the legislation. “President Barack Obama makes two mistakes,” Ssempa said in his statement. “First, Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law only prescribes the capital punishment in cases where the victims are children or the handicapped. This is consistent with the existing laws for similar crimes by heterosexuals. We wonder if President Obama thinks that the heterosexual rape of a girl is a lesser crime than the homosexual rape of a handicapped boy.”
“Secondly,” Ssempa goes on, “homosexuals and lesbians are never targeted for who they are, rather what they do. It is the repugnant sexual acts which they do which constitutes a crime, a
sin and a rebellion against the order of nature. Here in Africa, we believe homosexuals can CHANGE. It is very disappointing for Africans to hear Obama, who ran on the ticket of ‘change we can believe in,’ losing courage when we postulate in faith that homosexuals can truly change. We wish to tell him that sodomy is neither the change we want nor can believe in.”
Accuracy in Media’s review of coverage of the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda finds that it has been completely one-sided, inaccurate, and distorted beyond belief. Contrary to press accounts, the legislation is not designed to kill homosexuals but discourage and punish homosexual practices which spread disease and death. Christians in Uganda are trying to build a culture of life and avoid the sexual perversions which have devastated families in the U.S.
AIM’s investigation of the controversy has determined that the Soros-funded Open Society has been spearheading the funding of homosexual activism in Uganda and the rest of Africa. For example, his Open Society Initiative for East Africa, in partnership with Media Development in Africa (MEDEVA), aired a program on “sexual minority rights in Uganda,” which even included advocacy of legalized prostitution. The Open Society Institute also held a four-day workshop on legal strategies “to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights in Africa.”
Ssempa went on in his statement to bring up the matter of Obama’s support for abortion: “Thirdly, we wish to remind Obama that the unborn babies killed under his extremely odious laws of abortion, are the ones who are killed not for what they have done, but just because they are. Shame on his administration for agitating to protect abnormal and deviant sexual acts, when innocent babies are butchered daily in the abortion industry, which is funded by his administration.”
Like “gay rights,” Obama has made support for abortion, even in health care legislation, a priority for his administration.
The Ugandan pro-family activist said that Obama’s comments “will not stop the passage of the anti-homosexuality bill, but rather it has shown us that of all the problems that Africa has, the priority is not HIV/AIDS or trade but sodomy.”
Ssempa has been outspoken about the need for the legislation. But other Ugandan activists have spoken out as well. Charles Tuhaise, chairman of the board of Agape Community Transformation (ACT), a Christian organization in Uganda, has told AIM that “This is a bill written to control a problem that has largely gotten out of hand in western society and is now spreading tentacles worldwide. Perhaps Uganda has helped to highlight the danger that the homosexual movement poses to the worl
d.”
Ssempa drew a contrast with the administration of George W. Bush, which he said had helped Uganda resist the spread of AIDS. “African history will remember President George W. Bush for helping to stop the spread of the deadly HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis with his presidential emergency fund (PEPFAR),” he said. “On the other hand we are writing Obama’s history as one whose single focus is a divisive obsession with the spread of sodomy in Africa. We are sad that the presidential emergency response of Barack Obama is the use of the White House as a bully pulpit to spread sodomy, while enabling the murder of millions of unborn babies in his unconscionable and extremely odious abortion laws.”
TANZANIA:
Tanzania Tanzania to get millions for bad radar deal
08-02-2010/www.muslimnews.co.uk
SUNDAY NEWS:
TANZANIA is likely to be paid a substantial amount of money by the UK government following a settlement of a fraud case facing the BAE systems over the purchase of controversial radar in 2001.
Reports from the UK said yesterday that BAE Systems will give Tanzania about 60m US dollars being balance payments from millions of pounds the company has been fined for breach of financial regulations.
The funds, according to the reports, will be determined by the UK’s Crown Court judge and would be channelled to Tanzania in the form of economic aid.
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the US Department of Justice reached an agreement on Friday whilst the SFO deal concentrates on the company’s operations in Tanzania.
BAE Systems has pleaded guilty in the Crown Court for failing to keep reasonably accurate accounting records in relation to its activities in Tanzania. The firm is to admit two criminal charges and pay fines of 447m US dollars to settle US and UK investigations.
The radar purchase which implicated a former minister in the Tanzanian Third Phase government and a number of local businessmen as well as senior government officials has made headlines all over the world.
Former UK’s minister for international development, Ms Clare Short, protested fiercely on the purchase of the radar, saying that it was too costly for a poor country like Tanzania.
When asked for comments yesterday if the government was planning to arrest the local suspects in the deal, the Inspector General of Police, Said Mwema, said he was not aware of the agreement.
“I have to go through the report first and respond accordingly”, the IGP said. The Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs, Mr Mustafa Mkulo, also declined to comment, saying he was not in position to talk about the issue.
“I am currently in Kilosa (Morogoro). I have no idea of the issue at the moment”, he said.
Tanzania to resell abandoned firms
Written by JAMES MWAKISYALA/ www.busiweek.com/Monday, 08 February 2010
DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – The government is considering repossessing some 30 formerly state-owned firms that were privatised a decade ago but have remained virtually abandoned by the new owners.
The Minister for Industries, Trade and Marketing, Dr. Mary Nagu told the National Assembly in Dodoma last week that a study conducted on the eastern zone of the country including the Dar es Salaam and Morogoro areas, revealed that many investors who took over the firms did not invest as much as they had promised.
Hundreds more lie abandoned in other parts of Tanzania; in Shinyanga, Mwanza, Mara, Kagera and Tabora regions, as well as in the southern regions of the country.
Nagu said few industries invested close to what they promised the Parastatal Sector Reform Commission (PSRC).
The majority of those who took them over have either abandoned them, under-invested or simply used them as collateral for bank loans for other businesses.
Some privatised industries were uprooted and equipment sent abroad, while others were turned into warehouses.
The leather industry, textiles and land-related firms were particularly affected as virtually nothing has taken place in terms of new investments and activities.
The ministry has thus resolved to take a proposal to the cabinet for a decision to repossess the industries and resell them to others who would fruitfully make use of them to raise the national income and boost employment.
Thousands of Tanzanians were laid off due to the privatisation process that involved some 400-plus state-owned institutions that survived on US$100 million annually.
Few privatised firms stuck to the promises to continue the businesses with Tanzania Breweries Limited, Tanzania Cigarette Company and cement factories standing out as success stories.
These have expanded, employed more people and are paying taxes to the Treasury. The Government had retained shares in some privatized companies which (shares) are gradually being sold to the public by way of floating them at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange.
Minister Nagu promised the House that the matter will be taken to cabinet soon.
The World Bank funded the privatisation process of these industries when the country was going through the economic and financial reforms of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
CONGO RDC :
KENYA :
ANGOLA :
Comment: Togo Should Sue CAF and Hayatou
news.myjoyonline.com/ Monday, 8 February 2010
In the wake of the utterly unprovoked ambushing of the Togolese national soccer team just before the official opening of the 2010 African Cup of Nations, the Eyadema government promptly and judiciously recalled the team from Angola, in whose Cabinda province rebels fighting the Dos Santos government had launched the deadly attack. When it was all over, the visibly traumatized members of the Togolese national team had lost two officials among its contingent, with several others sustaining various degrees of injuries. The group, it may be recalled, was on a bus traveling to a venue of the tournament.
What is rather infuriating regards the Togolese national team’s alleged suspension from the next two Confederation of African Football (CAF)-sponsored tourneys by the Cameroonian-born president of CAF, Mr. Issa Hayatou, on the patently obtuse grounds that in protectively withdrawing its national team from the 27th edition of the African Cup of Nations, the Togolese government had politically and unduly interfered with the sport.
First of all, what we ought to be talking about is precisely why the CAF administrators decided to have this year’s tournament staged in Angola, knowing quite well that the country has yet to fully emerge and recover from a protracted civil war that has been raging for decades, particularly if the security of some of the participants could not be guaranteed. And secondly, in the wake of the brutal murder of two Togolese officials and the injuring of several others, as well as the harrowing emotional trauma that the entire nightmarish episode entailed, precisely why nobody appears to be interested in raising the very pertinent question of awarding damages to the victims.
Indeed, what appears to be embarrassingly clear is that Mr. Hayatou, in flagrantly moving to suspend Togo from the tournament, was simply applying the crude technique of preemptive intimidation, whereby rather than maturely take responsibility for the Togolese tragedy, the latter rather would be forced to shift attention from the dire legal and financial implications of the incident into a defensive mode.
Unfortunately for Mr. Hayatou, the onus lies smack-dab in the courtyard of the CAF president, and he had better respond sensibly and productively. Indeed, at the time of the ambush, my gut reaction was for CAF to promptly postpone the tournament and then move the venue to a safer country. On second thoughts, however, I decided that such move would only amount to facilely kowtowing to the criminal desire of these terrorists bent on perpetually regressing the socio-economic development of Angola.
It is also ironic to learn that Mr. Hayatou once served as FIFA’s vice-president for security and something called “fair-play,” whatever the latter means. His behavior – or rather gross misbehavior – definitely proves that the substantive CAF president may not be up to the intricate demands of the job, particularly at both the psychological and moral levels, and he may do both the federation and himself much better by promptly doing the most honorably thing – which is simply to tender his resignation.
On the latter score, we wholeheartedly concur with the Second Speaker of the Ghanaian parliament, Prof. Mike Oquaye, that Mr. Hayatou and the entire CAF organization ought to be roundly condemned for gross insensitivity. We would even go further by exhorting the Togolese authorities to take up the matter with FIFA, the parent organization of CAF, especially on the question of damages and the promptly deterrent removal of Mr. Hayatou in order to ensure the restoration of confidence and respectability to CAF. Anyway, could any well-meaning reader fathom what the likely reaction might have been, if the CAF president had been a non-African, or even of Afro-Arab nationality?
Credit: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI), the pro-democracy think tank, and the author of 21 books, including “Sounds of Sirens: Essays in African Politics and Culture” (iUniverse.com, 2004). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com.
SOUTH AFRICA:
Anglo Platinum, Harmony, Nedbank: South African Equity Preview
February 08, 2010/By Janice Kew/Bloomberg
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in South Africa. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names and prices are from the last close.
South Africa’s FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index fell 525.30, or 2 percent, to 25,793.06 in Johannesburg. The measure dropped 3.3 percent last week, its biggest weekly fall in almost a year.
Anglo Platinum Ltd. (AMS SJ): The world’s biggest platinum producer reports annual earnings. AngloPlat, as the company is known locally, fell 12 rand, or 1.7 percent, to 688 rand.
Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HAR SJ): Africa’s third-largest producer of the precious metal reports second-quarter earnings. Harmony said on Jan. 26 that it expects an improvement in the rand price received for its gold led to “significantly” higher profit in the three months through December. Harmony added 16 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 71.49 rand.
Illovo Sugar Ltd. (ILV SJ): Africa’s biggest sugar producer plans to spend about 6 billion rand ($774 million) over the next five years expanding in Africa, Business Day reported, citing Managing Director Graham Clark. The company plans to boost output to as much as 2.7 million metric tons, from 1.7 million tons, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said. Illovo dropped 70 cents, or 2.1 percent, to 32.50 rand.
Nedbank Group Ltd. (NED SJ): South Africa’s fourth biggest bank said it’s being sued over alleged losses from futures trading in Acc-Ross Holdings Ltd., which later changed its name to Pinnacle Point Group Ltd. The lender may be sued for 1.3 billion rand ($167 million), Sunday Times reported, citing court papers. Nedbank fell 4.56 rand, or 3.7 percent, to 117.25 rand.
The following stocks will begin trading without the right to the latest dividends:
Foord Compass Ltd. (FCPD SJ), Vunani Ltd. (VUN SJ).
Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows:
Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) rose 1 percent to $18. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) climbed 4.7 percent to $37.26. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) advanced 1 percent to $58.50. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) rallied 4.7 percent to $5.8. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) rose 4.3 percent to $11.62. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) increased 1.4 percent to $9.46. Impala Platinum Holdings Co. (IMPUY US) fell 3.9 percent to $23.89. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) slid 2.5 percent to $3.92. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) dropped 3.1 percent to $34.95. Telkom South Africa Ltd. (TLKGY US) declined 2.3 percent to $16.91.
–With assistance from Carli Lourens in Johannesburg. Editors: M. Shankar, Louis Meixler.
South Africans celebrate Mandela, worry about future
By Sibongile Khumalo (AFP) /08022010
JOHANNESBURG — Josephine Mji was a teenager when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison 20 years ago. South Africa’s fortunes have soared since then, but the mother of three is still struggling to escape poverty and enjoy her freedom.
“When Mandela was released, everyone believed that we had conquered, but look at where we are now. I have nothing to call mine,” said Mji, selling fruits on the sidewalks in an affluent Johannesburg suburb.
“So long as I am still struggling, have no job or home, nothing has changed, freedom has not brought any change in my life,” the 35-year-old said.
“I have not achieved freedom. Anywhere I go, doors are shut in my face. This is not the situation I wish on my children,” said Mji, who lives in a shack and blames the government for “not doing enough to support the poor”.
But Richard Maponya, a trailblazing black entrepreneur, believes that Mandela’s release opened a floodgates of opportunities.
“Blacks have regained their dignity. Now we can contribute to the economy of the country,” said the leading businessman.
Maponya battled apartheid laws which prohibited blacks from opening businesses and own property.
In his plush home in a northern Johannesburg suburb, Maponya said the country is headed in the right direction, despite “worrying pockets of racism”.
“The country has made great strides in the last two decades. The future will be better than today,” he said.
“But we have not fully achieved economic freedom. The purse strings are still held by the white people, but with time things will change,” he added.
Political change has created a growing black middle class that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, bouyed by 17 years of economic growth interrupted only by a nine-month recession during the recent global slowdown.
But about 1.1 million families still live in shacks. Unemployment is about 30 percent, while staggering levels of crime leave an average of 50 people dead every day.
While South Africa’s social ills hit blacks the hardest, the non-black population also expresses a nagging discontent about the country’s direction under the new government.
John Swanevelder, a 29-year-old white Afrikaner engineer from Pretoria, said the new government and its affirmative action policies had created new racial tensions.
“It brought a lot of good and bad things,” Swanevelder said of Mandela’s release. “Suddenly blacks gained more power and they did not handle it properly.”
“The power in the hands of black people has caused a lot of disunity among races. It created power struggles in the workplace, business and communities,” he said.
Catherine Jeremiah, who lives in a small mixed-race community in Kliptown, south of Johannesburg, blamed the politicians who came after Mandela for not living up to his ideals.
“Mandela was a good man. Those who came after him have not done a good job. They are not in touch with the people they are serving,” said the 73-year-old grandmother.
Jeremiah has lived all her life in Kliptown, famed as the venue for the 1955 signing of the Freedom Charter, which mapped a vision for a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa.
While she welcomes her political freedom, Jeremiah said her quality of life hasn’t improved.
“Nothing has changed here. It will be a miracle if something changes in the next 20 years, because we have not seen anything in the last 10 years of democracy,” said Jeremiah.
But in nearby Soweto, renowned as the home of the country’s largest black middle class, photographer Sizwe Kumalo feels the new government has opened up a new world of opportunity for young blacks.
“The youth have more opportunities and a lot of black people are entering the business scene,” said Kumalo.
“Look around here, development has taken place everywhere,” he said. “Soweto is now a fully-fledged suburb, something which was only a dream 20 years ago.”
S.Africa looking at stimulus measures: report
Mon Feb 8, 2010 /Reuters
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa is looking at whether it should maintain stimulus measures as the economy has not been severely affected by a global economic slowdown, central bank deputy governor Xolile Guma was quoted as saying.
“Certainly in South Africa, we’ve been taking a look at it, because we were not affected as seriously as other people,” Guma said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Sydney on Sunday, without being more specific.
The South African Reserve Bank cut interest rates by 5 percentage points between December 2008 and August 2009 to help stimulate an economy that experienced its first recession since 1992.
The central bank last month left the repo rate flat at 7.0 percent for the fourth time but did not rule out another rate cut.
The economy exited the recession in the third quarter of 2009 and is expected to grow by an average 2.63 percent in 2010, the Reuters Econometer poll shows.
The economy “will continue going forward in the absence of any external shock, which isn’t anticipated”, Guma said.
He also said fallout from concerns about deficits in some European countries could be quite serious.
The local bourse followed global stocks lower last week, partly as concerns about debt problems in some European countries weighed on sentiment, while the rand fell to a 3-month low on Friday, but later rebounded.
The rand gained about 30 percent against the dollar in 2009, raising concerns its strength could harm the economy.
Guma said while the strength of the rand is a “matter of concern … the policy of the bank is not to intervene in order to establish any particular rate for the rand”.
AFRICA / AU :
Zuma May Invoke Mandela Legacy to Deflect Criticism: Week Ahead
February 08, 2010/By Mike Cohen/Bloomberg
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — South African President Jacob Zuma delivers his state-of-the-nation address this week in the face of rising criticism of his personal life and a widening rift among his key political allies over economic policy.
Zuma, who has three wives, confirmed last week he had fathered his 20th child, this time out of wedlock, sparking criticism from the opposition that he is setting a bad example in the fight against AIDS. He later apologized for “the pain” he had caused his family, the ANC and South Africans. At the same time, a campaign by the ruling African National Congress’ youth league to nationalize the country’s mines is straining relations within the party.
“It’s a very hard place for Zuma to be,” said Amanda Gouws, a politics professor at the University of Stellenbosch. “His private behavior, which has become public, has deeply concerned a lot of people.”
The debate over nationalization affects companies such as De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer which is 45 percent owned by London-based Anglo American Plc and 40 percent by the Oppenheimer family. South Africa is the biggest producer of platinum, ferrochrome and manganese.
In his speech to parliament in Cape Town on Feb. 11, Zuma may try to invoke the vision of Nelson Mandela, whose release from prison 20 years ago to the day spearheaded negotiations that ended white minority rule. He’s likely to plead for national unity as his nine-month-old government seeks to spur growth and provide jobs for the one in four out of work.
Economic Slowdown
The debate among the ANC and its labor union and communist allies has been fueled by South Africa’s anemic return to growth in the third quarter of last year after its first recession in 17 years.
The slowdown caused the workforce to shrink by 770,000 in the year through Sept. 30, pushing up the unemployment rate to 24.5 percent, the highest of 62 countries tracked by Bloomberg. Anglo Platinum Ltd., the world’s biggest producer of the metal, and MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s largest mobile-phone operator, were among hundreds of companies to shed jobs.
The National Treasury expects Africa’s largest economy to expand 1.5 percent this year compared with 5.5 percent in 2007. The government says a 6 percent growth rate is needed to cut unemployment by half by 2014.
ANC youth league head Julius Malema, 28, is pushing the government to seize mines in order to spread wealth in South Africa. Malema said the communists have invited “war” because they said that nationalization shouldn’t be a priority.
‘No Nationalization’
Malema, a member of the ANC’s policy-making national executive committee, accused De Beers Chairman Nicky Oppenheimer of profiteering and said the company should be prepared to cede ownership of 60 percent of its mines in South Africa.
Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu rejected Malema’s position on Feb. 2 at a mining conference in Cape Town.
“In my lifetime there’ll be no nationalization,” she said. “Maybe when I’m dead, and rest assured I’m not dying next week.”
So far the ANC has failed to stifle the infighting among the unions, the youth league and the communists which united around Zuma’s successful campaign to oust Thabo Mbeki as party leader in December 2007 and win the presidency in May.
“The ANC is in a state of shambles,” said Gouws at the University of Stellenbosch. Zuma “is going to have to try and appease all the different factions. It’s going to be a very difficult task.”
Personal Behavior
He’ll have to do that at a time when his personal behavior has sparked condemnation from opposition parties and much of the media. They say it sends the wrong message about the need for safe sex in a country where about 11 percent of the population is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Zuma “by his own example, justifies unprotected sex,” Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance party, said on Feb. 4. “The inevitable response of millions of young men will be: ‘If the president can do it so can I’.”
In the apology, published on the Presidency Web site, Zuma said he regretted “the pain that I have caused to my family, the ANC, the Alliance and South Africans in general.”
Some analysts, such as Steven Friedman, director of the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Democracy, say the controversy won’t do lasting damage to his image among his supporters.
“This is a political storm in a teacup,” he said in a telephone interview. “It will have no bearing on Zuma’s standing within the ANC and no bearing on the electorate.”
Not Happy
The fighting within the ANC and among its supporters over policy and positions may ultimately be more damaging to his government and the ruling party.
Other analysts, such as Lawrence Schlemmer, a politics professor and a director at Pretoria-based research company MarkData, believe the revelations about Zuma’s personal life are denting his popularity.
“Having done many studies of voters, I can tell you there is no way that a clear majority of people, or even ANC supporters, will be happy,” he said.
Millions at risk if AIDS focus fades, says expert
Agencies/www.chinadaily.com.cn/2010-02/08
LONDON – Global attention is turning away from the AIDS epidemic at just the wrong time and means a fresh wave of the disease could infect millions of people in high-risk countries, a leading expert said Friday.
Alan Whiteside, director of the health economics & HIV/AIDS research division (HEARD) at Kwazulu Natal University said many African countries, where the disease poses the biggest threat, were failing to implement long-term prevention measures and needed help to plan for the battle ahead.
The AIDS threat is still very real in places like Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi and South Africa, he said, and a sense that the international community is ticking it off as “dealt with” is highly risky.
“(Fighting) the AIDS epidemic had a huge amount of support for many years, but there seems to be a perception now that it has been dealt with and we can turn our attention to other issues.
“This is most emphatically not the case in a number of parts of the world. It is not appropriate to turn our backs on it,” Whiteside told Reuters in a telephone interview from South Africa, where the disease kills an estimated 1,000 people a day.
Some 33.4 million people in the world have HIV, the sexually transmitted human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Since AIDS emerged in the early 1980s, almost 60 million people have been infected and 25 million have died of HIV-related causes.
Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the worst affected region, accounting for 67 percent of people infected with HIV and 91 percent of all new infections in children, according to United Nations data.
HEALTH WORKERS, EDUCATION PROGRAMMES
Whiteside said health ministries needed to use aid funds now to equip and train health workers and produce safe-sex education programs to combine the importance of AIDS with a better grasp of the long-term impact of the disease on their countries.
The United States and South Africa recently pledged renewed efforts in the fight against AIDS,. In December the international health funding agency UNITAID approved plans for a drug “patent pool” to help make newer HIV and AIDS medicines available at lower prices to poorer countries.
But Whiteside said a growing sense that AIDS is no longer an emergency was bound to feed politicians’ des
ir
e to be seen to be taking on new threats.
Climate change and the environment are the big issues now, and politicians may abandon the battle against AIDS, he said.
“At the moment, millions of Africans ore on HIV/AIDS treatment courtesy of the Americans, the Global Fund and other donors. Those treatments have to be for life, so if we see a redeployment of funding, people are simply going to die.”
Whiteside pointed to “hyper-endemic” African countries like Malawi and Swaziland, where AIDS is so widespread that half of all women aged 25 to 29 have HIV or AIDS.
Prevention programs are crucial in such countries, he said, but are often patchy and suffer from governments’ lack of leadership and cross-department, long-term vision.
Though clearly a personal and community disease, AIDS also threatens civil institutions like the health, agriculture and education sectors, which are needed to cut poverty, spur economic growth and raise living standards.
“We don’t seem to have got our head around prevention in the hyper-endemic countries,” he said. “We’ve still got new cases occurring — and that’s ridiculous, it’s stupid, especially when you look ahead and see what that means in terms of the numbers of people that will need treatment. If we don’t put our effort into prevention, we’re likely to see more waves.”
Sharing black history in S.D.
Carl Teer enjoys role as museum chairman
Sheri Levisay • slevisay@argusleader.com /www.argusleader.com/February 8, 2010
As chairman of the South Dakota African American History Museum that’s currently housed in the MultiCultural Center, he’s eager to share the stories of blacks in the Dakotas.
The Flandreau native would give presentations in his hometown during Black History Month, which is in February, and he’s done so in Sioux Falls since moving here in 1995.
If talking before schoolkids, for instance, “I’d say, ‘How many of you are going to go home and tell your folks a black man talked at school about African-American history?’ “
After they’d raise their hands eagerly, he’d ask: ” ‘How many of you will go home and tell your folks an American man talked to you about American history?’ I’d say, and they’d smile and get my point.”
He shares more details about the museum’s goal of teaching about a little-known part of South Dakota’s history.
1. There’s a hope for the permanent home for the museum. Tell us about the history behind that building.
“In October 1942, 300 black soldiers came to Sioux Falls as part of the 85th Aviation Squadron. At the time, there were only two places in Sioux Falls where they could live. One of them was the top floor of the building at 115 N. Dakota Ave. That building is the only physical remnant of African American history here. Churches and other links have since been torn down.
“There were 14 apartments at the top of the building. Almost every black family in the 1940s, ’50s and maybe even in the ’60s lived there. Before integration, that was the only housing. There were only two restaurants that would serve blacks.
“The bottom floor of the building became the home for the Black USO.”
2. What are some stories about blacks in South Dakota that you’ve learned about since you started working with the museum?
“Sarah Campbell – history claims her as being the first white woman in the Black Hills, but she’s black. Originally, she worked her way up the Missouri River and settled in North Dakota. She had been a cook for Gen. (Armstrong) Custer. When he came down to the Hills, she was one of two wagon train leaders that accompanied him.
“Legend has it – and this is really legend; it hasn’t been authenticated – that she was the one who found gold. We know she was one of the people involved in a mining company.”
3. What’s the one story that has most grabbed your attention in your research into the history of blacks in South Dakota?
“Cleveland Abbott. He was born in Yankton in the late 1800s. His parents had been slaves. They moved from Yankton to Watertown. He graduated from Watertown High School with 16 or 17 letters in sports. He was the captain of the South Dakota State University basketball team. He anchored relays.
“This isn’t completely verified, but the story goes that Booker T. Washington was on a train, and he met SDSU’s president. Washington asked him whether he had any candidates suitable to be the athletic director at the Tuskegee Institute. But at that time, Abbott was a junior.
“The next year, Booker T. Washington died, but his secretary called SDSU and requested that Abbott come down to Tuskegee. He worked in the dairy program. He was the athletic director, track coach and football coach. In football, he had 230-plus wins and less than 30 losses. His parents later moved to Huron. He served in World War I as an officer.”
4. What other plans are in the works?
“We’re in the process of getting a traveling museum. The city of Sioux Falls is giving us a retired transit bus. We’re going to refurbish it. On the outside, we’ll display pictures. Inside, we’ll have four to six different modules and take our presentation to rural South Dakota and even to other states.”
5. How did you get involved with the museum?
“About a year and a half ago, I got a call from Porter (Williams, a local sculptor) to get involved in advance with the planning of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. The museum opened on that day, Jan. 19 last year.”
UN /ONU :
ASA Press Release – ASA Promoters in Daytona This Week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
www.theautochannel.com/2010/02/08
PRESS RELEASE
February 7, 2010
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MANY ASA MEMBER TRACKS/SERIES PROMOTERS TO TAKE PART IN THE 37TH ANNUAL RPM WORKSHOPS
THIS WEEK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
American Speed Association PR
DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Sunday, February 7, 2010) – Daytona Beach is busy this time of
the year with all of the racing activities going on around the area. Starting on
Monday, many race track and series promoters, including those within the American
Speed Association family, will take part in the 37th Annual RPM (Racing Promotion
Monthly) Promoters Workshop at the Hilton Daytona Beach Ocean Walk Village.
Many of the attendees will take part in workshops on discussing different aspects
of promotion, legal, roundtable discussions and much more.
The conference will kick off on Monday morning with the announcement of the 34th
Annual Promoter of the Year and Regional Promoters of the Year. Two ASA Member
Track Promoters have been honored as Regional Promoters of the Year and have been
nominated for the Promoter of the Year.
Al Varnadore and Todd Hutto of East Bay Raceway Park in Tampa, FL along with Steve
Beitler of Skagit Speedway in Burlington, WA have already been announced as Regional
winners and are finalists for the prestigious honor.
Beitler has already picked up a Promoter of the Year honor as he tied with Steve
Sinclair, Promoter of the ASA Interstate Racing Association Outlaw Sprint Series,
for the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame Promoter of the Year.
Earlier this year, both promoters stated they are very proud to be a part of the
ASA Member Track program. “They know how to get winners,” Beitler, who recently
returned from South Africa as the pace car driver for the ASA Transcontinental Series
Free State 500 event said. “ASA should change the logo to…We just don’t only
build champions but we have winning promoters as well.”
The American Speed Association will have a booth at RPM for track and series operators
to visit and get information about becoming sanctioned or learn more about the member
tracks and series sanctioned by ASA. Which includes one of the best insurance programs
for its members and tracks through WSIB Motorsports Insurance.
ASA members in good standing are eligible for a $500,000 Excess Medical Benefit
as well as a $20,000 Accidental Death and Dismemberment Benefit. Coverage for the
member begins while traveling to a location promoting an ASA-sanctioned event and
continues until arrival home again. The American Speed Association, in conjunction
with WSIB Motorsports Insurance, is the only sanctioning body to offer insurance
coverage which extends beyond the boundary of the racetrack itself (complete details
are available online at www.ASA-Racing.com).
The ASA Member Track program is comprised of more than 35 short tracks around the
United States, as well as a variety of regional and national touring series. For
more information, call (386) 258-2221 or send an e-mail to info@asa-racing.com.
For news and information from all the racetracks and tours involved in the ASA,
visit www.ASA-Racing.com.
ASA®, ASA Racing®, American Speed Association® are registered trademarks of Racing
Speed Associates, LLC. ASA International, LLC or Racing Speed Associates, LLC are
not related to or affiliated with ASA Late Model Series, LLC.
USA :
Randgold Resources – Profit, Production and Reserves Soar in Record Year
February 08, 2010/money.cnn.com
RANDGOLD RESOURCES LIMITED
Incorporated in Jersey, Channel Islands
Reg. No. 62686
LSE Trading Symbol: RRS
Nasdaq Trading Symbol: GOLD
PROFIT, PRODUCTION AND RESERVES SOAR IN RECORD YEAR
London, 8 February 2010 – Randgold Resources (LSE: RRS) (NASDAQ: GOLD) crowned a year in which it expanded its flagship Loulo operation, progressed the development of a new mine at Tongon, advanced two major new discoveries and completed the Moto acquisition by posting a 79% year-on-year profit increase on the back of record production at Loulo.
Results for 2009, published today, show a profit of US$84.3 million (2008: US$47 million) for the year. The fourth quarter profit of US$38.7 million was up 185% quarter-on-quarter and 315% up on the corresponding quarter in 2008. Given the profit increase, the board increased the annual dividend by 30% to 17 US cents per share. The company’s balance sheet remains strong, with US$590 million in cash and no net debt.
Attributable group gold production for the year was up 14% at 488 255 ounces, boosted by a strong fourth quarter performance from Loulo, where the recently completed plant expansion significantly increased throughput. Loulo’s production for the year was 351 591 ounces (2008: 258 095 ounces), of which 106 564 ounces came in the last quarter. The Morila joint venture — successfully converted to a stockpile retreatment operation at the beginning of 2009 — produced 341 661 ounces, slightly higher than forecast due to better than planned recoveries and grade.
The prefeasibility study on the Massawa project in Senegal was completed, delivering a reserve of 1.5 million ounces at a grade of 4.6g/t and pointing to more upside. The board approved the study which demonstrated that even without the underground resources it meets the company’s investment hurdle rates. It has now moved into the feasibility phase, while the prefeasibility study on the Gounkoto project near Loulo in Mali is on track for completion in the first quarter of 2010. The initial scoping study on Gounkoto defined a robust resource at a significant grade.
Zuma ‘should be forgiven’
2010-02-08 /SAPA
Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma should be forgiven and the nation should “move on”, the National Interfaith Leaders Council (NILC) said on Monday.
“Let us leave this episode behind us, regrettable as it is, and move on as a nation,” the council said.
“The NILC calls for prayer for our president and his family and for healing and forgiveness in what has been a difficult week for the nation.”
Absolved
They said since Zuma had apologised and “confessed” after news broke that he had fathered a child with a girlfriend, faith dictated he be absolved.
“It is now up to us as South Africans whether we want to inflict further pain or offer forgiveness.”
They encouraged all South Africans to “reciprocate the president’s openness and humility on this matter with grace and mercy”.
Last week the Sunday Times broke the news that Zuma had fathered a child with Sonono Khoza, a marketing specialist, and daughter of World Cup local organising committee chairperson Irvin Khoza.
After an initial period of insisting it was a private matter, the presidency broke its silence and confirmed the report was true.
HIV/Aids, polygamy
Many of the opinions expressed on the matter centred on the country’s HIV/Aids policies and the promotion of condom use, as well as whether it was acceptable to have relationships outside a polygamous marriage.
His spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said it was a matter between two consenting adults but then Zuma issued a statement apologising to his family, the ANC and the country.
“I deeply regret the pain that I have caused to my family, the ANC, the Alliance and South Africans in general,” he said.
Inconvenient facts lie in the backstory even of cherished icons
The Irish Times/Monday, February 8, 2010
SAO PAOLO LETTER: Abraham Lincoln came from a tradition of US abolitionists who felt whites and blacks could never live harmoniously alongside each other, writes TOM HENNIGAN
IT’S THE sort of mad scheme one associates with the planners of the Third Reich – deporting an entire race to the world’s biggest rainforest. Crazy, but such a plan existed, and not in the demented minds of Hitler’s minions.
Instead, the idea of colonising the Amazon Basin with freed US slaves was dreamt up by the underlings of none other than Abraham Lincoln.
All year, Americans have been celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth – surveys show he is the man they rank as their greatest president. Dozens of new books on him have been published, four new Lincoln pennies minted, and plays, concerts and museum exhibitions have been staged across the country, where he is revered as a secular saint.
There is of course much to celebrate. In defeating the rebel Confederacy, Lincoln saved the Union and freed the slaves, finally giving meaning to the Declaration of Independence and its claim “that all men are created equal”.
But today it is little remembered – and downplayed by most of those who do – that Lincoln was very much a man of his time with regard to race, believing that “there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality”.
Though he ended slavery in the US, Lincoln also sought “to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be”. He came from a tradition of US abolitionists who felt whites and blacks could never live harmoniously beside each other, and therefore the best way to prevent racial conflict (or worse, intermingling) was to remove the country’s African population.
As the civil war raged, Lincoln summoned a deputation of black leaders to the White House in 1862 to tell them: “But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other.”
Having blamed blacks for the white man’s war, he then told them that “even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated.” Lincoln felt abolishing slavery would deal a fatal blow to the Confederacy, but would prove unpopular across the civil war divide.
Promising to remove freed slaves resolved this dilemma and fitted with his own long-held view that the races would be best kept apart. The problem was finding a country that would take in the US’s African population.
Lincoln’s preference was for Central America, but in Brazil he had an ambassador fired by the idea of combining his president’s zeal for resettling freed slaves with the imperial urge within the US body politic to wrest control of the Amazon basin from Brazil.
Even before being Lincoln’s ambassador to Brazil, James Watson Webb lamented that country’s failure to tap the Amazon’s potential in the way the US harnessed the Mississippi.
With this in mind he hatched the plan to create a bi-national company whereby the US would pay to transport its freed slaves to the Amazon, where they would receive grants of land from the government in Rio de Janeiro.
There they would work as indentured servants for five years before becoming citizens of Brazil. Webb sketched a first phase involving 50,000 freed slaves. Thus, according to Webb, would the Amazon become “the future home of the manumitted Negro of the United States” while ridding the US “of a curse which has well-nigh destroyed her”.
Brazil did not dismiss the scheme out of hand. Its economy was dependent on slave labour, but this was in increasingly short supply as British warships sought to impose the ban on the Atlantic slave trade. Eventually Rio politely declined the offer, put off by the arrogant Webb, who they feared was an agent for US imperial designs on the Amazon.
“They did not want an American company to take over a large part of the country that they had spent three centuries trying to defend from outside influence,” says Maria Clara Carneiro Sampaio, a Brazilian historian of Webb’s time in Brazil. With Brazil’s refusal, Webb’s plan was stillborn, and Lincoln dropped his long-held dream of removing his country’s African population, now largely forgotten amid the veneration of his memory.
“There is a cult of leading figures in the US – such as the Founding Fathers – that tends to elide and gloss over that which does not fit a pre-existing image,” says US historian Gerald Horne, author of The Deepest South, a history of slaving relations between the US and Brazil.
Ironically, the only emigrants from the US to show up in Brazil after the end of the civil war were defeated Confederate slave-holders who could not bear the thought of living under Yankee rule alongside their emancipated former property.
Up to ten thousand defeated rebels are estimated to have relocated to Brazil, where emancipation would not come until 1888. However, most of these zealots of slavery were quickly disappointed with life in a land they saw as ruined by miscegenation, and most eventually drifted back to defeated Dixie.
CANADA :
AUSTRALIA :
EUROPE :
CHINA :
Cnooc Falls After Report of Possible Uganda Oil Deal (Update2)
February 08, 2010/Bloomberg
(Adds Cnooc’s Nigerian deal in third paragraph.)
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — Cnooc Ltd. fell to the lowest in almost a week in Hong Kong trading after a newspaper said China’s biggest offshore oil producer may spend as much as $2.5 billion on a stake in Tullow Oil Plc’s Ugandan assets.
The shares dropped as much as 3.3 percent to HK$11.22, the lowest since Feb. 2, and were at HK$11.34 at 2:53 p.m. local time, down 2.4 percent. The benchmark Hang Seng index declined 0.7 percent. Oil in New York was at $71.44 a barrel in electronic trading, after gaining 81 percent in the past year.
A $2.5 billion bid would be the largest for Cnooc, which has lagged behind domestic rivals PetroChina Co. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. in overseas acquisitions, since it paid $2.7 billion for a stake in a Nigerian oilfield in 2006. Tullow is close to selling a stake in its Ugandan assets to Cnooc, London’s Sunday Times reported, without saying how it got the information. Jiang Yongzhi, Cnooc’s Beijing-based spokesman, said today the company doesn’t comment on “market rumors.”
Cnooc is “chasing higher asset prices,” Gordon Kwan, head of regional energy research at Mirae Asset Securities, said by telephone from Hong Kong today. “They could have bought this stake when oil was between $40 and $50 last year.”
The U.K. explorer plans to produce at least 5,000 barrels a day of oil in Uganda in 2012, with output rising to 150,000 barrels daily within five years.
Difficulties Overseas
Cnooc, which has oil and gas interests in Indonesia, Nigeria, Australia, Kenya and Equatorial Guinea, aims to increase capital spending this year by 30 percent to $7.93 billion as it targets a reserve replacement ratio of more than 100 percent, the company said on Feb. 2.
The unit of state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corp. is keen to develop overseas resources even as it faces many difficulties in its investments outside China, Cnooc’s President Yang Hua said on Feb. 2.
The company said on Nov. 13 the Ghanaian government hadn’t allowed it to bid for assets held by Kosmos Energy LLC in the African nation. In 2005, Cnooc abandoned an $18.5 billion bid to acquire California’s Unocal Corp. because of opposition from U.S. lawmakers.
‘Fallen Behind’
Cnooc has “fallen behind” PetroChina and Sinopec, as China Petroleum is known, in its push for overseas acquisitions, Mirae Asset Securities’s Kwan said.
Last year, PetroChina committed at least $3.1 billion to expand in Kazakhstan and Canada as the world’s second-biggest energy-consuming nation competes for global oil, gas and mineral resources to meet demand. Parent China National Petroleum Corp. increased overseas output to a record in 2009 after gaining access to more fields in the two countries, CNPC said on Jan. 20.
Sinopec’s parent, China Petrochemical Corp., said on Aug. 18 it concluded the C$8.3 billion ($7.8 billion) acquisition of Addax Petroleum Corp. to secure reserves in Iraq and Africa. In December 2008, it bought Vancouver-based Tanganyika Oil Co., which holds stakes in two Syrian production-sharing agreements.
PetroChina, the country’s largest oil and gas producer, fell 1.2 percent to HK$8.30 in Hong Kong today, while Sinopec, the biggest refiner, dropped 1.9 percent to HK$5.74.
–Chua Baizhen. Editors: Ryan Woo, John Viljoen.
China ‘not that big deal’
Feb 08 2010/Dewald van Rensburg/- Fin24.com
Cape Town – China’s role in Africa’s mining sector is exaggerated, declared an acknowledged expert at the annual Mining Indaba.
Chinese control over mining production in Africa is “almost nothing” compared even with that of South Africa, said Professor Magnus Ericsson, co-founder of the international Raw Materials Group (RMG) consultancy.
Ericsson does not agree that China is taking over the world. This is an oversimplified view, he said in response to submissions by other experts during the Indaba.
Africa’s mines are still being controlled by old colonial powers, by the US and by Australia, he told Sake24. Although it is often held that the Chinese are devouring Africa’s resources, the economic giant’s mining investments on the continent are actually small. China’s total foreign investments are colossal, but it is concentrating on mining sectors in Australia and Canada more specifically than on those in Africa.
Many of the areas in Africa where Chinese companies are active, are areas where it has actually been forced in by other companies’ monopoly on large parts of the world’s resources.
China invests in places which, for political or logistical reasons, are unattractive to the large international groups, says Ericsson.
Where legislation and regulatory institutions are in place Chinese groups stick to the rules, Ericsson points out. China is criticised for its investments, but competition with the established mining groups is a healthy development, he argues.
Global mining is certainly moving south of the equator, but generally not into Africa.
In contrast, the production of minerals from South America and Australia has increasing importance, mainly because of the significant amounts of iron ore that these regions produce.
At the same time Africa’s contribution to global mining production is on the decline. In 1984 Africa produced 20% of the world’s metals, but its contribution is now 11%-odd, says Ericsson.
In Africa, South Africa’s importance relative to the rest of the continent has increased since 2007. South African mines add six times more value than its closest competitor, Botswana, does.
The lion’s share
For two decades Ericsson has been studying the structure of the global mining industry and says there is too much concentration in the hands of a few mining giants.
Ericsson issues a particular warning against plans by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to combine their iron-ore interests in Australia. This, he says, would create too large and influential a company.
This year will definitely see an increase in mergers and acquisitions, resulting in a further amassing of interests, he predicts.
Consolidation is historically associated with rising metal prices, which are anticipated this year.
Globally there are about 4 100 mining companies, three-quarters of which are juniors that mostly are not producing yet. Then there are about 1 000 small to medium producers and 149 major mining groups.
The small group of mining giants controls 83% of all mining.
In terms of metals, platinum is the world’s most concentrated resource, largely because Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum dominate in this sector.
US and China: Tetchy twins
The Guardian/ Monday 8 February 2010
A year ago, China Daily gushed with upbeat epithets about the co-operation between the US and China. The relationship was already effective and smooth on trade, Taiwan and global warning. With two firm multilateralists, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, now in power, it would be positively strengthened and constructive, the official mouthpiece opined.
How different the picture looks today – and how wounded the official tone. China sent a deputy foreign minister to negotiate with Mr Obama in Copenhagen, scuppering the deal that not just the US but many other countries wanted. Next came the cyber-attacks on Google. Then the White House approved a decision to sell patriot missiles to Taiwan, announced that Mr Obama would meet the Dalai Lama and lectured China on its overvalued currency. Forget the metaphor of resetting relations, which the US used recently with Russia. Hardly a month goes by when the US and China can resist pushing each other’s buttons.
Is China’s assertiveness and Mr Obama’s hardened attitude all down to economics – to the former’s impressive performance during the global recession and the latter’s much weaker one? Economists reckon the Chinese currency, which has remained at the same value since July 2008, is undervalued by 25% to 40%. Even on the lower figure, the effect of a correction on the currencies of neighbours like Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan would be major and would collectively help cut the US deficit by $100bn and create 700,000 jobs. Reopening the battle with China over its currency is not a bad move, therefore, as Mr Obama faces difficult midterm elections in November. Both the US and China are trying to power their way forward with export booms and each requires a low valuation of its currency to do that.
But politics matter too. China’s foreign policy has become more assertive as nationalism becomes dominant. For all the lip service to multilateralism, China is more hostile to sanctions on Iran than Russia. A nationalist China is, however, more tied into the global economy than ever before. Two-thirds of China’s $2.4 trillion currency reserves are held in dollars. If it dumped the US treasury bonds and shares in which these dollars are invested, China could trigger a collapse of the dollar, and world markets, and another global recession. To whom would China be able to export then? Certainly not to the US or the EU. China’s key economic interest lies in continuing to fund US debt.
So there are limits to the current US-China jousting. Each is repainting its red lines and stepping over the other’s. But at some point national interest says this must stop. Neither of the tetchy twins can do without the other.
Gates Traces Ancestry of Famous
By Sofia E. Groopman, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER /Monday, February 08, 2010
Television personality Stephen Colbert is distantly related to Elizabeth Adams, the African-American poet who read at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Oscar-award winning actress Meryl Streep, and Queen Noor, the queen consort of Jordan.
This is just one of the “astonishing” results of the research done by Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. for his new four-part television series for PBS, “Faces of America.” The series traces the family trees of 12 famous Americans, using both historical documentation and DNA analysis, and is challenging Americans to reexamine their history in a uniquely personal way.
“No matter what the laws were in the daytime, no matter how societies tried to enforce sexual segregation, when the lights came down, everybody was sleeping with everybody,” Gates, a professor and director of the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, announced to a charmed audience at “The Colbert Report” on Thursday night where he appeared to promote the series.
While working on the program, Gates learned that television personality and cardiothoracic surgeon Mehmet C. Oz ’82, who is Muslim, and Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony-award winning director Michael I. Nichols, who is Jewish, have a common ancestor.
“It’s sort of like the biblical story of Abraham,” said Gates, referencing the father of the monotheistic faiths and his two sons—Isaac, the founder of Judaism, and Ishmael, the founder of Islam.
Gates described this discovery as emblematic of the purpose of the project.
“Faces of America is my way of celebrating what for me is the true triumph of American democracy, which is our diversity, our ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity,” Gates said. “And we can now measure that diversity, in a sense, through genealogy and genetics.”
Gates noted that “Faces of America” is not without its bittersweet moments.
In one episode of the series, the journalist Malcolm T. Gladwell, who is of Jamaican descent, learns that his fifth great-grandmother was a free black woman who owned slaves.
“That’s a pretty heavy thing to realize for a black person,” Gates said. “There are painful things and there are joyous things, but that’s what our past is, it’s a combination of tragedy and triumph.”
Gates said that he was inspired to create the show when he received a letter from a woman of Russian descent in response to his series “African American Lives” that focused on tracing the family histories of prominent African-Americans. The woman wrote to him asking if he would do a follow-up, exploring the genealogies of Americans of all races, not just African-Americans.
“At first I thought, this is not my job description,” Gates said.
A few weeks later, however, Gates found himself at a dinner party at the home of Martin Peretz, editor of The New Republic, where he spoke to Yo-Yo Ma ’76—who appears on “Faces of America”—about Ma’s recent trip to China where he visited an ancestral cemetery. The combination of the woman’s letter and Ma’s touching description motivated Gates to move outside his “job description” and engage with the issue of American heritage as a whole.
“Genealogy is just as important in every culture,” Gates said. “Everybody, everywhere cries when you resurrect their ancestors…Ancestry has never been as important to Americans as it is today.”
The first episode of “Faces of America” will premiere on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. on PBS.
—Staff writer Sofia E. Groopman can be reached at segroomp@fas.harvard.edu
INDIA :
Hawks bust ‘runners’ for cocaine operation
Gill Gifford/.iol.co.za /February 08 2010
A Nigerian drug syndicate alleged to have smuggled pure cocaine into South Africa hidden inside a consignment of knives from India has been smashed by the Hawks.
The five men and a South African woman – who is married to one of them – are alleged to have been running their operation from a flat in Kempton Park, where they would break open the knives with an angle grinder and then sell the cocaine from the same premises.
The six were expected to appear in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Musa Zondi, spokesperson for the crime-fighting unit, said the suspects had been apprehended during the raid, which took place on Thursday night.
He said the suspects were believed to have been taking delivery of shipments of knives brought in from Mumbai.
The packages had been flown into South Africa and then delivered to the suspects by a courier company.
Zondi said the Kempton Park Hawks were made aware of the operation by a resident in the block of flats who reported grinding sounds emanating from the suspects’ flat. He said that people in the area during the raid confirmed that drugs were being sold from the flat.
Zondi said the suspects had attempted to throw some of the goods out of a window. He said detectives found about 2kg of cocaine that had already been retrieved from the knives, but that more was believed to be inside the others seized. It is estimated that police managed to take possession of cocaine valued at about R4 million.
Zondi said it was clear that the flat had been used as an operational base, and the stove in the kitchen had been covered in a layer of fine white powder as it had been used to dry the damp stash retrieved from inside the knives.
Unit commander Senior Superintendent Lebakeng Siane thanked the person who had reported the illicit operation to the police.
Zondi said the Asset Forfeiture Unit was planning to attach all property owned by the suspects. At least two cars, as well as instruments used in the operation, had been seized.
BRASIL:
BES targets emerging markets with Execution Noble deal
By Megan Murphy in London/www.ft.com/Published: February 8 2010
Banco Espírito Santo, one of Portugal’s largest banks, is taking a 50.1 per cent stake in Execution Noble, the UK securities group, in an effort to build a leading franchise in Brazil, India and other fast-growing emerging markets.
The £50m ($78.2m) deal, to be announced today, caps a period of frenzied activity for Nick Finegold, the former Deutsche Bank trader who set up Execution in 2001 as an agency stockbroker for institutional clients.
Having ramped up capacity in London as well as internationally, Execution snapped up Noble, the mid- and small-cap Scottish investment bank, in December in order to broaden its research and product offerings.
Teaming up with BES’s investment banking arm, known as BESI, will give the group a combined headcount of almost 1,000 people stretched across locations including Lisbon, Madrid, Mumbai, Hong Kong, San Paulo and Warsaw, as well as the traditional financial centres in the UK and the US.
About 60 per cent of BESI’s 700 investment bankers are already based outside Portugal. “I don’t think anyone has done as much as we have over the past six months to transform the business,” said Mr Finegold.
Execution has been frequently mentioned as a possible acquisition target for several of Britain’s largest banks, with Lloyds Banking Group retaining a small stake.
The broker, however, had clung to its independence as well as its maverick image, preferring its purple-walled offices in London’s trendy Shoreditch neighbourhood over the staider City.
Known mainly as an equity sales and research house, Execution has increasingly taken part in larger corporate share placings and initial public offerings in recent years. It brought in Simon Brookhouse, the former head of global equities at HSBC, last year as chief executive. In acquiring Noble in December, Execution has also added a specialised research product on Indian mid-cap companies.
BES’s investment bank, with a balance sheet of €6bn ($8.2bn), has a strong brokerage and corporate advisory franchise in Iberia, with ambitious plans for expansion in Africa and other emerging markets. The bank is in the process of setting up an investment bank in Angola and is known to be looking to buy a banking group in South Africa.
José Maria Ricciardi, BESI’s chief executive, told the Financial Times that the lack of overlap between the two businesses was one of the main drivers behind the deal.
Mr Brookhouse will remain Execution Noble’s chief executive, with Mr Ricciardi joining the company’s board alongside Mr Finegold and Luis Luna Vaz, BESI’s head of capital markets.
EN BREF, CE 08 février 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,08/02/2010
