{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 01 avril 2010 – www.presstv.ir- April 01, 2010–The European Union has given the go-ahead for a military mission in Somalia, which reportedly aims to train Somali forces against local fighters.
RWANDA
Obama’s Dad Jeans on Sale… in Rwanda
By Alisa Gould-Simon/ www.blackbookmag.com/ April 01, 2010
It looks like Weatherproof isn’t the only fashion brand utilizing Barack Obama as poster child for its clothes without the president being any the wiser. Across the Atlantic a denim brand is taking things one step further. Stores in Rwanda are hawking ‘Obama Jeanswear,’ a collection of denim of which is best categorized as ‘dad jeans.’ Racked.com picked up the story from travel writer Kristin Luna, who noticed Rwanda is also home to homages to Obama in the form of a ‘Yes We Can’ photo studio.
Jokes surrounding the poor wash choices and ill-fitting denim of the president have been alive and well from long before the president took office. Whether or not he’ll step up his denim game anytime soon remains to be seen. Hopefully he’ll make some progress come April 5, when a no-doubt blue jean-clad president will throw the first ball at the Washington Nationals opener.
UGANDA
TANZANIA:
Push to turn Dar green as world marks Earth Hour
By The Citizen Reporter/01042010
For the first time this year Tanzania joined other countries to observe the Earth Hour which is coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to champion environmental conservation.
In observing the day, the WWF assisted two secondary schools with solar power, according to a statement from the WWF.
It said although elsewhere the day is observed through turning lights off, such a gesture would have a little impact in Tanzania where only a few people get power.
A number of local companies, including Zain Tanzania, joined the WWF to plant about 40 trees along Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road in Dar es Salaam to mark the Earth Hour – the biggest global climate awareness campaign.
The WWF is the leading organisation in wildlife conservation and endangered species.
Zain Tanzania managing director Khaled Muhtadi led the Zain team and participated in the tree planting exercise that was graced by the Kinondoni district commissioner, Mr Jordan Rugimbana, and the WWF conservation manager, Mr Peter Masolwa.
Said Mr Muhtadi: “We at Zain Tanzania are happy to join hands with the WWF to mark the Earth Hour here in Tanzania by planting trees along this road to make our stand against climate change and pledge our support to the planet.”
He said in planting the trees they became part of the global movement to action for every individual, business and community to stand up, take responsibility, get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future.
Mr Muhtadi explained that his company has hired a dozen youths who will nurture the trees to ensure that they survive.
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change.
Only a year later Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people in 35 countries participating.
Global landmarks, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the CN Tower in Toronto, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.
In March 2009, millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4,000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off lights to pledge support for the planet. This made Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.
This year Earth Hour 2010 took place last Saturday at around 8.30pm (local time). Iconic buildings and landmarks from Europe to Asia and the Americas stood in darkness.
People from all walks of life in the world were also encouraged to turn off their lights and join the celebration in contemplation of the one thing we all have in common, the planet.
CONGO RDC :
Human Rights Watch exposes Democratic Republic of Congo massacre
Zambia News.Net/ www.zambianews.net/ 01 April, 2010
Unbeknowns to the media, and as a result the international community, hundreds of people were massacred while hundreds more were kidnapped in Congo just three months ago.
The rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children, during the previously unreported four-day rampage in the Makombo area of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report released this week.
“The Makombo massacre is one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history, yet it has gone unreported for months,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The four-day rampage demonstrates that the LRA remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claim.”
The 67-page report, “Trail of Death: LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo,” is the first detailed documentation of the Makombo massacre and other atrocities by the LRA in Congo in 2009 and early 2010. The report, based on a Human Rights Watch fact-finding mission to the massacre area in February, documents the brutal killings during the well-planned LRA attack from December 14 to 17 in the remote Makombo area of Haute Uele district.
LRA forces attacked at least 10 villages, capturing, killing, and abducting hundreds of civilians, including women and children. The vast majority of those killed were adult men, whom LRA combatants first tied up and then hacked to death with machetes or crushed their skulls with axes and heavy wooden sticks. The dead include at least 13 women and 23 children, the youngest a 3-year-old girl who was burned to death. LRA combatants tied some of the victims to trees before crushing their skulls with axes.
The LRA also killed those they abducted who walked too slowly or tried to escape. Family members and local authorities later found bodies all along the LRA’s 105-kilometer journey through the Makombo area and the small town of Tapili. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that for days and weeks after the attack, this vast area was filled with the “stench of death.”
Children and adults who managed to escape provided similar accounts of the group’s extreme brutality. Many of the children captured by the LRA were forced to kill other children who had disobeyed the LRA’s rules. In numerous cases documented by Human Rights Watch, children were ordered to surround the victim in a circle and take turns beating the child on the head with a large wooden stick until the child died.
The United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Congo (MONUC) has some 1,000 peacekeeping troops in the LRA-affected areas of northeastern Congo – far too few to protect the population adequately, given the area’s size. Yet instead of sending more troops, the peacekeeping force, under pressure from the Congolese government to withdraw from the country by July 2011, is considering removing some troops from the northeast by June in the first phase of its drawdown.
“The people of northeastern Congo are in desperate need of more protection, not less,” said Van Woudenberg. “The UN Security Council should stop any drawdown of MONUC peacekeeping troops from areas where the LRA threatens to kill and abduct civilians.”
In mid-April, the Security Council is due to visit Congo to discuss the peacekeeping force’s plans for withdrawal and the protection of civilians.
The Makombo massacre is part of a longstanding history of atrocities and abuse by the LRA in Uganda, southern Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Congo. Pushed out of northern Uganda in 2005, the LRA now operates in the remote border area between southern Sudan, Congo, and CAR. In July 2005, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the senior leaders of the LRA for crimes they committed in northern Uganda, but those indicted remain at large.
The Human Rights Watch research indicated that the Makombo massacre was perpetrated by two LRA commanders – Lt. Col. Binansio Okumu (also known as Binany) and a commander known as Obol. They report to Gen. Dominic Ongwen, a senior LRA leader who is believed to command the LRA’s forces in Congo and who is among those sought by the International Criminal Court. Human Rights Watch urged investigations of these commanders’ alleged participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In December 2008, the governments of the region, led by the Ugandan armed forces, with intelligence and logistical support from the United States, began a military campaign known as Operation Lightning Thunder against the LRA in northeastern Congo. A surprise aerial strike on the main LRA camp failed to neutralize the LRA leadership, which escaped. In retaliation, the LRA attacked villages and towns in northern Congo and southern Sudan, killing more than 865 civilians during the Christmas 2008 holiday season and in the weeks thereafter.
On March 15, 2009, Operation Lightning Thunder officially ended, following pressure from the Congolese government, which found it politically difficult to support a continued Ugandan army presence on Congolese territory. But a covert joint military campaign continued, with the quiet approval of the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila. Both governments publicly maintain that the LRA is no longer a serious threat in Congo and that the bulk of the rebel group has either moved to Central African Republic or has been killed or dispersed.
These public declarations might have contributed to burying information about ongoing LRA attacks, leaving many victims feeling abandoned. An 80-year-old traditional chief, whose son was killed during the Makombo massacre, told Human Rights Watch: “We have been forgotten. It’s as if we don’t exist. The government says the LRA are no longer a problem, but I know that’s not true. I beg of you, please talk to others about what has happened to us.”
While the Makombo massacre is the most deadly documented attack by the LRA since the Christmas massacres of 2008, dozens of attacks against civilians have also been carried out in other areas in recent months – near the towns of Bangadi and Ngilima in Haut Uele district, in Ango territory in Bas Uele district, as well as in the Central African Republic.
In the December 2009 attacks near Bangadi and Ngilima, LRA combatants horribly mutilated six civilians, cutting off each victim’s lips and an ear with a razor. The LRA sent the victims back to their villages with a chilling warning to others that anyone who heard or spoke about the LRA would be similarly punished.
On March 11, 2010, the US Senate unanimously passed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. If it becomes law, it will require President Barack Obama’s administration to develop a regional strategy to protect civilians in central Africa from attacks by the LRA, to work to apprehend the LRA’s leadership, and to support economic recovery for northern Uganda. The bill is currently before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“The people of northeastern Congo and other LRA-affected areas have suffered for far too long,” said Van Woudenberg. “The US and other concerned governments should work with the UN and regional parties to develop and carry out a comprehensive strategy to protect civilians and apprehend abusive LRA leaders.”
KENYA :
Kenya’s Rights Activist Proud of Roll Leading to ICC Investigation of Post- Election Violence
The vice chairman of Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights says he is proud of the pivotal role his organization played that aided the International Criminal’s Court’s (ICC) decision to begin investigation into the 2007 post-election violence.
Peter Clottey / www1.voanews.com/01 April 2010
The vice chairman of Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights says he is proud of the pivotal role his organization played that aided the International Criminal’s Court’s (ICC) decision to begin investigation into the 2007 post-election violence.
Hassan Omar urged Kenyans to assist in the ICC’s investigation, saying masterminds of the violence will not escape justice.
“We are extremely elated (and) we do believe that it’s one of the circumstances where our work has paid off at the highest level of international mechanisms with respect to bringing perpetrators to justice. These are issues that we continue to raise domestically but always faced very harsh resistance from government agencies and the interim government in its totality,” he said.
Omar’s comments followed a decision by judges at the International Criminal Court to authorize chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to investigate Kenya’s post-election violence.
He said the ICC will vigorously go after the masterminds of the chaos.
“I think the International Criminal Court is essentially interested in the perpetrators of violence at the highest level. Therefore, this is the first time I think we might be able to see an investigation that tries to bring some level of justice to people who have always been afforded impunity by being in state power or wielding instrument of power and control,” he said.
Reports in the local Kenyan media said ICC chief prosecutor Moreno Ocampo is scheduled Thursday to outline steps he will take to begin investigating crimes allegedly committed during the 2007 post-election violence.
Some analysts predicted that top officials alleged to have been instrumental in the post-election violence would be working hard to undermine the ICC investigation.
Critics accused Kenya’s parliament as well as top government officials of refusing to set up local tribunals to investigate what was described as organized violence after the controversial 2007 election.
Kenya, South Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa Bond, Currency Preview
April 01, 2010/By Franz Wild/Bloomberg
April 1 (Bloomberg) — The following events and economic reports may influence trading in sub-Saharan African bonds and currencies today.
Kenya: Parliament in East Africa’s biggest economy votes on whether to adopt a new constitution designed to distribute power more evenly and prevent a repeat of post-election violence in 2008 in which 1,500 people died.
The Kenyan shilling weakened 0.2 percent yesterday to 77.31 per dollar.
South Africa: Kagiso Securities Ltd. publishes South Africa’s purchasing managers’ index at 11 a.m. The index surged to a three-year high in February as the economic recovery gained momentum.
The South African Reserve Bank plans to sell 6.25 billion rand ($895 million) worth of Treasury bills ranging from 91-day to 364-day maturity.
The rand snapped a four-day advance, losing 0.4 percent to 7.2955 per dollar by 7:06 a.m. in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial capital.
The yield on the benchmark government bond due September 2015 dropped 5 basis points to 7.95 percent at yesterday’s close.
–Editors: John Kohut, Paul Richardson.
Kenya frees American suspected of terrorism links
04/01/10/www.wjla.com
NAIROBI, Kenya – An American man of Somali origin arrested in Kenya over suspicions of terrorism says police have released him along with two other men.Suleman Essa said Friday that Kenyan police did not tell him why they arrested him on Thursday as he and the two others boarded a plane headed for Somalia. Kenyan police said Thursday that Essa was on a terror watch list. Essa says he does not belong to a terrorist organization. He did not say why he and the others planned to go to Somalia.
Essa says Canadian citizen Ahmed Ali Hassan and Kenyan citizen Muhammed Hussein Hash were also released Friday.
Many ethnic Somalis who grew up abroad, including in the U.S., have traveled back to Somalia to take part in an ongoing insurgency there.
ANGOLA :
SOUTH AFRICA:
South Africa, China Sign Mohair, Seafood Deals, Bus. Day Says
By Paul Richardson/Bloomberg/April 1
April 1 (Bloomberg) — South Africa and China signed 2.3 billion-rand ($315.3 million) worth of deals that will result in South Africa suppling mohair, fish and abalone to its biggest trading partner, Business Day reported.
A total of 26 companies were involved in yesterday’s accords, including producers of wine, copper, manganese, granite blocks, ferrochrome and lobster, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said, citing Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies.
Chinese trade with South Africa totaled $16 billion last year, the newspaper said, citing Jia Qinglin, chairman of the national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
AFRICA / AU :
McDonald’s Sets Plan for China
By ESTHER FUNG /online.wsj.com/APRIL 01, 2010
SHANGHAI—U.S. fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp. plans to nearly double its presence in the world’s fastest-developing economy over the next few years, senior company officials said Tuesday after they launched the first McDonald’s Hamburger University in China.
McDonald’s outlined its China plans at a time when relations between foreign businesses and Beijing are souring, with a growing number of Western firms complaining of a deteriorating operating environment in the country.
McDonald’s, which has about 1,100 outlets in China, expects to boost that number to a total of 2,000 by the end of 2013, said Tim Fenton, the company’s president of Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, in an interview.
The company opened just under 150 outlets in the country last year and expects to open 150 to 175 outlets in China this year, Mr. Fenton said.
“China is our fastest-growing [market] from the income standpoint and from the revenue standpoint,” he said.
The company opened its first outlet in China in Shenzhen in 1990. McDonald’s now employs more than 60,000 people in the country.
The new outlets targeted for this year will create 10,000 jobs in China, Kenneth Chan, McDonald’s China chief executive, said at a news conference Tuesday.
The Hamburger University in Shanghai is the seventh in the world and serves as the company’s training school for areas such as local talent development and real-estate management. The company said the Shanghai school represented an investment of 250 million yuan ($36.6 million).
McDonald’s is targeting global sales growth of 3% to 5% in 2010 and income growth of 7% to 9%. “And we expect China to be above that,” Mr. Fenton said.
The company posted profit of $4.55 billion on revenue of $22.74 billion for 2009.
China accounts for about 23% of McDonald’s revenue from the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions, and its share is growing, Mr. Fenton said.
“The informal eating-out industry in China is about $300 billion right now, and it will grow about 10% this year,” Mr. Fenton said, attributing the projected growth to the country’s growing middle class.
Mr. Fenton said that while about 80% of McDonald’s outlets globally are franchised, the company has only six franchised outlets in China.
McDonald’s plans to franchise more over the next three to five years, Mr. Fenton said, declining to give specific targets.
Brand Airtel heads to Africa
April 01, 2010/business.rediff.com
Bharti Airtel is counting on its “endearing” brand to build on its acquisition of Zain Telecom’s African operations. In addition, it aims to do what Indian companies are getting increasingly known for: Reduce costs.
Airtel will replace Zain and become the brand of the combined entity in each of the 15 countries in Africa that Bharti will enter as a result of the $10.7 billion acquisition.
“Bharti Airtel [ Get Quote ] has been the number one endearing brand in India [ Images ] and our objective is to repeat the same positioning in the African states, too. The Airtel brand will be the key to our business success in these countries. It will be positioned as a global brand. However, in its implementation, we will use a lot of vernacular language, looking at local needs,” Manoj Kohli, who will head Bharti’s African operations, told Business Standard.
According to Kohli, Bharti’s African strategy will not merely replicate the Indian model. “We will have an innovative model. Our model for Africa will not be exactly the same as in India. It will be superior to India (model), as we can learn from our Indian experience.”
As the details of the Africa strategy are still being worked out, Kohli is quick to name the advantages. “The key areas of synergy will be in procurement, information technology network, call centres, and data centres – just to name a few.”
Kohli also said the company will have an organisational structure of expatriates from Bharti, employees of Zain and new recruits into the international team.
In a falling stock market today, Bharti Airtel’s shares rose 0.35 per cent to close at Rs 312 per share. The stock has recovered from the free fall that it saw after its talks for a deal with Zain were first made public.
Analysts say that this recovery in the stock price is not only because of increased positive sentiment on the Bharti-Zain deal. “Recovery in the stock price reflects that markets have also done well,” says Rajat Rajagriha, Director-Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Besides, all the telecom stocks have been performing well in the last few weeks. “Earlier, there were pricing pressures in voice services, and more pressure on new service providers launching operations and introducing newer schemes. There were no new schemes which have hit the market in the last two months. That’s the reason why the stock has risen in the last two months,” says Nishna Biyani, Analyst, Prabhudas Lilaldher.
Going ahead, concerns on the Zain deal and its implications on the stock price remain. Markets have retained their view that the deal is overpriced and do not expect it to be earnings-accretive in the next one or two years.
Analysts say a lot more clarity on the contours of the deal are required to make an assesment of the earnings from the stock. “Even now, no extra clarity has come in. The job will be to wait and watch if this deal can make any significant earnings over a period of two years,” says Anand Tandon, Director-Equities, BRICS Securities.
Bharti has raised $8.3 billion debt to fund this deal. “The primary concern is to see how they are going to take the pain of increased debt burden,” says Rahul Jain, Analyst, Angel Broking. Moreover, the success of how Bharti will replicate its low cost operational model in Africa is yet to be seen. Analysts warn that it took 10 years for the low-cost model to become operational in India. “Markets may want to see any improvement in the underlying profitability in these operations, with the new management coming in,” says Rajagriha. Besides, analysts also expect that Indian market itself may throw up some challenges, adding to strain on Bharti’s management.
While concerns remain, some analysts feel the stock might not take any extra hit with regards, to the Zain deal. “Impact of the Zain deal is priced in. No more stock movements are expected on that account,” says Jain. The stock is expected to be range bound in the next one year. “The stock has been trading at almost 14 times its price to earnings ratio, which has factored in one year’s forward earnings. In the next 12-18 months, we expect the stock to trade in the Rs 290-340 range,” says Biyani.
UN /ONU :
UN official expects no climate deal until 2011
By ARTHUR MAX (AP)/01042010
AMSTERDAM — A new legal agreement committing nations around the world to curb greenhouse gas emissions is unlikely to be completed before the end of 2011, two years later than originally envisioned, the top U.N. climate official said Wednesday.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. climate change secretariat, said countries need to restore confidence in U.N. negotiations following the dismal results of the Copenhagen summit in December, which ended in a vague agreement of principles and a pledge of finances for poor countries most threatened by climate change.
“There was a great deal of frustration at the end of the Copenhagen conference in terms of process,” de Boer said in a conference call with reporters from his office in Bonn, Germany.
The next annual conference in Cancun, Mexico, beginning in November should get negotiations “back on track” among the 194 participating nations, with the aim of agreeing on the main elements that could be enshrined in a binding agreement a year later in South Africa, de Boer said.
“My hope is that Cancun will deliver what I had hoped Copenhagen would deliver,” said de Boer, who is resigning July 1 after nearly three years in office.
Negotiators will convene in Bonn next week for the first time since 120 heads of state and government met in the Danish capital. The weekend conference was expected to do little more than set a timetable for several more preparatory conferences leading up to the Cancun conference.
In talks in London, Britain proposed a possible two-track process for a new global emissions pact, in hopes of reviving the stalled talks.
The country’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband suggested that if nations continue to founder in negotiations on a single binding pact there could be two treaties, rather than one.
Miliband suggested the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — an emissions reduction pact which is due to expire in 2012 — could be extended to set binding targets for the countries signed up to the process. A second treaty would cover countries who have never signed up to Kyoto, including the United States and China, he said.
“We are interested in trying to break the deadlock and find ways through some of the issues raised in Copenhagen,” Miliband said Wednesday, as representatives including White House economic adviser Larry Summers met.
“We do not want to let a technical argument about whether we have one treaty or two derail the process. We are determined to show flexibility as long as there is no undermining of environmental principles,” Miliband said.
De Boer urged the negotiators at next week’s Bonn meeting to stop discussing key issues in isolation and to take a holistic approach toward adapting to climate change, deforestation, transferring technology to poor countries and curbing carbon emissions.
Formal U.N. negotiations were set in motion in 2007 to reach a deal within two years that would succeed Kyoto, which set targets for 37 industrial countries to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions blamed for raising the Earth’s average temperature.
Scientists warn that global warming will cause disruptions in agriculture, increase water shortages and could lead to a dramatic rise in sea levels and coastal flooding if the arctic ice sheets melt.
The Copenhagen Accord, a three-page deal salvaged in the closing hours of the summit, set a goal of limiting global temperatures to less than a 2 degree Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) increase above preindustrial levels, but didn’t say how that should be achieved. It pledged $3 billion over the next three years for poor countries to adapt to climate change and asked countries to submit pledges for curbing their carbon emissions.
On Wednesday, the U.N. climate secretariat released its official report on the Copenhagen conference and listed voluntary commitments from 75 industrial and developing countries to reduce or limit the growth of their emissions by 2020. The report said those countries represented 80 percent of global emissions from energy use.
De Boer said the commitments fell short of the cuts needed to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising more than 2 degrees.
Negotiators had originally set 2009 as the target date for a new climate treaty to allow time for ratification and ensure a seamless transition when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Failure to replace Kyoto in time could lead to a legal gap when no binding rules are in place.
But De Boer said he expected countries to continue their climate change policies with or without a new accord. If a deal can be reached in South Africa, “we will have made it in time.”
Britain comes up short on Haiti aid
By Colum Lynch/ turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/ April 01, 2010
The U.N. pledging conference on Haiti raised more than $5.3 billion to rebuild the quake-ravaged island nation over the next two years, well beyond the $3.9 billion sought by the Haitian government. Even some of the world’s poorest countries, including Georgia, Gambia, Sudan, and Montenegro made pledges ranging from more than $10,000 to a $1 million.
But not everyone dug into their treasury to help pay for the rebuilding of Haiti. Traditional donors, including Britain and Austria, pledged nothing for reconstruction, according to a donor list produced by the European Union, which provided a total of $1.6 billion to the effort.
Greece, still reeling from its own financial crisis, also gave nothing. Poorer European governments, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, and Romania, followed the example of their wealthier peers. “Everybody has budget constraints that make it difficult to give as much as we would like to,” said one European diplomat whose country made no commitment today.
The Haiti conference, which was co-hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, saw huge pledges from regional powers like the United States, which promised $1.15 billion, Canada, which pledged $400 million, and Brazil, which committed $172 million.
“Today, the international community has come together dramatically in solidarity with Haiti and its people,” Ban said after the meeting. “Member states of the United Nations, and international partners, have pledged $5.3 billion for the next two years and $9.9 billion, in total, for the next three years and beyond.”
The pledges came from 50 countries, including Venezuela, and several African states, citing Haiti’s role as the world first black nation to achieve independence, contributed to its reconstruction. “Haiti, the first black republic in the world, played a most significant role in the fight to end slavery,” said Sue Van Der Merwe, the deputy minister for international relations for South Africa, which contributed a few hundred thousand dollars. “The people of South Africa and her leadership have drawn considerable inspiration from the people of Haiti during our own struggle against racial discrimination.”
The frugal policy of Britain and other governments proved embarrassing for the country’s diplomats, who were not allowed to speak at the pledging conference. Britain’s deputy ambassador, Philip Parnham, who was expected to address the conference on Britain’s behalf, had to post his government’s speech on a U.N. website set up to track pledges. Delegates from Algeria, Cuba, Sudan, Benin, Mali and scores of other poor countries were able to speak.
Britain’s development minister, Mike Foster, had to counter a report in the London Times that his government has snubbed the organizers of the Haiti Conference.. Here’s a copy of the letter Foster sent to the Times. It was given to Turtle Bay by the British government.
“Dear Sir,
The UK has been at the forefront of the aid effort in Haiti following the terrible earthquake in January and remains committed to supporting the reconstruction effort (Britain turns off aid and delivers a snub to donor conference, The Times, 31 March).
Despite having no historic development links with Haiti, we are the sixth largest country donor to the effort with £33 million going through the EC, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.
This does not include the £20 million in UKaid pledged for the emergency relief phase, nor our £29 million given this year to the UN mission in Haiti – without which reconstruction could not happen.
We believe it is vital that the reconstruction effort is led by the international organisations, which is why we are now channelling our money through these bodies.
Alongside the pledges by the British public, the life-saving work of UK search and rescue teams, the secondment of a key adviser to the Haitian Prime Minister to help coordination and our longer term project to rebuild the country’s prisons, the UK has shown itself to be a true friend to the Haitian people. We will not turn our back on them now.”
Other European diplomats said that it was not a sign of stinginess. An Austrian official said that the country spent 5.9 million euros on emergency relief in the initial weeks following the country’s quake. “We are not such a big country: We have to prioritize our long-term aid, and therefore we weren’t able to pledge something for Haiti.”
USA :
Diplomat Probed by U.S. on Classified Documents, Cayman Account
By Nicole Gaouette/Bloomberg/April 1
April 1 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. State Department is investigating an employee with top-secret security clearance who government investigators say mishandled classified information related to national security, court documents show.
Eugene Reginald Hopson, described as an information management officer, oversaw the handling and security of classified information in U.S. embassies in Bolivia, Guatemala, Burkina Faso, Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa.
Hopson was stripped of his security clearance and ordered back to Washington in October after 12 years overseas when State Department special agents found he had unauthorized possession of classified materials, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
One cable, dealing with intelligence matters, “was an extremely sensitive document whose subject matter had no relation to Hopson’s job responsibilities and should not have been in his possession,” State Department Special Agent Stanwyn A. Becton wrote in the Jan. 27 affidavit.
A January search of Hopson’s household belongings yielded five U.S. diplomatic passports, one Bolivian passport and evidence of bank accounts in Honduras, Italy and the Cayman Islands, search warrants show.
“I can confirm that there is an investigation and that he is a State Department employee and that he’s currently in Washington, D.C.,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters yesterday. Toner declined to comment further because of the investigation.
No Charges Filed
Marcy Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore, said no charges had been filed. The office doesn’t confirm or deny investigations, Murphy said in a telephone interview.
Hopson couldn’t be immediately reached for comment, and it couldn’t be determined who is representing him.
Special agents for the State Department and the Office of the Inspector General discovered that Hopson had been mishandling classified information when they arrived in Trinidad and Tobago in July to investigate a visa fraud case, according to Becton’s affidavit.
The agents discovered that Hopson, hired by the State Department in 1979 and given top secret security clearance in 1981, had violated rules for handling and transporting classified material, Becton said.
At that point, Hopson had already left for his next posting in South Africa. Other embassy employees told the investigators that Hopson had sometimes worked in a condemned building on embassy property that wasn’t on the regular nightly patrol by U.S. Marine guards, according to Becton’s affidavit.
Handling Documents
In September 2008, the deputy chief of mission in Trinidad told Hopson that he wasn’t allowed to use the space because classified documents could be handled only in a specific area in the embassy. “Hopson did not comply with that instruction,” Becton said in the affidavit.
Inside the condemned building, the agents found a “sensitive” Drug Enforcement Agency cable detailing “an ongoing undercover operation that Hopson had no reason to have in his possession,” Becton wrote.
A subsequent search of four boxes that Hopson had asked the Trinidad embassy to mail to him in South Africa revealed eight confidential or secret documents, according to Becton.
Among the classified documents was a so-called Roger Channel cable, which serves as the State Department’s channel for sensitive intelligence matters. The cable related to national defense.
‘Confidential’ Cables
Embassy employees then found an additional box of Hopson’s in the mail room that contained another two State Department cables labeled “confidential,” according to Becton.
When agents interviewed Hopson at his new posting in Pretoria, South Africa, in September 2009, he offered two different stories. At first, he said that he had “just dumped” his personnel files into the boxes without examining them and the classified documents must have “somehow got mixed up among unclassified materials,” the affidavit quoted him as saying.
Hopson then changed his story and said he had looked through the documents and must have overlooked the confidential items, according to Becton. Hopson also told the agents that he only handled classified material in a designated area of the embassy and that he had no idea how the items got into his belongings.
Hopson Theory
Hopson offered agents a theory: that another employee he didn’t get along with, who had security clearance, might have placed the documents in the boxes, Becton’s affidavit said. Hopson also suggested another employee who he had given a written reprimand for a security violation might have been involved.
Hopson denied working with classified material in the condemned building on the grounds of the embassy in Trinidad and surmised that “someone else placed this document” there, Becton said.
In a written statement, Hopson said he had left the boxes open “for a period of days” after packing them. He added that he “in no way sold or gave any classified or unclassified documents to anyone not cleared to see them within the proper location,” according to the affidavit.
CANADA :
Western World Marks April Fools’ Day
April 1, 2010, Thursday/ www.novinite.com
Culture |
The 91st day of the year and 92nd in leap years, April 1, is most remarkable in the Western world for being April Fools’ Day.
The day is marked by the perpetration of hoaxes and other practical jokes on friends, family, colleagues, enemies, and neighbors. The more sophisticated the pranks, the better. The jollier would tell a tricky and misleading story, send someone on a fool’s errand, aiming to trigger laughs and embarrass the gullible.April Fool’s Day is popular in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, France, Finland, Germany, Austria and the USA, among many. Bulgarian pranksters also enjoy telling jokes and playing ticks on April 1.
The origin of April Fools’ Day is obscure.
Wikipedia lists several likely theories the most prominent of which is that the modern holiday was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar and the term April Fool referred to someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar.
In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signaled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely.
Another theory is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called “April Fools” and were teased by their neighbors.
There are many famous pranks perpetrated through history by clever individuals and later by the print media, radio, TV and online. The frequency of April Fools’ hoaxes sometimes makes people doubt real news stories released on April 1.
Canada should be in Congo
By Elizabeth Payne/The Ottawa Citizen/April 1, 2010
In Afghanistan, the Taliban threw acid in the faces of girls to try to stop them from attending school. The story shocked the world, and was a reminder of the reasons Canadian and other NATO troops got involved in the dangerous conflict on the other side of the world — to help bring stability so that life could return to some kind of normal and girls could return to school.
If the stories from Afghanistan moved and angered Canadians, the stories from Congo will sicken them. But they should also convince Canadians that the United Nations mission in Congo is the right place for Canadian troops once they leave Afghanistan next year — for the sake of the people of Congo and for the sake of Canada.
Canadian involvement in the living hell that Congo has become won’t likely solve a complex war, but it should make some difference. It will also make a difference if Canadians hear and understand the scope of violence in Congo, the way they have with Afghanistan.
Congo has been called the most dangerous place in the world to be a girl or a woman, and that is saying something. It is also one of the most often ignored.
It is a war-ravaged country in which sexual violence against women has been used to an extent never before seen, and in ways that are almost beyond imagining. In Congo, rape is what machetes were to the Rwandan genocide — a weapon designed to systemically, and in the cruelest way possible, exterminate a population.
Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, was left nearly speechless after touring Congo.
“I have just returned from hell,” she told a press conference after a trip to Congo several years ago.
“I am trying for the life of me to figure out how to communicate what I have seen and heard in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. … How do I tell you of girls as young as nine raped by gangs of soldiers, of women whose insides were blown apart by rifle blasts and whose bodies now leak uncontrollable streams of urine and feces?”
Stephen Lewis, who has also campaigned to get help for Congo, said when he read Ensler’s “blood-chilling account of interviews with survivors of rape and sexual violence … violence so insanely savage as to reverberate with Hitlerian brutality … I was shaken to the core.”
Rape is not the only weapon used in Congo.
The Congo war has claimed more lives than any other conflict since the end of the Second World War. More than five million people are estimated to have been killed.
In December, according to Human Rights Watch, Lord’s Resistance Army rebels there killed 290 people in attacks and abducted a further 150 people. According to reports, the dead included at least 13 women and 23 children, the youngest a three-year-old girl who was burned to death.
The political situation in Congo is complex, unstable and violent.
Overseeing a fragile peace accord is a UN mission that is badly in need of more support, especially in the form of well-trained and well-equipped troops, such as Canada’s.
This is the volatile situation that Canada has repeatedly been asked to wade into and is now — according to a report by Matthew Fisher of Canwest News Service — considering taking command of.
While it is unlikely Congo would be as dangerous as Afghanistan, where more than 140 Canadian troops have lost their lives, it would be challenging “logistically and militarily,” according to the Canwest report. Those who remember the Canadian missions in Somalia, Rwanda and Eritrea, know just how complex Congo might become for troops involved in a UN mission.
But there are also similarities with the mission in Afghanistan, where Canadian troops gained a deserved reputation as professional, dependable and highly skilled. Like Afghanistan, priorities in Congo include training security services. The UN mission is also focused on helping refugees and stopping abuse of young girls and women.
Canadians should be proud to hear that Congo is finally on the radar here and that Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie is being touted to head the mission.
The UN and critics are right that western countries, including Canada, have largely ignored Africa in recent years, although Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan has left the country with little room to send large numbers of troops elsewhere. But to ignore the horrors in Congo is to suggest that some lives are simply worth more than others.
Canada currently has about a dozen peacekeepers in Congo. If Leslie takes command of the mission, we would likely send considerably more troops, which is a promising start.
The move would help put one of the most devastating wars in the world on the radar screen in Canada. It would also return many troops to a familiar and respected role for Canadian soldiers — as blue-helmeted peacekeepers.
Will all those factors add up to ending the war on women and girls in Congo and restoring some measure of calm in the country?
It is impossible to say how long it might take or how difficult it might be, but Canada must help.
Elizabeth Payne is a member of the Citizen’s editorial board.
AUSTRALIA :
Lihir Gold spurns $8.5 billion bid from Newcrest
(Reuters)/01042010
– Australian gold miner Lihir Gold (LGL.AX) has rejected a $8.45 billion takeover offer from rival Newcrest Mining (NCM.AX), saying it failed to capture the growth potential in its biggest mine and in West Africa.
Deals
The bid from Newcrest, Australia’s biggest gold miner, marks the latest in a flurry of mining takeovers in Australia, powered by metals demand from fast-growing China and India.
Newcrest’s all-share offer, worth A$9.2 billion or A$3.87 a share, represented a 28 percent premium to Lihir Gold’s closing price on Wednesday. The combined market capitalization of the two firms based on their last closing price would be $23.1 billion.
“It did not include a sufficient premium for control,” Lihir Chairman Ross Garnaut said in a statement.
Lihir said the board recognized the strategic merits of the combination of the two companies, but the offer did not represent good value for its shareholders.
Shares in Lihir Gold surged at the opening to trade up 31.7 percent at A$3.99 by 2309 GMT, while Newcrest shares opened flat, before turning down 0.4 percent at A$32.70.
An analyst said the bid made sense for Newcrest, but it could afford to pay more.
“Lihir would provide Newcrest with a platform in West Africa, and Newcrest could add value to Lihir’s operations. It has an extensive skill set in underground mining that could be used in West Africa,” said Lyndon Fagan, an analyst at RBS.
He said a counter bidder could enter the fray, but said there would be limited synergies as Lihir’s main operation is on a remote island off Papua New Guinea.
Lihir also named former BHP Billiton (BHP.AX)(BLT.L) senior executive Graeme Hunt as its new chief executive on Thursday.
Newcrest offered 1 share for every 9 Lihir shares plus A$0.225 cash, less any interim dividend declared for the half year ended June 2010.
Lihir gave Newcrest some access to its books on an exclusive basis in talks leading up to the offer.
“There is considerable option value in the huge gold resource at Lihir Island, which increased 31 percent to 43 million ounces in 2009, and also in the company’s assets in West Africa,” Chairman Garnaut said.
Gold prices hit an all-time high of $1,226.10 an ounce on December 3, 2009, although have since recoiled to around $1,113.
In 2009 Lihir produced 1.12 million ounces of gold, with production in 2010 forecast to be between 960,000 ounces and 1.06 million ounces, according to data on its website.
In June 2008, Lihir bought Equigold NL, giving it gold mines in Queensland state and in Ivory Coast in West Africa.
Lihir is also exploring elsewhere in Ivory Coast, where it has over 20,000 square km (7,723 sq mile) of exploration licenses either granted or under application in the highly prospective Birimian greenstone belts.
Newcrest is also co-developing gold mines in Papua New Guinea with Harmony Gold Mining Ltd (HARJ.J) of South Africa containing an estimated 15.2 million ounces of gold.
The tie-up is Newcrest’s first step into Papua New Guinea.
Asia Coal-Prices hover above $95, Chinese interests supports
Thu Apr 1, 2010 12/Reuters
By Fayen Wong PERTH, April 1 (Reuters) – Australia’s thermal coal price,
a benchmark for Asia, was little changed from last week at
above $95 a tonne on Thursday, supported by renewed demand from
China as its domestic coal prices edged up. Spot thermal coal prices in Qinhuangdao, China’s top coal
port, edged higher from a week earlier, as demand rose in
southern provinces where a drought has caused shortfalls in
hydropower supply. [ID:nTOE62U04M] Higher Chinese prices mean some Indonesian imports could
now be competitive on a landed basis, spurring fresh buying
interest. “Some of the Chinese utilities in the south are looking for
opportunities to buy Indonesian coal. But they are not looking
to buy big volumes, just a couple of panamax-sized shipments on
a spot basis,” said a Singapore-based trader. Thermal coal prices on the globalCOAL Newcastle weekly
index slipped nine cents from a week ago to $95.12 a tonne
free-on-board (FOB) Australia’s Newcastle port on Thursday. The exchange platform saw one May-loading Australian cargo
traded at $95 a tonne, while four small parcels of
June-delivery shipments were traded between $92.50 and $93.50 a
tonne. Although Australian producers have not received many
enquiries from Chinese buyers, supply remains tight due to
recent disruption to rail services at Newcastle port and other
weather-related disruption in Queensland. Faced with limits on export capacity, producers were also
opting to ship out more steel-making coal instead of thermal
material, as the metallurgical coal was able to fetch much
higher prices. Traders and producers said demand was fairly tepid
elsewhere in Asia, with Japanese utilities well stocked and
many South Korean utilities having turned to tenders to meet
their second-quarter supply needs. Turned off by high Australian prices and shipment delays,
all five South Korean utilities have begun to seek both
short-term and long-term supplies from further afield, such as
Colombia and South Africa. Korea East West Power Co Ltd has awarded its term and spot
tenders, closed earlier this month, by diversifying origins to
Australia, Columbia, Indonesia, South Africa and the United
States, a company source said. [ID:nTOE62M05Z] The joint tender held by four other South Korean utilities
to seek 1.13 million tonnes of South African coal has also seen
strong response, with the power firms getting offers for over
three times the amount of coal they were after. [ID:nTOE62U05M] On contract talks, trade sources said there has been little
progress between Xstrata and Japanese utilities on 2010 price
discussions. Xstrata has proposed to sell 2010 supplies at $100
a tonne, but Japanese utilities are still biding their time.
(Editing by Michael Urquhart)
Industry groups urge EU to act on rising iron ore prices
Published: 01 April 2010 / www.euractiv.com
European industry bodies have called on the EU to fight excessive iron ore prices and prevent unfair competition, saying the current situation could hamper economic recovery and harm the competitiveness of manufacturing in Europe.
Steel body Eurofer and automobile trade association ACEA said they were concerned about rising iron ore prices following an announcement by global exporters Vale and BHP Billiton on Tuesday (30 March) on changes to their pricing policy.
With global industrialisation on the rise, European industries are facing fierce competition from China, India and elsewhere for natural resources from emerging economies in Africa and Latin America (see EurActiv LinksDossier).
”Iron ore is the basis for the EU’s most important value chain,” Eurofer said in a statement, adding that limited access to raw materials ”will have severe consequences for the whole value chain and millions of jobs in the sectors concerned’.’
ACEA, which represents 15 European vehicle manufacturers, says the industry is reliant on broad access to raw materials at competitive prices and has called on the EU to fight distortive developments and ensure a level playing field.
The Italian mechanical industry federation ANIMA joined the calls for concerted European action to tackle what it sees as ”unjustified increases in commodities prices”.
In a letter to the EU’s antitrust authorities, Eurofer claimed that the control of almost three quarters of the world’s iron ore market by just three companies has resulted in unbalanced pricing power and a high degree of market concentration.
The European Commission said it was not planning an investigation following the complaint but will take the letter into account in its probe into a planned merge between Australian iron ore giants BHP and Rio Tinto.
”The letter is not a formal complaint, but the Commission will look at all relevant information to examine competition issues in the sector,” an official from the EU antitrust watchdog said.
A sector inquiry?
According to antitrust experts, the Commission – which has not hesitated to take on large companies and governments over EU competition rules – will have to consider several issues before deciding on a possible inquiry into the sector.
”The Commission has to consider the interests of European buyers but also those of the governments of Australia, Brazil, South Africa and even China. There is a lot it has to take into account,” said antitrust lawyer David Wood from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
He added that a broader sector inquiry would only be useful if there were a large number of players to be consulted or there was a lack of complainants due to a fear of retaliation.
The Commission has conducted inquiries into other sectors in recent years – notably one into the energy sector that forced companies such as E.ON, RWE and ENI to open up their markets.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
EUROPE :
EU to train Somali troops
Thu, 01 Apr 2010/ www.presstv.ir
The European Union has given the go-ahead for a military mission in Somalia, which reportedly aims to train Somali forces against local fighters.
The training mission known as ‘EUTM’ is led by Spain and involves around 100 troops plus several dozen additional staff.
Germany and France have already committed troops to the mission and Britain is expected to participate.
The EUTM is expected to train around 2,000 Somali troops in coordination with international partners, in particular the United Nations, the African Union Mission in Somalia and the United States.
It is to start operation on April 7, mainly in Uganda, where some Somali forces are already stationed.
The goal of the mission is to strengthen Somalia’s transitional government.
However some members of the 27-nation bloc believe that without a long-term financial and political commitment, training Somali troops and providing them with guns could cause more problems than it will solve.
Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years.
At least 21,000 Somalis have been killed since the start of 2007 due to ongoing violence and political conflicts in the country, 1.5 million have been uprooted from their homes, and nearly half a million are refugees in other countries in the region.
FF/TG/MMA
CHINA :
Cnooc’s Fu Plans Expansion After Buying Bridas Stake (Update3)
April 01, 2010/Bloomberg
(Adds Fu’s comments on Nigeria in ninth paragraph.)
April 1 (Bloomberg) — Cnooc Ltd. Chairman Fu Chengyu plans to buy more oil and gas assets to supply China’s surging economy after the March purchase of a $3.1 billion stake in Argentina’s Bridas Corp., the company’s largest overseas acquisition.
“We are talking with many companies,” Fu said at a media briefing in Hong Kong yesterday, after China’s biggest offshore energy explorer reported full-year profit that missed analysts’ estimates. “At the same time, we also need to be very cautious and must provide good returns for our investors.”
The purchase of Bridas caps $6.6 billion of acquisitions on three continents in the past four years to meet demand in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Beijing-based Cnooc outperformed its global peers including Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc in the stock market as investors bet rebounding oil prices and China’s economic growth will boost earnings.
“We expect a V-shaped earnings rebound this year for Cnooc based on oil at an average of $80 a barrel,” Gordon Kwan, head of regional energy research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong, said on Bloomberg TV. “Cnooc will consistently deliver production growth at some of the lowest costs in the world and its aggressive acquisition strategy will also boost reserves.”
Tullow, Total Talks
The stake in Bridas, Argentina’s second-biggest oil producer, marks the Chinese company’s entry in Latin America and tops the $2.7 billion it paid in 2006 for a share in a Nigerian oilfield. Cnooc is in talks with companies including Tullow Oil Plc and Total SA on a partnership to develop assets in Uganda, Fu said.
“Uganda hasn’t approved or finalized the project yet,” he said. “We hope there will be a win-win solution and that this will be approved by the government.”
The company aims to boost output by as much as 27 percent this year to 290 million barrels of oil equivalent after the Chinese economy expanded 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter, the fastest pace since 2007. China is forecast by the United Nations to grow about four times more quickly than the U.S. this year.
Cnooc estimates the Bridas investment will add 318 million barrels of reserves and boost its daily output by 46,000 barrels on average. There is “strong growth potential” in Latin America, President Yang Hua said at the briefing.
Nigeria Licenses
Cnooc isn’t bidding for any of the 16 Nigerian oil reserve licenses held by foreign oil companies as reported by the Financial Times in September, Fu said.
The Chinese explorer is competing with Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., Total and Exxon for the licenses worth as much as $50 billion, the newspaper said.
The licenses haven’t expired yet, according to Fu. “We will not talk about assets that are not in the government’s hands,” he said.
The bid is for stakes in about 6 billion barrels, the equivalent of one in six barrels of the proven reserves in sub- Saharan Africa’s largest oil producer, the Financial Times said.
“It is not that we aren’t interested,” Fu said. “You can only talk to the government when the assets are back in the government’s hands.”
Queensland Gas
The company’s parent will gain access to BG Group Plc’s gas fields in Queensland as part of an agreement to buy liquefied natural gas from the Curtis LNG venture in Australia’s largest export deal for the fuel.
BG and China National Offshore Oil Corp. signed an accord on March 24 for the supply of 3.6 million metric tons of LNG annually over 20 years.
Cnooc has risen 63 percent in Hong Kong trading in the past 12 months, beating the 32 percent gain in BP and the 1.6 percent decline in Exxon.
The shares advanced 0.2 percent to HK$12.80 at 11:35 a.m. today, compared with the 0.9 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. Twenty-two out of 31 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg rate the stock as a buy. Three rate Cnooc as a sell.
Oil in New York has more than doubled since sliding to last year’s low of $33.55 a barrel in February. Higher crude output and prices may boost Cnooc’s net income by 35 percent this year, according to a survey of 14 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, before the earnings were reported yesterday.
–Wang Ying and John Duce in Hong Kong. Editors: Ryan Woo, Raj Rajendran.
INDIA :
StanChart’s back to the future
01 Apr 2010/ by Nick Parsons/www.theasset.com
Standard Chartered is a hot favourite to become the first foreign company to list equity in India later this year, after it filed a draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India on Tuesday, March 30, to issue Indian Depository Receipts (IDR) of up to USD750 million.
It will make an appropriate return home for what is one of India’s oldest financial institutions, having started life 150 years ago as the Chartered Bank of India, which years later merged with the Standard Bank of Africa. And its pan-emerging markets franchise – Asia, Middle East and Africa – was even more appropriately emphasized only the week before, when Standard Chartered, along with fellow arranger and former old African hand, Barclays, signed a huge USD8.3 billion loan for Bharti Airtel, India’s leading mobile phone company, that allowed it to purchase the African telecom assets of Kuwait’s Zain.
The three events encapsulate the former British colonial financier’s self-reinvention as the premier bank investor in the emerging markets. And yesterday, as if to emphasize the roll that it is on, Standard Chartered launched a global brand to establish a new brand promise: “Here for good”.
“Our intention to be the first company to list IDRs demonstrates how important India is to Standard Chartered,” said Peter Sands, chief executive of the group. “India is one of our largest and fastest-growing markets and achieved over USD1 billion in profits in 2009, while the Asia region accounted for over 75% of its USD5.15 billion total profit before taxation for 2009.”
The listing would boost its profile in the market, while also giving Indian residents an opportunity to invest in the bank. Standard Chartered mandated the Indian arms of UBS Securities and Goldman Sachs as global coordinators, with bookrunner roles going to JM Financial, DSP Merrill Lynch and Kotak Mahindra Capital and SBI Capital Markets.
Standard Chartered has a primary market listing on the London Stock Exchange – where it is now one of the UK’s leading banks by market capitalization following the 2008 financial crisis that cleared out the bulk of the competition, despite never having operated in the High Street and only possessing one office in the city. It is also listed in Hong Kong, where it is one of the three note-issuing banks; and the bank has expressed a desire to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, though in that ambition it will surely be trumped by its neighbour and rival, HSBC.
RIL, IT stocks edge higher
Published on 1st April, 2010 /www.bloombergutv.com
Key benchmark indices gained strength in early afternoon trade as index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) extended early gains. The BSE 30-share Sensex was up 86.28 points or 0.49%, up 59.01 points from the day’s low and off 40.74 points from the day’s high.
The market breadth was strong. IT stocks were in demand on bargain hunting after a recent fall caused by appreciation of the rupee against the dollar. Tyre stocks gained after Apollo Tyres raised prices. But some auto stocks declined on profit booking after a firm start.
Firm Asian markets helped the domestic bourses kick off the new financial year 2010-2011 (FY 2011) on an upbeat note. The market pared gain later after the latest data showed that growth in the manufacturing slowed down in the month just gone by. The market gained strength in early afternoon trade as index heavyweight Reliance Industries extended early gains.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday, 31 March 2010, announced a reduction in market lot size of a number of stocks in the derivatives segment. The revision was announced as a part of a bi-annual review. The market lot of a total of 124 stocks was revised downwards whereas those of a total of 59 stocks was revised upwards. The market lot of 7 stocks was kept unchanged.
Meanwhile, stock brokers have advised investors not to sell shares which they had bought on Wednesday 31 March 2010, on Thursday, 1 April 2010, due to clubbing of settlement by the stock exchanges. There will be no settlement of shares/funds on 1 April 2010 due to annual closing of books of accounts of commercial banks on Wednesday 31 March 2010.
Traders may refrain from building large positions ahead of a long weekend. The stock market remains closed on Friday, 2 April 2010, on account of Good Friday.
Food price index rose 16.35% in the year to 20 March 2010, higher than an annual rise of 16.22% in the previous week, government data showed on Thursday. The fuel price index rose 12.75%, higher than an annual rise of 12.68% in the previous week. Fuel costs have risen following a hike in domestic fuel prices and an upswing in world crude prices. The primary articles index was up 13.86% in the year to 20 March 2010.
India’s manufacturing growth slowed down in March 2010, dropping from a 20-month-record in February 2010, as mounting cost pressures took a toll on expansion in output, a survey released today showed. The HSBC Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index , based on a survey of 500 companies, fell to 57.8 in March 2010 from 58.5 in February 2010, which was the strongest since June 2008. A reading above 50 means activity is expanding. The new orders index fell to 62.7 in March from 64 in February
Industrial output in February is expected to have grown 16% year-on-year, Industry Secretary said on Wednesday. The output in January grew an annual 16.7%.
Foreign direct investment rose 15.4% to $1.72 billion in February 2010 over February 2009, government said Wednesday.
Exports in February grew 34.8% on year to $16.09 billion, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said on Wednesday. Exports are expected to grow 15-20% in the year that starts on 1 April 2010, Sharma said. Imports, too, maintained momentum growing by 66% to $25 billion underscoring the strong revival in the domestic economy.
The government announced a fresh package of incentives for exporters of garments, engineering, electronics and agro products to select markets where demand for the products is yet to pick up. The sops, which will be doled out from Thursday, will be available for six months and are expected to cost the government Rs 625 crore.
The BSE Sensex vaulted 7,819.27 points or 80.5% in the year ended March 2010 (FY 2010) helped by heavy purchases by foreign institutional investors.
Global credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s, last month, revised the outlook on India to stable from negative due to improved government finances.
The forecast for the southwest monsoon for 2010 is the next major trigger for the market. Good rains this year after last year’s drought will boost farm output and rural incomes. But another monsoon failure will add to inflationary pressure which in turn may hamper the current strong economic rebound.
Tokyo-based Research Institute for Global Change has predicted normal monsoon rains in India for the current year. Agriculture secretary Prabeer Kumar Basu had also told media in Delhi last week that the monsoon rains for the year will be normal. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issues a monsoon forecast, usually in the second half of April after considering weather observations in different parts of the world and extrapolating statistical data.
A weakening El Nino is a positive sign for the monsoon, Ajit Tyagi, director general at the India Meteorological Department, said on 18 March 2010. The cyclical heating of the Pacific Ocean known as El Nino will continue to fade, US forecasters said this month. The weather event, which occurs every four to seven years, brings more rain to South America and less precipitation to Asia.
Asian shares surged on Thursday with Japan’s market getting support from data showing impro
ve
d business conditions, while signs of a pickup in manufacturing activity boosted shares in China. The key benchmark indices in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan were up by between 0.94% to 1.43%.
China’s official Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose to 55.10 in March from 52 in February. Meanwhile a separate China manufacturing PMI released by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics also rose, to 57 in March 2010 from 55.8 in the previous month.
Japan’s largest manufacturers became the least pessimistic about the economy since 2008 as a global rebound drove demand for exports. The Tankan index of sentiment rose to minus 14 in March 2010 from minus 25 in December 2009, the fourth straight gain, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today.
US stocks fell Wednesday after an unexpectedly negative private-sector jobs report unnerved investors ahead of Friday’s key government labor market data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 50.79 points or 0.47% to 10,856.63. The Nasdaq Composite index slid 12.73 points or 0.53% to 2,397.96 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index shed 3.84 points or 0.33% to 1,169.43
Payrolls firm ADP said employers slashed 23,000 jobs from payrolls in March 2010, which came as a surprise to economists, who had expected an addition of 50,000 jobs.
Another economic data showed the Chicago purchasing manager’s index dropped to 58.5 in March 2010 from 62.6 in February 2010.
The Labor Department’s report on Friday will be closely watched by investors to see the strength of the budding recovery from the worst recession in a generation. Analysts expect the government would report March 2010 non-farm payrolls rose 190,000, after a decline of 36,000 in February 2010, and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 9.7%.
Trading in US index futures indicated that the Dow could rise 36 points at the opening bell on Thursday, 1 April 2010.
Closer home, the BSE 30-share Sensex was up 86.28 points or 0.49% to 17,614.05 at 12:25 IST. The index rose 127.02 points at the day’s high of 17,654.79 in early trade. The Sensex gained 27.27 points at the day’s low of 17,555.04 in early trade.
The S&P CNX Nifty was up 24.10 points or 0.46% to 5273.20
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On BSE, 2056 shares advanced as compared with 597 that declined. A total of 77 shares remained unchanged.
Among the 30-member Sensex pack, 20 advanced while the rest of them slipped. Hindustan Unilever (down 3.12%), ONGC (down 1.26%), and Tata Power (down 2.08%), edged lower from the Sensex pack.
IT stocks dominated gainers with top three gainers from the Sensex pack being IT pivotals. IT rose on bargain hunting after a recent slide triggered by a firm rupee. A firm rupee adversely affects operating profit margin of IT firms as the sector derives a lion’s share of revenue from exports.
India’s largest software services exporter by sales Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) surged 2.43% to Rs 799.80 and was the top gainer from the Sensex pack.
India’s second largest software services exporter by sales Infosys rose 1.72% and India’s third largest software services exporter by sales Wipro rose 1.85%
Other software stocks also joined the rally. HCL Technologies (up 0.61%), Hexaware Technologies (up 1.39%), Oracle Financial Software Solutions (up 0.70%), MphasiS (up 2.60%), and Patni Computers (up 1.84%), rose.
India’s largest engineering and construction firm by net sales Larsen & Toubro rose 0.83%. The company has reportedly accumulated an order book worth over Rs 1 lakh crore, the first private sector player in the country to achieve this feat.
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) gained 1.49% to Rs 1090.70 on expectations of robust Q4 earnings. As per reports, RIL’s Q4 advance tax surged to Rs 770 crore in Q4 March 2010 from Rs 365 crore a year ago.
Reportedly, RIL is likely to raise crude oil imports by about 22% this year ended March 2011 as it ramps up production at its giant complex, further stamping its mark on world markets.
Select auto stocks edged lower in volatile trade. India’s largest tractor maker by sales Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) fell 2.24% to Rs 532.90, off day’s high of Rs 555.70.
India’s largest car maker by sales Maruti Suzuki India declined 1.43% to Rs 1395.50 after striking day’s high of Rs 1427.40. Maruti today said total sales rose 11% to 95,123 units in March 2010 over March 2009.
The company’s total sales rose 29% to 10.18 lakh vehicles in the year ended March 2010 over the year ended March 2009.
India’s largest mobile services provider by sales Bharti Airtel fell 1.65%. The company clinched a deal on Tuesday to buy most of the African operations of Kuwait’s Zain for $9 billion, making it the No.2 cellular company on the African continent and setting India’s biggest carrier a tough financial and management challenge. The two companies, which entered exclusive talks in mid-February, signed a legally binding definitive agreement in Amsterdam, where Zain’s Africa subsidiary is based.
Tyre stocks gained after Apollo Tyres reportedly raised product prices across categories by 2-4% effective today, 1 April 2010 to offset the surge in the cost of rubber.
J K Tyre & Industries (up 2.92%), CEAT (up 2.25%), Apollo Tyres (up 1.34%), TVS Srichakra (up 1.47%) and MRF (up 1.91%), advanced
BRASIL:
Brazil CenBank Director Quits
04-01-2010 /Source: emii.com
Mario Mesquita, economic policy director of Central Bank of Brazil, has decided to step down from his role, Bloomberg reports. Carlos Hamilton Araujo, head of the bank’s international affairs department, will assume Mesquita’s position.
Araujo was responsible for the central bank’s research department from 2006 to 2010. He will be replaced in his current post by Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, a regional director for southern Africa at the World Bank.
World pledges billions for Haiti’s recovery
www.hindustantimes.com/Press Trust Of India/1/4/2010
United Nations, April 01, 2010
Nearly $10 billion has been pledged in the Haiti Donor Conference to put the quake-hit nation back on its feet.
The conference, hosted by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon along with his special envoy for Haiti, Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, received pledges worth billions of dollars for building back the Caribbean nation.
India, on its part, will be sending two police units to beef up security, and will also contribute part of the two million dollars for the reconstruction of a community health centre.
“In response to a request for additional peacekeepers… India is sending two additional Formed Police Units to Haiti,” Vinod Jacob, a diplomat in the Indian mission told the delegates at the UN headquarters.
India is also joining Brazil and South Africa in expanding the India-Brazil-South Africa Trust Fund (IBSA) waste management project in Haiti to handle different type of wastes and is also in consultation with Haitian authorities on reconstructing one of the main Government buildings.
“IBSA plans to spend over two million dollars in the efforts and for the reconstruction of a community health centre in Haiti this year,” Jacob said.
The earthquake that struck the poor Caribbean nation on January 12 destroyed large parts of the capital city Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and displacing 1.2 million people.
The UN has described the damage in Haiti as “unprecedented” and today Ban asked the international community to provide $11 billion for long-term rebuilding efforts in Haiti over the next ten years.
“Member States of the United Nations, and international partners, have pledged $5.3 billion for the next two years and $9. 9 billion, in total, for the next three years and beyond,” Ban said after the Conference.
“This is the down payment Haiti needs for wholesale national renewal. It is the way to building back better.”
Scepticism, however, persists about whether nations will stick to their pledges and how the Haitian authorities will handle the funds.
Responding to concerns about misuse of money by corrupt government officials, Ban said, “We have agreed to a robust Internet-based tracking system to report on the delivery of the assistance and an emphasis on measuring performance and results.
The pledge will be published and assistance flows tracked through a web-based system being established by the United Nations with the Government of Haiti,” he added.
In the immediate aftermath of earthquake, India gave the Haitian government $five million and Indian peacekeepers played a critical role in providing emergency services in the weeks following the natural disaster.
Citi LatAm Veteran To Exit
04-01-2010 /Source: emii.com
Citigroup’s senior vice chairman, William Rhodes, will step down, Financial Times reports. Rhodes will retire on April 30, 2010 and will assume the role of a senior adviser working under CEO, Vikram Pandit.
Rhodes is best known for the role he played in reaching a deal with Latin American governments during the region’s 1980s debt crisis. He led the advisory committees of international banks that agreed debt-restructuring deals for Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.
EN BREF, CE 01 avril 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,01/04/2010
