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BURUNDI :
RWANDA
Youth Center in Rwanda Re “Rwanda’s Mix: Order, Tension, Repressiveness” (front page, May 1): The Rehabilitation and Vocational Skills Development Center at Iwawa Island was established to equip young Rwandans living on the street with skills to make them employable. There is nothing sinister or repressive about the center; institutions of this kind can be found in many countries around the world. The center caters to young men over 18; younger street children are housed and trained at a separate center east of Kigali, run by the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion. None of the young people had to go through the justice system simply because they are not criminals and the center in Iwawa is not a prison. In addition, all of them are carefully screened twice, in Kigali and again once they arrive on the island. Your reporter writes that he spoke to a 14-year-old boy. Although most of the young people do not have identification documents and often don’t know or lie about their age, anyone found to be younger than 18 is immediately transferred to the center for children. I object to accusations of repression behind an initiative established with the best intentions to retool otherwise delinquent youth with the capacity to lead meaningful, dignified lives and contribute to the development of their country. Protais Mitali
Mortgage law back to Kagame EABW REPORTER//www.busiweek.com/Tuesday, 11 May 2010 KIGALI, RWANDA- Parliament has passed the long-awaited Mortgage Bill and sent it to the President for approval. If President Paul Kagame consents, it is hoped the law will build confidence in mortgages industry as each stakeholders’ role including those of developers, brokers and investors’ are spelt and their interests protected. “The extra ordinary session which ended (recently), amended the bill. It was sent to the President to sign and be gazetted,” Augustin Habimana, Director Communication, Documentation and Translation, Rwanda Parliament said. This is the second time the law is sent to the President. The first time, it was forwarded to him, but Mr Kagame referred it back to Parliament. This was after stakeholders the mortgages industry including real estate developers, financiers and residential home owners protested some sections of the law saying if implemented they would choke the young but crucial mortgage industry from growing. Seeking permission before financiers recover their money was scaring banks from financing mortgage and contributing 70 percent of the mortgage cost was not a regional practice. “Financiers want basic fundamental right of sale without inference should one default. The maximum amount banks would lend was only 30 percent. developers have to raise 70%,” this is why we opposed the law, Maurice Toroitich, KCB Rwanda Managing Director, who was part of the team instrumental in amending the bill. Seeking permission before financiers recover their money was scaring banks from financing mortgages and contributing 70 percent of the mortgage cost was not a regional practice.
UGANDA
The Scarlet Letters: HIV and Adolescent Life in Africa The last time I was in Kampala, I met a brother and sister who had contracted HIV from their mother. The boy, whom I will call Peter (I’ve also changed the names of his friends and family), was just two days shy of his 16th birthday, and betrayed no visible signs of sickness. When I was introduced to him, in the Uganda offices of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, not far from the city center, he was wearing his school uniform, a dark- green sweater over a white collared shirt. He looked a little bookish, with a round face, thin wire-rimmed glasses, and hair cropped tight to his skull. I sat with Peter at the corner of a long conference table, and he quietly told me his case history. He’d been sick often as a child, he said, fighting off fevers, diarrhea, painful blisters, and hacking coughs. But it wasn’t until he was 10 that he learned that he was infected with HIV. His mother, then expecting her sixth child, had tested positive during a prenatal HIV test and brought her children in to be examined. In Uganda, patients qualify for anti retroviral treatment when their CD4 count, a rough measure of the health of the immune system, falls below 250. Peter’s clocked in at 54. He was immediately started on medication, a cocktail of pills taken twice a day. With treatment, he remembers, his health improved quickly and dramatically. But then, at age 13, the markers of his illness returned: diarrhea, fevers, vomiting. While we spoke, he pulled up the sleeves of his sweater to show me where the rashes had come back. “These are scars from them,” he said. “They come like sores, too many sores. When you scratch it, there comes a wound.” Not coincidentally, 13 was also the age at which Peter had begun boarding school–a common form of education in Uganda, even for low-income families. He lived in a cramped dormitory with about 40 other children and little privacy. Peter was keen to keep his condition secret, so he had arranged to store keep his pills in the assistant headmaster’s office, on the far side of the school. “I had to wake up very early in the morning, before anyone sees me, to go in and take the medicine,” Peter told me. “And then I had to come back, prepare myself, go to classes.” In the evening, he would trek to the office again for another dose. But his office visits did not go unnoticed, and one day a couple of classmates walked in on him while he was taking his pills. Peter told them that the medication was for asthma, but they didn’t believe him. Their suspicions were confirmed, more or less, by Peter’s English teacher, a tall, skinny man from northern Uganda, who would lecture the class on the evils of AIDS. “He would say, ‘Some of us in class here, they didn’t tell us they’re HIV- positive. But we teachers, we know,’ ” Peter said. “He used to point at me, so that my friends started asking me, why is he always pointing at me.” The man grew disdainful, calling Peter “useless” and “good for nothing,” refrains quickly picked up by the children. The taunts become more direct. When Peter coughed, a classmate would call out, “Remove your HIV from us!” “You didn’t abstain well,” a fellow student would sing; you’re “a disgrace to your parents,” another would jeer. A few close friends refused to believe the rumors, but mostly, the students shunned him. “You would give them something to eat, they would refuse it,” he said. “They don’t like sitting with you. They don’t want to share anything with you.” His peers began calling him a “zombie,” Peter said, “someone is dead but still walking.” Some older kids at the school began bullying and beating him. For a while, Peter tried to sidestep his problems by skipping school. He’d sneak off campus in the morning to play soccer with local boys. But at some point during the school year, his avoidance took a different turn. Tired of the twice-daily office visits, of the constant needling, of being reminded day after day of his condition, he simply stopped taking his pills. “For me, it felt good,” he said. “Because I knew I was going to leave those people who were discriminating against me and go somewhere else.” What followed was entirely predictable: Peter’s health deteriorated rapidly, and his classmates shunned him all the more aggressively. Bouts of illness would leave him dehydrated and exhausted. One friend, a young man named Andrew, stayed true to Peter, helping him gather his books when he was strong enough to attend class–and nursing him when he wasn’t. “He would wash me,” said Peter said, “because I wasn’t having strength to wash myself.” As Peter’s health worsened, Andrew sought permission to bring him back to his mother, and eventually took him to her, carrying him home on his back. Andrew refused to believe his friend was suffering from AIDS, Peter told me. And Peter never managed to tell him. “He’s my closest friend,” Peter said. “He knows everything about me. But I’ve failed to tell him that I’m HIV-positive.” When I met Peter, he was back on his medication–his hiatus had lasted about six months–and he looked healthy. His mother had gotten him medical care when he came home, and when his story came out, she got him free counseling as well, and enrolled him in a Catholic day school, where it would be easier to hide the fact that he was taking pills. But his lapse was not without permanent consequences. The virus in his body had become resistant to the treatment he had been taking, and his doctor had switched him onto an alternate regimen. When I asked Peter what he envisioned for his future, he told me he wanted to become a lawyer to help people in his community. His other hope, he said, was simply to survive. Taking medicine every day for the rest of your life is difficult, he said. He couldn’t afford another mistake. “This is the second line,” Peter told me. “And there’s no third line.” A fatal disease can only be endured; a manageable one has to be managed. Perhaps 1.8-million Africans younger than 15 are living with HIV, the vast majority infected by their mothers during pregnancy, birth, or breast-feeding. In the developed world, transmission of the virus from mother to child has been all but eliminated. But in Africa, where caesareans are uncommon and many mothers can’t afford to buy formula, an estimated 390,000 children younger than 15 were newly infected with HIV in 2008. Until recently, African children born with HIV were expected to die young; roughly half never made it to their second birthday, and only 10 percent reached adolescence. But a massive rollout of anti retroviral medication, begun in 2003 and largely funded by the United States, has dramatically changed the picture. Today, more than 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are taking anti retroviral drugs (including 200,000 Ugandans), up from fewer than 50,000 in 2002. More than a million lives have already been saved as a result of the program, the largest public-health effort ever devoted to a single disease, and perhaps the most positive legacy of George W. Bush’s presidency. Sabrina Bakeera-Kitaka, a doctor at the Pediatrics Infectious Diseases Clinic in Kampala’s Mulago Hospital, remembers opening a clinic in 2003 for adolescents who had been wrestling with the virus since infancy. “They were really short, stunted, and very wasted,” says Bakeera-Kitaka. “You’d have a 16-year-old girl who hadn’t started her menstrual cycle, or who hasn’t developed any breast development, a 17-year-old boy who hasn’t gotten any pubic hair. They were riddled with all sorts of diseases: tuberculosis, recurrent malaria, persistent diarrhea.” But the drugs have changed all that. Today, Bakeera-Kitaka’s patients are indistinguishable from their healthy peers. In 2008, the World Health Organization began recommending that all infants born with HIV be medicated immediately. As treatment continues to roll out, more and more children like Peter will have a chance to reach adulthood. Yet the teenage years, when not-yet-mature patients begin to take responsibility for themselves, are perilous for bearers of a chronic disease. Doctors studying diabetes track hemoglobin levels to measure how well a patient is sticking with the treatment. These tend to shoot up as children approach adulthood. “Obviously they’re not taking as good care of themselves as when their parents were in charge,” said Laura Stoppelbein, a psychology professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who has studied treatment adherence among diabetics. “Adolescents don’t tend to have a great appreciation for the long term. It’s more like, ‘My friends are here, and I don’t want to be embarrassed and have to get my blood checker out or take a shot, so I’ll skip it.’ As opposed to thinking, ‘In the long term, if I continue to skip, I’m going to have kidney disease or eye problems or circulation problems.'” AIDS is easier to control than diabetes. Rather than having to continually monitor blood sugar in order to regulate their insulin level, patients simply need to take pills once or twice a day. Once firmly established on a treatment regimen, they can check its progress with their doctor as seldom as twice a year. But for HIV-positive people in places like Uganda, there are also a lot more reasons therapy is likely to fall apart. Shattered families, poor education, or the lack of bus fare to the clinic can come between a patient and the medication. “Many of those who fail on their treatment have poor social support,” said Kitaka. “They have multiple caregivers. They are in boarding school.” The stigma of HIV is crushing in Uganda, as in much of Africa, and the incentives to hide the disease are immense. Many infected people are forced by their family members to use their own cups and plates, which are kept segregated from the family’s dinnerware. When money is tight, infected children are the first to be pulled from school. The sense of shame is so strong that some HIV-positive mothers will breast-feed their babies, at the risk of passing on the virus, rather than raise suspicions. “Her relatives will be asking her, ‘Why aren’t you breast-feeding this baby?’ ” Kitaka told me. Because the disease is associated with sex, its victims are typically regarded as sinful, licentious, undisciplined–and unworthy of sympathy. Among adolescents–prone, the world over, to easily mix judgment, hypocrisy, and naïveté–these sentiments seem particularly sharp. And for those who slip up in their treatment, the consequences can be unforgiving. “You don’t get many chances in Africa with medication,” said Yuka Manabe, head of research at the Mulago Hospital’s Infectious Disease Institute and a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Whereas in the United States, 24 different drugs can be combined into many different types of therapies, options in the developing world are limited. “You get a first-line regimen, and you might get a second-line regimen if you’re lucky,” Manabe said. In a region where finances form the barrier to the availability of drugs, allowing the virus to build up resistance has dire consequences. “For every person that goes on second-line therapy here, nine people will [have to be denied] first-line therapy,” Manabe explained–the alternate treatment is that much more expensive. “These are tough decisions. Is your first allegiance to the people who have been on? Or should it be on trying to give as many people access as possible? And if you blow it, ‘Sorry’?” Peter’s sister, Beatrice, has never been sick. Nineteen years old, with delicate cheekbones, a small nose, full lips, and thin eyebrows, she wears her hair straightened and parted. When I met her at the offices of the Elizabeth Glaser Foundation, she was wearing a tight, sleeveless yellow T-shirt with California in pink across the front. While we spoke, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders against the chill of the air conditioner. She didn’t look like a woman who has grown up with the virus, and indeed, although she’d started medication within the past year, she’d been asymptomatic her entire life. When she learned she was HIV-positive, Beatrice told me, she didn’t really believe it. “I thought it was a bad joke,” she said. “But as time went on and my brother still went on being sick, I really realized it.” She was 15 years old, still in school. Overwhelmed, she soon dropped out and ran away from home, staying for a while with a group of musicians. For a long time, she behaved as if she had never been told she was infected. Medication was unnecessary–her CD4 counts were still high. She had a boyfriend, a young barber named Jeremy, whom she had met at a nightclub when she was 14. She didn’t tell him she was HIV-positive, and she continued to have sex with him after she found out; eventually, she moved in with him. Only after discovering that she was pregnant last year did she begin to take steps to control the virus, enrolling in anti-ret Beatrice wasn’t a model patient, she told me, sometimes skipping her medicine when she couldn’t bear the thought of taking it and hence affirming her condition. She still didn’t tell her boyfriend that she was putting him at risk. He found out only by accident, when a local newspaper published Beatrice’s picture and name in a story about living with AIDS, reported during a counseling session she had attended. “He showed me the newspaper, the whole story about my family… everything,” Beatrice said. “My brother’s name was there. My mother’s name was there. My name. My photo.” He was furious, she said, and threw her out of the house. “He told me, ‘Bea, please go away. Get out and go away. I don’t want to see you in my life again. Plus your baby, go! If you want him to die, bring him here. I’ll kill him, and [so what if they] put me in prison, because I know I’m also dead.'” The newspaper story transformed Beatrice’s life. “Whenever you pass someone, they call to you, ‘Hello, I saw you in that newspaper. You’re sick. You’re HIV-positive.’ I just keep quiet. I walk away. And then another tells you that. Another one tells you that.” Beatrice seldom goes to the discothèque where she met Jeremy anymore–she’d see too many familiar faces, few of them friendly. Most nights, when she can scrape together the money, she drinks beer by herself in the small room she now rents, far away from her old neighborhood. “For me, nowadays, I live alone, stay alone, sit alone,” she said. Sometimes she goes to a nightclub far from her house where nobody knows her. If someone tries to pick her up, she just leaves. I asked Beatrice why she took precautions to protect her baby, but not her boyfriend. “I didn’t trust him so much,” she said. “At first, he moved with too many girlfriends. Whenever I’d come, I’d find four or five condoms. I’d find women there… But for the baby, it was so innocent. I thought of him being sick, me being sick, my mother being sick. So I rushed to the hospital.” I asked if she would tell her next boyfriend about her disease. “For sure I will not tell him,” she said. “I know what I’ve faced. If I tell him, I know that he is also going to drop me.” She was fatalistic about the further spread of the disease, and her own role in it. “You can’t tell me that someone can abstain from loving someone. And you can’t stay with someone for four years and still use condoms.” As treatment for AIDS becomes more widely available, more and more children living with HIV will reach an age when they and their peers begin falling in love. “In the past, they would be so sick, they would be busy trying to keep alive for one extra week, for one extra month, for one extra year,” said Peter Mugyenyi, the head of Uganda’s Joint Clinical Research Center, the largest provider of anti retroviral drugs in Africa. “But now they are healthy. They are energetic. Their sexual drive is back. You have to start addressing sexuality in the era of AIDS treatment, as opposed to sexuality in the era of AIDS death.” When Sabrina Bakeera-Kitaka polled HIV-positive adolescents in her clinic, she found a wide variety of sexual experience, but little sexual knowledge. One in four of the patients she surveyed reported having had sex. One respondent counted 13 partners. Three couldn’t remember how many partners they had gone to bed with. Of the 800 adolescents enrolled in her program, more than 40 girls were expecting children or had already become parents. “Some of them have this thing, that ‘I have to leave a legacy,’ ” Kitaka said. ” ‘Mother died, and who knows if I’m not going to die?’ Some have insinuated that people at home are pressuring them to get babies. In some societies in this country, if you don’t have a baby by 18 years or so, then you’re not a woman.” Bakeera-Kitaka’s study also found that the patients in her program understood little about the risks to which they were subjecting their sexual partners. Some boys thought that semen did not carry HIV; some girls thought the virus would bleed away during menstruation. Most alarming, some said they wouldn’t disclose their infection to their partners, out of fear of rejection–and that they preferred partners who were HIV-negative. According to the United Nations, young people between the ages of 15 and 24 account for nearly half of the world’s new infections. The public-health risk is compounded when adolescents struggle to keep up with their treatment. Medication lowers patients’ viral loads and thus their infectiousness, but only if the regimen is accurately followed. Diabetes may be harder to control than AIDS, but skipping a shot doesn’t make diabetes stronger or increase the chances you’ll pass it on. As Bakeera-Kitaka said, “There’s no bigger catastrophe than having a whole group of adolescents spreading a resistant virus.” Peter and Beatrice’s 41-year-old mother, Rose, lives on the outskirts of Kampala in a large house she built with her husband before he died suddenly in 1994. The electricity was out on the day I visited them. We sat on sunken couches in the living room; light shone through the doorway onto the bare concrete floor. The house was unfinished. Yellow walls rose up to meet bare rafters and the underside of the metal roof. The newspaper article that upended Beatrice’s life affected her mother’s as well. Rose had taken in Beatrice’s son, a round-cheeked 8-month-old boy we passed from lap to lap while we talked. She had scraped together enough money to help with her daughter’s rent, but she herself had stayed behind, and she has continued to endure scorn from her neighbors. “People don’t want their children to come and play with my children,” she said. She pointed to a pile of bricks in the yard: “I want to fence myself in and stay inside.” As better access to medication slowly turns HIV from a death sentence into a chronic disease, one might think that the shame associated with its impacts–emaciation, infirmity, death–would start to fade. That may yet happen in Uganda, but it hasn’t so far. Indeed, in some respects, the shame has only grown. In part, that’s Bush’s other African legacy: the flood of anti retroviral drugs has been accompanied by a rising emphasis on a rigid morality. Until 2008, the U.S. AIDS plan contained an explicit requirement that one-third of the resources dedicated to preventing new infections be directed toward programs promoting abstinence. The Ugandan government, which once tackled the disease head-on with blunt advice on condoms and slogans like “zero grazing,” has purged explicit images from AIDS-education materials. Illustrations depicting correct condom use have disappeared, supplanted by material on “ethics, morals and cultural values.” (“For pupils, sex leads to great sadness,” reads one snippet.) “Instead of understanding the disease as a public-health crisis,” said Joseph Amon, the director of Health and Human Rights at Human Rights Watch, “it became understood as a test of moral character.” Prominent Ugandans have picked up this banner. The first lady, Janet Museveni, attempted to conduct a “virgin census” at the country’s main university. One Ugandan parliamentarian proposed offering “chastity scholarships” to girls who could prove they had never had sex. Cultural notions of sex and morality are of course shaped by many forces; government policy is only one of them. Nonetheless, with more and more people living long lives with HIV, many from birth, a single-minded message of abstinence and morality seems not just counterproductive, but dangerous. Admitting that you carry a potentially deadly infectious disease and taking responsibility for containing it are hard enough; the near-certainty of censure by your friends and neighbors can make responsible action almost impossible. It seems unrealistic to base policies on the expectation that asymptomatic HIV-positive youth will permanently abstain from sex, and foolish to drive them underground and away from the medication the y’ve relied on since childhood. Today, the spread of resistant forms of the virus is still relatively rare in Africa, though it is said to be rising. And while resistance is limited, for the most part, to the most common anti retroviral regimens, the more expensive treatments available in other parts of the world are unaffordable to most Africans, so it’s troubling to see the virus beginning to break through the first fire walls. Before leaving Rose’s home, I asked her how she was dealing with the rejection by those around her. “They can talk,” she said. “It’s up to them.” The important thing was that she had learned her HIV-positive status and knew she had to take her drugs. “Tomorrow they could die,” she said. “I will still be here. I know what I am, and I know what to do.” In addition to infecting Peter and Beatrice, Rose had transmitted HIV to her youngest son. Half of her children carried the virus. As she spoke, Rose gazed at Beatrice’s son, who was on a couch by the door, playing with Peter. For the baby, the prevention methods had worked. “Because I’ve tested myself and I’ve tested my children,” Rose said, “I’ve managed to get a grandchild who is HIV-free,” she said. TANZANIA:
www.un.org/11 May 2010 They also touched on the “Delivering as One” initiative – a programme under which countries work closely with UN entities to facilitate development – which they said had made a significant contribution to Tanzania’s anti-poverty strategy. On Sunday, Miss Clark visited Tanzania’s semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, where she had a meeting with President Amani Abeid Karume. She also visited the Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Area, the single most important site for the conservation of Zanzibar’s biodiversity. UNDP supported the creation of the park and helped the Government put in place policies and legislative processes that made conservation possible. The conservation zone consists of a protected core area of 34 square kilometres and a buffer zone of 48 square kilometres. It is a shallow open bay that supports the largest block of mangrove forest on Zanzibar and a wintering population of crab plovers, a bird species unique in making use of ground warmth to incubate its eggs. It is also home to other unique species of birds, plants, invertebrates and mammals, including the red colobus monkey and the Ader’s Duiker antelope, as well as the Zanzibar leopard, which may have disappeared as it has not been seen for two years. The area is a growing tourist attraction. The Jozani forest welcomes 20,000 visitors per year, more than 17 per cent of the total foreign tourists who visit Zanzibar. UNDP supported the local authorities in creating the national park, which protects the Jozani forest. On arrival in Tanzania for the four-day visit on Saturday, Miss Clark had a meeting with Tanzania’s foreign minister Bernard Membe, during which they discussed UNDP’s support of the electoral process, including help on voter registration and civic education in the run-up to national elections in October. On Tuesday, Miss Clark will visit the National Electoral Commission and meet recently-registered voters who will vote for the first time this year. Miss Clark’s mission to four Africa countries has already taken her to Mali and Burkina Faso, and will also include a visit to South Africa U.S. Judge Won’t Dismiss Ghailani Terror Indictment (Update2) May 10 (Bloomberg) — A federal judge refused to dismiss charges against a Tanzanian accused in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, after the man alleged he was tortured while in U.S. custody. Lawyers for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani had asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan to throw out all charges against their client, saying that he was tortured while being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The lawyers also said Ghailani’s 57-month detention violated speedy-trial laws. The defendant, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of being part of a criminal terrorist conspiracy in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Ghailani, who was captured in July 2004 in Pakistan, was taken to Guantanamo in 2006 and transferred to the U.S. in June. He is the first detainee from Guantanamo to be tried in a U.S. civilian court. “If, as Ghailani claims, he was tortured in violation of the Due Process Clause, he may have remedies,” Kaplan said in a ruling issued today. “In this case, Ghailani has not identified explicitly the component of his due process rights that allegedly was violated.” Kaplan didn’t rule on Ghailani’s speedy-trial motion. ‘Active Participant’ Peter Quijano, a lawyer for Ghailani, didn’t return a voicemail message left at his office seeking comment. Janice Oh, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, declined comment. The U.S. said in court papers that Ghailani fled Africa after the bombing and “remained an active participant in al- Qaeda.” After he was captured, Ghailani was held and questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency and later the Department of Defense, the U.S. said in court papers, much of which are redacted and remain under seal. Lawyers for Ghailani, who was added to the indictment in December, 1998, had argued all 286 counts should be dismissed, including a charge of cooperating with Osama Bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda to kill Americans around the world. He was later transferred to Guantanamo where he remained until June 2009, when he was moved to civilian court to be prosecuted in federal court in New York. “On many occasions, Mr. Ghailani was subjected to physical and psychological abusive treatment with an aim of obtaining compliance and extracting additional information,” his lawyers said in court papers. ‘Outrageous’ Violation “We respectfully submit that the Government violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” the lawyers said. “We further submit that this violation was ‘so outrageous’ that it requires the ultimate sanction of dismissal.” Judge Kaplan rejected Ghailani’s motion, saying Ghailani had failed to “explicitly identify” how his rights were violated. The judge also noted that prosecutors have said they wouldn’t use any evidence learned from the CIA or Department of Defense interrogations to be used against him at trial. “He argues that both the CIA’s use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ -in his word, torture- to question him and the fact that the use of those techniques was authorized by the ‘highest levels of our government’ are ‘so fundamentally unfair,’” that the indictment should be dismissed, Kaplan said. Due Process Denied “The defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds of allegedly outrageous government conduct in violation of his Fifth Amendment due process right is denied,” he said. The government argued Ghailani was an al-Qaeda terrorist who purchased components for the Tanzania attack, including explosives and detonators. U.S. prosecutors didn’t address whether or not Ghailani had been mistreated while in U.S. custody. During a court hearing in January, U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz said Ghailani provided “actionable useful intelligence.” Farbiarz said the “the incredible importance of national security” should justify the delay in Ghailani’s civilian trial. “The government was not trying to gain any advantage over the defendant,” he said. “The government was trying, based on information provided by the defendant, to incapacitate here. The U.S. has the need to prosecute and the need to protect.” Four others were convicted of the conspiracy in a 2001 federal trial in New York and are serving life sentences. The case is U.S. v. Ghailani, 98-cr-1023, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). –Editors: Andrew Dunn, Mary Romano. CONGO RDC : Congo-Kinshasa: To DR Congo, with Trouble London — A massive barter deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo trumpeted by China as a showcase of its “win-win” strategy in Africa has been hit by charges of corruption, a court case, and a barrage of western criticism. The surprise onslaught is causing Beijing to suspect a plot to undercut its expanding presence in the resource-rich continent. “It is now clear that western countries don’t want to see China’s influence grow in Africa,” says Duan Hongwu, a Beijing-based analyst who has been following China’s investment in Congo. “The barter deal is an obvious ‘double win’ — it helps Congo convert its rich mineral resources into a real economic capital. At the same time it takes care of China’s abundant foreign reserves by finding a suitable outlet for investment.” The package 9 billion-dollar deal that Beijing signed with Kinshasa in 2008 raised China’s stakes in Africa, transforming it into one of the most influential players on the continent and the biggest investor in one of its largest and most populous countries. Under the terms of the deal China pledged a 9 billion dollar loan and agreed to build massive new copper and cobalt mines, 4,000 km of roads and railways, upgrade Congo’s beleaguered mining sector, and build schools, hospital and clinics. In exchange, Beijing secured copper and cobalt concessions that over 25 years will supply Chinese manufacturing with 6.8 million tons of copper and 620,000 tons of cobalt. Hailed by Kinshasa as Congo’s Marshall Plan, the Sicomines project has run into a series of troubles since its signing. It was frowned at by western powers, and before the ink on its paper had dried up the International Monetary Fund had begun exerting pressure on Congolese leaders to renegotiate its terms in order to secure a new aid package from their western donors. Congo had eventually to agree, and late last year the deal was downsized to 6 billion dollars. “Was the U.S. worried that by investing big in Africa, China may gradually reduce its share of U.S. treasuries?” suggests Duan. In February China sliced its massive U.S. Treasury bond holdings to the lowest level in at least nine months amid speciation that Beijing was considering diversifying its portfolio. But the downsizing of the deal did not spell the end of trouble for Beijing. China Railway — China’s largest construction company, and one of Congo deal’s undertakers — has been hit with a decision by a Hong Kong court blocking its entry into the Congo market until the bad debts contracted by the Mobuto Sesi Seko regime with Tito’s Yugoslavia over a defunct hydropower project in 1980 had been paid up. Mobuto Sese Seko was president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, from 1965 to 1997. FG Hemisphere, a hedge fund that had managed to buy up chunks of the Seko regime’s debt and then re-packaged it, obtained in February a favourable decision by a Hong Kong court on its claim that China Railways’ “entry fees” should be used to offset Congo’s unpaid debt. China Railways has a wholly owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, and under the ‘one country two systems’ arrangement in place in Hong Kong since its return to mainland China in 1997, the territory enjoys an independent judiciary system. Beijing’s deal has recently also been a subject of investigation by a commission set up by the National Assembly of DRC. The probe is focused on the disappearance of 23 million dollars in signing bonus that Chinese companies were due to have paid to Congo’s Gecamines, their local partner in the Sicomines project. The adverse publicity China has received in the probe is raising questions about the transparency of its long-term projects in the country, and in Africa as a whole. Some Western critics say China is interested only in extracting Africa’s natural resources to feed its fast-growing economy, and cares little for African development, acting like the new colonial power on the continent. But Chinese experts see the lingering shadow of a “Cold War” mentality in the west’s accusations of “new colonialism”. “Is China buying cheap and selling pricey to qualify as a colonial power?” asks Shen Jiru, an expert on international relations with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “Exactly the opposite — we are providing free-interest loans and aid and we are a reliable backup for Africa’s economic development.” China pledged last year to give Africa 10 billion dollars in concessional loans over the next three years, and is accelerating its drive to pour vast sums of money into developing infrastructure in many African nations. African leaders have hailed the new wave of China’s investment in the continent. Speaking at the World Economic Forum on Africa held in Tanzania last week, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said China’s interests were consistent with those of African countries striving to overcome the legacy of reliance on commodity exports and move towards industrialisation. It made sense for China to spend in Africa, Zenawi said, because its massive foreign exchange reserves are largely denominated in dollars, and Beijing needs to diversify those assets. “It’s in their interest to spend tens of billions of dollars in Africa and it’s in our interest to have access to those tens of billions of dollars.” KENYA :
Draft Constitution Has Kenyan Support A Kenyan legislator says several polls show a majority of Kenyans support the draft constitution ahead of a meeting between the “parliamentary political parties,” the president and the prime minister scheduled to begin Tuesday. Doni Khalwale, chairman of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee said the aim of the meeting is to decide on the needed strategy to use in the upcoming referendum on the constitution. “When we meet later on this morning, we want to take a collective decision on how to approach the campaign for the forthcoming referendum. Of course, we have the ‘no’ and the ‘yes’ side. However, the majorities are overwhelmingly in yes,” he said. Both President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga called for the meeting Tuesday to decide on a strategy to encourage Kenyans to support the draft constitution. The two former opponents formed a “grand coalition” that led to the unity government after the 2007 post-election violence that led to the loss of lives and properties. A Commission of Experts sought the views of Kenyans during the drafting of the constitution. Kenya’s Attorney General, Amos Wako, published the newly drafted constitution last week. And, Kenyans are scheduled to vote on it in a referendum in August. Legislator Khalwale said Kenyans were widely consulted before the constitution was drafted. “The consultations that have been going on, unlike in many countries in the whole world that have attempted to do the constitution, the consultations in Kenya have taken a period of around 20 years and, in the process, many people have forgotten what their contribution was,” Khalwale said. Most members of the coalition government, including President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga, are reportedly supporting the draft constitution. But, a handful of cabinet ministers including William Ruto, minister for Higher Education, Naomi Shabaan, Special Programs and Samuel Poghisio, Communications and Information have joined forces with some churches to strongly oppose the draft constitution. Khalwale said those against the draft constitution are misinformed. “The people who are coming out with the ‘no,’ they have serious misinformation. So, if we do not counter them, the people will unsuspectingly think that the naysayers are the ones who are carrying the truth,” Khalwale said. Critics seized upon the reported mixed reactions to the draft constitution saying the elitists will be engaging in strategies Tuesday with the aim of shoving the constitution down the throats of Kenyans – – a charge supporters of the government, including Khalwale, deny. “We have done quite a number of different polls and, in all those opinion polls, the public which participates at random, the public which is not part of the so-called elite, they are returning an overwhelming ‘yes’ for the draft. You cannot say this morning’s meeting is for the elite because the membership of political parties is not limited to MP’s (members of parliament) alone,” Khalwale said. Kenyans are expected to undergo a 30-day period of civic education before official campaigns ahead of the referendum. ANGOLA :
SOUTH AFRICA:
ArcelorMittal, Discovery, PPC: South Africa Equity Preview May 11 (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 rose for the first time in seven days, gaining 1,146.54, or 4.3 percent, to 27,661.61, the biggest increase in 14 months. ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd. (ACL SJ): Africa’s largest steel producer hosts its annual general meeting of shareholders. ArcelorMittal increased 2.22 rand, or 3 percent, to 77.49 rand. Discovery Holdings Ltd. (DSY SJ): The administrator of South Africa’s biggest medical insurer said it’s entered into unspecified discussions, which may have an impact on the company’s share price if successfully concluded. Discovery rose 1.50 rand, or 4.3 percent, to 36.80 rand. Famous Brands Ltd. (FBR SJ): The country’s biggest fast- food franchise owner reports annual earnings. Famous Brands advanced 1.60 rand, or 5.7 percent, to 29.60 rand. Pretoria Portland Cement Co. (PPC SJ): Africa’s largest producer of cement reports first-half earnings. PPC, as the company is known, climbed 67 cents, or 2.1 percent, to 33.17 rand. Silverbridge Holdings Ltd. (SVB SJ): The computer software company releases annual earnings. Silverbridge was unchanged at 2.05 rand. –Editor: Ana Monteiro. South African FA suspends manager, commercial director month before World Cup JOHANNESBURG — The South African Football Association said Monday it has suspended its team manager and commercial director just a month before the World Cup. SAFA issued a statement saying Bafana Bafana team manager Sipho Nkumane and the association’s commercial director Victor Nosi were suspended pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings. “It must be emphasized that at this stage it is only allegations that have been levelled against … Nkumane and Nosi and any decisions as to whether these allegations are true or not will be left to external independent parties to determine,” the statement said. SAFA did not give any details of the allegations against Nkumane and Nosi. “This is an internal process and no further information regarding this internal process will be furnished,” it said. SAFA said longtime football administrator Dennis Mumble had taken over as acting team manager. Although the suspensions do not have any direct affect on tactics under coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, the timing will hurt the South African team with just a month before the host kicks off the World Cup against Mexico on June 11. South Africa’s squad is currently in its final World Cup training camp in Johannesburg and held a workout on Monday morning. The team begins its last round of friendly games against Thailand on Sunday in the northern city of Nelspruit. South Africa is also scheduled to play Bulgaria on May 24, Colombia on May 27 and Denmark on June 5. The host nation, which is the lowest ranked team to host a World Cup, is desperate to prove it can compete with the best teams in the world, and has held training camps in Brazil and Germany to prepare for its biggest test in international football. South Africa plays Mexico, Uruguay and France in Group A at the 2010 World Cup. AFRICA / AU :
No Dismissal in Terror Case on Claim of Torture in Jail A federal judge in Manhattan declined on Monday to dismiss charges against a man accused in a terrorism case whose lawyers claimed his rights were violated when he was tortured in secret jails run by the Central Intelligence Agency. The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, has been charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa. The attacks, which were carried out by Al Qaeda, killed 224 people. Mr. Ghailani later worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, the authorities have said. After Mr. Ghailani was captured in 2004, he was held in the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites until 2006, when he was transferred to the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Last year, he became the first Guantánamo detainee moved into the civilian court system for trial. Although details of his treatment while in C.I.A. custody are classified, he has said in court papers that he was subjected to cruel “enhanced interrogation techniques.” His lawyers say that his treatment was unquestionably “torture,” and argued that the techniques were so “shocking to our traditional sense of justice” that charges should be dismissed on grounds of “outrageous governmental conduct.” “Indeed, while it is rare to find a case that is ‘so outrageous’ to warrant the ultimate sanction of dismissal,” his lawyers wrote, “if this is not such a case, then what is?” But the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court, ruled that Mr. Ghailani’s treatment while he was being detained had no relation to his court case. “Even if Ghailani was mistreated while in C.I.A. custody and even if that mistreatment violated the due process clause,” the judge wrote, “there would be no connection between such mistreatment and this prosecution.” Judge Kaplan added that prosecutors should not be deprived of the opportunity to prove Mr. Ghailani’s guilt through the use of evidence “wholly untainted” by government misconduct. “Any remedy for any such violation must be found outside the confines of this criminal case,” the judge said. The judge made no finding on whether Mr. Ghailani was tortured or otherwise mistreated. In opposing dismissal of the charges, federal prosecutors have said there are more appropriate remedies to redress “the alleged government misconduct.” “Neither the manner by which a defendant is brought to court for prosecution nor the conditions of his confinement prior to that prosecution are valid grounds for dismissal of an indictment,” the United States attorney’s office wrote. Prosecutors have already said they will not use at trial statements Mr. Ghailani made while he was in detention. The Ghailani prosecution has been seen as significant because it has raised issues that could resurface if the government ultimately brings Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or other high-profile detainees to trial in civilian court. The judge has not yet ruled on a motion by Mr. Ghailani’s lawyers seeking dismissal of charges on grounds that his detention violated his speedy-trial rights. Mr. Ghailani has pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Mr. Ghailani and a spokeswoman for the government declined to comment. McDonald’s April Sales Rise 4.9% on Europe, Australia (Update3) May 10 (Bloomberg) — McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest restaurant company, said April sales rose 4.9 percent, beating some analysts’ estimates, helped by growth in Europe and Australia. Sales at U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months advanced 3.8 percent, Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s said today in a statement. They climbed 5.3 percent in Europe and 3.9 percent in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Value menus and foods catering to local tastes helped boost sales in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the company said. Sales in the U.K., France and elsewhere in Europe have increased as the chain renovated restaurants, said Jack Russo, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis. “They touched up the stores and it’s doing a good thing,” Russo said in a telephone interview. Global sales were projected to rise 4.7 percent, the median of analysts at Piper Jaffray & Co., Jefferies & Co. and Robert W. Baird & Co. U.S. sales were predicted to rise 3.8 percent. They estimated gains of 3.5 percent in Europe and of 5 percent in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. McDonald’s jumped $2.57, or 3.8 percent, to $70.58 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the steepest increase since May 2009. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 4.4 percent, after European policy makers unveiled a loan package valued at almost $1 trillion to contain a sovereign-debt crisis triggered by Greece’s budget deficit. –With assistance from Courtney Dentch in New York. Editors: Andrea Snyder, Margot Slade Labor states back big mining companies on resources profits tax Dennis Shanahan, Political editor From: The Australian /May 11, 2010 KEVIN Rudd and Wayne Swan are considering changes to how they implement the new 40 per cent resource profits tax after state Labor governments sided with the big mining companies amid more projects being delayed and jobs being put under threat. Mr Foley said yesterday he wanted to ensure the expansion of BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia’s outback, and the Rann government shared the concerns of the company, which is leading the mining industry attack on the tax. The $22 billion expansion of Olympic Dam, will create the world’s biggest open-cut mine, worth $25bn over 10 years to the South Australian economy. “There are issues in the structure and design of the scheme and its implementation that we need to see changed and fixed,” Mr Foley said. Mining investment and exploration continued to be threatened yesterday as $300 million was chopped off the takeover bid for Macarthur Coal in Queensland by US giant Peabody Energy; Incitec Pivot stopped drilling for phosphate; Xstrata cancelled projects; and Macquarie Bank advised clients Australia was “now seen as being a high sovereign risk destination to invest” and there was a “significant risk of major capital flight out of Australia”. One of Australia’s biggest goldminers, AngloGold Ashanti also threatened to shift investment offshore. The Prime Minister and Treasurer both indicated they intended to change the implementation of the new tax, including providing an exemption for miners of low-value commodities such as phosphate rock and quarry materials for building. Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen was forced to head off speculation that the government intended to apply a super-profits tax to banks after comments by Mr Swan in Sydney last week to business economists. Yesterday, in a meeting of Labor MPs in the wake of the polling collapse of support for the ALP, Mr Rudd said he would not back down over the proposed resources tax but was prepared to negotiate with the mining companies over “transitional arrangements” and “implementation”. Facing confrontation from the mining industry and confusion over the new resources tax, senior Labor figures are warning that Mr Rudd cannot afford to “back down” on the resources super-profits tax after his dumping of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme last month. But the Labor states of Queensland and South Australia joined the Liberal government in Western Australia to criticise the new tax and demand changes. Ms Bligh said Queensland’s much-anticipated liquefied natural gas industry needed “special consideration” and other aspects of the model still needed fine-tuning. “If we don’t get every part of this tax package right – and I think we can get it right – but if we don’t it will not only impact on jobs in Queensland, but jobs around the country,” she said. The Premier was speaking after Xstrata yesterday cancelled its exploration program around Mount Isa and Queensland-based coal miner Macarthur Coal had a takeover offer for it reduced as a result of the resources super profits tax. The proposal of the tax has already had a large effect on the Queensland mining industry, with Santos last week delaying a decision on its $15 billion LNG project in central Queensland because of uncertainty about the impact of the tax. The head of one of the world’s biggest gold miners, AngloGold Ashanti, has threatened to shift investment away from Australia. AngloGold is a large South African-based gold miner listed on several international exchanges with a substantial interest in the $US600 million ($663m) Tropicana gold project in Western Australia. AngloGold Ashanti chief executive Mark Cutifani said the Australian government was under the “misapprehension that all sectors of the Australian mining industry are going well”. “They are not,” Mr Cutifani said. “The Australian gold mining industry has been contracting for a number of years. Companies are struggling to find new gold, while the industry’s costs are increasing. “The good news is that gold prices are increasing – but still not at a rate that is quick enough to offset increasing costs and the potential new cost imposts that are being publicly debated by governments. “For the government to be talking about three new taxes – focused on the mining, and in particular the gold mining industry – is a great concern. “In South Africa the government deferred for a year the imposition of a royalty for fear it may damage the industry. “In Australia we seem to be debating how many taxes can we lump on this section of the industry – without considering the significant input and other structural cost increases we have all had to bear. “We must ensure our key industries remain competitive – to ensure we continue to create long-term sustainable and meaningful employment. “I only hope those Australians that have been protected from the global financial crisis, partly thanks to the strength of the great Australian mining industry, are finding their voice in arguing we must support our industry and the generation of productive jobs for the long term.” Barloworld, Massmart, PPC, Shoprite: S. Africa Equity Preview May 11 (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 rose for the first time in seven days, gaining 1,146.54, or 4.3 percent, to 27,661.61, the biggest increase in 14 months. ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd. (ACL SJ): Africa’s largest steel producer hosts its annual general meeting of shareholders. ArcelorMittal increased 2.22 rand, or 3 percent, to 77.49 rand. Barloworld Ltd. (BAW SJ): Macquarie Research raised its recommendation on the world’s largest forklift dealer to “outperform” from “neutral,” citing its improved cash conversion performance. Barloworld advanced 70 cents, or 1.6 percent, to 45.20 rand. Discovery Holdings Ltd. (DSY SJ): The administrator of South Africa’s biggest medical insurer said it’s entered into unspecified discussions, which may have an impact on the company’s share price if successfully concluded. Discovery rose 1.50 rand, or 4.3 percent, to 36.80 rand. Famous Brands Ltd. (FBR SJ): The country’s biggest fast- food franchise owner said net income for the year through February rose 27 percent to 191.4 million rand ($25.3 million), from a year earlier. Famous Brands advanced 1.60 rand, or 5.7 percent, to 29.60 rand. Gold Reef Resorts Ltd. (GDF SJ): UBS AG cut its recommendation on the hotel and gaming company to “neutral” from “buy,” citing lower gambling revenue from the company’s operations in South Africa’s Gauteng province. Gold Reef fell 30 cents, or 1.7 percent, to 17.65 rand. Massmart Holdings Ltd. (MSM SJ): South Africa’s largest food and general-goods wholesaler said sales in the 44 weeks through May 2 rose 8.6 percent to 39.9 billion rand. Massmart rose 4.35 rand, or 4 percent, to 112.85 rand. Pretoria Portland Cement Co. (PPC SJ): Africa’s largest producer of cement said profit for the first half through March rose to 551 million rand compared with 103 million rand a year earlier. PPC, as the company is known, climbed 67 cents, or 2.1 percent, to 33.17 rand. SacOil Holdings Ltd. (SCL SJ): The oil explorer said it bought a 55 percent participating interest in the exploration permit for the gas potential Chaal permit area in Tunisia. SacOil was unchanged at 15 cents. Silverbridge Holdings Ltd. (SVB SJ): The computer software company said annual earnings per share rose to 32.37 cents, from 16.40 cents a year earlier. Silverbridge was unchanged at 2.05 rand. Shoprite Holdings Ltd. (SHP SJ): JPMorgan Cazenove raised its price estimate on South Africa’s biggest food retailer to 98.02 rand from 95.34 rand, citing a 30 percent discount when compared with its emerging-market peers. Shoprite advanced 1.71 rand, or 2.3 percent, to 77.30 rand. Telemasters Holdings Ltd. (TLM SJ): The company which sells phone services to South African companies said first-half net income fell to 3.65 million rand, from 6.91 million rand a year earlier. Telemasters rose 7 cents, or 3.7 percent, to 1.97 rand. Woolworths Holdings Ltd. (WHL SJ): JPMorgan Cazenove raised its price estimate on the food and clothing retailer to 30.14 rand from 20.33 rand, citing the company’s earnings growth potential. Woolworths rose 97 cents, or 4.4 percent to 22.84 rand. Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows: Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) rallied 10 percent to $20.40. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) gained 2 percent to $41.81. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) rose 7.4 percent to $59.33. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) climbed 1.9 percent to $4.84. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) advanced 3 percent to $12.96. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) increased 0.5 percent to $9.41. Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPUY US) gained 9 percent to $26.48. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) rose 4.3 percent to $3.87. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) advanced 6.7 percent to $38.25. –Editor: Ana Monteiro. The life and times of musical legend Lena Horne www.usatoday.com/11052010 Over a career spanning decades of social change and helped break down barriers for generations of performers, even as she weathered her own storms. USA TODAY’s Elysa Gardner and Robyn Abzug trace Horne’s life. June 30, 1917: Lena Mary Calhoun Horne is born in Brooklyn, N.Y. 1933: At 16, Horne is hired as a dancer by Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. While singing with Charlie Barnet’s white orchestra, she’s spotted by an MGM talent scout and becomes the first black actress signed to a long-term contract. 1938: The singer makes her Hollywood debut in The Duke Is Tops. She refuses to pass as white, despite her light coloring. Her roles are often shot so that they can be easily cut from copies distributed to the South. 1943: Shoots Cabin in the Sky, an all-black musical, and signature film Stormy Weather. She’s the USA’s highest-paid black actor — and a champion of civil rights for refusing to play to segregated audiences while entertaining the troops. 1947: Weds Lennie Hayton, a white musical arranger. Their marriage triggers hate mail and threats. 1950s: Lands on the anti-Communist blacklist because of her friendship with Paul Robeson. 1957: Records her classic album Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria. Joins the cast of the controversial Broadway musical Jamaica as Calypso, for which she’s nominated for a Tony Award. 1959: Horne and Harry Belafonte release their album Porgy and Bess. 1963: Participates in the famous March on Washington. She performs at rallies all over the country for the National Council for Negro Women and speaks on behalf of the NAACP. 1978: Returns to film for final time as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. 1980: Receives an honorary doctorate from Howard University. 1981: Launches her one-woman Broadway show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. She earns a special Tony Award, a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and a Drama Desk Award. The live soundtrack also wins Horne a 1982 Grammy for female pop vocal. 1986: Publishes autobiography, Lena. 1989: Wins a lifetime achievement Grammy. 1994: Makes her final appearances at The Supper Club in New York and Carnegie Hall. A live Supper Club recording released in 1995 wins a Grammy for best jazz vocal album. 1998: Releases her album Being Myself and all but retires. 2006: Blue Note releases Seasons of a Life, a Horne album of previously unreleased or rare tracks. 2009: Author James Gavin wins acclaim for Stormy Weather: A Life of Lena Horne, a biography charting Horne’s complicated paths. May 9, 2010: Horne dies in New York. May 18, 2010: Verve Records and Hip-O Select will release Lena Horne Sings: The MGM Singles Collection, featuring recordings from the late ’40s, co-produced and with liner notes by Gavin.
A singer and actress of café au lait skin, lively eyes and an irrepressible smile, she came to fame in the 1940s, a time when African Americans could not vote in the South or gain admittance to most hotels, when southern trees still bore strange fruit. Thus the African-American performer who climbed out of obscurity became, wittingly or not, a de facto symbol, a stand in representing millions of other African Americans shut out of the mainstream by custom and by law. She bore all their hopes and aspirations. It was unfair; it was ridiculous. It was the way things were. Lena Horne, who died Sunday at 92, had to represent. And she did — spectacularly. Not simply because she was beautiful, though she was. Not simply because she sang in a satiny, deceptively agile voice, though she did. In the end, the thing for which Lena Horne may be most justly celebrated is simply that she did all of the above with a sense of weightless grace, a wordless insistence upon her dignity and carried herself with a refined sophistication the nation simply was not used to equating with African-American people. In so doing, she became a hero in a way that went far beyond her beauty. Although, in the end, everything always came back to that beauty. Horne was ambivalent about it. “I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.” African-American men did not share her ambivalence. Indeed, African-American men of a certain age will testify that while the white guys went to war with posters of Betty Grable to remind them of what they were fighting for, black men climbed into their tanks, hefted their rifles, knowing that they were fighting for Lena Horne. They were smitten by an elegance that seemed effortless. But she would tell anyone who asked that it never really was. Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn on June 30, 1917. Her parents split up when she was still a toddler, and her childhood was itinerant, spent touring with her performer mother. For a time, they lived in Overtown, a thriving mecca of African-American culture before the freeway pierced its heart. At 16, at her mother’s behest, she quit school and auditioned as a chorus dancer at the Cotton Club, the famous Harlem nightspot where whites went to be entertained by black performers (only the light-skinned need apply) but which blacks were not allowed to patronize. In 1938, she made her film debut in The Duke Is Tops, a black musical. But her film career would always be stunted by the bizarre racial politics of the era. Because of her refusal to play maids — the stereotypical role that was pretty much all Hollywood offered black actresses at the time — she was reduced to cameo appearances in movies starring white performers. She was typically depicted in a lavish evening gown leaning against a pillar, singing a musical interlude. Her performance was never part of the main action, allowing film companies to edit her out completely when films were shown in the South. Among the few exceptions was Stormy Weather, a frothy, 1943 musical in which she and famed dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson headed an all-black cast. The movie’s title number became her signature. Otherwise, the movies simply did not know what to do with Lena Horne, a fact of which she was acutely aware. “They didn’t make me into a maid,” she wrote in her 1965 autobiography, Lena, “but they didn’t make me into anything else either. I became a butterfly pinned to a column singing away in Movieland.” She was always outspoken like that, particularly in confronting the racism that hemmed in her career and life. She expressed herself with her funds, contributing generously to the civil rights movement. She also expressed herself with her deeds. In 1945, Horne was incensed to walk onstage and find herself singing to an audience of German POWs and African-American soldiers; the soldiers were required to sit in the back, behind the enemy prisoners. Horne left the stage, turning her back on the Germans and singing for the black men. In 1960, she threw an ashtray, several glasses and a lamp at a white patron of a Beverly Hills restaurant who addressed her by a racial slur. There was no such drama when Horne broke the color barrier in Miami in 1952. Her engagement at the Clover Club on Biscayne Boulevard went exceptionally well, according to contemporary accounts, though Horne’s manager would admit they were initially “hesitant” about accepting the gig. The singer was married twice. The first wedding came when she was just 19. Her husband was Louis Jones, a friend of her father who was nine years older; the union lasted nine years and produced her children, Gail and Teddy. In 1947, she married Lennie Hayton, a musician. They kept the marriage a secret for three years. He was white, and they feared the controversy that would — and eventually did — erupt. Hayton died in 1971. Horne continued recording well into the 1990s. In 1978 she appeared as Glinda the Good in the big-screen adaptation of The Wiz. In 1981, she mounted a one-woman Broadway show: Lena Horne — the Lady And her Music. It won her a Tony. Still, she never quite outpaced the irony of her career: She made it possible for the likes of Halle Berry, Beyoncé, Taraji P. Henson and Angela Bassett to have the sort of unfettered career Horne herself never did. In her later years, she became philosophical about that. As she said in an interview when she was 80, “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a `credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.” UN /ONU :
USA :
US Special forces train African armies KATI, Mali — A U.S. Special Forces instructor leans toward a steering wheel, showing some 50 Malian soldiers gathered around an army pickup how a passenger should take control of a car if the driver is killed in an ambush. The elite Malian troops look on, perplexed. “But what can we do if we don’t know how to drive?” asks Sgt. Amadou, echoing many of his colleagues’ concern. There are a few laughs, but the Malians are not joking; most of their unit does not know how. The lack of ability to perform such a basic task illustrates part of the huge knowledge gap the U.S. military is seeking to bridge in Africa as it trains local armies to better face the region’s mounting threats. The exercises Monday in Kita, a shooting range in the savanna near Mali’s capital, Bamako, are but one leg of an ambitious program led by the Pentagon’s Africa Command, or AFRICOM, to provide top-tier training in six African countries during three weeks this month. Over 200 “Green Berets” from the Special Operations Forces and from the U.S. Marines Special Forces have deployed in Mali, Mauritania and other countries that line the Sahara Desert’s southern rims. The yearly exercise, known as “Flintlock,” is being beefed-up to face traffickers and al-Qaida-linked terrorists mounting increasingly brazen operations in this vast region of porous borders and lawless tribes. Western intelligence officers estimate some 400 heavily armed Islamist militants have made northern Mali their rear-base. A kidnapped French tourist is being held somewhere in the desert, and half-a-dozen were held hostage last year. More worrying still for authorities, the militants, known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, are now believed to be cooperating with traffickers who increasingly use the desert routes to carry large quantities of South American cocaine to Europe. This brings more weapons and more cash to the region, increasing the militants’ potency. Small forces from several European countries and some 500 African troops are taking part in this year’s exercise, including countries that don’t directly touch the desert, like Senegal. “The point is, we’ve got to start getting ready for al-Qaida if they come our way,” said Maj. Cheikhna Dieng, who headed 30 Senegalese soldiers taking part in Monday’s exercises. “They recruit from Islamists, and that’s a threat we’re taking seriously,” because over 90 percent of Senegal’s population is Muslim, he said. Armies in the impoverished countries that militants and traffickers cross are usually no match for the outlaws’ heavily armed columns, and vast swathes of eastern Mauritania, northern Mali and Niger, and southern Algeria are now considered no-go zones. But Mali’s army plans to reclaim its part of the area in the coming months, said Capt. Ongoiba Alou, the commander of the embryonic Malian Special Forces. “The whole purpose of the exercise is for our troops to be able to fight the terrorists,” he said. That most of his unit training Monday can’t drive is a sign of Mali’s lack of funds, Alou says. “These are our elite troops,” he said, stating they’d proven their worth in combat during clashes with a rebellion of ethnic Tuareg nomads that ended a few years ago in the volatile north. Most of the Malian Special Forces, formed at the American’s prodding, come from paratrooper units. But they lack training, and one paratrooper died last week during a Flintlock parachuting exercise. An investigation is still under way, but Malian and U.S. officers said it seemed the trooper had somehow knocked his head against the plane as he was jumping. Shooting in live fire exercises and jumping from planes can be challenging for poorly trained and poorly equipped armies in a patchwork of uniforms like Mali’s, but U.S. soldiers say they find the troops very motivated. “Training with them is also an outstanding opportunity to build contact,” said Capt. Shane West, the U.S. Special Forces team leader who headed the exercise. Malian and American authorities have given orders for the U.S. Special Forces to only conduct training, and none will launch real operations during Flintlock, West said. “We’re essentially here to help our host nation handle whatever situation it needs to,” he said. “And we’re taking it step by step.” Pioneering performer Lena Horne dies at 92 PERFORMING AT an Army base in 1945, Lena Horne was shocked by what she saw: White German POWs sitting in the front rows while black American soldiers were forced to sit at the rear. Horne walked past the Germans, put her back to them, and began singing to the African-Americans, according to her 1965 autobiography, Lena. She managed to get through three or four songs until her outrage and sorrow pulled her from the stage. “I don’t think I have ever been more furious in my life,” she wrote in Lena. It was yet another insult, another bit of fuel that fed Horne’s lifelong activism. “Many people think of Rosa Parks as the mother of the civil-rights movement, but prior to Mrs. Parks’ refusing to give up her bus seat in 1955, Lena Horne was protesting against many aspects of a segregated America,” said Lisbeth Gant-Britton, student-affairs officer for UCLA’s Afro-American Studies program and the author of Holt African-American History. “She did things that would take a lot of courage for anyone to do, especially someone in the public eye, knowing it could mean she’d have difficulty in her career. She didn’t let it stop her.” Horne, who died Sunday at age 92, will be remembered for more than her performances as a singer and actress on stage and screen. She was also a pioneer for African-American rights, working with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on anti-lynching legislation, protesting segregation policies at hotels where she performed and joining the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the march on Washington in 1963. One of Horne’s memorable quotes was: “You have to be taught to be second-class. You’re not born that way.” “She is an inspiration for performers now and in days to come because she knew that what she did as a professional was more than for herself or as a way to make money,” Gant-Britton said. “This human family needs nourishment, as well as entertainment.” Horne, a Brooklyn native, was raised mostly by her grandmother, a prominent member of the Urban League and the NAACP. She was only 2 years old when her grandmother enrolled her in the NAACP. Horne began performing as a teenager to whites-only audiences at Harlem’s Cotton Club. After being signed by MGM, the studio lent her to 20th Century-Fox in 1943 so she could take a starring role in the movie “Stormy Weather,” the all-black musical. Her rendition of the title song remains one of her best-known tunes. After that performance, she found herself sharing movie billings with stars like Lucille Ba “Mississippi wanted its movies without me,” Horne told the New York Times in 1957. That prevailing racism was a constant frustration. “I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn’t work for places that kept us out. . . . It was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked; in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world,” she said in Brian Lanker’s book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America. In the 1960s, Horne became one of Hollywood’s most vocal and visible activists. She spoke at a rally with civil-rights leader Medgar Evers just days before his assassination in 1963. She worked with NAACP executive secretary Walter White to change the system that had marginalized black performers. Gant-Britton met Horne about eight years ago and considers the meeting one of the highlights of her career. Horne, she said, was kind, generous, and “had a spine of steel.” “She had a very keen sense that what she was doing was not only for herself,” Gant-Britton said. “She had a long-range vision and the stamina to keep going.” Horne inspired the generations who followed. In 2001, actress Halle Berry acknowledged Horne as a Hollywood pioneer while accepting her best-actress Oscar for “Monster’s Ball.” “This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll . . . ,” Berry said in her acceptance speech. “It’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.” The Associated Press contributed to this report. CANADA :
Africa’s deadly backroom abortions In a continent with little access to safe, legal abortion, charlatans prey on those desperate for the procedure, resulting in the deaths of 25,000 women and many more injuries each year Geoffrey York /From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail /Tuesday, May. 11, 2010 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail .Abortion is strictly outlawed in Tanzania in virtually all circumstances. The word itself is taboo, rarely spoken in polite society. Yet it takes only a few minutes to find a man in the backroom of a slum neighbourhood pharmacy who is quite willing to perform an illegal abortion. His shabby dispensary is on a dusty street in Manzese, the biggest squatter community in Tanzania’s biggest city. It’s become known as a place for desperate women to go. The Globe and Mail asked a Tanzanian man to pose as the boyfriend of a young woman wanting an abortion. He was referred to a man in a white coat, in a backroom, who appeared to be a doctor. After a brief warning that the procedure was illegal, the white-coated man began haggling over the price, agreeing eventually to do it for the equivalent of about $18. “It should be done before one o’clock because inspectors pass by in the afternoon,” he told his customer. “The government doesn’t allow it, so don’t tell anyone. It has to be a secret.” Unsafe abortions, especially those done covertly or illegally, are one of the leading causes of maternal deaths in Africa, killing at least 25,000 women annually and injuring a staggering 1.7 million every year. Many are maimed or killed by horrific “home remedies” that include catheters, roots or herbs placed in their vaginas to induce bleeding. One-seventh of African deaths in pregnancy and childbirth, and nearly one-fifth in Tanzania, are caused by complications from unsafe abortions. Yet governments in Africa – and Canada – are reluctant to discuss the problem, even as Ottawa puts maternal health on top of the agenda for the G8 summit next month. For decades, Africa’s crisis of maternal deaths has remained stubbornly intractable, even as the death rate has declined sharply in most Asian countries. More than half of the world’s maternal deaths are now occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with fewer than a quarter in 1980, according to a new study in this month’s Lancet, the British-based medical journal. Of the 20 most dangerous countries for women to give birth in, all but one (Afghanistan) are in Africa. The failure to reduce Africa’s maternal death rate is partly due to the political and cultural sensitivity of some of the leading causes: abortion, AIDS, early marriage, genital mutilation and the unequal status of women. Many African countries are so culturally conservative that their politicians are unwilling to consider any liberalization of abortion laws – despite strong evidence that illegal abortions are killing and maiming thousands of women. “ I’ve seen gruesome backrooms doing backstreet abortions in Sierra Leone. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone ” In Kenya, for example, the country’s new constitution would prohibit abortions in any circumstance except when a woman’s life is in danger. This is essentially the same as Kenya’s current laws. But anti-abortion church groups have lobbied against the constitution, perceiving it as a loosening of the abortion laws, and Kenya’s politicians have been forced to promise that abortions won’t become any easier under the new constitution. In Tanzania, there’s little discussion of changing the abortion ban. Yet hospitals often see the ghastly results of botched abortions by untrained practitioners. “Very sharp objects are inserted into the vagina to disturb the pregnancy,” said John Bosco Baso, a spokesman for Marie Stopes Tanzania, which runs a network of health clinics here. “The women get infections, they get fever, and some die. Many of them hide it. We only see them at the critical stage, when there’s infection.” More than 90 per cent of Africans live in countries where abortion is restricted. Abortion is completely prohibited in 14 African countries, and in most others it is permitted only to preserve the life or physical health of the woman. As a result, virtually all of the estimated 5.6 million abortions performed annually in Africa are unsafe. Only about 100,000 are done by properly trained professionals in a safe environment, according to a report last year by the Guttmacher Institute, an advocacy organization for sexual and reproductive health. “In urban areas, people know where to find illegal abortions, and in rural areas they go to quacks,” said Catherine Slater, an official with Marie Stopes South Africa, which provides abortions at 29 government-approved clinics. “I’ve seen gruesome backrooms doing backstreet abortions in Sierra Leone. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” Legalizing abortion would be a simple way to reduce the maternal death rate. In South Africa, the number of abortion-related deaths fell by 91 per cent after the procedure was legalized in 1997, according to a Lancet study. “Making abortion legal, safe and accessible does not appreciably increase demand,” the Lancet study concluded. “Instead, the principal effect is shifting previously clandestine, unsafe procedures to legal and safe ones.” A recent editorial in The Lancet said Canada and the other G8 countries should be challenging the ban on abortion in many developing countries, rather than tacitly supporting it. Even in South Africa, charlatans and quacks still take advantage of the desperation of uneducated or low-income women who cannot afford to travel to a legal clinic. Advertising leaflets and posters for fly-by-night abortion services are littered across South Africa’s poorest communities, even plastered on the walls of police stations and government offices. In most cases, only a mobile phone number is provided in the advertisements, making it easy for those who offer illegal abortions to escape justice. “The unsafe abortion market is huge,” said Laila Abbas, a spokeswoman for Marie Stopes. She estimates that hundreds of people are performing illegal abortions in South Africa, and the number keeps rising, even though her organization frequently reports them to the police. Often the abortionists provide a pill that simply opens the woman’s cervix, she said. “The fetus literally falls out, causing great danger and extensive bleeding, often resulting in death. The unsafe service providers tell the women to go to the nearest public toilet and flush the fetus.” Swaziland: Before Mother’s Day, African Grannies Meet on AIDS May 11, 2010/www.thebody.com Prior to Sunday’s celebration of Mother’s Day, grandmothers from across Africa gathered in Manzini, Swaziland, to share HIV/AIDS advice and support. The selection of Swaziland was very much intentional, as the country’s HIV prevalence is almost 40 percent — the highest in the world. “Grandmothers are forced to provide home-based care for the sick, they also support immediate neighbors in case of illness and HIV counseling,” said Aylwen Dlamini, from a Swazi grandmother’s group. Eunice Vilakati, another Swazi grandmother, said she is caring for her two grandchildren who were orphaned last year as well as other neighbors’ children. “When you arrive at my place you can be mistaken that all these children are my children,” she observed. At the gathering’s opening ceremony, Elizabeth Rennie, of Canada’s Ubuntu Grand Women organization, said: “Canadian grandmothers are the voice of African women in Canada. We’re here to learn from our African peers by listening, caring and learning, and won’t rest until the African story is told.” Ntombi Twala, Swaziland’s queen mother, said she hoped that Swazi grandmothers could learn from their counterparts from around the world about how to tackle HIV/AIDS.
Lena Horne sang with popular singers, including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Andy Williams, but her duet with Kermit the Frog expressed her soul. Civil Rights Activist, singer and entertainer Lena Horne, 92, died Sunday, May, 9, 2010, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. When she was born in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson practiced a policy of sacrificing black civil rights for what he considered the common good. When she died Barack Obama, the first African American president of the United States, paid tribute to her from the Whitehouse. President Obama called Lena Horne a “most cherished entertainer.” He also praised her work in promoting justice and equality. Lena Sings a Duet with Kermit the Frog The last stanza of “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” that she sang with special feeling is : “When green is all there is to be, It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why, Wonder, I am green and I’ll do fine, it’s beautiful And I think it’s what I want to be.” In infinite ways and with countless songs, Lena Horne sang that she was African American and that was what she wanted to be from the beginning of her career at the Cotton Club in Harlem to her last album recorded in 2000. Lena Joins the Cotton Club Chorus When she was sixteen, Lena Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club and evolved into a nightclub performer. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC’s popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The show’s resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months to headline a nightclub revue on the west coast. In Hollywood, she won small parts in several movies. During a 1943 club engagement in Hollywood, talent scouts approached Horne to work in pictures. She chose Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio and became the first black performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio. Her more substantial movies included Panama Hattie, Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. Lena Horne was never featured in a leading role because of her race and films that featured her had to be re-edited for states where theaters could not show films with black performers. When the Red Scare erupted in Hollywood in the 1950s, Lena was blacklisted and could not longer get work in Hollywood. Best Selling Album, “Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria She Didn’t Like to Perform Penthouse Serenade One of the stanzas says: “We’ll view life’s mad pattern, As we view old Manhattan, Then we can thank our lucky stars That we’re living as we are.” Lena said she could never sing this song properly because it wasn’t real to her or her generation of African Americans. Few of them could move into luxury penthouses in Manhattan. Lena Fights for the Civil Rights Movement Recording in the 1990s Again, in 1994. She made her final concert performances at New York’s Supper Club and Carnegie Hall. She also recorded “Embraceable You” on Frank Sinatra’s Duets II album which won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. In 1998, she released another studio album called Being Myself and in 2000 she contributed vocal tracks on Simon Rattle’s Classic Ellington album. Like she sang in her duet with Kermit the Frog, Lena Horne was beautiful and she was what she wanted to be. References •Gavin, James, “Stormy Weather,”: The Life of Lena Horne, Atria, 1st Edition, 2009 AUSTRALIA :
Citic Resources Aims to Triple Oil Output by 2014 (Update1) May 11 (Bloomberg) — Citic Resources Holdings Ltd., the Chinese metals producer turned energy supplier, plans to triple crude oil output by 2014 to benefit from rising prices and tap demand in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. “Output may increase to 3.5 million to 4 million metric tons from just over 1 million tons last year,” Chief Executive Officer Sun Xinguo said in an interview in his office at the company’s headquarters in Hong Kong today. “Oil is a strategic commodity in China and other countries. As a resource company, we are investing in oil.” Chinese energy producers including Cnooc Ltd., the country’s biggest offshore explorer, are stepping up output and overseas acquisitions to benefit from the more than twofold rebound in crude oil prices since February last year. Citic Resources is looking to invest in projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Sun, 59, said, without elaborating. “Crude oil prices will rise over the longer term, say three to four years, as the global economy recovers, and that will benefit oil explorers like Citic Resources who expect substantial increases in output,” Yin Xiaodong, an oil analyst at Beijing-based Citic Securities Co., said by telephone. Much of Citic Resources’s new production will come from the Bohai Basin off the northern coast of China, Sun said. Citic Resources has HK$2.4 billion ($300 million) of cash in hand and plans to spend at least $500 million to develop oil assets in Indonesia, Kazakhstan and China in 2010 and 2011, Sun said today. On March 29, the chief executive had told reporters that $375 million would be spent this year in the three countries, more than doubling from last year. Macarthur Stake The shares have advanced 14 percent in Hong Kong trading in the past 12 months, compared with the 18 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. The stock rose 1.7 percent to HK$1.75 at the midday break. Citic Resources is considering Peabody Energy Corp.’s offer for its stake in Australia’s Macarthur Coal Ltd., Sun said. “We will do what is best for the company and shareholders,” he said. Peabody, the biggest U.S. coal producer, cut its offer for Macarthur to A$3.8 billion ($3.4 billion) on May 9 after studying the energy producer’s finances and the Australian government proposed a tax on resource profits. Citic Resources and its parent Citic Group are the largest shareholders in Macarthur, owning 17 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively, according to Sun. Macarthur is a “good” asset although not one of Citic Group’s largest, according to Sun. Peabody already operates eight mines in Australia’s Queensland and New South Wales states and is seeking more to feed power stations and steel mills in China, the world’s largest user of coal. Japanese steelmakers have agreed to pay 89 percent more for Macarthur’s pulverized coal from April 1, according to UBS AG. –With assistance from Wang Ying in Beijing. Editors: Ryan Woo, Amit Prakash.
Posted by Susan Beck/amlawdaily.typepad.com/May 11, 2010 EUROPE :
IMF’s Reach Spreads to Western Europe . “Only weeks ago, there was serious question of what the role of the IMF would be in the euro zone,” said the IMF’s deputy managing director, John Lipsky. “That role has now been clarified.” The European Union and its euro-zone members said on Sunday that any future bailout would occur only in the “context of joint EU/IMF support,” and would require the IMF to approve a program of “strong conditionality,” according to an agreement by EU finance ministers. That’s IMF lingo for saying that the IMF would have to approve any loan for a troubled EU country and would require that a borrower adopt tough economic policies to get its house in order. The IMF and EU would then jointly police the loan to see that those conditions were being met before more money is disbursed. “This is a template that will be used in the future,” Mr. Lipsky said. A powerful IMF role was a priority of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who lobbied his European counterparts in lengthy phone calls that IMF participation would give a European stabilization plan “credibility,” said a participant. Over the weekend, European ministers agreed to increase what was initially conceived as a €100 billion ($127 billion) contribution by the IMF to €250 billion euros, as the size of the planned European funding increased, too. The Europeans and the U.S. wanted to announce an overall number that was so large it would convince markets there were sufficient funds to handle any problem with European sovereign debt. In the end, the Europeans said they would chip in €500 billion and announced that the IMF would add another €250 billion. In dollars, the total was about $1 trillion. “The $1 trillion number seems to be well-defined eye-catching number to stop a panic,” said former IMF senior official Esward Prasad, who is now a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington. But Mr. Lipsky said that the IMF hadn’t made a €250 billion commitment to European nations—and couldn’t because it only doles out money after individual countries ask for help. No euro-zone nation, other than Greece, has applied for an IMF loan. “We were trying to give an idea of scale without being excessively precise,” he said. He called the €250 billion figure “illustrative.” Over the weekend, Mr. Prasad met with officials from the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations in Toronto who were debating economic policies ahead of a G-20 leaders’ meeting in June. While representatives of the G-20 nations, which include India, China, Brazil and South Africa, were broadly supportive of IMF’s efforts to help Europe—a big export market for developing nations—the scale of the aid is bound to deepen the divisions in the IMF between rich countries and poor, he said. For decades, poor countries have complained that the IMF makes harsh demands of poor countries when they need to borrow, but doesn’t press rich countries hard to change policies that can produce crises. In hallway conversation at the G-20 session, “there was significant concern about whether this was another example of unbalanced treatment between advanced countries and emerging markets,” Mr. Prasad said. More galling to the poor countries, he said, was that the IMF may tap loans made by India, China, Brazil and other developing countries to finance smaller European countries that run into trouble—even though European nations have resisted changes in IMF voting structure that would give big emerging markets a larger say in the IMF. “That issue will come roaring back,” Mr. Prasad said, once the economic situation in Europe settles down. But Mr. Lipsky said such an interpretation was mistaken. Until recently, Germany, France and other euro-zone nations refused to consider loans from the IMF, arguing that the IMF loans were for developing countries, not wealthy European ones. Scrapping that view puts wealthy nations and developing ones on more similar footing, he said. “Perhaps if there is a stigma [to borrowing from the IMF],” said Mr. Lipsky, “it’s a positive stigma of enhancing the reputation” of a country that turns to the IMF for help. Write to Bob Davis at bob.davis@wsj.com
The fishing boat Tai Yuan 227 was hijacked last week about 700 nautical miles (1,300 kilometers) northeast of the Seychelles, the release said Monday. The Seychelles are an archipelago of 115 islands about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) east of Africa. A skiff firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the boat, and a pirate crew climbed aboard the fishing vessel late Thursday, the EU naval release said. The Taipei Rescue Command Centre reported the ship hijacked on Friday. The ship has a crew of 28. All are believed well, the release said. The fishing vessel was last seen heading toward the Somali coast. Hijackings by Somali pirates are a common occurrence off the coast of Africa. Recently the pirates have been ranging farther into the Indian Ocean. CHINA :
Zijin Says Platmin Congo Seeks to Resolve Dispute With Congo May 11 (Bloomberg) — Platmin Congo, the target of a $284 million bid by Zijin Mining Group Co. and the China-Africa Development Fund Ltd., is seeking to resolve the Democratic Republic of Congo’s objections to the offer. “Our merger and acquisition team has contacted Platmin Congo, which is coordinating with the government to resolve the approval issue,” Fan Cheung Man, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Zijin, said by phone today. Zijin and the state-backed partner said May 7 they agreed to jointly acquire Platmin Congo, which holds stakes in two copper-cobalt projects. The transaction is against the law, the chief of staff for the country’s minister of mining said May 9. Zijin fell 1.6 percent to HK$6.07 at the 12:30 p.m. break in Hong Kong. According to an August 2009 decision by the Congolese government, it is prohibited for a partner in a joint mining venture in Congo to change the partnership or transfer shares before the commercial production phase, said Alexis Mikandji Penge, the chief of staff for the mining minister. Congolese Mines Minister Martin Kabwelulu learned about the transaction from a story on the Internet, and wasn’t informed before hand, Dona Kampata, head of the Mines Ministry’s technical committee for planning and coordination, said yesterday. –Xiao Yu. Editors: Tan Hwee Ann, Andrew Hobbs. INDIA :
Bharti Airtel facing challenges on African safari www.shanzai.com/Neo/May 11, 2010 India’s biggest telecom operator is geared up to debut its money-spinning “Minute Factory” in Africa. Bharti Airtel has clicked a deal to buy the Kuwaiti Telecom Zain which has operations in 15 countries of African continent, including 42 million subscribers. The USD 9 billion deal has made Bharti the second largest telecom operator in Africa, joining an elite group of operators that have a presence in over 18 countries and a subscriber base of 179 million. But will the top operator of India be able charm a whole continent, a market which has challenges that are unlike those they have faced on the home front? Bharti, headed by Sunil Mittal, is 64% owned by Bharti Enterprises and 30% by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. It is the largest telecom operator in India and has successful operations in Bangladesh, but only a mere presence in Europe and Sri-Lanka. Bharti is facing a cut throat fight for subscribers in India, with stiff competition from almost a dozen other service providers. Bharti announced an 8% dip in their profits in their last quarterly report; the first profit drop in the last three years. This has prompted Bharti to look for better prospects overseas. With developed economies already saturated with providers, fierce competition in China, and limited options in South America, Africa seemed to be the best pick for Bharti. After failed efforts to collaborate with MTN in Africa, Zain emerged as Bharti’s best bet. Bharti has paid a premium price for Zain—nearly 10 times more than its enterprise value (EV/EBITDA). Bharti paid almost $255 per subscriber leading to a USD 8.3 billion debt for Bharti. After the successful Indian implementation of the Bharti Airtel “Minute Factory”—where subscribers can pre-pay for minutes of talk time—Bharti management is motivated to replicate the system in Africa. Bharti Chairman, Sunil Mittal said, “We are excited at the growth opportunities in Africa, the continent of hope and opportunity.” Mittal is quite optimistic, he added, “We believe that the strength of our brand and the historical Indian connect with Africa coupled with our unique business model will allow us to unlock the potential of these emerging markets.” Bharti’s exploration of the largely under-developed market in Africa is seen as a major step by many. Romal Shetty, national head, Telecommunication Advisory Services, KPMG India said, “With a third of revenues coming from Zain, Africa will become a key market for Bharti helping it diversify its risk across two major telecom markets.” But there are a few skeptics, like HSBC analyst Rajiv Sharma told ET, “Africa will require a lot of focus and India will require a continuous involvement. Nothing is on autopilot,” Bharti has a lot of stumbling blocks to face before running its minute model successfully in Africa. Bharti’s model is based on increasing the usage by decreasing the call rates. This model has worked well in India where customers’ monthly usage is around 446 minutes. But in Africa it’s far less, at just 120 minutes. Bharti will have to compel their new customers to spend more … and this in countries where daily wages can be less than USD 2. There is a huge difference in consumer behavior in India and Africa. While Indians have relished the opportunity to spend more time on their phones due to the decreased call rates, Africans may well respond differently. Girish Trivedi, deputy director, Frost & Sullivan said, “Bharti is not well versed with consumer behaviour in Africa and will take a while to figure that out. Further it does not have experience of integrating a large entity such as Zain.” Added Ambit analyst Amit Ahire, “Historically, the Indian market has shown high elasticity to drops in tariffs. If the African market does not witness similar elasticity … it would be difficult to achieve revenue growth,” Apart from consumer behavior, Bharti has to worry about the governments of the 15 different countries that it will service. Bharti will face cultural, language and regulatory barriers. While Nigeria and Kenya are the strongest markets for Bharti, there are roadblocks like security, staff expenditure and transmission costs. Due to the frequent power cuts in most African countries and theft being a major problem, generally operators have to pay for the fuel to run the generators … measures often need to be taken to ensure the safety of telephone poles as well. The expenditure will be high as the equipment costs are not cheap when compared to revenues that are earned in local currencies. In India, there is an active network of sharing between operators and Bharti outsources equipment from its partners. In the new landscape of African service providers, Bharti will have to make contingencies for political instability, poor infrastructure and different regulations on data sharing in different countries. Back in India, Bharti is battling an increasingly difficult price war, and new players emerging in the market. Bharti is already grappling with a debt of USD 8.3 billion and at the same time they’ll soon have to invest big bucks in the Indian 3G auction. But Sunil Mittal, managing director of Bhatri, is confident, “My history is that I’ve been constantly proving people wrong. I did that in 1995, 2000 and 2005. It’ll be the same in 2010 too”. Africa is one of the biggest markets for shanzhai phones. The decreasing call rates will spur a surge of the purchase of handsets. Can the Bharti boat sail through the tough waters of Africa, or will the money spinning model they used on the Indian subcontinent fail on an African safari? If Bharti succeed in bringing their Minute Factory to Africa, can the shanzhai remain the dominant providers of handsets there, or will branded phones finally start to take notice of the African market … and even if they do, can they win it off the shanzhai? Renault to Double Use of Indian Parts Overseas to Cut Costs May 11 (Bloomberg) — Renault SA plans to more than double shipments of parts from India, cutting costs and boosting ties with suppliers as it reenters Asia’s third-biggest auto market. The carmaker will buy as much as 250 million euros ($320 million) of Indian components for use overseas in 2013, compared with 75 million euros this year, Sudhir Rao, chief operating officer of the company’s Indian unit, said in an interview in Mumbai yesterday. Last year, the carmaker bought 10 million euros’ worth, he said. Nissan Motor Co., Fiat SpA and Ford Motor Co. also plan to use more India-made parts overseas to benefit from costs that Rao said are as much as 15 percent lower. Renault is also preparing to build cars in India on its own after scrapping a venture with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. because of tumbling sales. “You are building relationships with the suppliers which will help in future when your own production starts.” said Deepesh Rathore, a New Delhi-based analyst at IHS Global Insight Inc. “This is very important for any company entering the Indian market.” Renault, France’s second-biggest carmaker, will ship the India-made parts to factories in countries including Romania, Turkey and South Africa, Rao said. Affiliate Nissan will buy $40 million of parts from India in 2012, Kiminobu Tokuyama, head of the Japanese automaker’s local unit, said in March. Nationwide parts exports grew 10-fold in the past decade to an estimated $3.8 billion in the year ended March 2009, according to the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India. India Sales In India, Renault will introduce the Fluence sedan by the middle of next year, followed by the Koleos and three other models by the end of 2013. The Boulogne-Billancourt, France- based carmaker is going it alone after sales of the no-frills Logan made with Mahindra fell amid surging industrywide growth. That history may hinder Renault’s new sales push, said Rathore. “It’s not going to be a cakewalk as the Logan will have a rub-off effect,” he said. “But if they can convince people that this is Renault’s big India plan, then they have a good chance.” Renault aims to sell as many as 60,000 vehicles annually in India by 2013, Rao said. It will compete with Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., which accounts for half of the nation’s auto sales, second-ranked Hyundai Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG. To support it sales goal, Renault is building a factory in Chennai with Nissan and developing its own dealer network. The carmaker intends to have 30 showrooms, predominately in the nation’s seven largest cities, by the beginning of 2012, Rao said. It then plans to add 30 more each year. “We have no illusion about what it takes in this market,” Rao said. “The established players are very strong.” –Editors: Neil Denslow, Ian Rowley. BRASIL:
Africa-Brazil dialogue for green revolution in Africa “Since his coming to office, da Silva has been mobilizing his country to take part in the green revolution to ensure food and energy security for Africa,” said a report made by Standard Bank issued in February. This partnership is strongly perceptible in the agricultural domain where Brazil, because of its world power, intends to transpose its model to Africa and make the continent benefit from its expertise in the exploitation of agricultural resources. In Brazil, agriculture represents seven per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and records an average growth of 16.1 per cent per annum, making the sector record 35 per cent of the country’s exports. Between 2003 and 2006, the overall Brazilian exports to Africa increased from US $2.4 billion to US$7.5 billion, as the African agricultural imports (sugar, milk products, cereals) from the country increased by 3.1 per cent and represented 7.7 per cent of its production. In another development, Brazilian company for agricultural research would have signed with about 20 African countries several training, technical assistance and advice contracts on agriculture, as well as bio-fuels for which Brazil, which is the world’s second power, would have Nigeria, Ghana and Angola as its customers. Dakar – Pana 11/05/2010
By Aude Lagorce, MarketWatch /May 11, 2010 The board of Portugal Telecom /quotes/comstock/13*!pt/quotes/nls/pt (PT 9.59, +1.21, +14.44%) unanimously rejected the offer, arguing that Vivo, on which it’s relied to offset slowing growth and increasing competition at home, is core to its strategy. The Telefonica offer values Vivo at almost 32 times projected 2010 earnings, according to Credit Suisse calculations, and illustrates the rising importance of emerging-market assets to Western telecom operators struggling to find subscriber and revenue growth in their saturated home markets. Portugal Telecom shares were last up 7% in Lisbon. Telefonica shares fell 3.7% in Madrid. Vivo is particularly desirable for Telefonica /quotes/comstock/13*!tef/quotes/nls/tef (TEF 63.67, +6.53, +11.43%) because Europe’s largest telecom company is facing a difficult situation at home, where unemployment is soaring and people are cutting back on their phone bills. Unfortunately for Telefonica, it is far from the only operator interested in gaining control of assets in Brazil, South America’s largest mobile market, where the number of subscribers is forecast to rise 11% this year. France’s Vivendi /quotes/comstock/24s!e:viv (FR:VIV 17.76, -0.38, -2.07%) , which last year bought Brazilian fixed-line operator GVT, and Oi, Brazil’s largest fixed-line player, are also keen to add a mobile operator to their operations. But there are only two on the market: Vivo and Telecom Italia’s /quotes/comstock/23g!tit (IT:TIT 1.06, +0.03, +2.71%) TIM Brazil, suggesting a heated M&A war could be about to break out. In a note to clients published earlier this year, Bernstein analysts predicted exactly such a scenario, saying that “the changing conditions of the Brazilian market, and in particular the rapid deterioration of Telefonica’s Telesp [the firm’s fixed-line subsidiary] may well make for a merry go round of M&A in Brazil this year.” “With more potential bidders than sellers, Brazil looks like a seller’s market right now,” they wrote, and predicted at least two transactions within the next 18 months. The broker estimated that TIM Brazil could attract bids of between €8.5 billion and €9 billion. Telecom Italia may be amenable to a sale at this price because it would allow it to reduce its net debt and invest in its home market. The logic for purchasing TIM Brazil is strongest for Oi and then Vivendi, Bernstein said, though it noted that Vivendi has deeper pockets. The heating up of M&A in Brazil comes as consolidation accelerates in other telecoms emerging markets. Earlier this year India’s Bharti Airtel paid $10.7 billion to buy the African assets of Zain, a Middle East-based operator. Meanwhile Egyptian mobile operator Orascom said last month that it is in talks to be acquired by South Africa’s MTN /quotes/comstock/!mtn (ZA:MTN 10,400, +140.00, +1.36%) . Telefonica reports first-quarter results on Thursday. Brazilian Zero Hunger program should be exported to Africa: FAO Director May 11, 2010/ english.people.com.cn The Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf praised on Monday Brazil’s Zero Hunger program and said it should be exported to the African countries to ensure food safety and quality of life for people living there. According to Diouf, who participated in the “Brazil-Africa Dialogue on Food Security, Fight against Hunger and Rural Development”, in Brasilia, FAO would guarantee the necessary financing and technology to put the project into practice. “The intention to execute versions of Zero Hunger program is important because bringing forth the experience and technology of this program will make the projects on food security advance,” Diouf said. Throughout Monday, a series of meetings were held at the Itamaraty Palace, seat of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, with the participation of ministers and experts from the African countries. They discussed proposals for the promotion of agriculture, food security and rural development to expand areas of cooperation between Brazil and these countries. Fifty projects related to food security are operated by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency in 18 African countries, which in recent years received about 60 percent of resources for international cooperation. According to Diouf, about 20 million people have benefitted from the Brazilian and international projects taking place in Africa. Earlier on Monday morning, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was awarded “Champion in the Battle Against Hunger” granted by the United Nations World Food Program. Source:Xinhua
EN BREF, CE 11 mai 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,11/05/2010 |
BURUNDI – AFRICA / INTERNATIONAL : 11 MAI 2010 [Zijin Says Platmin Congo Seeks to Resolve Dispute With Congo]
