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BURUNDI :
RWANDA
Government Has no Evidence Against Me, Says Rwanda Opposition Leader The leader of Rwanda’s opposition United Democratic Forces (UDF) says President Paul Kagame’s government is determined to prevent her from participating in the upcoming election scheduled for August 9th. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who was released Thursday after being accused of collaborating with a terrorist group and denying Rwanda’s genocide said she is currently under house arrest. “I am glad that I am home but you know that I am free but on condition. I don’t have my passport, they took it and I don’t have to go out of Kigali. And of course I have two times in a month I have to go and report to the police,” she said. Ingabire was arrested Wednesday after she was accused of genocide denial and having strong ties to the mainly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group operating in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. President Kagame’s government has often accused the FDLR of playing a part in the country’s 1994 genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were killed in a 100-day massacre. Ingabire said her life is currently not in danger despite her arrest. “I don’t think so. The only problem is that I don’t have any freedom; I cannot go where I want, I cannot do what I want and that is something my lawyer will take a look at. We can ask that I can keep my freedom,” Ingabire said. She denied the allegations against her, saying the government has so far failed to provide evidence linking her to the charges. “Nothing has changed. First the prosecutor said they don’t have any evidence against me, but that they need more time to check where they can find evidence. I talked to him and for two months they have been investigating if you didn’t find anything what do you want? It is clear that it is the political process not criminal because you are forcing to get evidence,” she said. Ingabire said she is being politically intimidated despite the lack of evidence to support the charges against her. She was recently prevented from travelling abroad after police said she was under investigation because of comments she made about the 1994 genocide. Shortly after returning to Rwanda, Ingabire called for the prosecution of those responsible for the death of Hutus during the genocide. But a group of genocide survivors called on the government to prosecute the opposition leader, saying her pronouncement belittled the genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were killed. Ingabire said she is being targeted for having a different opinion about the genocide. “There is one truth in Rwanda. There was genocide against Tutsis but there were also humanity crimes against Hutus and we have to accept that and we have to find a solution to that…what I’m asking is a dialogue that we can talk about it and to see what we can do to prevent future violence,” Ingabire said. UGANDA
Millions spent on malaria but problems remain www.usatoday.com/2010-04-23 MEDICINENET: What is malaria? If the bednets are indeed getting to people at risk, that number puts some countries on target to reach a U.N. goal of providing a bednet to all 350 million people at risk of malaria by the end of this year, officials said. But other experts said the figures are an artificial symbol of success against the disease. “These are meaningless input measures that tell us only (the UN) is effective at spending other people’s money,” said Philip Stevens, a health-policy expert at the London think tank International Policy Network. Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, an Africa and US-based advocacy group, said measuring malaria spending and the numbers of drugs bought did not always mean more Africans had access to them. Tren said he had once been in Uganda when the central warehouse had plenty of malaria drugs but clinics throughout the country had none. “They had no trucks to deliver anything,” he said. There are few data to prove people are actually sleeping under these bednets. According to UNICEF and partners, the percentage of children sleeping under bednets ranges from 4% in Cameroon, Swaziland and Guinea to 62% in Zambia. In some countries like Tanzania and Malawi, more bednets go to the rich than the poor, though the poor are most at risk from the potentially fatal disease. There is also little evidence sick kids are getting the drugs. “The proportion of African children receiving (a malaria medicine) is still very low,” the report said. According to its most recent figures from 2008, the World Health Organization estimated there were about 250 million malaria cases including 850,000 deaths. Africa accounts for 90% of the world’s cases. Before 2008, WHO guessed there were nearly 500 million malaria cases and 1 million deaths. The agency doesn’t issue yearly figures but estimates based on household surveys and national statistics so there is little concrete proof to show what difference programs are making. Tren said U.N. policies have skewed toward bednets and that it should focus on other proven tools like pesticides. But convincing donors to pay for pesticide spraying is a harder sell than bednets, especially with strong lobbying from environmentalists calling for reduced pesticide use. The U.N. insisted its initiatives are saving lives and more money is needed. “We cannot afford to relax our efforts,” said Coll Seck, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, in a statement. The U.N. said based on mathematical modeling, more than 10 million children were saved from malaria thanks to bednets. Tren agreed some progress was being made in countries like Rwanda and Ethiopia, but said countries needed to take responsibility themselves and that the U.N. shouldn’t shy away from criticizing countries when problems like corruption compromised aid efforts. In Uganda, for example, three top officials in charge of the malaria program were recently arrested for stealing drugs and embezzlement. “(The U.N.) spends too much time telling the good news and not the bad news,” Tren said. “If we aren’t upfront about the problems we’re having now, there will be much bigger problems down the line.” Invisible Children holds Displace Me Mizzou It also hosted a concert, a bake sale and documentary screening. By Jessi Turnure / www.themaneater.com/Published April 23, 2010 “This is the first ever Displace Me Mizzou that we have had,” Invisible Children Co-President Brandon Schatsiek said. “We got the idea last year and have been working on it since. People who usually wouldn’t come to an Invisible Children event came because it was out in the open for everyone to see.” Participants who camped out under the stars wrote letters to Invisible Children’s representatives and had an Easter egg hunt along with other activities as they raised awareness about Joseph Kony’s army and the 23-year war in Uganda. “It’s really great that MU has this organization on campus because the war needs to be stopped and most people don’t really know about it,” freshman Chelsea Ives said. Schatsiek said the main idea for the campout came from other Invisible Children organizations that have held similar events. One campout in particular involved more than 20 members in front of Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn’s home for 11 days. Their efforts convinced Coburn to release his hold on the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act 2009, which, if passed, will disarm Kony’s army and begin reconstruction in Uganda and its surrounding areas. “No president of the United States has recognized this 23-year-old war and we want President Obama to acknowledge it,” Schatsiek said. According to the Invisible Children website, the non-profit organization began in 2003 when three young filmmakers traveled to Africa and discovered a tragedy they could not ignore. Its documentary, “Invisible Children: Rough Cut” exposes the war in Uganda and the thousands of child soldiers who are forced to fight for the rebels. It has now been seen by millions of people. A group of MU students established the Invisible Children chapter in the fall of 2008. “Its something that I’ve felt very connected with,” founder Becky Dale said. “Ever since I heard about it in 2005, all I’ve ever wanted to do is tell others about it. The numbers of people that have come out have increased and a lot more people around campus have heard about us.” A documentary and Q-and-A session preceded the campout and four Roadies from Invisible Children and two young Ugandan survivors, Geoffrey Okot and Papito, presented it. “It shows how lucky we are here in the U.S,” freshman Erin Dismeier said. “We are free to have a childhood where as the children in Africa were pushed into adulthood way before their time.” Other activities throughout the day included a bake sale on Lowry Mall, a concert, featuring The Tyler Fillmore Band, Downbeat & The Black Sheep and other local bands. “There are lots of worthy causes out there but if you step back and look at 13 to 15 year olds killing and raping people, sometimes even family members, this should not be happening,” Schatsiek said. “I don’t think anyone can say that they do not support an organization to stop this. It’s a worthy cause to all and shows that you can’t underestimate the power of a small group of people.” TANZANIA:
World Bank Arm to Lend $10 Million to China-Tanzania Venture April 23 (Bloomberg) — The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation will lend $10 million to a joint venture between China Railway Jianchang Engineering Co. and a Tanzanian non-governmental organization. The money will be used to build a commercial complex in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, the IFC, a private investment arm of the World Bank, said in a statement. It said it will try to get other institutions to provide an additional $6.25 million for the project. The Financial Times reported the news earlier. –Editors: Lily Nonomiya, Russell Ward %JPY Doug Pitt Owns Title of Goodwill Ambassador to Tanzania, Brother Brad Pitt Owns Major Flavor Saver Who knew that Brad Pitt’s baby bro was quite successful in his own right? Doug Pitt, the less chiseled version of Brad, is a highly successful photojournalist and humanitarian. Doug was recently named the Goodwill Ambassador to the United Republic of Tanzania by the country’s president, Jakaya Kikwete. While Brother Brad may snag most of the high-profile headlines in the tabloids, Doug deserves some street cred of his own. It turns out in addition to his photojournalism background, Doug is the director of Africa 6000 International, an organization that works to bring clean, safe water supplies to Africa. With over 6000 premature deaths of children in Africa on a daily basis caused by contaminated water, Doug’s charity drills water wells that provide healthy drinking water for the African community. Brad wasn’t able to travel to attend the ceremony in Doug’s honor due to volcanic ash clouding the skies, but rumor has is that he did in fact attempt to smuggle an African baby out of the country by concealing it with his lengthy facial hair. CONGO RDC :
Let’s stay out of the Congo Fri Apr 23 2010/www.thestar.com It would be a mistake for Canadian soldiers to be sent into the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC has emerged from a history of violent intervention by foreign countries, and has been plagued by government corruption, leading to an economic crisis in 1996 that gave way to years of war. Its people are some of the poorest in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund. The DRC’s economy showed indications of improvement only after foreign troops left the country, and the high death toll is currently blamed on widespread disease and famine. Canada should save its soldiers and military resources, and instead earmark assistance for economic development and universal health and education for this impoverished nation. David Fox, Toronto Say No To Canadian Troops For The Congo by Bodia Macharia /www.globalresearch.ca/April 23, 2010 Global Research, April 22, 2010 As Canada’s Governor-General Michaelle Jean visits the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), much speculation abounds regarding the new-found attention being paid to the DRC by the Canadian government. It appears that Canadian General Andrew Leslie is primed to head the 20,000 strong United Nations Mission in the Congo. There is speculation that the anticipated Canadian troops withdrawal from Afghanistan may result in Canadian troops presence in Congo. Canadian troops should stay home. The DRC does not need more militarization, it needs justice. Canada can help to advance justice, peace and stability in the Congo without sending a single soldier. Should the Canadian government and people in general do the following, it would go further to advance peace and stability in the Congo more than any number of Canadian troops: 1. Call on the United States and England in particular as well as other nations throughout the globe to make Congo a top diplomatic priority. 2. Call on the United States and England to pressure their allies Rwanda and Uganda to cease the destabilization of the Congo, open political space in their own countries and engage in sincere and earnest dialogue with their countrymen who are wreaking havoc in the Congo. 3. Canada should also leverage its position with Rwanda to open political space inside Rwanda and engage in dialogue with Rwandan rebel groups inside Congo. 4. Canada should call on its corporations and those raising capital on the Toronto Stock Exchange (an estimated half the mining capital in the world is raised on the Toronto Stock Exchange) to cease their exploitation of Congo’s riches. Companies such as Banro, First Quantum, Anvil Mining, Barrick Gold via its partner Anglo-Gold Ashanti and others have or continue to benefit at the expense of the Congolese people. A good start would be for the Parliament to pass Bill C-300. In addition, assure that the Canadian Investment Fund for Africa is used for its original purpose – African companies, not Canadian companies that have ready access to capital markets. 5. Provide support to local institutions as opposed to authoritarian regimes (Rwanda and Uganda for example) that oppress their populations with the support of Canadian tax dollars. Remember to join Friends of Congo on the Break the Silence Tour as we make over 30 stops during the month of April.Click here to see where you can join us on the tour! Bodia Macharia is the President of Friends of Congo, University of Toronto KENYA :
Kenyan Embassy Mocks Tea Party Movement Kenyan Embassy Mocks Tea Party Movement – The Kenyan Embassy made an unexpected move and decided to promote one of its largest exports as well as mock the tea party movement. The Talking Points Memo declared that the Kenyan Embassy sent out masses of invitations to lots of tea party gatherers. The event is expected to take place next week and the invite prompted the attendants to come and find out “what a real tea party is like.” The celebration is going to take place at the U.S. Capitol and it will have tea tasting areas, food pairings as well as tea leaf readings. All of the details have been gathered from their invitation that were sent out. The Kenyan deputy prime minister is expected to be attending the event as well. Tea is one of the biggest exports that Kenya grows and the country is the world’s top exporters of tea. You can find reference of tea on Kenya’s coat of arms showing that it is a prided accomplishment for their country. The embassy’s tea party is taking place just one week after Tax Day. There were dozens of tea party protesters that gathered in Washington D.C. There has been a report at CBS and the New York Times where they took a poll that discovered that many of the tea partiers are also those who doubt that president Obama was born in the United States. Close to 30% of the tea partiers and 20% throughout the United States say they think Obama was not born inside the states. Despite the long list of evidence that say he was born in Hawaii, some still believe otherwise. They think he shouldn’t be allowed to be president without critical evidence of where he was born. Some believe he was born in Kenya which was where his father was from. 9 die in Kenyan highway mishap The bus was headed to Nairobi from Busia when the accident occurred at 5am, police said. “Eight people were killed on the spot while another one died on the way to hospital. Many other passengers sustained injuries and are admitted to hospital,” Rift Valley Provincial Police Commander Francis Munyambu said. Mr Munyambu told Capital News the exact cause of the accident had not been established “but there is a likelihood the bus was overtaking when the collision occurred.” “The injured passengers were taken to hospitals in Nakuru and Naivasha,” Mr Munyambu told Capital News when reached on telephone. He did not give details of the identities of the victims who perished in the dawn accident ‘because their next of kin were yet to be informed.’ Police said the accident occurred at a place considered a black spot for motorists due to the high number of accidents that have occurred there. At least two or three accidents occur on the Mai Mahiu-Naivasha stretch weekly, with many more occurring on the Narok-Mai Mahiu road, according to statistics available at the Traffic Headquarters in Nairobi. The statistics further show that 10 to 15 people are killed in road accidents which occur in various parts of the country every week. ANGOLA :
Lufthansa resumes flights to Angola SOUTH AFRICA:
AngloGold, Pick n Pay and Wesizwe: South African Equity Preview April 23 (Bloomberg) — The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in South Africa. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names and prices are from the last close. South Africa’s FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index fell 116.44, or 0.4 percent, to 28,822.34. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG SJ): Africa’s largest gold miner said it closed a section of its TauTona mine in South Africa after a worker was killed in an accident. Shares in the company rose 50 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 289 rand. Aspen Pharmacare Ltd. (APN SJ): The pharmaceutical company was raised to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ at Citigroup. The company fell 80 cents, or 1 percent, to 80.75 rand. ConvergeNet Holdings Ltd. (CVN SJ): The company said first- half profit dropped to 19.5 million rand ($2.6 million) from 37.8 million rand a year earlier. ConvergeNet was unchanged at 30 cents. DRDGold Ltd. (DRD SJ): The gold miner said net income for the three months through March increased to 9.9 million rand from 5.4 million rand the previous quarter. Shares in the company rose 9 cents, or 2.4 percent, to 3.90 rand. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI SJ): South Africa’s gold mining industry, the world’s fourth-largest, must consolidate and embrace new working methods to stem a decline in output, which has dropped by half in the past decade, Gold Fields said. Shares in the company, Africa’s second-largest producer of the precious metal, climbed 1 rand, or 1.1 percent, to 95.50 rand. Pick n Pay Stores Ltd. (PWK SJ): South Africa’s second- largest food retailer was cut to ‘sell’ from ‘hold’ by Citigroup. Shares in the company fell 74 cents, or 4 percent, to 17.56 rand. Wesizwe Platinum Ltd. (WEZ SJ): The mining company said the conditions of its proposed acquisition of a 37 percent stake in the Western Bushveld joint-venture have been met. Wesizwe fell 8 cents, or 3.5 percent, to 2.20 rand. Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows: Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) rose 0.8 percent to $21.95. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) rose 0.6 percent to $39. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) gained 0.02 percent to $66.02. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) was unchanged at $5.25. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) increased 1 percent to $12.90. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) fell 0.5 percent to $9.30. Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPUY US) slipped 3.5 percent to $27.90. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) fell 0.2 percent to $4.24. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) gained 0.4 percent to $40.54. –Editors: Alastair Reed, Paul Richardson. AFRICA / AU :
Sources: Man Added To No-Fly List In Air On Wednesday night, Delta Airlines Flight 215 departed from Abuja, Nigeria, stopping later in Dakar, Senegal, before heading for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, according to Delta’s website. The plane made an unplanned stop in Puerto Rico. Delta’s website said the plane was “diverted,” but a statement from Customs and Border Protection called it a “routine refueling stop.” “The plane did not have enough gas to make it to New York because the winds,” one of the passengers on the plane, Joan Mower, told Fox News. “It was a small plane, and it was strong winds. … We couldn’t make it direct from Dakar to New York.” After the refueling, there was a “big sort of kerfuffle,” said Mower, who works for Voice of America and was on her way home from a week-long business trip in Nigeria. CBP officers boarded the plane and removed what the CBP statement called a “potential person of interest.” “Then the pilot came on and said, ‘We’ve been delayed some more, because there was someone who got on the plane, and we were just told they added him to the no-fly list after he was on the plane,'” Mower said. In fact, Mower said, the pilot described it as “a serious security risk.” Mower was unable to see the man who was taken off the plane, she said. “The question for Homeland Security, I think, is ‘Why was the guy allowed to get on the plane in [Africa], and then added to the no-fly list while the plane was in the air?,'” she said. Two sources confirmed to Fox News that the man in question, a citizen of Gambia, had been added to the no-fly list while Flight 215 was in the air. The man had already been on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, which is comprised of more than 500,000 people with even limited ties to known terrorists, one source said. “But there’s a low threshold to get on TIDE,” one source said. In addition, one source said, in the aftermath of the attempted Christmas Day bombing, being added to the no-fly list is sometimes a precaution, rather than an indication of a present threat. “They’re putting more people on [there] if they have any sort of connection to anyone they deem might be a threat,” the source said. “Until [authorities] run the leads and determine [he] is not a jihadi, he could be on the list.” In fact, both sources said, this could be a situation where someone knowingly relayed false, but negative, information about the man. In this case, the FBI received a tip from someone shortly before Flight 215 left for the United States, according to one source. “Someone suggested that this was a bad guy … and could potentially be involved in some kind of security incident,” one source said. “What choice does that leave?” As of Thursday evening, the man was still in the custody of CBP. Authorities had yet to find anything to corroborate the claim that he posed a threat, but the investigation is ongoing. US Africa Experts Encourage African Union to Do More Despite Money Shortages As a top African Union delegation wraps up several days of high-level government and business meetings in Washington, Africa experts in the United States say the pan-African body has made great strides in its principles, but still lacks resources to bring meaningful change. A former U.S. ambassador in Africa, David Shinn, says the African Union has done a much better job in recent years in condemning coups. “The African Union has made enormous strides in being more critical of governments that come to power illegally in Africa,” said David Shinn. “They have spoken out in the case of Togo, Mauritania, Madagascar, recently in Niger and probably several that I am not thinking of at the moment and I give them great credit for that because 15 years ago they would not have done that.” The 53-member African Union was formed as a successor to the Organization of African Unity in 2002. Boston University African Studies Center Director Timothy Longman says the body is definitely making progress in its new incarnation, but that it needs to go further, and also harshly condemn human rights abuses and botched elections. “It is a relatively new organization,” said Timothy Longman. “I think it is still learning how to be more effective and I would challenge the African Union really to be willing to take a strong stand, to stand for human rights and democracy, because from my perspective that is the future of Africa.” One area the pan-African body has paid close attention to is trying to help end conflicts on the continent, by sending high-level mediation teams, which Mark Davidheiser, who specializes in peace in African studies, applauds. “The mediation of elders initiative involving people like Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and other such venerable leaders and elders from former presidents and prime ministers and so forth, those sorts of things are quite promising, however I think there is still quite a ways to go,” said Mark Davidheiser. The African Union also recently sent peacekeepers to conflict zones like Sudan, Somalia and the Comoros Islands, but with many challenges, according to former Ambassador Shinn. “They have not been completely successful in any of those locations, because they do not have the resources to fund those kinds of efforts and the AU is simply at this point not financially in a position to conduct a very expensive peacekeeping operation,” he said. The director of the Africa Security Research Project Daniel Volman says the U.S. government is trying to help with new ideas to help stop Africa’s conflicts more effectively. He says emergency security teams could also help with natural disasters or major accidents. “The U.S. is very deeply involved in efforts to develop the stand-by brigades that the African Union is trying to develop in the different regions of Africa to respond to all kinds of crises and emergencies in those regions,” said Daniel Volman. “But first of all the AU headquarters has virtually no personnel. The people who are supposed to be responsible for organizing and directing that effort, there is literally only a handful of them.” On this issue, like on all others, the experts said the African Union has so little money and equipment, that beyond statements, ineffective peacekeepers, and volunteer mediators, it has very little to offer for the time being. In a statement promoting this week’s meetings, the State Department said the United States is the largest financial supporter of the African Union’s peace and security programs, and that it believes the pan-African body is essential to defending principles of democracy and governance. Punish Captured Pirates Severely We suppose it is only a matter of time until “human rights” groups decide the United States is mistreating pirates. As experience with Islamic terrorists demonstrates, foreigners who organize to commit crimes against Americans often benefit from too much concern for their welfare. U.S. officials announced this week that five men suspected of piracy off the coast of Africa will be brought to Norfolk, Va., to stand trial. They are coming here because the government of Kenya, where most pirate suspects are tried, is pleading that its courts are overwhelmed. The five pirates headed for Virginia were captured March 31 when their vessel tangled with a U.S. Navy frigate. Several other pirate suspects have been captured by U.S. forces and may be brought to this country for trial. No doubt they will play the hardship card, as have pirates captured during the past few years in Africa. The country from which most come, Somalia, indeed is a poverty-stricken place – but that is no excuse for the pirates’ lives of violent crime. If convicted of piracy – a serious offense under international law – the suspects should be sentenced to long terms in U.S. prisons, far from home and their freebooter companions. Harsh punishment half a world away from their homes may serve as a deterrent to other would-be pirates. For years the pirates were allowed to operate virtually unchallenged. Unless the United States and other countries whose ships have been attacked begin apprehending the pirates and punishing them severely, the threat will not be eliminated. UNICEF, the UN agency devoted exclusively to the needs of the world’s children, said yesterday that 16 countries in West and Central Africa were experiencing a measles outbreak this year. Unicef said 185 people have died among more than 22000 cases. The agency said it was R119million short in its measles immunisation campaign in Africa. Developing countries urge against protectionism WASHINGTON — A group of developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America is urging rich countries to avoid protectionism and trade restrictions that they say could hurt global growth and stability. Ministers from the Group of 24 also called Thursday for changes to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to be a priority this year. The ministers are meeting on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. They are calling for more power for emerging and developing countries. They want the heads of the IMF and World Bank to be chosen without regard to nationality. Traditionally, Europe picks the IMF chief, while the United States chooses the head of the World Bank. U.S., AU conclude first bilateral meeting April 23, 2010/ english.peopledaily.com.cn/Source:Xinhua The U.S. and African Union (AU) have concluded their first full-scale bilateral meeting which is held on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, U.S. State Department said on Thursday. The State Department said in a statement that the meeting is expected to take place on an annul basis, rotating between Washington D.C. and the 53-member AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This first round of talks covered a full range of issues, including improving health conditions in Africa, enabling the African continent to feed itself, strengthening peace and security, enhancing African peacekeeping capabilities and so on, according to the statement. The U.S. has recently launched a series of bilateral dialogues with a number of countries, including Pakistan and South Africa. UN /ONU :
On April 23, 1990, the African country of Namibia became the 160th member of the United Nations. After 75 years of South African rule, the tiny nation of Namibia, Africa’s last colony, received its independence on March 21, 1990. Today, after 20 years of freedom, peace and a stable democracy, Namibia remains one of the great UN success stories, with implications for potential UN peacekeeping roles today. Unfortunately, success did not come overnight, but through patient and persistent efforts on the part of the UN to persuade South Africa to fulfill its colonial mandate in the territory. Instead of following a League of Nations mandate to transition Namibia toward independence, all actions of the South African government were designed to consolidate its control and to destroy the national unity and territorial integrity of Namibia, apparently with plans of annexing the land. Known as South West Africa until 1966, the problem of South West Africa/Namibia was a concern of the United Nations since the early days of the organization. All efforts of the United Nations to bring Namibia into the 20th century under the UN Charter principle of “equal rights and self determination of peoples” were rejected by South Africa. Claiming all their legal obligations ended with the collapse of the League of Nations in 1945, South Africa refused to recognize the authority of the United Nations. As the years dragged on, the UN Security Council adopted numerous resolutions for Namibia, formed committees and carried out negotiations without success. However, the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 435 in September 1978 appeared to signal a breakthrough in Namibia’s struggle for freedom. UN 435 provided the framework for Namibian independence by declaring the South African occupation illegal and calling for the creation of a United Nations Transitional Assistance Group, or UNTAG, to ensure “fair and free elections under the supervision and control of the United Nations.” While it would take another 10 years to overcome delays, eventually South Africa did agree in late 1988 to the implementation of UN 435. Namibia’s yearlong transition to independence would begin in April 1989. The United Nations carried out its responsibility to monitor Namibia’s yearlong transition to independence through the presence of UNTAG. Consisting of people of 124 nationalities, UNTAG included almost 8,000 troops, and a civilian support and local staff of almost 2,000. One thousand five hundred UNTAG police officers ensured a smooth electoral process and monitored the ceasefire between the South West Africa People’s Organization and South African forces, and the withdrawal and demobilization of all military forces in Namibia. The civilian police division was responsible for overseeing the conduct of the local police forces in Namibia and the prevention of intimidation from any side. UNTAG’s most critical task was establishing a ceasefire and monitoring the withdrawal of Namibian freedom fighters, SWAPO, to their bases in Angola, and ensuring that South African troops were confined to the bases in Namibia and eventual withdrawal from the country. It is important to acknowledge that a great deal of UNTAG’s success was made possible by the support and assistance of the Namibian churches. With almost 80 percent of Namibia’s 1.2 million people members of a Christian church (60 percent Lutheran), the churches helped build trust by endorsing the UN role and providing the UN with infrastructure, buildings and other vital assistance. Recognizing people’s strong support of their churches, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees wisely chose to work closely with the Namibian Council of Churches Repatriation, Resettlement and Reconstruction Committee . Working together, the high commission and CCN/RRR made it possible for the safe and peaceful repatriation of 41,000 Namibian refugees. Ultimately, the measure of UN success is found in elections held in November 1989, when 97 percent of registered voters turned out to cast their ballots. Through fair and free elections, the South West Africa’s Peoples Organization, SWAPO, won 57 percent of the vote but failed to obtain the two-thirds margin it sought. Thus, instead of writing its own constitution, SWAPO worked with the 72-member assembly that drafted what arguably may be the most democratic constitution in all of Africa. This UN success story is just one example of how longstanding conflicts can be resolved when the United Nations is allowed to be more than a spectator. The process of involving UN peacekeepers does work. Now is the time to work toward increasing the role of the United Nations in current conflicts in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine. The Rev. Kent Johnson, who is also a certified public accountant, served as the senior accountant for the Council of Churches in Namibia Repatriation, Resettlement and Reconstruction Committee from 1989 to 1990. Johnson is a member of the United Nations Association – La Crosse Contact Group.
The internationally respected South African jurist who wrote a U.N. report on Israel-Palestinian clashes won’t be attending an important Jewish rite of passage for his grandson, but did not confirm reports he was put off by possible protests by Jews angered by conclusions he drew about Israel. All Richard Goldstone would say Saturday was that after discussions with a South African Jewish group that has sharply criticized his findings that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza in 2009, he decided not to attend the bar mitzvah. “In the interests of my grandson I will not be attending the bar mitzvah ceremony,” the retired member of South Africa’s highest court said in an e-mail to The Associated Press Saturday. “At this time I am not prepared to say more than that after consultation with the rabbi and leaders of the congregation at the Sandton Synagogue, to which the South African Zionist Federation was a party,” he said. The Zionist Federation has called Goldstone’s U.N. report “flawed and biased.” The group’s chairman, Avrom Krengel, told the AP he could not comment on the bar mitzvah until after the affair under an agreement with the Goldstone family. Neither he nor Goldstone would say when the bar mitzvah, a milestone heavy with religious, cultural and family meaning at which 13-year-olds traditionally come of age, was scheduled. “It is a day of celebration and we don’t want to detract from it,” Krengel said. Harelle Isaacs, office manager at the synagogue, told The AP, “As far as we’re concerned, Judge Goldstone is welcome on our premises. No one has asked him not to come. “We actually don’t know where that’s coming from,” Isaacs said. Talk of protests has roiled on blogs. In a statement Friday, South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies said it was concerned the bar mitzvah “would turn into a divisive issue within the Jewish community.” In what could be taken as a veiled rebuke at any planned protest, the board called for tolerance, and said the exercise of the right to free speech must take “into account, with due sensitivity and understanding, the feelings of others.” Goldstone is a respected figure in South Africa. In addition to serving on the country’s Constitutional Court, Goldstone once chaired a South African commission of inquiry into apartheid-era political violence, and was a prosecutor for the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He currently holds a visiting post at Georgetown University in Washington. But he has faced heavy criticism at home and abroad for his Gaza report. Some of the criticism from fellow Jews has been especially pointed, but other Jews have supported him. The United States said the report did not fully deal with the role of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the conflict. It also objected to a recommendation that Israeli actions be referred to the International Criminal Court, saying such moves could damage efforts to restart peace talks. Goldstone has expressed disappointment at the criticism and rejected any suggestion politics played a role in the findings in his 575-page report. “We believe deeply in the rule of law, humanitarian law, human rights and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm,” Goldstone told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva last year. The council commissioned the report. USA :
US detains ‘no-fly’ passenger in Puerto Rico SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — U.S. federal agents detained a passenger Thursday on a New York-bound jet from West Africa, with the jet’s captain telling passengers the man was on a ‘no-fly’ list and ineligible for international travel for undisclosed security reasons. Customs and Border Protection agents detained the man while the Delta Air Lines jet stopped to refuel in San Juan, Puerto Rico after an overnight trip from Dakar, Senegal. The flight originated in Nigeria, the native country of a man accused of boarding a Detroit-bound airplane from Amsterdam in December with a bomb hidden in his underwear. It was unclear if the man detained in Puerto Rico boarded the plane in Nigeria or Senegal, and his name and nationality were not disclosed. He was not immediately charged with any crime and Customs and Border Protection issued a statement identifying him only as “potential person of interest,” who was removed from the flight for questioning. Agency officials declined to provide further details. But passengers told The Associated Press that the captain announced over the intercom that a passenger had been identified as being on a no-fly list while the jet was over the Atlantic. He made the announcement shortly after a U.S. agent escorted the man in a T-shirt and jeans off the plane. The captain described the passenger as a “serious security risk,” said Joan Mower, a passenger from Washington. The flight continued on to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport afterward. “The good news is nothing happened, we’re all safe,” Mower said. “The question is how did a guy who is on the no-fly list get on a Delta Air Lines plane headed for New York without Delta knowing it?” “He told us all of this and he was clearly not happy about it,” Mower said. Passenger Nbaye Beye said the man, who appeared to be in his late 20s, appeared nervous when approached by a U.S. agent but got off the plane quietly. “The other passengers were nervous but everyone was sitting calm and cool,” passenger Hassane Diallo told Associated Press Television News. Delta vetted all passengers as required, checking to see if any are on a no-fly list, when the plane took off from Dakar, Senegal, said spokeswoman Susan Elliott. U.S. authorities declined to say why the man was determined to be a security risk. Flight 215 had taken off from Abuja, Nigeria on late Wednesday and stopped in Dakar, Senegal early Thursday before heading to New York. Delta said the diversion to Puerto Rico was to refuel. Elliott said such a diversion is not unusual for a full flight that runs into trans-Atlantic headwinds and was not related to the detention of the passenger. Gerald Britt: Don’t overlook passing of civil rights icons America just lost two icons of the civil rights movement in the space of five days: Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks and Dorothy Height. Their vast accomplishments and public service, however, make it almost unfair to confine appreciation to their roles within the struggle for racial equality. They both led significant national organizations, they both received Presidential Medals of Freedom, and both are among America’s most inspirational figures of the 20th century. Hooks led the NAACP for 15 years. Height was the venerated president of the National Council of Negro Women for four decades. But that’s only a small part of their stories. Hooks’ ambition to become a lawyer appeared checked by the fact that no law school in the segregated South would admit him. Undeterred, he enrolled at DePaul College of Law in Chicago. He became an accomplished attorney, the first criminal court judge in Tennessee, a businessman, an ordained Baptist minister and, over 50 years, he served both Middle Baptist Church in Memphis and Greater New Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Detroit. Hooks was also a university professor and the first African-American to serve on the Federal Communications Commission. In 1976, Hooks became executive director of the NAACP, restoring its membership, its finances and its prestige as the premier civil rights organization in this country. Height, a Virginia native, began leading even as a youth, from her early days as a staffer with the YMCA. She was a protégé of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder and president of Bethune College (now Bethune-Cookman College). In spite of the inveterate chauvinism that tended to characterize even the civil rights movement, Height was at the highest echelon of strategists recognized as movement leaders, ranking with Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney M. Young, Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph and John Lewis. She also was among the architects of the 1963 March on Washington. Lewis said, “At every major effort for social progressive change, Dorothy Height has been there.” As president of the National Council of Negro Women, Height organized and sponsored programs emphasizing self-help and self-reliance, including nutrition, child care, housing and career counseling. In 1985, she helped create and organize the Black Family Reunion Celebration, an event honoring the traditions, strength and history of African-American families. Height also was a staunch supporter of the feminist movement, helping black women see that their empowerment as women was not antithetical to their struggle for freedom as African-Americans. Washington, D.C., congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said, “Dorothy Height deserves credit for helping black women understand that you had to be feminist at the same time you were African.” Both Hooks and Height spent their lives struggling to challenge America to be true to the promises of democracy and challenging African-Americans to take full advantages of the opportunities at their disposal: Hooks said: “I’m calling for a moratorium on excuses. I challenge black America today – all of us – to set aside our alibis.” Height said, “If we [black people] do not speak up for our families and for our values, no one else is going to do it for us.” These two individuals leave stellar records of personal achievement, commitments to public service, patriotism and faith to inspire every American. Their perseverance speaks to the fortitude necessary to succeed against impossible odds. They are worthy of the celebration of their lives and the continuation of their work. They are Americans of whom we all should be proud. The Rev. Gerald Britt Jr. is vice president for public policy at Central Dallas Ministries. His e-mail address is gbritt@centraldallasministries.org, and he blogs at changethewind.org. AngloGold and Pick n Pay: South Africa Equity Preview (Correct) April 23 (Bloomberg) — The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in South Africa. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names and prices are from the last close. South Africa’s FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index fell 116.44, or 0.4 percent, to 28,822.34. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG SJ): Africa’s largest gold miner said it closed a section of its TauTona mine in South Africa after a worker was killed in an accident. Shares in the company rose 50 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 289 rand. Aspen Pharmacare Ltd. (APN SJ): The pharmaceutical company was raised to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ at Citigroup. The company fell 80 cents, or 1 percent, to 80.75 rand. ConvergeNet Holdings Ltd. (CVN SJ): The company said first- half profit dropped to 19.5 million rand ($2.6 million) from 37.8 million rand a year earlier. ConvergeNet was unchanged at 30 cents. DRDGold Ltd. (DRD SJ): The gold miner said net income for the three months through March increased to 9.9 million rand from 5.4 million rand the previous quarter. Shares in the company rose 9 cents, or 2.4 percent, to 3.90 rand. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI SJ): South Africa’s gold mining industry, the world’s fourth-largest, must consolidate and embrace new working methods to stem a decline in output, which has dropped by half in the past decade, Gold Fields said. Shares in the company, Africa’s second-largest producer of the precious metal, climbed 1 rand, or 1.1 percent, to 95.50 rand. Pick n Pay Stores Ltd. (PIK SJ): South Africa’s second- largest food retailer was cut to “sell” from “hold” by Citigroup. Shares in the company fell 1.79 rand, 4.1 percent, to 42.40 rand. Wesizwe Platinum Ltd. (WEZ SJ): The mining company said the conditions of its proposed acquisition of a 37 percent stake in the Western Bushveld joint-venture have been met. Wesizwe fell 8 cents, or 3.5 percent, to 2.20 rand. Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows: Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) rose 0.8 percent to $21.95. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) rose 0.6 percent to $39. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) gained 0.02 percent to $66.02. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) was unchanged at $5.25. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) increased 1 percent to $12.90. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) fell 0.5 percent to $9.30. Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPUY US) slipped 3.5 percent to $27.90. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) fell 0.2 percent to $4.24. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) gained 0.4 percent to $40.54. –Editors: Alastair Reed, Paul Richardson. CANADA :
Volcanic ash eruption causes Sierra Leone’s national polio campaign to be postponed FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The health ministry says a polio vaccination campaign in the West African nation of Sierra Leone is being delayed because of European flight problems caused by volcanic ash. The polio campaign was to begin Friday but the vaccines were to come from Copenhagen. The weeklong airspace closures in Europe caused by the ash threat to planes represented the worst breakdown in civil aviation on the continent since World War II. The ash cloud has had drastic consequences in parts of Africa — showing how one event can have a big impact in today’s global economy. In Kenya, thousands of day laborers are out of work because produce and flowers can’t be exported amid the flight cancellations. And in Ghana, the flight delays have hurt pineapple growers who export to Europe. AUSTRALIA :
South African Gold Miners Should Consolidate, Gold Fields Says April 23 (Bloomberg) — South Africa’s gold mining industry, the world’s fourth-largest, must consolidate and embrace new working methods to stem a decline in output, which has dropped by half in the past decade, Gold Fields Ltd. said. “There is a risk of job cuts if we don’t do something different,” Chief Executive Officer Nick Holland said. “Declining production against fixed costs tells you that the margin is going to decline if you don’t do something.” South Africa has the world’s deepest and most dangerous mines, where workers extract the metal out of rock as far as 2.35 miles (3.8 kilometers) underground in hot, dark and damp conditions. Producers seeking to expand or maintain output face rising costs as they dig deeper to exploit shrinking reserves. Gold production in Africa’s largest economy peaked at more than 1 million kilograms (2.2 million pounds) a year in 1970, the Johannesburg-based Chamber of Mines said. Last year, the country produced about 205,000 kilograms, the lowest since 1907. “We need to look for areas where there’s potential to accelerate reserves,” Holland, 51, said in an April 21 interview in Johannesburg. “There are some opportunities, and that’s the area we should focus on.” Gold Fields is open to a merger of assets with AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Africa’s largest gold producer, Mining Weekly, a Johannesburg-based magazine, reported on April 20. Consolidation Opportunities “There are potential opportunities for consolidation in the sector in this country, and I would be willing to participate in a review of those opportunities,” Holland said. “But there’s nothing substantive, no formal discussions.” AngloGold spokesman Alan Fine declined to comment on the report, saying the company is focused on cutting costs. Gold Fields is in talks with labor unions about lengthening the working week at its South African operations. A six-day week “would give us an extra month a year,” Holland said. “The industry faces the same issue, we’re all grappling with the same problem.” The National Union of Mineworkers, which represents as much as 80 percent of Gold Fields’s 47,000 employees, is open to the idea of a longer working week, spokesman Shane Choshane said. “Working on Saturday must be voluntary and not compulsory, and it must be considered overtime,” he said by phone from Johannesburg today. Gold Fields, which also has mines in Ghana, Peru and Australia, gets about 58 percent of its production from South Africa. The company’s output in the nation will be in the region of 2.1 million to 2.3 million ounces a year for the next five years, Holland said. Gold Resources “There’s a lot of gold here still, and we’ve got a lot of resources,” he said. Gold Fields’s net income rose 40 percent to 1.41 billion rand ($188 million) for the three months through December, helped by higher metals prices. The company releases its third- quarter earnings on May 7. Shares of Gold Fields, Africa’s second-largest gold producer, have fallen 2.1 percent in the last 12 months, valuing the company at 67.4 billion rand. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of platinum and Africa’s biggest gold producer. It is the world’s fourth- largest gold producer, after China, Australia and the U.S., the South African Chamber of Mines said on March 12. –Editors: Alastair Reed, Simon Casey. Lihir expects 40% gold production increase by 2012 www.miningweekly.com/By: Esmarie Swanepoel/23rd April 2010 Updated 1 hour 8 minutes agoTEXT SIZE PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Lihir Gold, an Australian miner with operations in Papua New Guinea, West Africa and Queensland, expects total gold output to increase by 40% in the next two years. CEO Graeme Hunt said in a conference call that expansion plans at its flagship Lihir Island operations, in Papua New Guinea, as well as the expansions on its West African operations, would lift production to 1,45-million ounces a year, compared with the current capacity of one-million ounces a year. The A$780-million expansion at Lihir Island would increase production with 240 000 oz, and would assist in significantly reducing the overall cost for ounces produced, Hunt said. The expansion project is 50% completed, and progressive commissioning would start during the second half of 2011, while full production would be reached in 2012. In Cote d’Ivoire, Hunt said good progress was being made at the development of satellite mines at Hire, close to the company’s existing Bonikro operations. Work on expanding the plant at Bonikro, from two-million tons a year to three-million tons a year, were also progressing well. The addition of higher-grade ore from the Hire project, and the expanded Bonikro plant was expected to lift output by a further 250 000 oz a year, from 2012. QUARTERLY PRODUCTION Meanwhile, Hunt reported that gold production for the first quarter, ended March, was in line with guidance, and reached 230 000 oz. This was 17% lower than production during the fourth quarter of last year, owing mainly to reduced grades. However, he said that grades were likely to improve during the remainder of the financial year. Lihir Island produced 180 000 oz, while the Bonikro operations produced 27 000 oz for the quarter, which was higher-than-expected, owing to better grades. The Mount Rawdon operations, in Queensland, produced 23 000 oz for the quarter, which was in line with production during the previous quarter. Hunt noted that following the solid performance of the first quarter, full year production for 2010 was now estimated to be between one-million ounces and 1,1-million ounces, from an earlier forecast of between 960 000 oz and 1,06-million ounces. Lihir Island is expected to produce between 800 000 oz and 870 000 oz, while Bonikro would produce between 110 000 oz and 130 000 oz. The Mount Rawdon operation would also add between 90 000 oz and 100 000 oz to the yearly production. NEWCREST OFFER Hunt refused to be drawn on the Newcrest proposal or strategic alternatives, when questioned by journalist. Earlier this month, Lihir rejected a A$9,2-billion takeover offer from Australia’s largest gold miner, which is offering one of its own shares for every nine Lihir shares, as well as A$0,225 cash a share. Following the approach from Newcrest, Lihir appointed independent advisers to assess a range of what Hunt called “strategic alternatives” which could deliver shareholder value. Hunt told journalists in the conference call that while Lihir and its shareholders appreciated the industrial logic of combining the two gold producers, it was felt that the offer still failed to recognise the strategic value that Lihir would offer to the combined company. Edited by: Mariaan Webb EUROPE :
Six-day aviation shut down: Airlines count losses, passengers groan www.ngrguardiannews.com/230410 AIR travellers worldwide are relieved that flights are back in the air. Airline owners are looking at their books to count their losses. Governments are at crossroads if they should bear all, part or nothing at all, the huge costs the airline owners are demanding as compensation. But in the deafening din rocking the aviation industry since last week Wednesday, Nature sits demure in Iceland, belching smoke still, with no feelings for humankind whose lives have been disrupted, disoriented and disorganized. Since the ash clouds seized all of Europe, the aviation hub of the air industry worldwide, causing massive cancellation of flights to and from all destinations, passengers have been groaning. The wait at empty airports has been nerve wracking. Life styles terribly altered. Opportunities missed. Costly set backs incurred. And in the developed world, no one is discussing the fate of the passenger. In Nigeria, even the local airline owners have not sat down to articulate their losses talk less of doing anything for their passengers. “Even in good times when one or other problem caused flights to be postponed or cancelled in Nigeria, the airline owners never caused a hoot for their customers”, fumed Dominic Ugbosun, a research fellow in Dalla, United States (U.S.) who came to Nigeria three weeks ago to attend to family issues and was to have travelled to London on Saturday to rejoin his family for the trip back to their U.S. base. Ugbosun told The Guardian at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos yesterday that he had been seriously disturbed because his family life has been turned upside down: “My son was to resume at his new school, my wife was to have attended a job interview today (Thursday) and I have a research-funding meeting on Tuesday. This means I must fly to London whatever happens this weekend. I do not care what the airline staffs are saying about no flight for me till next week Tuesday. We can not afford this disruption to our lives”, he said. The volcanic ash of the Eyjafjallajokull mountain that shut nearly half of the world’s aviation industry did not affect only the “lowly” but also the world’s powerful, including the U.S. President Barack Obama who cancelled his trip to Poland to attend the funeral of the President and his wife who were killed in a plane crash alongside 93 others on April 10. The closed airspace also stopped many world leaders from flying to the southern city of Krakow for Sunday’s funeral of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria. The Kaczynskis were among 95 people most of them Polish high-ranking government officials, who were killed in a plane crash in Russia on their way to a World War II memorial service. The Icelandic volcano caused the biggest flight disruption since World War II as it drifted over northern Europe and stranded travelers on six continents. The ash plume drifted at between 20,000 feet and 36,000 feet where it could get sucked into airplane engines capable of damaging them. The smoke and ash also could affect aircraft visibility a situation that wrecked travel plans. Cancellations left millions of people – from tourists and business travelers to politicians and royals – stranded across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America, and South America with airport waiting areas piled up with passengers while hotels filed up quickly. Over 100,000 flights may have been cancelled during the six days’ disruption. Not even alternative travelling arrangements could address the situation. Authorities in Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Belgium also closed their air spaces. France shut down 24 airports, including the main hub of Charles de Gaulle in Paris, and several flights out of the U.S. had to double back. Kyla Evans, spokeswoman for air traffic service, Eurocontrol, said half of all trans-Atlantic flights were canceled last week. At London’s Heathrow airport, normally one of the world’s busiest with more than 1,200 flights and 180,000 travelers a day, passengers stared forlornly at departure boards on which every flight was listed as canceled. Officials had predicted that it could take days for the skies to become safe again in one of aviation’s most congested areas. And it took six harrowing days. The Icelandic plume lies above the Atlantic Ocean close to the flight paths for most routes from the U.S. East Coast to Europe, and over northern Europe itself. Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic’s mid-oceanic ridge, and has a history of devastating eruptions. The MMIA was virtually empty when The Guardian visited on Monday, as air-travel traffic was very light. According to an official, “flights are being cancelled. We haven’t seen it this way before and actually wonder how long it would last. Only few flights are going out of Nigeria, to some Asian countries, Dubai, Egypt and one or two to the U.S. Ethiopian, Emirates, Delta and Arik airlines are operating skeletal services. So, what we’ve seen happening is that some passengers are trying to find a way around the problem by changing their flights. Some are going to Dubai and Asian countries and from there, they may be able to make fresh travelling arrangements but I can bet that that would be really inconveniencing for many. Those who have no choice are here day and night at the airport and whiling away their time, or gone back home. It is not the best time to have to travel,” he surmised. Mrs. Peace Michaels is an American-based Nigerian and like many of her counterparts, she is in school but has to work. With the Spring break, she was also able to take a few days off work hence she decided to visit her family in Nigeria for two weeks. That single decision is almost turning into regrets as she is being forced to stay back in Nigeria for extra days and at extra costs, but also risks losing her job. “I’m heading for the U.S. I have been here since yesterday morning (Sunday) as I was to have flown on KLM at 11.30 p.m. to Amsterdam but it was cancelled. Of course, I’m missing classes already because I am supposed to be in school today but I have called some of my professors so that I don’t get thrown out of class. As for work, I won’t be paid for the days I don’t work. The best that whatever contact I make now would do is that I won’t be sacked.” She noted that though KLM is affiliated to Delta Airline, it is not in a hurry to make alternative arrangements for stranded passengers to fly on Delta straight into the U.S. “Our friend who is from Umuahia was given a new date of travel – April 27 – and because he has a place to stay, he has travelled back home but we (she and her husband) don’t so, here we are, uncertain how long we would have to wait. We slept in a hotel yesterday and came this morning thinking things would be different but KLM officials here in Nigeria are not talking to us. All we were told is that should we decide to fly back with another airline, then we could write the head office in Amsterdam for a refund.” Obviously frustrated also is Mr. Hope Ebosa who said he has been at the airport for four days running. Ebosa is heading for Austria. “I came into the country on March 13 with the intention of spending about a month with my children. I should have flown out with Lufthansa Airline since April 17 as I should resume work today but here I am, stranded, frustrated, tired hungry and angry. I think our lot is worse that we are stranded here in Nigeria; the Airport is such an A Briton, Mayank Sharma, who has been stranded in Lagos since Friday last week accused British Airways (BA) of not doing anything to contact any one of them. “I rang BA and asked why they were not making any hotel arrangements for us and the woman said: ‘It is an act of God and we are not responsible’. I said she does not really expect me to believe what she was saying. So, I ended the conversation – what if I was an atheist? “I am here on business, I’m a supply chain consultant. My client has said it will pay my hotel bills, but then they want me to work for free when I return to London. We’ve been advised not to leave the hotel for security reasons. There’s nothing to do really, apart from watch TV or going online. Right now, I’m booked on a flight to London next Saturday”. As the dust and ash settle from the unpredictable volcano in Iceland, and things start to get moving once again, airlines and travellers alike are counting their pains and losses. While the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is making a serious case for compensation for airlines, passengers, particularly Nigerians back home seem to be at the mercy of the airliners as there is nobody to fight their cause. Traffic at the MMIA on Wednesday and yesterday has improved tremendously. More flights are leaving the airport, many stranded and new passengers are hopeful that they can now travel to their destinations but high hopes soon turn to despair when they realise that their pains are not over. This is however not surprising; even after flights resume, passengers would face the prospect of further delays before they can get to their final destinations as airlines clear the backlog of hundreds of thousands of hitherto stranded passengers. Perhaps what appears more hurtful is the alleged disdain with which the airline operators treat Nigerian passengers, which they blame on the nation’s government. This perhaps is responsible for the notice on the door of the Lufthansa Ticket Sales/Reservation Office at the MMIA: “That it would not be opened for service from April 20-22, 2010 and that only confirmed passengers would be accepted. All waitlist passengers were advised to see the ‘LH’ staff on duty.” “I’ m a student in London. I came on a two-week break on April 4 and should have travelled backed last week Thursday since classes resumed on Monday but here I am, stranded in Nigeria. As things are, I’m going to have to miss a whole week of school. I am to fly KLM to Amsterdam and thereafter connect to Heathrow but due to this problem, KLM says it would only be responsible for our flights to Amsterdam. We were asked to sign an undertaking that we would take care of our flights to London whereas we paid for a round trip. I mean, this is unheard of.” After several hours of waiting on Wednesday, Adewale was put on a standby flight for today and if he was unlucky not to find a seat, then he would have to wait till May 4 which is the earliest other available flight. Still expressing his frustrations with the airline, Adewale related of how KLM treated Nigerian passengers with utmost disdain. “I can’t imagine how mean KLM officials can be. We were given some lines to call only a few people. Without a response, one is charged for other calls made. And now that they have started flying, they said they are only attending to new bookings and those of us that have been stranded since last week have to wait. This is really so frustrating. If I don’t get to fly this week, it then means I’d be missing three weeks of classes. This is not fair,” lamented Adewale. Mr. Roland Efedua’s experience is similar to Adewale’s. A Nigerian resident in London, Ekedua arrived the country on March 28 and scheduled to fly KLM back on April 19. Of course, that flight did not go hence he was asked to return on Wednesday. He also complained about the airline’s disrespect and total disregard for Nigerian nationals. “The number I was asked to call is 01/271150-3 but funny enough, I wasn’t able to get through to anyone on that line. After a whole day of waiting, I was finally put on an April 30 flight. They said they have to finish with people who were due to have flown on April 14 and 15 and that they are fully booked for the next three days. So, let’s keep our fingers crossed.” Planes have since resumed flights into all of Europe’s top airports – London’s Heathrow, Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt. The skies over Britain, which were the worst- hit, were re-opened on Tuesday night after a U-turn over the risk posed by the volcanic ash in the air. The decision was made after ministers, airlines, and aviation officials agreed on the level of volcanic ash through which it was safe to fly. Officials said they had faced an unprecedented situation and imposed the ban so they could gather crucial data. Airlines had been growing increasingly frustrated by restrictions, as BA Chief Executive, Willie Walsh told reporters yesterday in London that he believed it was unnecessary to impose a blanket ban on all UK airspace. Most of the cost has been incurred by Europe’s airlines, with BA losing up to £20 million a day. The European airline sector was already expected to lose $2.2 billion this year, and some analysts have warned that the ash cloud could drive weaker airlines out of business. The UK, home to the world’s busiest international airport at London Heathrow, was among the last European countries to reopen its airspace Tuesday as safety concerns over the ash cloud eased. Spokesperson for Air France/KLM, Funmi Ojesina told The Guardian that the loss worldwide for airlines was enormous. In Nigeria, the cost of keeping BA, KLM, Air France, Lufthansa, Arik and other carriers that fly into Europe from Nigeria has spiralled. Parking of planes for more than four days with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) by the foreign carriers according to a source in FAAN costs a handsome fortune. He however did not disclose how much a B777 or A340 plane is charged for over-night parking. Also, Image-Maker for Virgin Atlantic Airline in Nigeria, Mrs. Wuraola Odundan confirmed that the airline faces the challenge of clearing the backlog of passengers, just as she hinted that the situation might take another week to ease off. She however could not confirm if the airline’s management would be deploying more planes to the country to take care of the situation, stressing that it is subject to logistic and how convenient it would be for the airline, considering that there are other destinations to equally cover. Oduntan revealed that the airline like every other European carrier that was affected by the closure has lost enormous amount of money, adding that they are still counting the losses. Asked if the airport authorities in Nigeria would still go ahead to charge them for parking and other sundry charges, she said that would be up to them. The Guardian learnt that depending on the weight and size of the plane, it costs over $2,000 to be parked for a day. The crewmembers are being lodged in four- or five-star hotels, coupled with the pains it takes to re-schedule all cancelled flights. Cumulatively, the loss by these carriers may have risen to over N200 million, just as the airlines in the first day of the chaos also accommodated enormous. Similarly, the General Manager, Public Affairs, NAMA, Mr. Supo Atobatele, confirmed that the agency had lost some revenue from the navigational charges it collects from the international airlines, especially from Europe. Atobatele noted that the agency is currently compiling its losses. The Corporate Affairs and Business Development M anager of Nahcoavaince also said most of the foreign airlines especially from Europe for which the company does ground handling services for have not been landing at the country’s international airports. Bureau de change operators at the international wing of the Lagos Airport are not left out. Business has been dull for them this past week. Even the duty free shops, restaurants and other businesses at the MMIA showed a lull in business as most of the occupants merely chatted away since buyers are extremely few. Director General, IATA Giovanni Bisignani did not hide his pleasure over the way the matter was handled, stressing that the European Union (EU) acted without consulting the carriers on how best to handle the situation, rather than the blanket closure of airspaces across Europe. He estimated that the crisis cost airlines more than $1.7 billion in lost revenue through Tuesday – six days after the initial eruption. He disclosed that for a three-day period (April 17-19), when disruptions were greatest, lost revenues reached $400 million daily. “Lost revenues now total more than $1.7 billion for airlines alone. At the worst, the crisis impacted 29 per cent of global aviation and affected 1.2 million passengers a day. The scale of the crisis eclipsed 9/11 when U.S. airspace was closed for three days,” said Bisignani. The IATA boss explained that there are some cost savings related to the flight groundings. For example, the fuel bill is $110 million a day less compared to normal. But airlines face added costs including from passenger care. “For an industry that lost $9.4 billion last year and was forecast to lose a further $2.8 billion in 2010, this crisis is devastating. It is hitting hardest where the carriers are in the most difficult financial situation. Europe’s carriers were already expected to lose $2.2 billion this year – the largest in the industry”. _ For the airlines to get back to profitability, governments could play significant role by relaxing airport slot rules to reflect the extra-ordinary nature of the crisis, lift restrictions on night flights, so carriers can take every opportunity to get stranded passengers back home as soon as possible. Another way to help airlines cushion the effect of the disruptions is to help address unfair passenger care regulations. Although, the crisis is an act of God – completely beyond the control of airlines – insurers certainly see it this way. But Europe’s passenger rights regulations take no consideration of this. These regulations provide no relief for extraordinary situations and still hold airlines responsible to pay for hotels, meals and telephones. The regulations were never meant for such extra-ordinary situations. It is urgent that the European Commission finds a way to ease this unfair burden. Bisignani also urged governments to examine ways to compensate airlines for lost revenues. Following September 11, 2001 (9/11), the U.S. government provided $5 billion to compensate airlines for the costs of grounding the fleet for three days. The European Commission also allowed European states to provide similar assistance. “I am the first one to say that this industry does not want or need bailouts. But this crisis is not the result of running our business badly. It is an extra-ordinary situation exaggerated with a poor decision-making process by national governments. The airlines could not do business normally. Governments should help carriers recover the cost of this disruption,” said Bisignani. He holds strongly that airspace was being closed based on “theoretical models not on facts. “Test flights by our members showed that the models were wrong. Our top priority is safety. Without compromising on safety, Europe needed to find a way to make decisions based on facts and risk assessment, not theories.” But Alex Bristol, a spokesman for the UK’s national air traffic controller NATS, said that safety officials had acted in accordance with existing safety regulations. QUOTE 1 I should have flown out with Lufthansa Airline since April 17 as I should resume work today but here I am, stranded, frustrated, tired hungry and angry. I think our lot is worse that we are stranded here in Nigeria QUOTE 2 I am the first one to say that this industry does not want or need bailouts. But this crisis is not the result of running our business badly. It is an extra-ordinary situation exaggerated with a poor decision-making process by national governments. The airlines could not do business normally. Governments should help carriers recover the cost of this disruption Passenger traffic thinned considerably at MMIA because of the cancelled flights to Europe Flight counters swarming with intending passengers again at MMIA…Thursday Passengers such as these sleeping on the bare floor in airports across Europe was a common sight until Tuesday before flights resumed London’s Heathrow Airport bristling with passengers since yesterday Planes parked during the six-day forced shut down at Heathrow Airport, London CHINA :
Emerging Urges Rich World to Tame Debt By REUTERS/Published: April 23, 2010 Meeting ahead of IMF talks in Washington, the group said in a joint statement it was concerned that big budget deficits could hamper efforts by rich countries to deal forcefully with the causes of the financial crisis and avoid future economic shocks. The group includes countries such as Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, India, Iran, Syria, Nigeria, Mexico, Pakistan and Egypt. It meets on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings twice a year. China is an observer. Less developed economies have generally emerged much stronger from the fallout of the financial crisis, returning to growth rates several times those of major economies which are still struggling to bed down recovery. Greece’s fiscal troubles have also pointed to weaknesses on the fiscal side after much of the developed world borrowed heavily to stave off a collapse of the financial sector. Reining in debt is now likely to cost them in future growth. The G24 said advanced countries should “maintain policies to support the economic recovery while building confidence in the sustainability of their public finances by announcing credible consolidation plans.” It said any delays in reforms to prevent future banking crises could jeopardize the recovery and urged “vigorous implementation of the reform agenda.” CONSTRAINTS The group said while conditions in the world economy had improved, developing countries faced constraints in external financing which may be exacerbated by the increase in public borrowing needs in advanced economies. In the light of the financial crisis, the G24 said the IMF needs to strengthen its monitoring of the global economy, including of “systematically” important advanced economies. It said IMF financing should be seen as complementing, not substituting, the reserve stockpiles of countries “which remains an important element of self insurance against potential shocks.” The IMF has proposed a significant increase in its resources, possibly up to $1 trillion, to bolster its role as an international lender of last resort to reduce the incentive for countries to accumulate large currency reserves. While many believe bulked-up IMF financing could help slow the pace of reserve accumulation, reserve-rich developing Asian countries may be reluctant to reduce the surplusses they have built up against the United States and others in recent years. The G24 communique said the IMF and World Bank had taken steps to reform themselves but more changes were needed. It called for an “ambitious” realignment of voting power in the institutions to give emerging and developing economies greater influence. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Patrick Graham) INDIA :
Infy, Wipro, TCS, IBM in race to manage Bharti-Zain’s IT network NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel has invited bids to outsource operations worth over a billion dollars for African assets it recently acquired from Kuwait’s Zain Telecom, suggesting it is looking for better deals than those being offered by its existing partners. India’s largest mobile phone company has invited bids for IT-related services as well as the management and maintenance of mobile and landline networks in 15 nations as it looks to replicate the success of its low-cost model of operations in Africa. “The three big Indian IT firms (TCS, Infosys and Wipro) along with IBM are in the race as Bharti Airtel is looking for the best deal,” an executive with direct knowledge of the deal said. Another industry executive said that Bharti may be looking to diversify its partner base as “it would not want to risk putting all its eggs in a single basket.” Since 2004, IBM has been handling Bharti IT requirements in a first-of-its-kind deal globally. This executive added that Ericsson and Nokia Siemens, which maintain and manage Bharti Airtel’s networks in India through multi-billion-dollar contracts, are not guaranteed similar deals with Zain. “Nokia Siemens and Ericsson will have to compete with China’s ZTE and Huawei and bids have already been called for,” this person said. While Bharti has maintained it will take its partners along when it goes overseas, it has also been open to engaging with new vendors who offer a better deal. For instance, Bharti awarded the contract to build, manage and maintain its networks in Sri Lanka to China’s Huawei. Franco-American telecom gearmaker Alcatel-Lucent may also be a potential bidder for the African deal; it bagged a $500-million contract from Bharti last year to manage its fixedline networks in India. Outsourcing all key operational functions , a concept pioneered by Bharti Airtel, is the key to its low-cost-high-usage business model that has enabled the telco to build a base of over 125 million customers in India and emerge as the country’s largest operator by both customers and revenues. Replicating this outsourced model of operations in Africa will be the key to returning Zain to profitability. Bharti Airtel’s 10-year deal with IBM was originally estimated to be worth $750 million but it has already crossed $3 billion, an industry executive with knowledge of the contract said. Bharti had also outsourced the IT needs for its Sri Lankan operations to the US-headquartered company. Riding on the success of its deal with Bharti, IBM signed similar outsourcing agreements with Vodafone and Idea Cellular worth $1.2 billion and $900 million, respectively, in 2008. Last year, IBM signed a similar deal with Malaysia’s Maxis to manage its IT operations. Indian IT firms have also had a fair share of success and have walked away with a string of recent telecom outsourcing deals. Etisalat DB recently awarded a contract worth $400 million to Tech Mahindra, while Unitech Wireless, in which Norway’s Telenor holds a controlling stake, has outsourced its IT infrastructure management to Wipro in deal worth about $500 million. MTN eyes up Orascom’s African assets MTN of South Africa is in talks with Orascom Telecom about buying the Cairo-based company’s African mobile phone businesses. The talks began as discussions about MTN buying Orascom’s Algerian mobile operator but have expanded to include most of its African businesses, said people familiar with the situation. No deal has been finalised, but an announcement could come as early as next week, added these people. MTN is Africa’s largest mobile operator, but competition on the continent is intensifying. Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator, last month signed a $10.7bn deal to buy the African businesses of Zain, the Kuwaiti telecoms company. Last year, Vodafone of the UK finalised a deal to secure control of Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile operator. MTN’s move on Orascom, which has a market capitalisation of $7bn, underlines how the Johannesburg-listed company is still hunting for acquisitions after three failed attempts to combine with Indian mobile operators. MTN held two rounds of merger talks with Bharti but both ended in failure. It also held talks in 2008 with Reliance Communications, India’s second largest mobile operator. One person familiar with MTN said Phuthuma Nhleko, the company’s chief executive, has coveted Orascom’s African mobile businesses for years. MTN is considering buying most of Orascom’s African assets, including Algeria, Tunisia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Namibia and Zimbabwe. But one person close to the talks said MTN does not want Orascom’s minority stake in Egypt’s leading mobile operator. Djezzy, Orascom’s Algerian business, is the biggest profit generator of its African assets. But Naguib Sawiris, Orascom’s chairman, has been considering selling it since the Algiers government issued Djezzy with a $597m tax bill last year. Orascom said the claim was unfounded but settled it this month. The problems at Orascom’s Algerian business affected its fourth quarter results for 2009. Orascom reported group revenue of $5.1bn for 2009, down 5 per cent compared with 2008, while pre-tax profit fell 18 per cent to $740.3m. Orascom last week settled a dispute with France Telecom over ownership of ECMS, Egypt’s leading mobile operator. France Telecom and Orascom jointly control Mobinil, a holding company with a 51 per cent stake in ECMS. Somali Pirates’ Attacks On Shipping Down From Last Year Naval Presence Having Success SOMALIA / INDIAN OCEAN – The latest report from the ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB) indicates that attacks by Somali pirates on shipping off the Horn of Africa for the first quarter of this year have dropped substantially from the same period in 2009. According to ICC IMB, Somali pirates were responsible for 35 of the 67 piracy incidents reported worldwide during this period, down from 102 attacks last year. The organisation, which monitors direct criminal activity aimed at shipping around the world, attributed this drop to the action that has been taken over the last few months by the international naval flotilla that has gathered in the waters off East Africa to deal with the problem. However, the report also attributes the growing range at which attacks are occurring to this success, and urges those nations participating to continue their efforts to deal with pirate ‘mother ships’ which allow these wider-ranging predations. The ICC IMB also praised the efforts of the Indonesian government for successfully reducing the threat of piracy in their waters. Throughout the 1980’s and 90’s these areas had been among the world’s most dangerous, but initiatives implemented since 2003 have seen violent incidents drop and most reported crimes are now low-level thefts. The importance of being clean The BCCI needs to appoint an independent regulatory body for the IPL, with the power to demand compliance Harsha Bhogle/www.cricinfo.com/April 23, 2010 A monk’s extraordinary patience can be a hindrance to desperate decision-making. The ability to bat for six hours can come in the way of playing a ten-ball explosive innings. Sometimes your greatest strength can emerge as a weakness if the context changes. I suspect Lalit Modi is caught in such a dilemma. The enormity of his ambition for the IPL, a phenomenal ability to notice a profit-making opportunity, and the attention to detail that allows for successful execution of good ideas make Modi one of the finest decision-makers in a fast-moving environment. The best word I have heard to describe him is “audacious”; and it required audacity to take the IPL and convert it into a global sporting brand in a little over a year. It is this audacity that makes him rub people the wrong way. He can be charming but he can be arrogant too, and he is not his best PR manager. In his adrenaline-fuelled, high-speed world, where everything was needed yesterday, he can ride roughshod over anything he perceives to be an impediment to his idea. Now it appears he has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and has presented a classic dilemma to the BCCI. Can you look at a weakness and jettison the strength? Do you throw the baby out with the bathwater? And yet, a brand must not only be clean but should be perceived to be the same by its consumers for it to become great. Whether or not the IPL is unclean, there is little doubt it is being seen to be that way, and that is cause enough for an immediate redressal. The BCCI must act very fast. They could take the stand that people don’t need to know a brand’s ownership details as long as they like it. But the best-known brands acquire respectability, and therefore longevity, only if they are perceived to be clean. And the one non-negotiable fact is that the law of the land must be followed in letter, if not always in spirit. And so, if the IPL retains ambitions of becoming one of sport’s greatest global brands, it must go out of the way to be seen as above board. I suspect that will be easier than allowing politicians to eye it. They are circling at the moment, eager to grab a bite. And that is why the BCCI must immediately promise the cricket-loving people of India a public clean-up act. The Satyam model, as the Indian Express so appropriately states, is probably the best way to go about it. When Satyam began going under for reasons of corporate impropriety, the government stepped in to protect Brand India because a hit to Satyam would have meant a hit to the image of India in the software industry. Cricket can do without the government stepping in, but to prevent that the Indian board must promise similar action and implement it speedily. I would think an independent regulatory body made up of people of integrity, who understand the law, the game and the sensitivity of the people is mandatory. Luckily we have many of those in our public life. Deepak Parekh, who was part of the Satyam rescue operation, Soli Sorabjee, Fali Nariman, Narayana Murthy, Ratan Tata, if he could spare the time, and even Anil Kumble. These people would have access to everything in the BCCI and the IPL, would suggest procedures to be followed for all financial activity, and have the power to demand compliance. Thereafter they, or a smaller version of this advisory entity, could remain in the form of an ombudsman (my dictionary definition: “a non-governmental complaint investigator; somebody, especially a man, responsible for investigating and resolving complaints from consumers or other members of the public against a company, institution, or other organisation”). We could dispense with the “especially a man” part of the definition, but not the essence of what it states; that the public that makes a sport profitable should have the right to ask relevant questions and get answers. It might be painful but great brands take the trouble to be clean. I believe this could be an opportunity for the BCCI and Indian cricket to emerge stronger. The question is, what do they do with Lalit Modi? I think as CEO, or commissioner, or whatever nomenclature you may use, reporting to the BCCI and to the independent regulator would seem possible in an ideal world. But that is one for legal and corporate minds. BRASIL:
Brazil key to curbing Iran’s influence The United States answers with an emphatic No, even as the current sanctions have run their course. What to do next is no easy matter. China and especially Russia may be warming to more-vigorous pressures on Tehran. On the other hand, Brazil and Turkey — elected members without veto power in the Security Council — just proclaimed their opposition to imposing new sanctions. Diplomatic overtures Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, Iran has opened embassies in Colombia, Nicaragua, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay and Bolivia. It already had diplomatic relations with Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Since 2007, Iranian imports from Latin America have increased by nearly 250 percent ($2.5 billion). Exports to the region have also expanded but totaled less than $340 million. Brazil is Iran’s top trading partner in Latin America, followed closely by Argentina and Ecuador. Venezuela and Brazil represent two different approaches to Iran: one ideological, the other pragmatic. Tehran is courting both in an all-out diplomatic initiative against the isolation that the United States in particular seeks. Iran revels in unnerving Washington in its own backyard. Hugo Chávez and Ahmadinejad have a close personal relationship based on their anti-Americanism. After meeting Chávez, Ahmadinejad said: “I feel I have met a brother and trench mate.” Chávez returned the compliment, calling the Iranian a “gladiator of the anti-imperialist struggle.” As like-minded leaders won elections in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, Tehran has benefitted from Chávez’s extended influence. For Brazil, Iran is an altogether different matter. For almost eight years, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has conducted an assertive foreign policy based on South-South relations, a metaphor for emerging powers that include Iran. Lula has forged close relations with India and South Africa, all in a bid for greater influence in international affairs. Brazil is perhaps indulging in wishful thinking when it claims that it could be an interlocutor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Other than Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi Shiites, Iran has few friends in the Middle East, though its ties to Syria and Hamas may give it some influence. On the U.N. Security Council until 2011, Brazil will surely make its voice heard as the Iranian nuclear issue becomes more prominent. Raising its sights beyond the Americas is fine, only Brazil hasn’t yet successfully mediated a conflict in its own region. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry, for example, hasn’t figured out how to contain Chávez and his allies in Latin America. Still, Lula’s wariness of Chavismo is well known and the hopes are that Brazil’s burgeoning ties with Iran put a dent in Chávez’s influence there. All the same, it was jarring to hear Lula compare Ahmadinejad’s brutal repression of the opposition after the June 12 fraudulent election to street clashes between fans of rival soccer clubs in Rio de Janerio. How quickly the Brazilian president forgot his own struggles against the military dictatorship (1964-1985)! Under Barack Obama, American anxiety about Iranian activities in Latin America have continued. In January 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declared that he was more concerned about Iranian “subversive activity” in South America than with the Russian navy’s maneuvers in the region. In September, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced that his office had opened investigations on Iran’s purported use of Venezuelan and Panamanian banks to bypass international sanctions. Calculated provocation Ties between Iran and Venezuela are understandably the most worrisome. Chávez enjoys riling Washington and his closeness to Ahmadinejad’s Iran is a calculated provocation. Last year, Caracas announced that Russia would help Venezuela develop nuclear energy and a few weeks later that Tehran is helping in locating its uranium reserves. Since 2000, Russia, China, India and Brazil have emerged as international players. The United States should see Brazil more like it does the other three emerging powers. But it’s harder: Brazil is in the Americas. Let’s hope that the United States and Brazil do better this time than they did in the 1990s with the Free Trade of the Americas. Marifeli Pérez-Stable is a professor at Florida International University and senior non-resident fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.
EN BREF, CE 23 avril 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,23/04/2010 |
BURUNDI – AFRICA / INTERNATIONAL : 23 AVRIL 2010 [Say No To Canadian Troops For The Congo]
