{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 23 mars 2010 – en.afrik.com- March 23, 2010–Sudan’s president, Mr. Omar al-Bashir has threatened United States-funded election observers, Carter Center, with expulsion and attacks, should elections scheduled for April 11 be postponed.
RWANDA
UGANDA
Nation Media to Trade Stock in Tanzania and Uganda, Nation Says
By Eric Ombok/Bloomberg/March 23
March 23 (Bloomberg) — Nation Media Group Ltd. will list its shares on stock exchanges in Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda in addition to its current listing in Kenya, the Daily Nation newspaper said, citing Linus Gitahi, the company’s chief executive officer.
The company will also give shareholders one additional share for every 10 held, the Nairobi-based newspaper said, citing Gitahi, who spoke at a press conference.
TANZANIA:
Minister Mwangunga in hot soup over ivory sale plan
By ThisDay Reporter /23rd March 2010
The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Ms Shamsa Mwangunga, is expected to face a hard time at the ongoing international convention in Doha when conservationists corner her to explain Tanzania’s controversial move to seek a lifting of the ivory sale ban.
Opponents of the proposed sale of ivory by Tanzania and Zambia took fresh hope and made snide remarks over comments attributed to Ms Mwangunga, when she let it slip that only part of the proceeds were to go to conservation, leaving the question open where the balance – and in fact what balance, major or minor – was to go.
Opponents of the application to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), have in the past alleged that the two CITES members, Tanzania and Zambia, were not paying enough attention to the regular trend of increased elephant poaching.
They noted that just as soon as the ban on trade in ivory was partially lifted, as seen most recently when Southern African countries won such concessions, poaching of elephant increased fourfold over the space of two years in Kenya, in spite of increased anti-poaching patrols.
The same opponents also asserted that the proceeds would in any case not benefit conservation bodies and activities 100 per cent, an allegation now apparently confirmed by the poorly thought-out comments of the Tanzanian minister.
The opponents were expected to use this lapse by Mwangunga to make more noises at the March 13-25 CITES Doha conference, while others may yet seek clarification from the minister exactly what proportion of the proposed sales proceeds was to go to conservation, where the balance of such funds would be diverted to, and why not all such funds to go to conservation.
As one delegate asked: “Just where are we with poaching numbers in Tanzania? And when poached tusks are confiscated, is this also then becoming legal ivory stocks by government definition?”
Some 11,615 signatures have been procured on a petition against the sale by leading East African and international conservationists.
The Kenyan minister responsible for wildlife has been exempted from a travel ban imposed on the Kenyan cabinet by President Kibaki to permit him to attend the meeting.
Kenya is expected to lead the opposition formulated by 23 African nations against the lifting in any form of the ban on the trade in ivory, which has been termed in some quarters as a showdown between Kenya and Tanzania.
The row is part of a much wider struggle between different schools of thought when it comes to conservation and in particular the protection of elephants.
Anti-sale pressure groups were already in full action to lobby support from major global players, with several of them just concluding a tour of the United States and Europe, while the pro-sale groups were largely counting on the support of countries like China and Japan.
As the CITES conference progresses, observers said it would be interesting to see how the debates go and if the CITES secretariat will be able to stay fair and just, contrary to allegations made in the past that it (secretariat) is biased towards selling ivory stocks.
Delegates at the Doha meeting were expected to decide, among other proposals, whether to grant requests by Tanzania and Zambia to lower the protection status of their elephants, allowing them to conduct one-time sales of stockpiled ivory.
Such sales, however, according to an international team of scientists and conservationists, could lead to the increased slaughter of elephants for their ivory throughout Africa.
CITES is an international agreement between the governments of 175 member countries. Its goals center on ensuring that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
Scientists argued that the convention should reject requests to conduct the sales, which are supposed to be on ivory taken from dead animals or those culled under legal animal control efforts.
In the past, such sales, they argued, have created a demand for ivory on the black market, where the substance fetches prices 10 times those obtained in legal auctions.
This leads to poaching and threatens to reverse the recovery of African elephants observed since the ban on international ivory trade was put in place two decades ago.
The scientists said that Tanzania and Zambia are major sources and trafficking corridors for Africa’s illegal ivory, demonstrated by tons of contraband ivory seized in 2002, 2006 and 2009.
DNA sampling on the 2002 and 2006 seizures traced the majority of that ivory back to those two nations.
In the last 30 years, African elephants have declined to about 35 per cent of their original numbers, and their population today stands at less than 500,000.
Where is the roadmap for tourism revival in Tanzania?
www.eturbonews.com/By Deo Nshunju/ Mar 23, 2010
Although it is not acknowledged in Tanzania, a mild tourism recession has been with us since 2008 for reasons beyond our control. When our neighbor, Kenya, went up in smoke due to the bungled 2007 national elections and there was mayhem resulting into loss of life and property, the first industry to feel the pinch was tourism. International flights to Kenya were temporarily suspended as travel alerts were issued by western countries advising their nationals to avoid traveling to Kenya. But we all know that when Kenya sneezes, Tanzania and Uganda catch the cold.
There were reports at that time that some holiday makers canceled their travel plans to Kenya and instead opted for Tanzania. If this is true, then it was only for a short period and not long term. This is because for the outside world, East Africa is just one and the same place. Any negative news or publicity on either Kenya or Tanzania will somehow affect the other. In this case, the tourism slump in Kenya was bound to affect this side of the business as well. In any case, some of the tourists start their visit in Kenya and extend to Tanzania and return to Kenya for the flights back home. In other words, a sizeable portion of tourism business in Kenya is inextricably intertwined with that of Tanzania and, therefore, there is no way Tanzania could have been spared from the consequences of the Kenya’s 2007-8 political turmoil especially on the tourism front.
Indeed there was a bit of sanguinity in the region when the Kenya Tourist Board and government of Kenya joined forces and sent a big delegation in mid-2008 to the London Travel Market. The idea was not to promote Kenya as a tourist destination as such, but it was, by and large, a public relations campaign to try to unwind the negative image and stigma arising from the elections fiasco.
As the sages say, misfortunes don’t come in singles. Just when everybody was looking for a rebound of tourism in East Africa, especially in 2009, the financial meltdown in late 2008 and the global economic recession thereof clearly put a damper on any hope for a quick recovery. Reports indicate that tourism in Tanzania dropped by 20 percent to 30 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year. Speaking to the Citizen Newspaper, Mr. Timothy Njaga, general manager of Gibbs Farm Lodge, one of the oldest tourist outfits in the Karatu area, said, “Many lodges were affected by the world economic downturn, which led to the decline in tourists.” In this regard, tourist hotels located in the game parks are the hardest hit, unlike those within the metropolitan centers, which are not entirely dependent on tourists. “Room occupancy is a big challenge in many lodges. I still believe it is the government which can bail us out through aggressive marketing in major tourist markets abroad,” Mr. Njaga observed.
Mr. Njaga has a point about the government’s intervention to assist the hospitality industry, which at the moment is in dire stress. Let’s us explore the options available.
First, sometime in June 2009, just before the 2009/10 government budget was presented to Parliament in Dodoma, President Kikwete unveiled a landmark economic stimulus package to help certain sectors of the economy to cope with the after shocks of the world economic recession. Prominently featuring in this package were the coffee and cotton sectors. It is a bit surprising, because going by Mr. Njaga’s lamentations, the tourism sector seems to have missed out on the president’s largesse. One would expect the financially-strapped hotels and lodges within the proximity of the National Parks and Game Reserves should have been considered as well and be given a subsidy until tourism is firmly on the mend, lest they go under. Indeed, if this is the scenario, then the Minister responsible for tourism, Madame Shamsa Mwagunga, has her job well cut out.
Second, while in the past two years or so the government through the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) has been doing a tremendous job insofar as promotion of Tanzania’s tourism abroad is concerned, this is the time more than before, to double the efforts in this regard. As the world gradually recovers from the recession, tourism like all sectors of the economy will rebound back. However, let us remember that holiday making as a consumer good is not a top priority. In fact, it is the lowest in the pecking order in the basket of goods for consumers. It is, therefore, very likely that for a foreseeable future, the demand for holiday making will fall far below the supply side. This being the case, there will be a very high competition worldwide to attract potential tourists with enough disposable income to spare on holiday making. In this context, Tanzania as a tourist destination will be competing with the Bahamas, Bermuda, Kenya, Namibia, Seychelles, Botswana, etcetera. To succeed, Tanzania has to invest in aggressive marketing, being cost competitive in many areas including, tourist visa facilitation, surface transportation, and airfares. In addition security must be enhanced to avoid ugly incidents, which have the effect of scaring away tourists.
This brings us to the final point. Tanzania must do what it takes to have a reputable international airline that will augment the government and TTB’s efforts to promote tourism abroad. Lack of an international airline of good repute is a major handicap for tourism marketing abroad. Kenya is likely to recover very quickly from the tourism downturn because Kenya Airways (KQ) is directly affected by passenger slump and, therefore, is busy in the markets abroad wooing tourists to come back to Kenya but this is not the case for Tanzania. We cannot depend on foreign airlines like KLM or British Airways to do this for Tanzania.
I recall with nostalgia the way the defunct Alliance Air (a joint venture airline between SAA, Tanzania, and Uganda) used to promote Tanzania single-handedly as a major tourist destination by displaying attractive and giant posters at strategic locations on the London Underground Railway Transportation system. This, plus other outdoor advertisements through General Sales Agents (GSAs) in far places like Toronto in Canada, Frankfurt in Germany, and even Australia were very effective insofar as putting Tanzania on the world tourism map is concerned. TTB can attest to this fact. I also recall with anguish that Alliance Air was involved in serious discussions with the influential CNN Traveller Magazine for a major promotional campaign on Tanzania’s tourism, but this project was nipped in the bud because the airline closed due to petty squabbling and lack of foresight on the part of Uganda and Tanzania. Ten years since the demise of Alliance Air, both Tanzania and Uganda are still struggling to have an airline of international stature to champion their tourism cause just like Kenya Airways is doing for Kenya, but “wapi?” In this regard KQ is the envy of East Africa aviation. Without a strong international airline, full realization of tourism potential in Tanzania will remain a pipedream.
Life in urban Tanzania presents many challenges
Published: March 23, 2010 /www.bclocalnews.com
Ladysmith was a great place to grow up. My teachers at Davis Road Elementary and Ladysmith Secondary School always encouraged my classmates and I to care about others and the planet we inhabit. That led me to study sustainable agriculture and development at UBC. Over the course of my undergraduate degree I became even more exposed to the world we live in. Now, I am in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, working as a needs assessment project officer with a Vancouver-based non-governmental organisation called Sustainable Cities. This internship is funded through the Canadian International Development Agency’s Youth Employment Strategy.
D
ar es Salaam is a city of over 4 million people. Over 70 per cent of these residents live in unplanned settlements. These settlements lack many of the amenities that we often take for granted in Ladysmith, such as running water and electricity. Even in planned settlements the electricity can go out at any time and organizations like ours rely on generators to ensure we have power when we need it.
So, how do you do a needs assessment when everyone has so many needs? Firstly, it is important to recognise that there are many assets here too. Tanzania is a peaceful country, with willing and helpful people. There is much to learn from the experiences of people living here.
So far I have been investigating innovative ways of using urban spaces for agriculture. Urban agriculture supports the livelihoods of many people living in unplanned settlements. You can find chickens, goats, and cows in the city. Much of the milk consumed in Dar es Salaam comes from areas just outside the city centre. Women make an additional income from selling leafy greens that they grow in small gardens. Families ensure household food security through supplementing their diets with fruit and vegetables that they grow themselves.
However, with these activities come associated risks and hardships. Recent studies have shown that leafy green vegetables irrigated with water from the overly polluted local river contain high levels of heavy metals. Many urban farmers cannot expand their operations due to the confines of the city. And municipal policies inhibit the land rights of these farmers. We are working with urban farmers, researchers and local government to reach a consensus about the future of urban agriculture in Dar.
Although Tanzania may feel like a far and distant place from Ladysmith, working in the development field has made me realise that we all face many of the same problems, but at different levels. Sustainable Cities works with nearly 40 cities around the world to transfer knowledge and best practices from one city to another. We are all trying to find the most efficient and sustainable strategies to manage our built environments and we must work together in order to achieve this. We should be proud that we, residents of Ladysmith, live in such a sustainability minded community.
Please join me next month for another cultural journey in Tanzania. Please feel free to visit the Sustainable Cities website at www.sustainablecities.net.
Afton Halloran grew up in Ladysmith. She has lived in Japan, Norway, Ghana, Uganda and now Tanzania. She is currently a needs assessment project officer with the Sustainable Cities NGO in Dar es Salaam.
CONGO RDC :
Ben Affleck launches initiative for Congo aid
By George Lerner, CNN/March 23, 2010
(CNN) — Actor Ben Affleck on Monday launched a grassroots initiative to assist communities ravaged by war in one of the most troubled places on earth, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Affleck, who just returned from a trip to the DRC, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he had long heard about the crisis in Congo, which has left more than 5 million people dead over the past 12 years, but only came to understand the scope of the humanitarian crisis after repeated visits to the country.
“The more I traveled, the more I was struck about it, the more I fell in love with the people, the more I was horrified by what was happening. And the more I did, I started to develop this idea of partnering with the Congolese people and wanting to empower community-based organizations there that were doing extraordinary work,” Affleck said.
Affleck on Monday announced the launch of the Eastern Congo Initiative, an effort to support community organizations working to help rape victims and to rebuild from a decade of war.
“There are folks who are working to protect those who are suffering from gender-based violence, who help child soldiers to advance the educational needs of the citizens there.” Affleck told Amanpour. “There are people who live in the communities, who are from there, who understand the relationships there, who are Africans finding solutions to African problems. And when I was there, what I saw was that those were, in my view, the most effective folks at meeting those goals.”
One of those groups, Affleck said, was an organization known as LAV, the French acronym for “Let Africa Live,” which taught practical trades, such as carpentry, auto mechanics and textile production, to reintegrate both former soldiers and victims of the violence back into society.
Affleck cited the case of one woman whom he met on his trip last week. She had survived a horrifying ordeal at the hands of a militia in Eastern Congo.
“They, in her words, treated her like an animal and a slave. She was a bush wife to six men who raped her. She became pregnant. She eventually escaped by asking basically permission to take a bath and making a mad run for it,” he said. “She barely escaped with her life. She walked for a week and made it back to the city. She was homeless, pregnant, and destitute in the city. She was discovered by folks from (LAV). They took her in. They brought her into this community.”
Through the work of LAV, the woman is now attending to law school, with plans to practice and teach law, Affleck said.
“She’s an extraordinary woman, and (LAV) was the kind of group that we want to partner with and support so that we can broaden their capacity to do more.”
Congo analyst Jason Stearns, who worked in Eastern Congo’s war zones with the International Crisis Group and the United Nations, said the problems in Congo could be traced to two sources: the ongoing after-effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the collapse of the Congolese state.
“We’re not going to have a solution to the problem — and to the rapes, for that matter — until we have a Congolese state and army that serves the people, rather than preys on the people,” Stearns said. “Four billion dollars is currently the amount the international community gives to the Congo for various things, and they’ve done a great job in emergency stuff, in feeding displaced people, but really a very poor job in reforming the state institutions that would prevent such a crisis in the future.”
Congolese human rights attorney Sylvie Maunga Mbanga said the government needed to focus attention on ending a culture of impunity towards rapists, especially when those rapes are committed by members of the Congolese army.
“We need to punish the perpetrators of sexual violence against women,” she said.
Eastern Congo may have received far less international attention than the crisis in Darfur, but Affleck called on Washington to do more to address the humanitarian situation in the DRC.
“The United States really needs to develop a comprehensive policy towards Congo as a whole, much in the same way it did toward Sudan in late 2009, which it doesn’t have toward Eastern Congo, despite what a sort of mess the place is,” Affleck said.
KENYA :
Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa: African Bond, Currency Preview
March 23, 2010/By Vernon Wessels and Renee Bonorchis/Bloomberg
March 23 (Bloomberg) — The following events and economic reports may influence trading in sub-Saharan African bonds and currencies today.
The Kenyan shilling was almost unchanged at 77.10 against the dollar as of 8:29 a.m. in the capital, Nairobi.
Mauritius: The central bank will probably keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at its fourth quarterly meeting in a bid to boost savings, according to three economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
The Mauritian rupee declined 1 percent to 30.4995 per dollar as of 9:30 a.m. in the capital, Port Louis.
South Africa: The South African Reserve Bank releases its Quarterly Bulletin, which gives details on the country’s current account, at 11 a.m. local time in the capital, Pretoria.
The rand weakened 0.2 percent to 7.3387 per dollar as of 7:33 a.m. in Johannesburg. South African markets were closed for a human rights day holiday on March 22.
The benchmark 13.5 percent government bond due in September 2015 yielded 8.18 percent.
–Editors: Alastair Reed, Antony Sguazzin.
ANGOLA :
Angola: Officers Sentenced in Killings
By REUTERS/Published: March 23, 2010
Seven Angolan police officers were sentenced Monday to prison terms of 24 years each for the murder of eight men in a poor neighborhood of Luanda, the capital. Judge Salomao Filipe said the trial had shown that the officers ordered a group of young men to lie face down on the ground and then shot them in July 2008. The shootings, during an operation aimed at ending gang violence, were “unjustifiable,” the judge said.
CHAIRMAN OF CHINA’S CITIC GROUP CALLS ON ANGOLAN PRESIDENT
news.brunei.fm/2010/03/23
NAM NEWS NETWORK Mar 23rd, 2010
LUANDA, March 23 (NNN-ANGOP) — President José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola has held discussions here with Kong Dan, the Chairman of China’s state-owned investment firm CITIC group, on the current state of construction of 20,000 homes by the Chinese company in Kilamba Kiaxi district of Luanda.
Kong told reporters after the meeting here Monday that construction work on the houses, which would occupy an area of 8.8 square kilometres, started just over one year and that considerable progress had been achieved. “The progress of the project has already exceeded the previously planned schedule and has reached 80 per cent,” he said.
He also briefed the president on all details pertaining to construction of this project and the head of state who expressed “satisfaction” with the progress so far.
In the development of the Kilamba Kiaxi district, the CITIC Group also intended to participate in actions related to social development, Kong said.
Under the promotion of national housing policy it is the government’s goal to contribute in the future to the construction of about one million houses by 2012.
Without revealing the figures that his company would make available to contribute in other tasks related to reconstruction, he pointed out that the construction of a National Cultural Centre would be “one of the best in the African continent”.
CITIC also intends to invest in agricultural projects in the provinces of Malange and Uige, in areas covering 2,000 hectares and 5,000 hectares respectively.
“I cannot disclose figures relating to what we will spend in Angola, (…) but for sure we will invest a lot of money here,” Kong said.
CITIC last year recorded revenue of 30 billion USD, he added. — NNN-ANGOP
SOUTH AFRICA:
First Uranium, Kumba and SABMiller: South Africa Equity Preview
March 23, 2010/By Mike Cohen/Bloomberg
March 23 (Bloomberg) — The following stocks may rise or fall in South Africa. Symbols are in parentheses and prices are from the last close.
The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index fell 261.99, or 0.9 percent, to 28,544.15 on March 19 in Johannesburg. Markets were closed yesterday in South Africa for a public holiday.
AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG SJ): Gold rebounded, snapping a two-day decline, as the dollar weakened and prices near a one- month low attracted buyers. AngloGold, Africa’s largest gold producer, dropped 1.49 rand, or 0.5 percent, to 283.50 rand.
BHP Billiton Ltd. (BIL SJ): Copper advanced for a second day in Asia as a gain in U.S. equities improved demand prospects for the industrial metal. BHP, the world’s largest mining company, fell 4.28 rand, or 1.7 percent, to 243.25 rand.
First Uranium Corp. (FUM SJ): The developer of uranium deposits in South Africa said the net present value of its Ezulwini mine has been revised to $437 million because of new projections about electricity costs, the strength of the South African rand and lower than anticipated production. First Uranium was unchanged at 11.33 rand.
Gold One International Ltd. (GDO SJ): The gold miner said it has received formal notification from South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers that it intends to hold a strike over wages starting with the night shift on March 23. The shares rose 1 cent, or 0.5 percent, to 2 rand.
Kumba Iron Ore Ltd. (KIO SJ): South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources said it will conduct an internal review into the awarding of 21.4 percent of the prospecting rights for the Sishen mine in the Northern Cape after an appeal by Kumba, which owns the rest of the rights.
Kumba declined 7.49 rand, or 2.1 percent, to 344.50 rand.
SABMiller Plc (SAB SJ): The South African unit of the world’s second-largest brewer said it will make an application to the nation’s Competition Tribunal to have a case of market abuse against the company dismissed. The shares rose 2.29 rand, or 1.1 percent, to 216.69 rand.
Separately, SABMiller and its Chinese partner, which make China’s best-selling beer, will pursue acquisitions and increase production capacity to boost growth in the world’s most populous nation. Building capacity in China, which had 593 breweries in 2009, remains “relatively cheap,” Ari Mervis, managing director of SABMiller’s Asian operations, said in Beijing on March 21.
Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows on March 19:
Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) rose 1.7 percent to $20.28. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) dropped 0.1 percent to $38.45. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) climbed 1.2 percent to $66.71. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) increased 4.3 percent to $4.84. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) rallied 1.2 percent to $12.45. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) increased 0.8 percent to $9.64. Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPUY US) added 0.8 percent to $27.76. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) rose 1.4 percent to $4.41. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) dropped 0.5 percent to $38.46.
–With assistance from Janice Kew in Johannesburg. Editors: Vernon Wessels, Gavin Serkin.
FACTBOX: Bashir’s list of skipped events keeps growing since ICC warrant
Tuesday 23 March 2010 /www.sudantribune.com
March 22, 2010 (WASHINGTON) — On Monday the French government said that it had made it clear that the Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is not welcome to attend the France-Africa summit held at the Riviera city of Nice.
Paris requested that Bashir send an envoy to represent him at the summit instead.
Originally planned in Egypt, the next Africa-France summit was finally moved to Nice on a joint decision of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak to avoid the presence of Bashir, charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with war crimes against humanity in Darfur.
The ICC indicted Bashir last year on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but stopped short of including a charge of genocide. The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people have been killed since conflict erupted in Darfur in 2003, although Sudan rejects that figure.
Bashir is currently running for re-election against 11 other candidates at the polls scheduled for April 11th.
Many observers and political figures inside Sudan have began to publicly question the ability of Bashir to function as president given the outstanding warrant which has hampered his mobility abroad and restricting it to non-ICC members to avoid apprehension. They also cited economic implications.
This month, Mubarak al-Fadil head of the Umma Reform and Renewal Party have said that Sudan’s withdrawal from the amendments made to the Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP)-European Union (EU) Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CA) signed in 2005 was to avoid the stipulation of ratifying the ICC treaty.
The step put at risk Sudan’s access to the 300 million euro that comes with the agreement.
Also this week the head of the Islamic Wasat party in Sudan Yusuf Koda echoed Arman’s call saying Bashir resignation will bring great benefits to Sudan including avoiding international isolation and proposed that Bashir should be tried before hybrid courts.
Bashir has won the backing of the African Union (AU), Arab League and Organization of Islamic countries (OIC) in rejecting the warrant and demanding that the UN Security Council (UNSC) invoke Article 16 of the Rome Statute and freeze the indictment.
Despite the regional and international backing, Bashir has still stayed away from several events including in non-ICC member states over concerns that his plane might be intercepted or to avoid embarrassing the host states.
South African presidential inauguration: South Africa, an ICC state party, invited Bashir in May 2009 to attend the inauguration of President Jacob Zuma. However, South African officials made it clear that the indicted president would be arrested in compliance with the ICC arrest warrant. The 1st Vice President Salva Kiir was delegated to represent Sudan in the ceremony.
Global 2009 Smart Partnership Dialogue conference: Uganda, an ICC state party invited Bashir to attend the conference held in July 2009. Ugandan officials later said that they have legal obligations under the Rome Statute and privately urged Sudan to send another official to avoid “a diplomatic incident”.
2nd Africa-South America Summit: Venezuela, an ICC state party invited Bashir to the summit that took place in September 2009. Sudanese officials said that they will consider accepting the invitation after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez vowed to protect Bashir from arrest. However, Sudanese 2nd Vice President Ali Osman Taha ended up going instead.
UN General Assembly: The United States, a non-ICC state party housing the United Nations (UN) headquarters held its annual General Assembly meetings in September 2009. Sudan at the time chaired the Group of 77 (G-77) coalition of developing countries and China. Sudan dispatched Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Al-Deen Al-Attabani to lead its delegation to the UN General Assembly.
2009 OIC conference: In September 2009, Turkey, a non-ICC state party, invited Bashir to participate in the summit in his capacity as a head of state of a member of the Islamic bloc. In the days leading up the summit, Turkey came under intense pressure from the EU to drop the Sudanese president from the list of invitees. Bashir made a last minute decision to skip the conference after Turkish officials, aspiring to join the EU, privately urged the Sudanese to reconsider the visit.
Special Summit of Heads of State and Government on Refugees: In October 2009, Bashir stayed away from the summit held in Uganda and instead dispatched two junior ministers.
AU special summit on Darfur: : In October 2009, Nigeria, an ICC state party, invited Bashir to a special AU summit with 15 other heads of states to examine the recommendations drawn up by a high-level AU panel led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki. However, Bashir’s 2nd Vice President Ali Osman Taha ended up going instead.
25th France-Africa summit: In December 2009, France and Egypt agreed to move the summit from the Red Sea resort of Sharm Al-Sheik after the former insisted that Bashir not be invited. Cairo refused and as a result a new date and place was set for the summit next May in Nice. It was revealed today that French president Nicolas Sarkozy issued an invitation to Sudan while stressing that Bashir is not welcome to represent his country at the event.
IGAD special summit on CPA: In March 2010, Kenya, an ICC state party, hosted an extraordinary summit of Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) that was dedicated to discuss the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South Sudan. Despite being invited Bashir sent 2nd Vice President Ali Osman Taha to represent him.
(ST)
South Africa wants iron ore benchmark pricing
By: Reuters/23rd March 2010
South Africa wants iron ore to trade on a futures exchange to create a more transparent benchmark for pricing deals, one of the country’s top mining officials said on Monday.
“The most important thing for me is the creation of a transparent instrument for price determination,” said Sandile Nogxina, South Africa’s Director General of the Ministry of Mineral Resources told Reuters on the sidelines of the UN commodity conference in Geneva.
“It is up for the various players to take this forward. What I’m proposing is similar to aluminium on the London Metals Exchange (LME). Let iron ore also be traded so it is more open.”
Iron ore, used in the production of steel, has been under the spotlight recently. Four Rio Tinto executives on trial in China pleaded guilty on Monday to taking bribes and violating commercial secrets, while contesting the amounts, lawyer at the hearing said.
The four men from Rio’s iron ore team were detained last summer at the height of fraught negotiations over 2009 ore prices.
Iron ore pricing has traditionally been agreed between miners and steelmakers, with a single price negotiated once a year. Many base metals, including steel, have floating prices based off of deriviative futures contracts traded on exchanges in London and Shanghai.
Edited by: Reuters
AFRICA / AU :
Agony and ivory
Thanks to the Chinese lust for ivory, poachers are killing Africa’s elephants in vast numbers, and in ever more brutal ways. Is it too late to save them? David Harrison reports.
By David Harrison, The Sunday Telegraph/ www.ottawacitizen.com/ March 23, 2010
Jolson Kitheka had been on patrol for just a couple of hours when he saw his first dead elephant.
He was out scanning every tree trunk or bush for snares, the lethal metal traps used by poachers to catch, maim and kill their prey. Yet about 200 metres ahead, partly obscured by trees on Kenya’s vast Tsavo West national park, lay the unmistakable grey bulk of an adult elephant on the ground. Walking gingerly towards the giant creature, his worst fears were confirmed: It had been killed by poachers firing poisoned arrows. The tusks were crudely hacked off, along with the trunk.
“It was the work of professional poachers,” Kitheka says, flinching. “They had sawn into its head to cut out the tusks from the root. The trunk and most of his face had gone. I could see the gaps where the tusks had been. The blood had clotted, liquid seeping out. I felt sick.”
His experience has become an alarmingly common one of late. Twenty-one years after a worldwide ban was imposed on the ivory trade, elephant poaching is on the rise all over Africa. The elephant Jolson found was one of 220 killed by poachers in Kenya last year, up almost 400 per cent on the 46 killed just two years earlier. Yet Kenya is a country with some of the best wildlife protection and enforcement in Africa.
Things are much worse in countries cursed by poor security, corruption and civil war, where animal protection is a low priority. U.S. conservationists estimate that 36,000 elephants were poached last year. Sierra Leone says it lost its last few elephants in November, leaving Africa with 36 rather than 37 elephant range states. Elephant populations in Senegal, Mali and Niger are on the brink of extinction. Chad has just over 600 elephants left, more than 80 per cent down from the 3,800 it had in 2006, while Zimbabwe lost more than 3,000 elephants last year, according to conservationists. In the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, militias sell ivory from elephants to buy weapons. “Elephants are being killed all over Africa,” says Ian Redmond, a British biologist and elephant expert. “The ivory trade is rampant.”
– – –
The poachers are not small-time operators. Most elephants are slaughtered by organized gangs who ship huge quantities of ivory to lucrative markets in Asia, including Japan and particularly China, where it is used to make jewelry, carvings, chess sets, chopsticks and personal seals. Poachers are also ruthless and violent criminals prepared to kill those who try to stop their lucrative trade. More than 20 rangers have been killed in Kenya alone since 1990, the year after the ivory ban was introduced.
The increase in poaching is reflected in a record number of ivory seizures. There were more than 2,000 hauls between 2007 and 2009, according to the Elephant Trade Information System. Most of the ivory is on its way to China. Last month, customs officers in Thailand seized a record two tonnes of China-bound ivory — 239 tusks — in crates labelled “mobile phone parts.” Some of the more spectacular hauls last year included nearly 10 tonnes in two seizures in Vietnam; 3.3 tonnes in the Philippines; and three-quarters of a tonne in Kenya.
“These are enormous quantities of ivory,” Ian Redmond says.
“That’s a lot of slaughtered elephants.”
Yet it seems not long ago that the African elephant had been saved. The horrific elephant poaching in the “ivory wars” of the ’80s more than halved Africa’s elephant population, from 1.3 million in 1979 to just over 600,000 in 1989. This provoked worldwide outrage and prompted a campaign to save one of the world’s most complex, intelligent and loved animals. The result was a decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1989 to impose a complete ban on ivory sales. Conservationists rejoiced. Some elephant populations gradually started to grow again.
So why has the killing started once more? In truth, the ban reduced poaching but never stopped it. There are now fewer than 500,000 elephants left, down more than 100,000 from 1989. In the best conditions elephant populations can grow by five per cent a year.
Wildlife experts say the increase in killings is no mystery. They blame it squarely on a decision taken by CITES in 2007 to allow four countries to sell 105 tonnes of “stockpiled” ivory — tusks confiscated from poachers and removed from elephants who have died naturally — in what they described as a “one-off” sale.
To the horror of conservationists, many countries argued that the sale would satisfy demand and reduce poaching. In fact, it has had the opposite effect and led to a surge in elephant slaughter by poachers who launder their ivory through the legal trade. The decision to allow the sale led to China and Japan being approved as trade partners and demand for ivory, in China in particular, has soared. Last year, China approved 37 new retail ivory stores.
Increased demand has pushed up the price. A kilogram of ivory now fetches $40 in Kenya, but up to $1,500 in the Far East, according to some conservationists. A small pair of tusks might weigh 10 kilograms — enough to bring a Kenyan poacher $400, more than casual workers earn in a year, while a big bull carrying 100 kilograms of ivory would bring in up to $150,000 in China.
The first post-ivory ban sale, the first to be called a “one-off,” was agreed by CITES at its meeting in Harare in 1997 under the auspices of President Robert Mugabe. The decision in 2007 for a second “one-off” sale, “sent out a signal to the world that ivory was available and legal,” according to Will Travers, the chief executive of the Born Free Foundation who has attended every CITES meeting since 1989. “The poachers knew this was a great opportunity for them.”
On Monday, the 175-nation meeting rejected proposals by Tanzania and Zambia to relax a trade ban on elephants to allow a one-off sale of their ivory stockpiles, a move widely hailed by conservation groups.
“Poaching of elephants and ivory seizures are escalating, not decreasing, this decision is a victory for common sense,” said Jason Bell-Leask, Southern Africa director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
The nations had argued that elephant numbers are rising and are a danger to people in rural areas in their bid to ease restrictions to permit a sale of 112 tonnes of ivory.
“There are fewer elephants alive today than when the ban was brought in, so it is beyond belief that anybody would want to weaken the ban,” Redmond says.
“In an ideal world we could take ivory from natural deaths and carve it into beautiful objects. But as long as there are young men with guns and no job, and dealers who say they have a market, and ask the young men to get them ivory, then elephants will not be safe unless they are heavily protected. And the cost of protection from illegal hunters and traders is much more than you can earn from the ivory trade.” The only answer, he says, is “a total ban on ivory sales.”
– – –
China has long been the biggest market for ivory but there is growing evidence — and concern — that the Chinese are heavily involved in poaching in Africa. They have moved into Africa on a huge scale in recent years, building roads and other infrastructure — often in national parks — in return for minerals and timber needed to fuel their domestic boom. Thousands of Chinese have left their homes to work on these huge projects worth billions of dollars. “The Chinese are buying up ivory, worked and raw all over Africa,” says Esmond Bradley Martin, a leading ivory trade expert.
The Chinese government denies links between increased elephant killings in Kenya and the influx of Chinese workers and says it is fighting to stop ivory smuggling. Officials say ivory seizures by Chinese customs officials have almost doubled in recent years. At one airport, in Guangz
hou, southern China, customs officers dealt with 138 cases of ivory smuggling, totalling more than 182 kilograms, in the 12 months to August last year, up 90 per cent year on year. Under new Chinese laws, smugglers can be punished with up to 12 years in jail.
Critics insist, however, these hauls are the tip of the iceberg and maintain that gangs in China are placing ivory orders with Chinese in Africa who hire poachers and arrange for the tusks to be smuggled by sea or air. “When you have so many Chinese in Africa, and China allowed to buy ivory, it is easy to understand how the Chinese can become middlemen in the wildlife product brokering system,” Will Travers says. He says China should put money into conservation and environmental protection to counter “what could be the fallout” of their presence in Africa.
– – –
At the headquarters of the Kenya Wildlife Service in Nairobi, Julius Kipng’etich, the service’s director, sits back in his chair.
“Poaching has risen sharply in areas where the Chinese are building roads,” he says. “Is that a coincidence? Ninety per cent of the ivory confiscated at Nairobi airport is in Chinese luggage. Some Chinese say we are being racist, but our sniffer dogs are not racist.”
The poachers are part of a “sophisticated network,” he says. Many are switching from guns to poison arrows because arrows kill silently. A new weapon in the poachers’ armoury, Kipng’etich says, is planks of wood with poison-tipped nails sticking out of them. They are placed in the undergrowth and when the elephants walk onto them, they suffer excruciating pain and are eventually killed by the poison.
“The poachers are cruel and clever but we are more determined than ever to tackle them,” he says. “We cannot afford to lose our animals. They are our heritage and our future.” Tourism is Kenya’s second biggest employer, providing work for up to 160,000 people and bringing in revenue of $1 billion.
– – –
Jolson Kitheka, the volunteer ranger, is still haunted by one detail of his encounter with the poachers’ handiwork. The body he found was strewn with mud, leaves and twigs, tossed there by elephants that had tried to cover up their friend.
This is how elephants mourn their dead.
UPDATE 1-Temasek bullish on mining in Mongolia, Africa
Tue Mar 23, 2010 /Reuters
* State investor is keen to increase Mongolia mining exposure
Financials
* Looking at African opportunities in mining, other sectors (Updates with details)
SINGAPORE, March 23 (Reuters) – Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL] wants to increase its exposure to mining in Mongolia and is also looking for opportunities to invest in the mining sector in Africa.
“We made investments in Mongolia and we are fairly bullish about Mongolia,” said Nagi Hamiyeh, managing director of investments at Temasek, on the sidelines of a mining conference in Singapore on Tuesday.
“We believe that Mongolia is starting its journey in the mining space so that would be one of the many countries that we would look at.”
Mongolia is treading cautiously as it taps its huge mineral wealth. For an analysis and factbox see [ID:nSGE62E08P] and [ID:nSGE62G030].
Temasek was one of the cornerstone investors for the $439 million Hong Kong IPO of Mongolia-focused miner SouthGobi Energy Resources (1878.HK)(SGQ.TO) in January. [ID:nTOE62705O].
It also holds a stake worth $150 million in Lung Ming, which owns and operates the Eruu Gol iron ore mine in Mongolia, according to its latest annual report.
But Temasek has not been as aggressive as sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp (CIC), which has invested billions of dollars in resources deals in Indonesia, Singapore and Mongolia [ID:nHKG368809].
“We went in several opportunities beyond the pre-IPO opportunities, which were in private companies. The issue is timing and when we see the right opportunity we will invest,” Hamiyeh said.
“Generally we prefer to invest in corporates, but our investment could be very well to finance underlying assets,” Hamiyeh told reporters.
Temasek CEO Ho Ching said last year that the state investor was interested in resources as an asset class. Energy and resources made up just 5 percent of Temasek’s portfolio, as of March 2009. It managed $122 billion in total as of end-July.
Hamiyeh said Africa, on a “risk-adjusted basis”, also offered some investment opportunities.
Sovereign wealth funds around the world, which manage an estimated $3 trillion in national assets, are emerging from the financial crisis and stepping up investments. For further stories on such funds see [ID:nL236030]. (Reporting by Saeed Azhar and Harry Suhartono; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
UN /ONU :
More deaths from unsafe water than from war: UN
(AFP)/23032010
UNITED NATIONS — More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday in a message to mark World Water Day.
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF noted that more than 155 million people, or 39 percent of the population in West and Central Africa, do not have access to potable water, with only eight of 24 countries in the region on track to meet key poverty-reduction targets by 2015.
“These deaths are an affront to our common humanity, and undermine the efforts of many countries to achieve their development potential,” Ban said as the issue was discussed at a high-level UN General Assembly dialogue.
“Day after day, we pour millions of tons of untreated sewage and industrial and agricultural wastes into the world’s water systems,” he said, noting that clean water has become scarce and would be even scarcer as a result of climate change.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the stakes, saying that global peace and security will depend on access to water.
“Access to reliable supplies of clean water is a matter of human security. It’s also a matter of national security,” she said.
Government stability and economic growth will always depend on countries’ ability to successfully manage water in a world where water resources grow scarcer by the day, the chief US diplomat added, urging rich countries to realize the importance of their role in the matter.
Ban stressed that the world has the know-how to solve the challenge and urged nations to “become better stewards of our water resources.”
UNICEF said the water situation in West and Central Africa “remains a major concern,” with the region home to the lowest coverage of potable water worldwide.
It said the total number of people in the region without access to improved potable water increased from 126 million to 155 million people from 1990 to 2008.
Despite an improvement in coverage from 49 percent in 1990 to 61 percent in 2008 — countries needed to reach 75 percent by 2015.
Six countries have less than 50 percent drinking water coverage: Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Niger, Mauritania and Sierra Leone.
Also of concern is the fact that 291 million people have absolutely no access to sanitation in West and Central Africa, the region with the highest under-five mortality rate of all developing regions at 169 child deaths per 1,000 live births.
The Nile River Basin, home to 180 million spread across 10 East African countries, is also largely mired in poverty and conflict, Clinton noted.
“Cooperative management of the basin’s water resources could increase economic growth — increase it enough to pull many of these countries out of poverty and provide a foundation for greater regional stability,” she said.
The theme of this year’s World Water Day, “Clean Water for a Healthy World,” highlights the fact that both the quality and the quantity of water resources are at risk.
Nine countries in Africa’s drought-affected Sahel region will meet in Chad on Thursday to find ways to manage scarce water supplies and protect people against food shortages, a Chad official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel — which groups Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal — will focus on setting up a global coalition on managing water.
Many of the member countries have suffered drops in food production due to erratic rains.
“Without water, there will be no prospects for achieving all MDGs (Millennium Development Goals),” UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang said.
At a 2000 UN summit, world leaders set a 2015 deadline for achieving Millennium Development Goals.
These include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, empowering women, reducing child mortality, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Football dominated cybersquatting complaints in 2009: WIPO
(AFP) /23032010
GENEVA — Complaints about football-related website addresses made up a key part of the cybersquatting disputes in 2009, said the UN intellectual property agency Tuesday.
“Football featured strongly in the WIPO Centre’s 2009 caseload, including the upcoming World Cup,” World Intellectual Property Organisation said in its annual report on cybersquatting.
Among the cases was a decision in favour of FIFA for the web address www.fifaworldcup2010.com after a complaint was filed by world football’s governing body.
The South African football federation also filed a challenge over cybersquatting, WIPO said.
In all, the agency received 2,107 complaints on 4,688 domain names in 2009.
This marked a drop of 9.5 percent in 2008, when a record number of cases was put forward, said WIPO head Francis Gurry.
Gurry noted that this fall reflected reductions in companies’ budgets for litigations amid the economic crisis.
About a quarter of the cases in 2009 were resolved by the parties ahead of a panel decision.
Of the remainder, some 87 percent found in favour of the complainant.
USA :
Bharti to use US$8.3b term loan to finance Zain unit buy
Tuesday March 23, 2010/ biz.thestar.com.my
NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel’s US$8.3bil loan commitment for its planned buy of Zain’s African assets is a term facility with average maturity just below five years, the leading Indian telecoms operator said yesterday.
Bharti declined to comment on the cost of the loan, but said in a statement to Reuters it believed the financing was priced “competitively”.
Bharti said US$7.5bil of the loan was dollar-denominated, and State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, had committed for up to US$1bil equivalent in rupee loans.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that Bharti Airtel has moved a step closer to its proposed US$9bil acquisition of Zain’s African assets after it arranged funding for 90% of the bid, a level of debt that may drag on earnings for the next year.
“At least three quarters if not four quarters of earnings per share dilution pressure will be there,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, chief strategist at SMC Capitals Ltd in New Delhi. “Even for Bharti’s balance sheet, US$8.5bil is a substantial loan.” SMC rates Bharti “hold.”
Bharti would get US$7.5bil in overseas loans from a group of banks led by Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc, India’s biggest wireless company said yesterday, a day after its board gave approval for a formal offer this week. The carrier would also get a rupee loan equivalent to as much as US$1bil from the State Bank of India, which would partly cover transaction costs, the New-Delhi-based company said.
Bharti’s board on March 20 approved the planned purchase of the African wireless assets of Zain, Kuwait’s biggest phone company, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations. The carriers have until March 25 to reach an agreement that would give India’s largest mobile-phone operator 42 million new subscribers in 15 African countries.
Bharti rose 1.6% to 316.95 rupees as of 9:03 am in Mumbai trading, the best performer yesterday on the benchmark Sensitive Index which dropped 0.9%. The stock was the second-worst performer of 87 companies on the Bloomberg World Telecommunications Index in the six months ended March 19.
The phone operator was seeking a six-year US$8.5bil loan with an average life of 4.75 years, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said last week. Bharti may pay interest of 2 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate, the people, who declined to be identified, said.
The other banks participating in the financing led by Standard Chartered and Barclays include State Bank of India, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas SA, Credit Agricole CIB, DBS Group Holdings Ltd, HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Bharti said. Global Investment House KSCC is acting as regional financial adviser on the deal, Bharti said. — Agencies
The banks’ financing paves the way for early completion of the deal once Zain agrees to the offer, Thunuguntla said.
The Indian phone company, which is also assuming debt of 1.7 billion at Zain’s African operations, could see earnings per share drop as much as 23% in the year ending March 2011 if it goes through with the transaction, Morgan Stanley analyst Vinay Jaising wrote in a note to clients on Feb 16.
Sudan: al-Bashir threatens U.S-funded election monitors
Tuesday 23 March 2010 / by Konye Obaji Ori /en.afrik.com
Sudan’s president, Mr. Omar al-Bashir has threatened United States-funded election observers, Carter Center, with expulsion and attacks, should elections scheduled for April 11 be postponed. The anticipated poll will be the first legitimately multi-party vote in Sudan since 1986.
Carter Center has said it would postpone the election date, earmarked to take place from April 11 to 13 as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 that ended over two decades of war, for fear of inadequate security of civilians, chronic instability in the south and a continuing refugee crisis in the Darfur region.
Speaking in the eastern town of Port Sudan, Mr. al-Bashir told his supporters that: “We have accepted the arrival of foreign observers [Carter Center] for the elections, but if they ask that the vote be postponed, we will expel them. We expect observers to say whether the elections are free and fair, but if they intervene in our affairs, then we will cut off their fingers and crush them under our shoes.”
Mr. Bashir who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1989, is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes in Darfur where hundreds of thousands of people still live in refugee camps after a separate conflict. He has been elected as president twice in ballots which were largely boycotted by most opposition parties, and he remains well-liked in the north of the country and so is expected to be re-elected as president for a third term.
However, the Carter Center, which operates the only long-term supervising mission in Sudan, expressed concerns that the forthcoming elections were at risk on multiple fronts. The general election will be the first since the end of a two decade civil war in 2005.
“Logistical preparations are straining the limited capacity of the NEC [National Election Commission]. With a series of delays and changes in polling procedures, a minor delay in polling for operational purposes may be required,” a statement from the center read.
Reiterating the concerns of the Carter Center, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that there was government [al-Bashir’s government] oppression of the opposition, and there was no freedom of speech and of the press which undermines the chances of holding a convincing ballot vote.
Other parties against elections timing
Meanwhile, 17 parties, with the exception of Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Popular Congress Party (PCP), have also called for the postponement of the elections until reforms in a number of areas, especially national security and media are made.
They also insist on pre-requisites for an inclusive electoral process that is free and fair. The pre-requisites include: “a Solution to the Darfur Problem; The demarcation of boundaries between the North and South; a political agreement to address the dispute over the population census; Reinstate the independence of the civil service, especially the media.”
SPLM on its part has complained that a good number of names of its supporters are missing from the voters’ list. SPLM official, Felix Okanyi Remijo, confirmed that in the eastern Equatoria state of southern Sudan alone, some “11,000 names are missing from the voters list.”
But despite the concerns stated by the Carter Center and Human Right Watch, NEC has vowed to carry on with the planed April 11 elections.
Undermining the election environment is the violence between rival ethnic groups which claims hundreds of lives each year in the south, making it difficult to ensure security should the election be allowed to run.
The 22-year conflict between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south claimed the lives of some 1.5 million people.
In the last month, Mr. al-Bashirs government signed a ceasefire with major Darfur rebel groups leaving just one band of rebels in open conflict. The peace deals have been described as a step forward to finding peace in Darfur, but agreements made in the past have so far had very little impact on the ground.
With April around the corner, Mr. al-Bashir’s government has been winning supporters with his efforts to win over rebels ahead of the polls, while international pressure has been high on him to find a solution. However experts believe that as more groups negotiate with the government, pressure may build on those still fighting to open talks for future deals.
CANADA :
Jonathan to attend forum on G8/G20 summits
By Oluwaseyi Bangudu /234next.com/March 23, 2010
As world leaders prepare for the G8/G20 summits holding in June, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is, today, expected to participate in a forum organised by the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, and the Canadian High Commission in Nigeria.
Organisers say the forum will provide Nigerians an opportunity to deliberate on issues to be presented at the summits to hold in Canada.
David Ugolor, the Executive Director of the organisation said, “There are a number of development challenges besetting our nation which require global support and attention. They range from democracy, good governance, repatriation of the country’s looted assets, poverty, Climate Change, security and of course Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).
“Our aim is to ensure that a Nigerian civil society message is carried into the Summit. This Roundtable will provide an opportunity for participants to dialogue and debate issues relevant to Nigeria. We expect high level input from delegates and participants.”
Platform to convey views
A statement from the Canadian High Commission in Nigeria, said, “The purpose of this workshop is to provide Nigerian stakeholders – in government as well as in civil society – with a platform to convey views to G8/G20 leaders. Nigeria’s crucial leadership role on the African continent and beyond makes us especially eager to solicit a broad range of Nigerian views in anticipation of this year’s G8/G20 meetings.”
The 2010 G8 and G20 Summits are both hosted by in Canada. While the G8 will be held in Huntsville, Ontario on June 25 – 27, the G20 (co-hosted by South Korea) will be held in Toronto on June 26 – 27.
Both meetings are vital in providing political direction and commitment across a broad range of issues. The Summit Communiqués are used as indicators by other multilateral processes and agencies in the pursuit of their work.
Often, the G8 issues instructions to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank to initiate studies or other work streams.
African Queen Receives 43-101 Report on King Solomon Gold Project
March 23, 2010/www.marketwatch.com
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Mar 23, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — AFRICAN QUEEN MINES LTD. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has now received the initial Technical Report in accordance with N.I. 43-101 on its King Solomon Gold Project in Mozambique (the “Report”). The Report was independently prepared by PAC Geological Consulting Inc. of Vancouver.
The Report contains a detailed overview of the history, geology and prior work programs on the Project, concluding that it is a property of merit and recommending a 3000 m reconnaissance diamond drilling program covering a number of key targets. The recommended work program comprises a first phase of 2000 m drilling together with induced polarization ground geophysics, related laboratory and other exploratory work, with a second phase of 1000 additional m of follow-up drilling on a result contingent basis. Preparations are now underway to commence the initial 2000 m drilling as soon as practicable in April with the easing of the rainy season.
The King Solomon Project is located within the central parts of the Mesoproterozoic Fingoe Belt in western Tete Province, Mozambique. These rocks consist of metavolcanics, metasediments and intrusive granitic and gabbroic rocks. The license is the subject of the Earn-in and Joint Venture Agreement dated July 10, 2009, with Swiss-based Opti Metal Trading Limited (“Optimetal”), covering exploration, development and exploitation of Prospecting License No. 884L presently held by Optimetal’s Mozambique subsidiary (the “License”). The License covers an area of approximately 230 sq km in the center of the Fingoe Belt, adjacent to a permit covering 150 sq km which is the subject of a separate Agreement between the Company and African Eagle Resources plc (AIM: AFE).
The Report has been filed on SEDAR and may be viewed at www.sedar.com or on the Company’s website, www.africanqueenmines.com.
About African Queen
The Company is an exploratory resource company with diversified mineral properties in Southern and West Africa. It is exploring its properties in Mozambique and Ghana for gold and other metals and it is exploring its properties in Botswana and Namibia for diamonds. The Company’s licenses in Botswana and Namibia comprise approximately 9208 sq km of diamond prospects. In Mozambique it has approximately 380 sq km of gold and other metals licenses under agreements with two other companies. Its operations in Botswana are carried out through its operating subsidiary, PAM Botswana (Pty) Ltd.; its operations in Namibia are carried out through its operating subsidiary PAM Minerals Namibia (Pty) Ltd.; its operations in Mozambique are carried out through its subsidiary PAM Mocambique Limitada and its operations in Ghana are carried out through its subsidiary AQ Ghana Gold Limited. The Company has its executive offices in Vancouver, Canada.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AFRICAN QUEEN MINES LTD.
“Irwin Olian” Irwin Olian Chairman & CEO
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of the information contained herein. The statements made in this press release may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual events or results may differ from the Company’s expectations.
SOURCE: African Queen Mines Ltd.
AUSTRALIA :
Kentz in profit surge as demand for oil and gas equipment rises
By Thomas Molloy/www.independent.ie/Irish Independent/Tuesday March 23 2010
KENTZ, a Clonmel-based engineering company which supplies equipment to some of the world’s largest mining projects, said profit rose as demand for projects in countries such as Iraq, Oman and Syria increased.
Kentz said pre-tax profit rose by 9.2pc to $44.5m in 2009 as sales surged 9.5pc to $704.7m. Earnings per share jumped 5.5pc to 26.4c while the company’s cash balance jumped 16.7pc to $180.3m. The company’s orders’ backlog at the end of 2009 increased by 49.2pc to $1.5bn. The company, which is listed in London, said its strategy of focusing on oil and gas projects in developing regions has been highly successful and helped it to expand despite the slumping world economy.
Increase
Kentz said it had seen a significant increase in its metals and mining business in southern Africa and Australia.
“Projects in remote global locations are those where Kentz’s experience can add real value to clients,” chief executive Hugh O’Donnell said yesterday.
The engineering company, whose customers include Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, said current projects will keep it busy for more than two years.
“Our current backlog is at $1.5bn, and for that we’ve got visibility of about two-and-a- half years,” Mr O’Donnell said.
Mr O’Donnell said the company may use part of its $180m cash balance to buy companies as Kentz expands in the Middle East and develops technology for oil and gas extraction. Energy producers are stepping up investments after the price of oil gained more than 50pc in the past year.
Kentz’s biggest projects include liquefied natural gas development in Australia, the Sakhalin fields in Russia and engineering contracts in Yemen and Qatar.
– Thomas Molloy
EUROPE :
CHINA :
Sino-African strategic partnership benefits China-Cameroon ties: ambassador
March 23, 2010 /english.people.com.cn
Deepening China-Africa strategic partnership will bring good prospects to relations between China and Cameroon, Chinese Ambassador to Cameroon Xue Jinwei told Xinhua in a recent interview ahead of top Chinese political advisor’s visit to the country.
Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), is scheduled to start an official visit to the central African country on Tuesday to further boost friendly ties and cooperation.
The visit would be the first by a top-level Chinese official toAfrica since the 4th Ministerial Conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum that was held last November in Egypt, Xue said.
“It is a visit that is aimed at implementing the promises of the Chinese government to reinforce pragmatic cooperation with African countries … and to promote China-Africa partnership at all levels,” he said.
The CPPCC chairman will give a speech at the Cameroonian parliament to sum up success and experience in the China-Africa partnership, which has been characterized by equality, mutual benefit, openness and pragmatism, Xue said.
The ambassador said Cameroon will benefit from the eight measures China announced last year that was meant to boost Sino-African cooperation.
The measures included intensification of technical-scientific cooperation, reinforcement of African financial capacities and increased access of African products to the Chinese market.
In Cameroon, cooperative projects are going on as planned and will definitely have satisfactory results, the ambassador affirmed.
Bilateral trade between the two countries grew tremendously in the past 39 years, with trade volume rising 286 times from 2.84 million U.S. dollars in 1973 to 813.54 million dollars in 2009, the Chinese diplomat said.
“Chinese companies started coming to Cameroon in 1982. We now have 10 Chinese state companies operating in Cameroon,” Xue said. “More and more Chinese enterprises, whether public or private, are seeking investment opportunities in Cameroon in various fields.”
The ambassador hailed the development in educational and cultural exchanges between the two countries, saying a large number of Cameroonians had been to China to participate in seminars, training sessions and official visits.
The Confucius Institute now has seven teaching centers across Cameroon with thousands of Cameroonian learners. The number of teachers grew from 2 to 17, including two Cameroonian nationals, said Xue.
“China is a faithful friend of Africa since she has joined hands with Africa through the best and the worst times without interfering in the internal matters of African countries. China is a sincere partner who has established a new mode of win-win cooperation with African countries,” he said.
The ambassador said he hopes what China has achieved in its development today would be what will happen in Africa tomorrow.
“We have a lot of confidence in the prospects of a good Sino-African partnership and Sino-Cameroonian cooperation in particular,” he said.
Source: Xinhua
INDIA :
BRASIL:
EN BREF, CE 23 mars 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,23/03/2010
