{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 25 mars 2010 – The Associated Press- March 25, 2010–An international fleet of warships is attacking and destroying Somali pirate vessels closer to the shores of East Africa and the new strategy, combined with more aggressive confrontations further out to sea, has dealt the brigands a setback, officials and experts said Thursday.
RWANDA
Opposition leader prevented from leaving Rwanda
25 Mar 2010/www.presstv.ir
A Rwandan opposition leader facing investigation over comments made about the 1994 genocide was stopped by the police as she was about to leave the country.
The leader of the Forces Démocratiques Unifiées – FDU-Inkingi, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, was prevented by Rwandan security forces to board a plane at Kigali International Airport.
Meanwhile, a police spokesman told AFP that the formerly exiled opposition leader was not arrested but it was necessary that she remained in Rwanda for further questioning.
“Police have asked Mrs. Ingabire to not leave the territory because she must respond to a police summons tomorrow,” the security official explained.
Ingabire, a Hutu who spent 16 years in exile, provoked controversy earlier this year as she called for the trial of those responsible for the death of Hutus in the 1994 genocide.
The Rwandan government accuses her of denying the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis along with some moderate Hutus, were slaughtered by Hutu militia supported by the government.
The current government in Rwanda is dominated by the Tutsis.
The opposition leader had previously complained about repeated harassment by Rwandan authorities, saying they were seeking to keep her out of running in presidential elections scheduled to be held in August.
CS/RE
UGANDA
Uganda: A Moment of Silence for Bududa
Emmanuel Buufu/The New Vision//allafrica.com/25 March 2010
Kampala — IN a move to support victims of the recent Bududa landslides, young musicians under their umbrella organisation, Young Talent Uganda, in conjunction with 94.8 Vision Voice FM and Go Lotto, executed a campaign dubbed, “Moment of Silence Bududa” on Monday.
Ninety two bodies were recovered while 350 were feared dead after the devastating landslide swallowed three villages on the slopes of Mt. Elgon.
Paddy Masembe, director of the group, said the campaign is an addition to the national response to aid the affected communities.”This should be a challenge to the rest of us that it is our responsibility as Ugandans to respond to such challenges in our community,” he said.
The campaign started with a press conference, a fundraising drive at the National Theatre and was followed by a charity walk from the theatre to KCC Grounds in Lugogo, where different artistes performed.
Among these were Mowzey Radio and Weasle, Rabadaba, Aziz Azion, Michael Ross, Cindy and GNL. Items like clothes, shoes, blankets and money were collected.
Ernest Wasake, the promotions manager of Vision Voice, appreciated the musicians for supporting a good cause.
South African leader visits Uganda
Thursday, 25 March 2010/ www.waltainfo.com
March 24, 2010 — South African President Jacob Zuma will be visiting Kampala starting Thursday where he will commission the Pan African Freedom Square on March 25.
The Uganda National Police spokesperson, Judith Nabakooba confirmed on Wednesday that Zuma will be accompanied by the host the President of the Republic of Uganda Yoweri Museveni.
According to the Uganda Media centre , President Jacob Zuma will lead a business delegation to scout for investment opportunities in the country’s budding oil sector, a South Africa is famed for an advanced mining and petroleum industry with immense potential as a source of investors for Uganda.
Uganda’s Investment Authority indicates that the country has recently realized a surge in foreign investor interest in the country’s economy, due to the discovery of commercial hydrocarbon deposits in the Albertine Graben that straddles its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The South African leader is expected to jet into Kampala on Wednesday evening and scheduled to address the national assembly among other planned activities
During his visit,the first since he assumed the highest office, bilateral agreements will be signed , in the fields of agriculture, trade, science and technology and customs cooperation.
Uganda and South Africa have enjoyed long historical relations since the time of anti apartheid movement
The deputy speaker of Uganda Parliament Rebecca Kadaga was quoted by the local media on Wednesday saying that the visiting leader “would like to say thank you to us” for Uganda’s contribution during the apartheid struggle, as the country backed the South African liberation movement.
Uganda was a place of refuge for hundreds of South African dissidents and exiles and hosted a military training camp for the rebel wing of the African National Congress in Kawaweta, Mubende District.in central region
The camp is named after renowned South African anti-apartheid politician Oliver Reginald Tambo, was upgraded into a school of leadership for senior police, prisons and military personnel with South African taxpayer’s funds.
Zuma is set to officially open the OR Tambo School of Leadership on Friday.
(APA)
ONGC arm loses race for Uganda oil block
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT/www.telegraphindia.com/100325
New Delhi, March 24: Chinese firm CNOOC has outbid ONGC in the race to buy an Ugandan oil block.
The setback for ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of the state-owned explorer, comes within weeks of acquiring a major crude oil block in Venezuala where it was the sole bidder.
ONGC’s failure could add weight to the oil ministry’s proposal of setting up a sovereign fund to compete with China in acquiring global oil and gas assets. Officials said, “The failure in Uganda indicates the urgent need to set up a sovereign fund as the country’s energy demands are expected to increase and acquisitions abroad are the only way to ensure energy security.”
“We should encourage acquisition of overseas oil, natural gas and coal assets, including by the private sector,” the Planning Commission has said in its mid-term appraisal of the Eleventh Five Year plan.
Two years back, ONGC had bought Imperial Energy for about $2.2 billion to gain access to fields in Russia.
OVL was keen on Heritage Oil Plc’s 50 per cent share in Block 1 and 3a in the Lake Albert Rift Basin of Uganda. Heritage, however, decided to sell its stake to ENI Spa, Italy’s biggest energy producer, for about $1.5 billion. The deal couldn’t go through as the UK’s Tullow, which held the remaining stake in the Uganda blocks, exercised its right of pre-emption to block ENI.
OVL and Cairn later teamed up to make an offer to Tullow, but Cairn backed out once the Chinese entered the scene.
Cairn was replaced by Oil India and IOC, and the offer was about $2.1 billion. The China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), however, emerged winner with its $2.5-billion offer.
Uganda: Lessons From Rukiga Elections
Joshua Kato and Darius Magara/The New Vision/allafrica.com/25 March 2010
Kampala — The parties must resolve their internal wrangles and build grassroots structures.
The outcome of the March 22 Rukiga bye-election was yet another landmark on Uganda’s political scene.
Whether the opposition’s strength was hyped, the ruling NRM put in extra effort, or there were irregularities as claimed by the opposition candidate, there are lessons to learn – never take anything for granted.
In an election where NRM fielded two candidates against one FDC, the poll seemed tilted in favour of FDC, but for the results to turn out the way they did shows how unpredictable elections can be. The two NRM candidates were Adson Kakuru, the official NRM candidate, and Amos Mugisha, who stood as an independent.
Kakuru garnered 10,910 votes beating FDC’s Jack Sabiiti who got 9,329 votes. Mugisha got 6,786 votes while Medard Gumisiriza got 291 votes.
The bye-election followed the death of Samuel Byanagwa (NRM) early this year. Byanagwa took the seat when he defeated Sabiiti who stood on the FDC ticket in 2006. Prior to this, in 2001, Sabiiti stood on the NRM ticket and won the parliamentary seat.
Had one of the NRM candidate accepted to stand down, NRM would have beaten its rival by a wider margin.
Sabiiti won only in the sub-county of Rwamucucu where he and Kakuru hail while Kakuru won in Kashambya, Kamwezi and Bukinda.
Residents of Rwamucucu say they voted Sabiiti because he is an elder, and while he was their MP, he initiated many development programmes.
The same residents say they rejected Kakuru because in his two terms as the district chairman since 2002, he has done little for the area.
Learning from past mistakes
The small margin by which Kakuru beat Sabiiti is a good point for parties to ponder.
The worst could have happened for the NRM. Now that they have won, they should work towards resolving their internal conflicts. If the same scenario occurs in 2011, they may not be as lucky.
Not long ago, the same problem cost the party the Mbale seat. The sooner they learn from this mistake the better.
Same old song
In an election that the Electoral Commission (EC) and the other independent observers (local and foreign), concur that there was peace and calm, it is surprising that Sabiiti claims irregularities such as bribery only after the poll results were announced.
Since Sabiiti chose to complain after the results, one wonders whether his claims are valid. And, in any case, what would he have said had he won the election? How come such claims always come up only when the opposition loses?
And what does Sabiiti have to say about the recently concluded Mbale Municipality bye-elections? Were they also marred by vote rigging and bribery?
Since the observers say the Rukiga poll was the most peaceful in recent times, perhaps, another thing Ugandan politicians need to learn is to honourably concede defeat.
Basic needs, basic vote
The campaigns were graced by both President Yoweri Museveni and FDC leader Col. Kizza Besigye. Now that NRM has won, Museveni can thump his chest for the support he commands in this part of the country.
However, this is not to say that he should relax as the outcome could reverse between now and 2011. A lot still needs to be done. Infrastructure, especially in rural areas, has collapsed.
The people have no medicine, education standards are appalling, no clean water, the roads are poor and the people have no market for their produce.
Whoever delivers these basic needs to the rural people who are the majority voters between now and 2011 will leave the polling centre smiling.
Chance for opposition
One would think the FDC should have made inroads in Kabale since 2006. However, like most parts of western Uganda, this has not been the case. This is a wake-up call to the opposition to strengthentheir grassroots structures.
The results also reflect a trend where the party that held a seat before a by-election retains it. Since 2006, the country has had at least 16 parliamentary bye-elections.
Of these, the FDC has won two in Mbale Municipality recently and in Bugweri in 2007. DP has won only one in Buikwe, UPC won in Apac, while NRM won 12.
Until the NRM came to power in 1986, Kabale was a UPC stronghold.
However, the district embraced NRM soon after. Sabiiti won in the 2001 elections because he stood on the NRM ticket.
Having noted that NRM still commands support in the western region, there is need for them to solve the issue of independents, which if not tackled, will cost the party a fortune come 2011.
While campaigning in Rukiga, President Yoweri Museveni said the NRM primaries will be revised to reduce on the complaints.
As for now, the writing is on the wall. Those who can should read it in the remaining 10 months. It is not too late.
TANZANIA:
CONGO RDC :
KENYA :
Kenya fugitive on Australia terror list
BY BERNARD MOMANYI/www.capitalfm.co.ke/Mar 25
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 25 – It has now emerged that the suspected terrorist who escaped from custody at a police station in Busia is wanted in Australia.
Sources within Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) said the suspect, Hussein Hashi Farah is wanted for planning suicide attacks on Sydney’s Holsworthy Army base sometime in August last year.
“The suspect was among other who planned to execute the bombing in an army base in Australia but he managed to escape. Others were arrested,” the source who cannot be named said.
“He is part of the Melbourne terror cell group, and has been on the run for some time now,” our source added, and revealed that “the suspect was holding an Australian passport when he was arrested.”
The suspect had been arrested as he entered Kenya through the Uganda border on March 13, but managed to escape from custody hours later, after what authorities now believe was collusion with police officers who were on duty at the time.
Three police officers were interdicted earlier this week following an investigation which police said, revealed that they had either simply allowed the suspect to escape after buying his way out, or failed to put in place proper mechanisms which could have ensured he remained locked up, after reports indicated that he had been confined separately from other inmates at the station.
At the time, a senior police officer said the suspect had been positively identified as being in the list of prohibited immigrants into Kenya and was profiled as a senior official in the Al-Shabaab high command in Somalia.
“He was holding an Australian Passport, but we are not sure if that is his real passport, or he has another one. Those are the issues we wanted to know… we had wanted to transport him to Nairobi for further interrogation,” the officer said.
On Wednesday, our source said: “We have established he is a wanted man, he has been on the run for a while now, and had tried severally to access Kenya through the borders in North Eastern and Eastern Provinces.”
“Since there has been enhanced security at those borders, he resorted to use the Busia border but even there he was detected,” the source said.
Some four other terror suspect believed to have been Farah’s accomplice were charged with planning suicide attacks on Sydney’s Holsworthy Army Base in August 2009.
They appeared in a Melbourne court where he was charged with conspiring with others in preparation for a terrorist act between February 1 and August 4 2009.
The court heard at the time that the men allegedly planned to open fire on personnel and bystanders until they themselves were either killed or arrested.
ANGOLA :
SOUTH AFRICA:
Oprah Winfrey settles defamation case filed by her former South African employee
March 25/South Africa Travel ExaminerWanda Hennig/www.examiner.com
The pending defamation case brought against Oprah Winfrey by South African Nomvuho Mzamane, former headmistress at the all-girls school the American TV-star philanthropist opened in South Africa in 2007, has been settled out of court.
The case was scheduled to begin on March 29 in federal court in Philadelphia. Girls from Winfrey’s school were reportedly scheduled to testify. The court was gearing up for a flood of spectators, according to reports.
Mzamane had claimed Winfrey defamed her in the wake of a 2007 scandal over alleged sex abuse at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in Henley-on-Klip, south of Johannesburg. Winfrey built the school at a cost of around $40 million.
Mzamane said that as a result of Winfrey’s remarks, she had difficulty finding another job.
According to a report in the Associated Press, the two women “are happy that they could resolve this dispute peacefully to their mutual satisfaction.” Details of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Before the school opened, Winfrey interviewed many of the 3,500 South African girls from low income families who initially applied for a place.
The school’s matron, Virginia Mokgobo, 28, was arrested in 2007 on charges including assault, indecent assault and soliciting under-age girls to perform indecent acts.
Winfrey allegedly fired Mzamane for failing to discipline Makopo over run-ins with students and other staff.
After the scandal broke, Winfrey said she had “lost confidence” in Mzamane and vowed to “clean house.”
These statements, Mzamane claimed, were defamatory.
Winfrey had planned to defend the case on free speech and other grounds. According to reports, Mzamane initially wanted $250,000 in damages.
South African Rand to Gain on Bets 7% Rate Advantage to Remain
March 25, 2010/By Garth Theunissen/Bloomberg
March 25 (Bloomberg) — South Africa’s rand may strengthen if the nation’s central bank keeps its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a fifth consecutive time, preserving the currency’s yield advantage.
The Reserve Bank is likely to leave the rate unchanged at 7 percent as Africa’s biggest economy shows signs of recovery, according to a Bloomberg survey. Governor Gill Marcus is scheduled to deliver the decision from about 3 p.m. local time. U.S. policy makers last week kept the federal funds rate target rate for overnight loans between banks in a range of zero to 0.25 percent and pledged to keep borrowing costs low.
“It’s too soon for a rate cut because inflation has only just returned to the target,” said George Glynos, managing director of Econometrix Treasury Management, which advises clients on bond and foreign-exchange transactions in Johannesburg. “One suspects the rand might strengthen in the short-term on an unchanged decision.”
The rand weakened as much as 0.4 percent to 7.4091 per dollar and traded at 7.4025 by 7:10 a.m. in Johannesburg, from a close of 7.3778 yesterday. Against the euro, it slipped 0.2 percent to 9.8646, from 9.8457.
South Africa’s central bank cut its key rate by 5 percentage points between December 2008 and August 2009 to boost the economy after it fell into its first recession in 17 years. Policy makers have left the rate unchanged at their last four meetings even as price growth slowed on signs the economy is recovering.
Inflation Eases
Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economy, rose an annualized 1.4 percent in the final three months of last year, the first increase after five consecutive quarters of contraction, the central bank said on March 23. A report yesterday showed inflation eased to a three-year low of 5.7 percent in February, the first time in three months that the rate of price growth fell within the central bank’s 3 to 6 percent target band.
“If we see a significant downward revision to the central bank’s inflation forecast, which might raise the possibility of further monetary easing, there’s likely to be an initial weakening of the rand,” said Glynos.
The yield on South Africa’s benchmark 13.5 percent bond due September 2015 was little changed at 8.17 percent. Yields move inversely to bond prices.
–With assistance from Janice Kew in Johannesburg. Editors: Paul Richardson, Vernon Wessels.
South Africa: Premier Lags in Race for Gauteng ANC Chair
Sibongakonke Shoba/Businessday/allafrica.com/25 March 2010
Johannesburg — THE wheels seem to be coming off Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane’s campaign to chair the African National Congress (ANC) in the province.
Branches in the province have already started nominating candidates to serve in the provincial executive committee, but Mokonyane’s campaign to unseat chairman Paul Mashatile is encountering problems.
Although the Mashatile camp has its share of problems, ANC insiders sympathetic to Mashatile say the Mokonyane campaign cannot even agree on its list of candidates for the top five posts. But her supporters deny this.
The Mokonyane list has changed several times since she began her campaign last year. Provincial secretary David Makhura’s name was once on the list to be Mokonyane’s deputy, but was replaced by Siko Madlala from the Ekurhuleni region. “We realised he (Makhura) was not on our side,” said a Mokonyane supporter who asked not to be named.
Panyaza Lesufi, adviser to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, was a candidate for provincial secretary, but his name has also been removed from the list. This is after Lesufi allegedly threw his weight behind Mashatile.
Johannesburg regional secretary Pule Mlambo has replaced Lesufi on the list, but insiders say some Mokonyane supporters, especially in the youth league, do not want Mlambo.
The Mokonyane camp removed Alina Rantsolase as candidate for treasurer and replaced her with Bafana Sibisi. Jacob Khawe, the provincial chairman of the ANC Youth League, is the only candidate who has survived the changes. The Mokonyane group plans to nominate Khawe as deputy secretary.
In the other camp, Mashatile supporters deny they have a list, but sources say they cannot agree on whether to retain Makhura or replace him with Lesufi.
Mokonyane will also face an uphill battle as the ANC is discussing changing party rules to prevent members who occupy posts in higher structures from serving on a lower structure.
Mokonyane is a member of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) and deputy chairwoman of the ANC in the province.
Two weeks ago, ANC secretary- general Gwede Mantashe questioned NEC members’ motives for serving in provincial bodies. “If you are in the NEC, what purpose will it serve to be (provincial) chair?” he asked rhetorically. Provincial chairs and secretaries are not encouraged to serve on the NEC. Despite this, four other provincial chairs, Zweli Mkhize (KwaZulu- Natal), Ace Magashule (Free State), David Mabuza (Mpumalanga) and Phumulo Masualle (Eastern Cape), sit on the NEC.
To rub salt in Mokonyane’s wounds, the premier has been in the news for the wrong reasons.
This week it was reported that she has 50 unpaid traffic fines.
She was reportedly booed and insulted during commemorations in Sharpeville, in the Vaal Triangle, on Human Rights Day.
Mokonyane cannot count on the support of the leagues at the provincial conference in May. The youth league in the province is divided, but she has the support of the top leadership under Khawe.
The women’s league is also divided, but Mokonyane will not expect support from league president Angie Motshekga, who is influential in the province. Sources in the ANC say Motshekga is angry with Mokonyane for supporting Motshekga’s rival, Bathabile Dlamini, for the league presidency.
Mokonyane has the support of the Sedibeng region, but insiders say she has lost support on the West Rand. Party members in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni are said to be divided on who should be chairman.
An ANC leader in Ekurhuleni says party leaders in branches prefer Mokonyane over Mashatile as they are not impressed with Mashatile’s support for mayor Ntombi Mekgwe.
In Tshwane, Mashatile is said to have the edge over Mokonyane although other leaders have raised the name of former mayor Smangaliso Mkhatshwa.
ANC spokesman in the province Dumisa Ntuli says at least 14 branches have finalised their nominations . Mokonyane has six weeks to get her campaign on track before delegates from 371 branches descend on Tshwane.
South African Producer-Price Inflation Accelerates to 3.5%
March 25, 2010/By Nasreen Seria/Bloomberg
March 25 (Bloomberg) — The cost of goods leaving South African factories and mines rose at a faster pace in February than the previous month, increasing the likelihood the central bank will keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged today.
Producer-price inflation accelerated to 3.5 percent from 2.7 percent in January, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said on its Web site today. The median estimate of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 3.7 percent. Prices rose 0.4 percent in the month.
The Reserve Bank will probably leave the repurchase rate at 7 percent for a fifth consecutive meeting, according to 22 of the 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, on mounting evidence that the economy’s recovery is strengthening. The bank aims to keep consumer-price inflation, which eased to 5.7 percent in February, within a target range of 3 percent to 6 percent.
“The Monetary Policy Committee should be focusing on 2011, where the inflation outlook is a bit murkier,” Carmen Altenkirch, an economist at Nedbank Group Ltd. in Johannesburg, said in a note to clients before today’s data. “The recent turnaround in economic indicators such as GDP and retail sales could also mitigate against a further cut” in rates.
Consumer expenditure increased an annualized 1.4 percent in the last three months of 2009, the first gain in six quarters, the central bank said on March 23. Africa’s biggest economy expanded an annualized 3.2 percent in the same period, the fastest pace in more than a year.
Crude oil has surged 9.1 percent in New York since the last Monetary Policy Committee on Jan. 26, adding to price pressures. That’s been partly offset by the rand, which has strengthened 3.2 percent against the dollar in the same period.
Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus will announce the interest rate decision after 3 p.m. local time today.
AFRICA / AU :
Zain, Bharti Finalizing ‘Definitive Agreements’ for Africa Deal
March 25, 2010/Bloomberg
March 25 (Bloomberg) — Zain and Bharti Airtel Ltd. are finalizing “definitive agreements” and a deal to sell most of Zain’s African assets to the Indian company for $9 billion will be signed within “days,” Kuwait’s biggest phone company said.
“Upon signing, the parties will move towards getting any required approvals,” Zain said in an e-mailed statement in Kuwait today, a day after its board met to discuss developments related to the deal. The “due diligence” process has been completed, Zain said.
DNA found of ancestor
25/03/2010 /www.mirror.co.uk
EVOLUTION
Traces of an unknown human ancestor which walked out of Africa a million years ago have been found in a cave.
The DNA find in a child’s finger bone in Siberia has stunned scientists because it radically changes the human family tree.
The girl – dubbed X Woman – suggests more ancestors lived alongside Neanderthals and early humans. Dr Svante Paabo told the wjournal Nature: “There might have been a continuous migration out of Africa.”
Namibia, S. Africa, Zambia: Sub-Sahara Bond, Currency Preview
March 25, 2010/By Nicky Smith/Bloomberg
March 25 (Bloomberg) — The following events and economic reports may influence trading in sub-Saharan African bonds and currencies today. Bond yields and exchange rates are from the previous session.
Kenya: The East African nation’s central bank will brief reporters on its decision to reduce its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 6.75 percent on March 23.
Kenya’s shilling weakened less than 0.1 percent to 77.65 against the dollar as of 8:29 a.m. in the capital, Nairobi.
Namibia: The southern African nation will sell 150 million Namibian dollars of 182-day bills.
The Namibian dollar is pegged to South Africa’s rand.
South Africa: The central bank of Africa’s largest economy will announce its interest-rate decision. The rate will probably remain at 7 percent, according to a median estimate of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The country’s statistics agency also releases producer-price inflation data for February. Factory-gate prices probably accelerated 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to a median estimate of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
The rand weakened 0.1 percent to 7.4025 per dollar by 7:31 a.m. in South Africa’s commercial capital, Johannesburg. The yield on the benchmark government bond due September 2015 fell 2 basis points to 8.15 percent.
Zambia: The southern African nation’s statistics agency is scheduled to publish inflation data.
Zambia’s kwacha weakened 0.2 percent to 4,775 per dollar by 7:32 a.m. in the capital, Lusaka.
–Editors: Vernon Wessels, Paul Richardson.
Warships take new strategy against Somali pirates
The Associated Press/Thursday, March 25, 2010
An international fleet of warships is attacking and destroying Somali pirate vessels closer to the shores of East Africa and the new strategy, combined with more aggressive confrontations further out to sea, has dealt the brigands a setback, officials and experts said Thursday.
The new tactics by the European Union naval force comes after Spain _ which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, and whose fishing vessels are frequent pirate targets _ encouraged more aggressive pursuit of pirates and the coalition obtained more aircraft and other military assets, said Rear Adm. Peter Hudson, the force commander.
The EU Naval Force attacked 12 groups of pirate vessels, which normally includes several skiffs and a mother vessel, this month, more than last year. Half of those attacks were on the high seas and half close to shore, reflecting the new strategy to intercept pirates before they reach deep water and international shipping lanes.
Hudson told The Associated Press that the force wants to “get up close … before they can attack some ships” and use the additional aircraft to spot pirate vessels and send warships to intercept them.
With calmer waters, March is typically a busy month for pirate attacks. But only two ships have been taken in the first two weeks of the month, down from four hijackings over the same period last year, said EU naval spokesman Cmdr. John Harbour. The number of unsuccessful attacks also dropped. About half of last year’s 47 successful hijackings happened during March, April and May.
Citing operational security, Harbour would not say how close to the coast the ships now get but noted that the EU Naval Force has the right to go into Somali waters, or within three miles offshore.
Hudson said it is too soon to tell whether the gains of the new strategy will hold. He said an improved level of co-operation between EU forces, NATO and U.S. naval forces based out of Bahrain is also helping.
Some experts agree the international forces have led to a drop in pirate attacks in a period when they would normally be firing at numerous vessels, climbing aboard on ladders and taking the crews hostage at gunpoint.
“They are at the moment effectively suppressing what would otherwise be chaos,” said Graeme Gibbon Brooks of Dryad Maritime Intelligence in Britain.
If the pirates aren’t detained for prosecution _ and most are not _ they are disarmed and put back out to sea on one craft. Harbour said that while the aggressive tactics are not a long-term solution, they force pirates to find new vessels and weapons before they can launch more attacks.
On Thursday, Somali pirates abandoned a hijacked Iranian vessel and set its 19-man crew free after encountering an Italian warship just off the coast of Somalia, NATO said.
Shona Lowe, a NATO anti-piracy spokeswoman, said the SAAD1 transport was released near the port of Garacad on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast, where it was hijacked five months ago and had been anchored.
It was unclear why the pirates set sail on Sunday in their captured ship, but they encountered the Italian frigate Scirocco which was patrolling nearby. On Thursday, the hijackers abandoned the Iranian ship and returned to Garacad in a dinghy, Lowe said.
“Because our ships are there, the pirates no longer have the freedom they had in the past,” she said. “There was no fire fight. It was the presence of the Italian ship that made them leave.”
But until stability returns to Somalia, young men will continue to risk drowning or imprisonment for the multimillion dollar ransoms that ships can fetch, experts say. There are few other job prospects in the impoverished nation, which has not had a stable government for 19 years.
“The big question is, what is happening about fixing Somalia?” asked Alan Cole, a lawyer who heads the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime’s anti-piracy initiative. “Right now I’m just chasing leaves falling off a tree.”
Eleven out of the 81 suspected pirates detained by the EU this month are being held for prosecution, said Harbour. Many European countries whose vessels have been attacked by pirates are reluctant to bring suspects home for trial in case they try to claim asylum.
Most of the hundreds of Somalis who are in prison on piracy charges are in Kenya, which has 18 convicted pirates and 107 suspects on trial, Cole said. They are also imprisoned in the semiautonomous northern Somali region of Puntland, in the Seychelles, Maldives, Yemen and Somaliland.
___
Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso in Nairobi contributed to this report.
Absa, BHP, Kairos, Sasol: South Africa Equity Market Preview
March 25, 2010/By Janice Kew/Bloomberg
March 25 (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 dropped for a third day, sliding 49.33, or 0.2 percent, to 28,401.68 in Johannesburg.
Absa Group Ltd. (ASA SJ): South Africa’s central bank will probably keep its key interest rate unchanged at 7 percent for a fifth consecutive meeting as the economy recovers, according to 22 of the 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Absa, the country’s largest mortgage lender, was unchanged at 140.50 rand. Standard Bank Group Ltd. (SBK SJ), Africa’s largest lender, slid 39 cents, or 0.3 percent, to 115.73 rand. Nedbank Group Ltd. (NED SJ) fell 15 cents, or 0.1 percent, to 134.40 rand.
BHP Billiton Ltd. (BIL SJ): Copper dropped for a third day, after erasing the year’s gains yesterday on concern government deficits will derail the global economic recovery. BHP, the world’s largest mining company, slid 34 cents, or 0.1 percent, to 246.11 rand.
Kairos Industrial Holdings Ltd. (KIR SJ): The mining-gear maker said it expects an annual attributable loss of at least 20 million rand ($2.7 million), after posting a 1.5 million rand loss a year earlier.
Sasol Ltd. (SOL SJ): Oil declined for a second day in New York after U.S. crude stockpiles increased more than analysts expected, adding to concern that demand from the world’s biggest energy consumer may be slow to recover. Sasol, the world’s biggest maker of motor fuel from coal, added 50 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 282.50 rand.
Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows:
Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) dropped 1.1 percent to $20.32. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) slumped 4.7 percent to $36.80. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) dropped 2.7 percent to $66.32. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) declined 3 percent to $4.92. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) retreated 3 percent to $12.12. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) slid 3.2 percent to $9.30. Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPUY US) fell 1.6 percent to $26.95. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) lost 0.9 percent to $4.42. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) declined 1.6 percent to $37.92.
–Editors: Ana Monteiro, Paul Richardson.
UN /ONU :
USA :
After 100 years, Urban League still focused on housing, jobs
By Krissah Thompson/ www.washingtonpost.com/Thursday, March 25, 2010
When the National Urban League opened its doors 100 years ago, African Americans were leaving the sharecropping South for big Northern cities. They migrated in droves, and the group — which then called itself the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes — was founded to help the newcomers improve their work lives and squalid housing.
A century later, the league remains focused on housing and jobs. The issues today stem from the disproportionate rate of foreclosure and unemployment that African Americans face in this economic downturn.
On Wednesday, the group’s leader, Marc H. Morial, released the league’s “State of Black America” report, a compilation of data that has told the halting tale of black economic advancement. The league was founded in 1910 to foster black economic equality, but progress has been slow, Morial said.
With the health-care bill signed, he is pushing hard for a jobs bill that will bring down the double-digit unemployment rate among African Americans. Last month, blacks were unemployed at nearly twice the rate of whites, 15.9 percent to 8.8 percent.
“We need a strong jobs bill to put people back to work, not a modest jobs bill,” Morial said at a news conference at which the report was released. “A nation that can spend billions of dollars bailing out banks on Wall Street can and should pass a jobs bill that helps out-of-work Americans.”
He said the economic stimulus and the jobs bill passed by Congress a week ago did not do enough to target employment in poor communities.
The need is urgent, Morial said. When the Urban League began tracking economic and racial disparities annually in 1974, black families made 58 percent as much as white families — a median of $7,808, compared with $13,356. In 2008, black families made 62 percent as much as white families — $34,218, compared with $55,530.
“It’s like being the caboose on a train. African Americans are the caboose,” Morial said. “If the train goes 20 miles an hour, you’re the caboose. If the train goes 200 miles an hour, you’re the caboose. You can move faster and still be behind.
“The [economic] disparity should never mask the fact that we have more African Americans who are middle class than ever before, but there’s a continuing duality of our community.”
That duality has created confusion for the Urban League and other traditional black civil rights groups, which are contending with a setback in black economic advancement as they celebrate the administration of the first African American president.
The most recent rift has arisen over the jobs bill. Morial, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the head of the NAACP have asked President Obama and Congress to do more to help blacks. Obama has declined to target any racial group, insisting that a rising economic tide will lift African Americans as well as others.
“This window of opportunity gives us a chance to really begin to look at the chronically unemployed,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the CBC. “It’s just do we have the political will to do this?”
Morial — who met with the president last month along with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and the Rev. Al Sharpton — has been easier on Obama, noting the president’s popularity among black voters and his willingness to hear ideas for creating a direct jobs program. The debate in which black civil rights groups are engaged is not about the president, Morial said.
“In the 1960s, we were very clear that dismantling racial desegregation was the goal,” he said. “The question now is: What are the next sets of goals? What we need now are goals with tangible outcomes.”
That question weighs heavily on the Urban League as it celebrates its centennial. Morial gives the league’s history a quick acknowledgment as he pushes a new set of ideas called “I am empowered.”
The program asks African Americans to pledge to achieve four goals by 2025: Have every child ready for college and make sure every worker has access to a living wage, quality health care and safe housing.
The Urban League was founded in New York on Sept. 29, 1910, by Ruth Standish Baldwin, the widow of a railroad magnate and philanthropist, and George Edmund Haynes, the first African American to receive a doctorate from Columbia University. From the beginning, its focus was on gaining jobs for blacks, pushing against the color line within organized labor and cleaning up urban housing.
In the 1960s, with civil rights leader Whitney Young as president, the league opened an office in Washington. Vernon Jordan, a lawyer and business executive who held the post in the 1970s, issued the first “State of Black America” report in 1976, calling it a “profoundly depressing document.”
Economic progress for blacks came to a near-halt in the late 1970s. It further deteriorated in the 1980s, recovered in the 1990s and is eroding again, said Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and expert at the Urban Institute.
“The challenges of 2010 are in some ways much more complicated than the challenges of 1910,” Holzer said. “Achievement gaps are harder to turn around. It’s not like you can pass a law outlawing it. [The Urban League] understands that the times are very difficult . . . and they are adapting to that.”
Fossilized Pinky May Point To New Human Relative
by Christopher Joyce/www.npr.org/March 25, 2010
Anthropologists didn’t have much to work with on this paleontological puzzle — just a piece of a pinky finger discovered in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.
But what most surprised scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany was the DNA inside that finger — specifically, mitochondrial DNA, which is found in every human cell.
It’s rare to be able to isolate DNA that’s 40,000 years old, so when researcher Johannes Krause finally did, he called his boss, anthropologist Svante Paabo.
“Johannes called me when I was in the U.S. and told me about this, and it was absolutely amazing,” Paabo says. “At first I didn’t believe him, and I thought he was pulling my leg.”
What the DNA showed was that whoever that finger belonged to was not a human like us. Nor was it a Neanderthal, the only other member of the human line known to be living in Europe at the time, according to research described in the journal Nature.
A Mystery In Our Family Tree
The bone came from a cave called Denisova. Paabo calls the individual who owned the finger “the X-woman” — the X stands for mystery. But to determine whether this was a previously unknown species of human, researchers needed DNA from the nuclei of the bone cells. They’re working on it, Paabo says.
Paabo says the DNA they already have does indicate that this Siberian stranger, along with humans and Neanderthals, evolved from some common ancestor that lived in Africa about a million years ago. “Whoever carried this mitochondrial genome out of Africa about a million years ago is some new creature that has not been on our radar screens so far,” he says.
Scientists know generally when this new hominid — as human ancestors are known — appeared on the scene by comparing the number of mutations in the DNA of humans, Neanderthals and the X-woman. Mutations occur in a population at a certain rate that can indicate how long they’ve evolved separately from a common ancestor.
Though Paabo can’t say if this was an unknown species on the human line, he can say the X-woman’s ancestors probably migrated from Africa a million years ago, well before modern humans evolved.
‘Restless’ Ancestors
Terry Brown, a geneticist at the University of Manchester in England, says the discovery at least suggests that our African ancestors were pretty restless.
“I think that probably hominids were leaving Africa much more frequently than we imagined. There’s no real reason a hominid should stay in Africa if its populations grow and it needs more space, and obviously it’s logical to move into Eurasia.”
Brown notes that there’s plenty more DNA to be found in fossils, especially from colder climates where they’re better preserved. “I suspect there’s going to be some more surprises around the corner, as well,” he says. “If there are other bones we can get DNA from, I think it’s possible we can find greater variation among our ancestors than we previously realized.”
Krause says one thing about the X-woman is clear: She would have lived a rough life. “In the cave, we also find things like woolly mammoth or woolly rhino,” he says. “Also that region was, of course, affected by the ice age. So it was probably colder than it is today.”
Jenice Armstrong: Missing out on Oprah
Thu, Mar. 25, 2010 /www.philly.com/By Jenice Armstrong /Philadelphia Daily News/Daily News Columnist
NOPRAH.
Oprah Winfrey may be relieved about not having to sit through a lengthy defamation trial, but where does that leave the rest of us?
Worrying about getting caught in a flash mob.
If I sound bitter, it’s because many of us had been looking forward to catching a glimpse of Oprah when she came to town for the trial, scheduled to begin next week. And it wasn’t just her fans. Business owners were hoping for the famed Oprah Effect – her uncanny knack for turning an unknown into a superstar.
Just ask that lady who created Spanx or even President Obama, two who had the good fortune of being anointed by Winfrey.
“I’m ready to leap out of the window. I can’t believe she’s blown me off like that. I can’t believe she’s canceled her appointment at Ursula’s About PHace,” quipped Ursula Augustine, the shop’s owner, when we chatted yesterday.
“You think I’m joking? I’ll have to take her off the books for next week,” said Augustine, who has been hoping for a chance to dazzle Winfrey with her makeup artistry.
Whenever Winfrey’s here, buzz follows. Where is she staying? (Usually the Rittenhouse Hotel, but employees are prohibited from blabbing.) Where is she dining? (Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse would be my bet, since it’s hot right now).
“It’s a shame. It would have brought a lot of excitement and national press for Philadelphia,” said Kelly Boyd, a public-relations guru who represents 10 Rittenhouse Square businesses and maintains an office on the Square. “It really would have elevated our national presence.
“But I respect the fact that she settled” the case, Boyd continued. “She didn’t want to make drama, and who needs more drama in their life, honestly?”
Lerato Nomvuyo Mzamane, an administrator at Germantown Friends School before she went to work for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, in South Africa, in 2007, apparently didn’t want any more drama, either. She claimed she had been defamed by Winfrey in statements she made after news broke of a sex scandal at the school.
Had a trial proceeded as planned, it would have caused a commotion the likes of which Philly hasn’t experience in a while. U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno reportedly had set aside a second courtroom for the expected overflow crowd.
A couple of students from Winfrey’s school were expected to fly in from South Africa to testify, but that was before the former headmistress and Winfrey reportedly met without attorneys and reached an undisclosed agreement.
It was the decent thing to do for them. But what about us?
“I’m sorry to disappoint everybody. I’ve been getting a lot of flak about it,” Timothy McGowan, Mzamane’s attorney, told me yesterday. “But it’s over and done with. That’s it.”
It’s not as if Winfrey can’t spare the cash for the settlement, but couldn’t the two parties at least have stuck it out through jury selection?
“I feel Philly’s pain about missing out on Oprah,” said Robyn Okrant,who blogs on Livingoprah.com about following every bit of Winfrey’s advice. “In Chicago, many of her fans were hit pretty hard when she announced she’s leaving us for good.
“She’s an institution here. I’m worried about the impact her absence will have on this city’s self-esteem. First we lose out on hosting the Olympics, now Oprah!”
CANADA :
Three infants under four months old die from recalled baby slings
March 24/Atlanta News You Can Use ExaminerPatricia Walston/www.examiner.com
The CPSC has issued yet another warning in regards to baby slings which can cause smothering in infants. Parents here in Atlanta who may have purchased these slings can get information by calling the phone number below for replacements. If you have one of these and your child is under four months old discontinue using them immediately.
Last year three babies died from suffocation while inside these slings. One million Wendy Bellissimo and Sling Rider slings are the current models being recalled. There were approximately one million of these slings sold in the US, including Atlanta, Georgia; with approximately 15,000 being recalled in Canada.
“Atlanta News You Can Use” reported on this recall about two weeks ago; but now there is a specific recall for the Infantino brand. Other brands have also been questioned for their safety. Parents should be cautious of any type sling where the baby’s head can be bent forward causing suffocation. Infants under four months cannot hold their heads up and therefore are at risk when placed in these slings.
These are unsafe for babies under four months old and the company will replace them with another product.
At this time, there are currently no standards on the manufacturing of these slings; but the CPSC will implement new standards whereupon these slings may be produced and marketed. These slings were manufactured in China and Thailand.
While many mothers in Africa and Asia have used these slings for centuries; it has only become popular in the last decade or so in America. The danger lies in that the baby’s head is not exposed on the new thicker slings where the ones in these other countries were of a scarf type of sling with the baby’s head exposed.
These slings have been widely sold at Atlanta stores such as Walmart, Burlington Coat Factory, Target, Babies “R” Us, BJ’s and other stores. They sold for under $30.00. The Bellisimo model was only sold at Babies”R” Us.
Infantino is offering a choice of the following alternative products to replace the slings: Wrap & Tie infant carrier, or a 2 in 1 Shopping Cart Cover, or a 3 in 1 Grow & Play Activity Gym. The company will toss in a rattle as well.
Consumers can contact Infantino at (866) 860-1361 weekdays between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern Time.
Centers in Africa Fight HIV/AIDS
Facilities in Botswana, Tanzania to become limited liability companies
By Elias J. Groll, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER /www.thecrimson.com/Published: Thursday, March 25, 2010
At an orphanage in Botswana, a 14-year-old girl lost her mother to AIDS last year, quietly resigning herself to what must have been a catastrophic blow in the life of a child.
Her mother was one of 11,000 to fall victim to HIV/AIDS in Botswana that year.
Facing the second highest HIV infection rate in the world, the Botswanan government has taken steps in recent years to increase access to antiretroviral drugs.
Of the roughly 350,000 living with HIV/AIDS—or one-third of the country’s adult population—56 percent received treatment in March 2005, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Since the mid 1990s, Harvard faculty and students have flown out to two outposts in Botswana and Tanzania—the cornerstones of Harvard’s presence in Africa—to conduct ground-breaking HIV/AIDS research.
But earlier this year, Harvard’s two HIV/AIDS research centers in Africa each spun off limited liability companies, a strategic move that will open up funding streams that had previously been off-limits due to federal restrictions.
For the 120,000 AIDS orphans living in Botswana, the potential funding increase could speed further advances in research as well as public health initiatives.
When JJ Diah ’10 visited the SOS Children’s Villages orphanage last spring during her semester in Gaborone, she found that this young girl—whose name Diah does not remember—managed to keep an outlook on life defined more by hope than by despair.
“She didn’t expect her mother to die, but she knew that it was a possibility—it was that HIV/AIDS is a reality,” Diah says. “For them it’s like, we know which family members have HIV/AIDS, and we know people are going to die from this.”
A TOWERING FIGURE
The biography of Harvard School of Public Health professor Myron “Max” Essex reads much like the history of HIV/AIDS research.
Essex was one of the first to link retroviruses to AIDS, to discover that HIV could be transmitted through bodily fluids, and to identify the protein now used world-wide to screen for the disease.
Despite Essex’s protests (“I don’t like to use the word ‘breakthrough,’” he says), the founder of Harvard’s facility in Botswana has overseen multiple major advances in the field, saving countless lives in the process.
With the creation of limited liability companies, the research centers—which had been funded primarily through grants from the National Institutes of Health—will gain access to grants from European entities as well, says Jorge I. Dominguez, the University’s vice provost for international affairs.
It remains unclear how much funding the African centers will receive, but Wafaie Fawzi, who directs the program in Tanzania, says he expects an increase in funds available for research.
In describing the future of the centers, Dominguez says that he expects them to partner with a local nongovernmental organization, drawing a parallel to Harvard Medical School’s relationship with its affiliate hospitals.
“We’ve committed ourselves to do the capacity building necessary so we can turn all assets over to a nongovernmental organization in Botswana that will ultimately receive the funding from the federal government,” Dominguez says.
LOCALIZING CARE
Max L. Dougherty ’10 could not help feeling slightly panicky when he first arrived in Botswana to work in Essex’s lab last spring.
“I didn’t really know what to expect,” Dougherty says. “What struck me is the dryness of the land—any sort of open space is just dirt.”
“It’s in the desert,” Dougherty adds. “The country just looks very brown.”
But once Dougherty joined Essex’s lab, the foreignness of the African country began to fade.
“When I first got there I was impressed,” Dougherty says. “It looked like a lab you would expect to see anywhere.”
Interviews with students who worked with Essex last spring paint a picture of a close-knit scientific community holed up in the lab, decoding genomes, analyzing drug resistance, and researching HIV transmission from infected mothers to their children.
Carlos C. Becerril ’10 recalls working late in the lab, analyzing the transmission of drug-resistant HIV.
His research yielded results—the drug-resistant HIV strain typically found in Botswana is usually not transferable. Botswanans infected with HIV can begin treatment immediately upon diagnosis, since the strain they contracted is likely not to be drug-resistant, which would require a different course of treatment, Becerill says.
This finding means that drugs can be delivered faster, increasing health practitioners’ success rates.
“Now that I look back, I’m happy that I spent as much time in the lab as I did,” Becerill says. “It showed me that if you put the work into it, you can really accomplish something.”
Several Botswanans work in Essex’s lab, which is located next door to the capital city’s main hospital, and Essex is quick to emphasize that his facility is not meant to provide care for area residents, but to conduct research.
Health clinics in the developing world face the challenge of striking a balance between bringing in outside experts and building up local expertise to set up long-term care structures.
And Essex doesn’t expect to reach the ultimate goal of establishing locally operated HIV/AIDS clinics any time soon in Botswana.
“We have students for research training and a number of medical students who are training clinical fellows at the hospital, but in relation to turning it over the people of Botswana—certainly that’s a long term goal in 10 or 20 years,” Essex says.
On the other hand, the establishment of the Africa Academy in Tanzania has made progress in training Tanzanians to give medical treatment.
The research and teaching hub for health professionals hopes to apply lessons learned from the University’s research endeavors to improve health infrastructure in the region—an effort that may have long-term positive repercussions for health in sub-Saharan Africa.
“These organizations will allow us to have a better chance to develop initiatives to address public health problems in Tanzania and the region and to tap into our resources,” Fawzi says.
—William N. White contributed to the reporting of this article.
—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.
Canada hopes to build ties with Arab countries
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, Parliamentary Bureau Chief/www.torontosun.com/ March 25
OTTAWA — Canada is reaching out to Arab countries to build trade and diplomatic ties.
Speaking to the Canada-Arab Business Council in Ottawa Wednesday night, International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan said big oil and gas companies, infrastructure firms and the education sector have made significant inroads in the region. But franchises like Second Cup and La Vie en Rose are also taking hold — and Canada is pushing for an even greater business presence.
“Canada is demonstrating its keen interest in improving and deepening our partnerships in the Arab world,” he said.
Politics, security, trade and investment are all intertwined in the region and countries must work together at all levels to build relationships, he added.
Van Loan said Canada is now in free trade talks with Morocco and negotiations with Tunisia toward a foreign investment promotion agreement. Discussions with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are underway to strengthen business ties.
Two-way merchandise trade between Canada and the Middle East-North Africa region was an estimated $12.8 billion last year.
Earlier in the day, Van Loan tabled legislation for a free-trade agreement with Jordan that would lift tariffs on most exports and give Canadian sectors such as manufacturing, forestry and agriculture a “leg up” on the competition in Jordan.
“The Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, once implemented, will open doors to this growing economy and give Canadian businesses a real advantage in the broader Middle East and North African markets,” he said.
kathleen.harris@sunmedia.ca
AUSTRALIA :
David Prosser: The questions that Rio Tinto must answer
Thursday, 25 March 2010/www.independent.co.uk
Outlook Now the trial of the Rio Tinto four is over, will one of the world’s largest mining companies give a full account of this sensational case? While the proceedings have been ongoing, Rio has been able to avoid saying much in public about the events leading up to the hearings. That defence is no longer open to it.
It’s easy to assume the worst about China. Clearly, it looks suspicious that Rio’s executives were first charged a few weeks after the collapse of a deal between the mining giant and Chinalco, the state-backed business. And since the Shaghai court sat mostly behind closed doors – not entirely unfairly, given the case concerned commercial secrets – there’s no way for observers to come to an independent view about the evidence in the case.
Still, the Rio four pleaded guilty to at least some charges. They may have done so in hope or expectation of lighter sentences, but we can’t know that for sure. All one can say is the default option should not be to presume China concocted this case as revenge for the Chinalco “betrayal”. We just don’t know.
Either way, however, Rio Tinto and the Australian government do not come out of this well. Both have protested about the incarceration of these men – one of them, Stern Hu, is an Australian citizen – but neither have felt strongly enough to be put off signing valuable deals with China. If Rio’s executives were the victims of charges trumped up by Chinese authorities, one could understand why they might feel rather abandoned by their employer. The mining company has said that it has been offering them support, but the deal it signed last week with Chinalco to co-develop iron ore resources in Guinea, West Africa, could not have come at a more unfortunate moment. If Rio was really so concerned about the plight of its staff, what was it doing agreeing such an obviously lucrative deal with a Chinese state-backed company just a couple of days before their trial?
If, on the other hand, the Rio four really were guilty all along, why has the miner continued to offer them its support? What did it know about their activities before the Chinese authorities stepped in? And will it continue to employ these men?
As for the Australians, it has always been clear where their priorities lie. For all the outraged talk from Canberra about this case, the government has repeatedly made it clear it regards trade ties with China as a completely separate matter.
It may be that both Rio and Australia came to a measured decision that pulling out of trade deals with China would do nothing to help these men – or even make matters worse. But the suspicion must be that the desire to pursue contracts worth billions of pounds has triumphed over the desire for justice.
EUROPE :
Hired Guns Involved in First Deadly Shootout With Pirates
www.aolnews.com/March 25
— In what may prove a harbinger of high-seas dramas to come, a pirate attacking a ship off the Somali coast was reportedly killed by a private security guard.
The European Union’s Naval Force announced Tuesday that a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia successfully warded off a pirate attack. After a Spanish naval ship intercepted the attacking pirate boats, the EU added that one of the pirates had been killed before the Spanish ship arrived, presumably by the private security guards on board the attacked ship.
The attack involved three boats, the EU’s naval force reported: a pirate mother ship and two smaller skiffs. When the naval ship arrived, it found three pirates on one skiff, and three others — along with one dead body — on the other skiff
Just as the use of private contractors in military operations has drawn increased scrutiny over the past few years, it now looks inevitable that similar questions of legality and liability will be raised off the Horn of Africa. “The bottom line is somebody has been killed and someone has to give an accounting of that,” Arvinder Sambei, a legal consultant for the United Nations’ anti-piracy program, told The Associated Press.
As with many piracy incidents, legal jurisdiction is ambiguous. In this case, the attacked ship was owned by a company based in the United Arab Emirates, but flown under the Panamanian flag. The Spanish frigate was operating as part of the European Union Naval Force and directed to the pirate boats by an Italian admiral.
As the frequency of pirate attacks has increased, a growing number of private security firms have been offering their services to shipping companies and cruise ships. Famously, Blackwater Worldwide, now now known as Xe Services, even bought an 830-ton ship to field an anti-piracy force for potential clients.
That business never materialized, however, and the company faced legal complaints from its crew for alleged mistreatment. With little work and mounting bills, Xe earlier this year put the anti-pirate ship up on the auction block.
South Africa: Talks On Trade Deal With EU On Again
Hopewell Radebe/allafrica.com/Businessday/25 March 2010
Johannesburg — Discussions on economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU) were scheduled to resume next month in a bid to resolve outstanding issues that stalled talks for almost a year, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said yesterday.
Davies said there was greater optimism that the next round would focus on the kind of trade relations that would give priority to integration of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) . The EPAs should therefore have no special clauses that sought to split the region or discriminate between Sadc states.
One sensitive point in the interim EPA signed by Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland is the EU demand that Sadc and the South African Customs Union (Sacu) accord it most-favoured-nation status or level treatment.
Davies said the most-favoured-nation clause remained an important source of discontent. While it did not apply to SA because the EU had decided not to give SA unrestricted free access to its markets due to the size of its economy in Africa, there was serious concern it could damage other Sadc members.
“The benefit of the clause to the EU is very minuscule to its large economy but the potential damage to our Sacu members will be big,” he said. It meant some members would be allowed to trade in a particular way with the world and EU in particular, while others would be expected to adhere to certain restrictions and so to trade under different conditions .
“The clause really does get to the core of what could hold together or promote regional economic integration or serve against efforts to build regional growth,” he said.
Business Day understands there have been discussions among Sacu members in preparation for next month’s meeting with the EU which helped to revive solidarity .
Independent EU analyst Dr John Maree said such discussions were encouraging . He said South African trade with EU was likely to suffer if the issue was not resolved because SA was the major market, which the EU wanted more than that of other Sadc members.
He said he expected Sadc to look at compromising on some of its demands, such as SA agreeing to open its market to the EU’s services and procurement industries, including products that were not necessarily competition to local manufacturers, in exchange for the EU relaxing the most-favoured-nation clause.
Only seven of Sadc’s 15 member countries negotiated an EPA with the EU. The others are negotiating in other EPA configurations such as the East Africa Community.
SA had initially participated as an observer and in a supportive role for Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland. It formally joined negotiations in 2007. SA had chosen to be an observer because it has a separate deal with the EU called the Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement .
Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique signed the interim EPA in June last year. Although Namibia had initiated the agreement more than two years ago, it decided not to sign. Angola did not join either, because it had not yet tabled a tariff offer. As one of the least developed countries , Angola has duty-free market access to the EU under the “everything-but-arms” initiative .
However, the interim EPA contains a clause allowing Angola or SA to join rapidly.
CHINA :
Microsoft Tarred as Tyranny Abettor as Google Asks Feds to Promote Net Freedom
By Ryan Singel/www.wired.com/ March 25, 2010
Google is urging the U.S. government to make net censorship a part of its trade and diplomatic negotiations, even as it holds out hope that China does not start blocking its uncensored Hong Kong servers, where Google.cn users have been diverted since Monday.
Not unexpectedly, Google came in for heavy congressional praise Wednesday at a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. But perhaps more telling for industry at large is that Google has seemingly set a precedent that other companies — namely Microsoft — are being measured against and that pressure on the software giant is likely just starting.
New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith (R), a sponsor of the Global Internet Freedom Act, lashed out at Microsoft, whose executives have scoffed at Google’s decision to leave China.
“They need to get with the program and join with the side of human rights, instead of being on the side of tyranny as they are today,” Smith said in his opening remarks.
By contrast, Smith called Google’s decision to re-route its censored China site to its largely unfiltered Hong Kong site, “a remarkable, historic and welcome action.” Google entered China in 2006, agreeing to censor sensitive political search results so long as they could tell users when that was happening, but found that censorship got even tighter, rather than loosening — leading it to declare in January it could no longer compromise its principles.
Microsoft, it seems, now finds itself on the wrong side of the engagement/boycott debate, at least as far as the political winds are blowing, even though its search share in China is minuscule compared to the 20 percent Google share has had and the 60 percent the Chinese-owned Baidu enjoys.
Like so many manufacturing companies before it, Microsoft argues that its business in countries like China has a liberalizing effect.
In an e-mailed statement, Microsoft said:
We appreciate that different companies may make different decisions based on their own experiences and views. At Microsoft we remain committed to advancing free expression through active engagement in over 100 countries, even as we comply with the laws in every country in which we operate. We have done business in China for more than 20 years and we intend to continue our business there. We also regularly communicate with governments, including the Chinese, to advocate for free expression, transparency, and the rule of law. We will continue to do so. We believe engagement in global markets is important, as an open and healthy Internet involves not only access to information, but access to network connectivity, computing power, innovative and easy-to-use software applications, and the basic IT skills needed to leverage these capabilities.
But on Wednesday, the pressure increased even more as yet another online giant — GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, announced it was ceasing its business with China over internet censorship. GoDaddy announced it would stop selling .CN domain names, since it found China’s new dictates that it collect detailed personal information, including a photograph, on every domain holder too invasive.
“We decided we didn’t want to become an agent of the Chinese government,” GoDaddy general counsel Christine Jones told the committee.
Other companies will soon begin to feel the same pressure as Microsoft, according to Eddan Katz, the international affairs director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“What Google did sets a certain threshold for the responsibility that companies have to contributing to an infrastructure of repression,” Katz told Wired.com in a phone interview. “Other companies will be asked to disclose what they are dong, and how far they are complicated in the machinery of the surveillance system.”
Some tech companies have already found themselves in that spotlight, well before Google’s decision. Cisco has been widely criticized for selling its router and firewall technology to the Chinese, knowing that it would be used for filtering. Yahoo executives found themselves hauled in front of Congress after it aided the Chinese government’s arrest of dissidents including by turning over e-mails, despite having good reason to suspect the inquiries were politically motivated. Yahoo has since joined the Global Network Initiative, reduced its presence in China, and in Vietnam, kept its e-mail servers outside of the Communist country and thus, out of the reach of legal orders.
Google’s Alan Davidson told the panel that it had only seen intermittent censorship so far of Chinese mainland users using its Google.com.hk site, though it realizes that the Chinese government could expand the censorship at any time.
Test using WebSitePulse show that many formerly blocked searches, such as one for the blocked religion Falun Gong, return full search results to Chinese users. However, many of the results, such as Falun Gong’s Wikipedia entry, are blocked.
Davidson, formerly of the Center for Democracy and Technology, described internet censor ship as a “growing threat” that requires coordinated responses from companies, governments and civil society groups.
And while Google has taken pains to say that it made its decision independently of the U.S. government, Davidson says that the U.S. government needs to be involved.
“We believe internet freedom needs to become a plank of our foreign diplomacy and should be part of trade negotiations,” Davidson said.
That message was well-received, at least by the self-selected group of Washington lawmakers at the hearing.
Chairman Byron Dorgan, a Democratic senator from North Dakota, argued that China couldn’t reap the rewards of being a dominant player in the manufacture of goods, while placing unfair restrictions on the information industry.
“The truth is the world is made up of more than just products, there is also a marketplace of ideas in the world,” Dorgan said. “Respected countries don’t censor their citizens; respected countries don’t put their citizens in jail without trial, and respected countries don’t fear speech or ideas.”
It’s not clear whether pressure from foreign companies can change China’s censorship rules, as divestment in Apartheid South Africa did with racial policies.
But that’s certainly the hope of Google among others.
“We are hoping that we can offer our service uncensored in China,” Davidson said. “A bad case scenario is that others rush in to fill the void with products that don’t provide unfiltered information to Chinese users.”
INDIA :
India’s Bharti nears deal with Zain on African assets
By Penny MacRae (AFP) /25032010
NEW DELHI — India’s top mobile firm Bharti Airtel was poised Thursday to clinch a 10.7-billion-dollar deal to buy the African assets of Zain after the Kuwaiti company said the sale would be completed in days.
The deal would be the second-largest foreign takeover in Indian corporate history and give Bharti, led by billionaire entrepreneur Sunil Bharti Mittal, a major footprint in one of the world’s least developed telecom markets.
Zain issued a statement saying the “due diligence process has been completed and the parties are finalising definitive agreements which are expected to be signed in the coming days”.
Bharti, which failed twice to forge a deal with South Africa’s MTN Group, has been racing to expand abroad amid savage price wars in India’s congested mobile market that have slowed revenues.
A Bharti spokesman said the New Delhi-based company had no immediate statement but expected to make one later Thursday, the day on which an exclusive talks period agreed by the two companies in mid-February was to end.
Zain’s board on Wednesday cleared the sale of most of its African businesses to the Indian company.
The deal would transform Bharti into an emerging market multinational with combined sales of 13 billion dollars and clients in 15 African countries from Burkina Faso to Zambia.
Shares of Bharti were up 1.14 percent at 310.30 rupees in early afternoon trade, defying an overall falling market.
“We believe Bharti would be getting a strong business opportunity,” said Mumbai’s Angel Broking in a note to clients.
Mittal, who built Bharti into an Indian telecom powerhouse in 15 years, said last month Africa represents “the most under-penetrated market in the world”, offering huge potential growth for his company.
Just 36 out of every 100 people in Africa own a mobile phone, according to industry figures.
But the takeover will require all of Mittal’s legendary Midas touch to turn around Zain?s struggling African operations, particularly in Nigeria, the Kuwaiti company?s key market, where it has been losing clients.
The proposed takeover, dubbed Bharti’s “African safari” by Indian media, values Zain’s African assets at nine billion dollars. Bharti will also assume Zain’s 1.7-billion-dollar debt, putting the deal value at 10.7 billion dollars.
Under the agreement, Bharti, which already has 125 million Indian subscribers, would get 42 million new clients in Africa, making it the world’s seventh-largest telecom company.
Zain will hang on to its operations in Sudan and Morocco.
Analysts say Bharti will seek to duplicate its low-cost, outsourced model of operations in Africa in a bid to return the Kuwaiti company’s networks to profitability.
Bharti’s former takeover target MTN would be one of its biggest rivals in Africa.
The trick for Bharti, which pioneered low-cost telecoms in India, will be to bring down Zain’s high cost base and win more subscribers, say analysts — and to get subscribers to talk more using lower tariffs.
Last weekend Bharti said it had raised 8.3 billion dollars to finance the takeover, adding the “financing was oversubscribed, with major international banks committing to underwrite the total amount”.
Mittal has said the deal would have an unspecified impact on Bharti’s earnings “but in the long run, we are looking for a growth story in this. And therefore it’s not a cause of worry”.
Chris Stringer: The tip of the iceberg in understanding of human history
This work provides an entirely new way of looking at human evolution in Asia
www.independent.co.uk/Thursday, 25 March 2010
The remarkable recovery of an ancient mitochondrial DNA lineage in a human fossil from Denisova cave in Siberia could really be the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding human origins, particularly in this region of the world. Asia covers a large area and we have a pretty poor idea of who was there or how they were related to the rest of the human family.
We already have a wide collection of human fossils in Asia, yet we have little idea of how they are related to one another, or to fossils from other parts of the world. This is the first real line of evidence we can use to try to relate some of these people to us, to the Neanderthals and to Homo erectus, the first species to emerge from Africa about 1.75 million years ago.
The suggested divergence date of the Denisova lineage, around one million years ago, appears to be too late for it to be a descendant of the first H. erectus to migrate out of Africa, and too early for it to be a descendant of Homo heidelbergensis, the possible ancestor of the Neanderthals and of modern man, if that species originated only about 650,000 years ago.
However, the species Homo antecessor (“Pioneer Man”), known from sites at Atapuerca, Spain, was known to exist approximately 0.8 million to 1.2 million years ago, closely matching the age estimate for the origin of the Denisova lineage. Nonetheless, recent research has suggested that H. antecessor evolved from early Asian H. erectus, in which case its origins would also be too ancient, compared with the mystery Denisova lineage.
The first question to ask is whether the origin of the Denisova lineage, the “coalescent estimate” of between 779,000 years ago and 1.3 million years ago, is accurate. This is a complex issue as the calculation depends on several assumptions, and is in turn based on another estimate, that the chimp and human lineages split at about 6 million years ago. If the Denisova lineage is in fact younger, it could represent an early off-shoot of the H. heidelbergensis lineage, after all.
Certain enigmatic Asian fossils dated between 250,000 and 650,000 years ago, such as Narmada in India and the Chinese fossils at Yunxian, Dali and Jinniushan, have also been considered as possible Asian derivatives of H. heidelbergensis. So they too are potential candidates for this mystery non-erectus lineage.
However, there are other, younger, fragmentary fossils such as the Denisova ones themselves, and partial skulls from Salkhit in Mongolia and Maba in China. These have been difficult to classify. This new DNA work provides an entirely new way of looking at the still poorly understood evolution of humans in central and eastern Asia.
Another intriguing question is whether there might have been overlap and interaction not just between Neanderthals and early moderns in Asia, but also between either of those lineages and this newly recognised one at Denisova. The distinctiveness of the mitochondrial DNA so far suggests little or no interbreeding occurred, but we won’t know till we have further data from other parts of the nuclear DNA from the fossils.
The writer is head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London
BRASIL:
EN BREF, CE 25 mars 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,25/03/2010
