{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 28 mars 2010 – www.worldsentinel.com- March 28, 2010–Requests from Zambia and Tanzania to hold one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles failed during a United Nations species trade meeting that comes during a worldwide poaching crisis.
RWANDA
Rwanda: Biodiesel Bus Makes Maiden Trip to Burundi
Charles Kwizera/The New Times/allafrica.com/28 March 2010
Kigali — The first biodiesel-powered bus in Africa yesterday made its maiden trip from Kigali to Bujumbura in the first of its frequent trips to the neighbouring country.
The bus, according to the Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (IRST), will be run using 100 percent biodiesel, a development that is likely to give a major boost to environmental protection.
The biodiesel in the bus is manufactured in Rwanda, whose production, according to IRST Director General, Jean Baptiste Nduwayezu, is one way of making the country self sufficient.
“Rwanda as a land-locked country, the only way it can reduce dependence on other countries would be through producing its own biodiesel,” said Nduwayezu adding that the diesel also helps in cutting carbon emissions.
The biodiesel which is currently being produced at IRST is obtained from palm tree oil, Jatropha and Moringa tress, and according to Nduwayezu, the institute is currently getting raw materials from the neighbouring countries of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The institute presently has a daily production capacity of 2,000 litres.
In her speech at the launch of the Rwanda Biodisel Express bus, the IRST board chairperson, Sharon Haba, said that IRST’s efforts in researching and developing ways of protecting the environment are some of the government’s priorities.
She however said that the environment protection issue is cross-cutting and that one country cannot be able to solve it alone without mutual partnerships with the neighbouring countries, which is why there exists a partnership between IRST and Burundi University on the biodiesel research project.
“This research, which has so far proven successful, will help in the country’s development and will usher in sustainable development, hence cutting on the foreign dependency,” she elaborated.
Haba also called upon other research institutes in the country to come up with solutions to some of the pressing issues, adding that it is through such accomplishments that Rwanda’s aspiration of becoming a leader in research and technology will be realised.
Rwanda needs 2, 225 hectares of land to be able to start producing the raw materials used in producing biodiesel.
Speaking to The New Times, the Minister of Forestry and Mines, Christopher Bazivamo, dispelled fears that growing of biodiesel plants in Rwanda would lead to abandoning of production of food crops.
“That is not true. The government has plans of how these plants will be grown without interfering with normal food production in the country,” said Bazivamo.
According to Bazivamo, plants like Jatropha and Palm can be grown along the roads and between paddocks in farms and said that this will help farmers to earn some money from the plants.
He added that there are other areas that were found to be suitable for these plants and had not been productive with other crops.
The biodiesel policy has already been formulated and is yet to be presented for approval.
UGANDA
Rights Group Says Rebels Killed 321 Villagers in DRC
Human Rights Watch says the massacre that took place last December in the Democratic Republic of Congo was previously unreported.
28 March 2010/www1.voanews.com
An international human rights group says rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 321 villagers in a previously unreported massacre that took place in December.
In a report Sunday, Human Rights Watch said another 250 people were abducted by rebels from Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army.
It says the killing spree took place in several villages in the Makombo area of northeastern DRC over the course of four days in mid-December.
The group says most of those killed were men who were first tied up and then attacked with machetes, axes or sticks.
A U.N. official confirmed the attacks and said the organization is investigating. The head of the U.N. investigation, Liliane Egounlety, told Reuters news agency 290 deaths have been confirmed so far.
U.N. officials say it has taken so long to carry out the investigation because of the remoteness of the area.
The Lord’s Resistance Army, once based in northern Uganda, is accused of killing, kidnapping and mutilating thousands of people over the past 20 years.
LRA leader Joseph Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.
Ugandan army units have been chasing the LRA across central Africa for the past couple of years. The rebels have attacked villages in Uganda, the Central African Republic, DRC, and southern Sudan.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Homophobia Epithets Becoming Prevalent in Nigeria, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa
FrontPage, Opinions
newliberian.com/By Paul I. Adujie, New York/ March 28, 2010
Why is it so important for Nigeria, Uganda and now, Malawi to squander public resources in the repression of homosexuals and lesbians citizens within these African nations? It is just astonishing that some African nations focus on the persecution of homosexuals, gays and lesbians, instead of the more important focus on continental development.
Why is it that political and religious leaders in these nations seem to see or interpret homosexual and lesbians sexual preferences and practices as if more of existential threats and or, inimical to the pursuits of health, wealth and happiness than say, malaria, AIDS, unemployment, unclean water, broken and decrepit public infrastructures?
I am a heterosexual male and I do not believe that my sexual preference makes me remarkable.
Besides, I also believe in the Human Rights of all persons regardless of such persons’ sexual preferences. I, We, Nigerians, Ugandans, South Africans, Malawians, Americans or anyone for that matter, do not have to have the same sexual interests or preferences as a basis or predicate for advocating the rights of others, others, who are unlike us.
I strongly believe that Nigerians, South Africans, Ugandans and Malawians and others, should be able to advocate the rights of homosexuals and lesbians citizens amongst us, even if we are decidedly heterosexuals. Just the same way in which we may be able to recognize the rights of others to practice their choice of preferred religion, even if we ourselves are of a different religious faith or are faithless, agnostic or atheists ourselves.
We ought to be able to accept homosexuals, gays and lesbians without making value judgments or some sorts of dogmatic and judgmental moral condemnations of gays and lesbians, based upon or predicated on our moral certainty or religious “superiority”
I am quite at a loss when I listen the vehemence and stridency, with which some Nigerians, some South Africans, some Ugandans, some Malawians etc, talk, discuss, and in fact, attack gays and lesbians within our nations.
Why is it that in the midst of greater challenges, such as suffocating abject poverty, and pervasive-permeating wants in these nations, and yet, some of us, manage to squander our time and efforts, in addressing sexual choices made by grown men and women with mutuality of sexual interests and with affections, derived of knowing and informed consent, permission and mutual authorizations.
I am certainly at a total loss as to why for instance, Uganda now is notorious worldwide for contemplating the death penalty or capital punishments for persons engaged in gay and lesbian sexual intercourse? How about the death penalty for those public officials, who demonstrate gross incompetence and or unrivaled ineptitude?
Why would Uganda not start with prescribing the death penalty for corrupt public officials? How about it, if Uganda prescribes public execution for those public officials who mismanage the economies of these African nations? Why the unfounded fears for gays and lesbians?
Why would these African nations not focus punishing those who mismanage public resources? Why would those African nations who hypocritically pretend to be so “morally” upright and concerned with what sorts and forms and styles of sex, and or sexual habits of the Africa citizens? The majority of the economies of the nations on the African continent are perilously close to implosion.
These African nations have no economic growth, they are in fact close to moribund or nearly comatose and yet these nations are wasting valuable time on debates about gays and lesbians, when in fact, there are many pressing and very desperate situations of hardships and sufferings on the African continent.
President Joseph Zuma of South Africa angled and schemed to be president and he became one, and now, his cavorting with some women and his peculiar treatments of some other women, is quite likely ending up as his signature issue and his legacy. Meanwhile, 20 years have passed since majority rule and the “death” of formal Apartheid minority rule in South Africa and the economic and social fortunes have not changed for the majority of South African citizens.
Unfortunately, in the midst of all these abject poverty, continuing racial inequalities, and lopsidedness in the distribution of land and economic power and wealth in South Africa, President Zuma is mired in the matters of sexual lusts. President Zuma irresponsibly takes additional “wife” and a woman half Mr. Zuma’s age as the president of South Africa wishes to nullify the infamous rocking of the cradle by Tony Randall.
The majority of South Africans are wallowing in poverty and dire economic depression. The majority of South Africans are left to wonder what the dividends of democracy and post Apartheid South Africa is worth to them, and yet, all that they see, is the obscene and untamed sexual appetite of the septuagenarian Mr. Zuma lustily pursuing multiple skirts. After all the efforts made nationwide by the hitherto marginalized majority of Black South African, and the hard won victory which led to Black majority government in South Africa, why is it acceptable for Mr. Zuma to be squandering and missing opportunities to do right by the long suffering South African Black majority?
Why is President Jacob Zuma so content, satiated and constipated and seemingly unaware of the suffering and hardship which remain all too common in South Africa? Why is President Zuma able to allow himself distracted with lusts and the irrelevancies of sexual pleasures? Where is the fire in his belly and the desire to do good for the majority of South Africans? Why is
Mr. Zuma’s emphasis not about common good and the public good of all South Africans? Why is President Zuma engaged in the worse than useless luxury and indulgence in sexual pleasures as if he were a teenager? Where are the fiery and fierce freedom fighters of South Africa who wanted to liberate South Africa? What a waste of opportunities? Why have powers for power’s sake? Why has Mr. Zuma fought for so long to procure power and then, he has forgotten power’s real
purpose beyond his personal perks and sexual pleasures?
Why are sexual pleasures suddenly so important in African politics anyway? Why is the debate and brouhaha about gays and lesbians beclouding the urgent, extremely urgent needful work of economic, social and political development in many African nations? Why is democracy, the rule of law, due process, constitutionalism and all elements of continental advancement relegated to the back burners? Why are the frivolities and sexual pleasures, heterosexual, homosexual or gay and lesbian sexual pleasures now front and center, and substitutes for political and economic reforms which are sorely lacking on the continent?
I have wondered for years, why was it so important for Mr. Nelson Mandela to divorce Winnie Mandela? And why Mr. Mandela could not overlook Winnie Mandela’s sins, whatever they were, just as he was uncommonly humane and magnanimously forgiving towards those who tormented him for 27 long tortuous years?
Why if Mr. Mandela had focused on land redistribution while he was president of South Africa? After all, 27 years of imprisonment in the hands of brutal minority and illegal regime of South Africa made South Africa Mr. Mandela’s life work and Mrs. Winnie Mandela played pivotal and prominent roles in all of that. Mr. Mandela could have made further sacrifice and let Winnie be, whatever her matrimonial transgression during the incarceration of Mr. Mandela.
Why have Mr. Mandela, Mr. Thabo Mbeki and now Mr. Jacob Zuma neglected to focus on addressing and redressing the disparities and lopsidedness of political and economic power distribution in South Africa? What has land redistribution in South Africa dealt with? Have Black political leaders in South African been afraid of being labeled and tarnished in the same ways as President Mugabe of Zimbabwe? President Mugabe obviously fell out of favor, after his partners to the pre-independence Lancaster House Agreement neglected to follow through with promises to fund and support land redistribution, and proceeded to castigate Mr. Mugabe, who for public purpose and his personal cover as well, belatedly, pursued land redistribution in Zimbabwe, where one percent of the white minority controlled ninety five percent of the entire land of Zimbabwe.
Why are too many political leaders of African nations engaged in the frivolities of sexual pleasures and amorous distractions and orgasmic plateaus when the general state of affairs of human condition is abysmal dismal?
In the midst of metaphorical earthquake measuring 10.6 on Richter scale, earthquake of economic, political and social devastation in many African nations, why is so much time being wasted on bodily pleasures of heterosexual sex, gay and lesbian sex or any sexual pleasures at all? Africa, our house is on fire, and why are sexual pleasures of any type the centerpiece of continental Africa’s public debate?
What reasonable person focuses on sexual pleasures in the middle of an earthquake? What reasonable person focuses on sex in the middle of the economic, political and developmental devastation in Africa?
Why is it that any sexual pleasures, and the morality and immorality about it, have now subsumed important public policy debates regarding sustainable economic and political development of the African continent? Why is the fixation on sexual pleasures in its varieties and the varieties and forms of it and sexual preferences become a fodder and cover, for ineptitude of public officials across the African continent?
Why this seeming clueless fixation on sexual pleasures whether heterosexual or homosexual?
Perhaps all political leaders in African nations should be required to forswear off sex and be celibate, but with the sex abuse epidemic in the Catholic Church in Ireland, Germany, Italy, and the United States etc, asking African leaders to forswear off sex and become celibate is portentous of the Catholic affliction.
What have sexual pleasures, and sexual preferences got to do with the provision of clean water, full employment, steady electric power supply, electoral and constitutional reforms and provision of reliable public infrastructures across the nations of Africa? Our continent continues to suffer image devastation. Our continent continues to be left behind the rest of the world developmentally while too many of our leaders are focused on sexual pleasures.
Why has the focus on whether citizens of Africa plateau in heterosexual, gay and lesbian orgasms become substitute for proper focus on the priorities of economic and political development, progress and advancement of the continent of Africa?
What has orgasm got to do with the grinding poverty and the urgent answer to poverty, the urgent and needful development of Africa?
TANZANIA:
WWF and TRAFFIC: Ivory Sales Proposal Fails at CITES Meeting
www.worldsentinel.com/Newswire Services/March 28, 2010
Washington, DC — Requests from Zambia and Tanzania to hold one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles failed during a United Nations species trade meeting that comes during a worldwide poaching crisis.
Governments participating in the United Nation´s Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) rejected proposals by Tanzania and Zambia to relax trade restrictions on their elephant populations by moving them from Appendix I — the highest level of protection under the Convention banning all international commercial trade — to Appendix II.
The two countries had also initially asked that they be able to hold a one-off sale of their ivory stockpiles. No commercial ivory sale is permitted if elephants remain in Appendix I, but an Appendix II listing allows some regulated international commercial trade.
Neither country was given permission to sell their ivory at this stage or relax trade controls on their elephant populations. The decisions come amid a poaching crisis destroying elephant populations in Asia and Africa.
“WWF and TRAFFIC believe the main factor behind the ongoing elephant poaching is the continued existence of illegal ivory markets across parts of Africa and Asia,” said Crawford Allan of TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of WWF and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Data from the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) presented at this meeting showed that illicit trade in ivory has been increasing in volume since 2004 and moved sharply upward in 2009. A significant correlation continues between large-scale domestic ivory markets in Asia and Africa and poor law enforcement, suggesting that illicit ivory trade flows typically follow a path to destinations where law enforcement and market regulations are weak.
According to new data released from park rangers and WWF field staff on the ground in Cameroon, there has been a recent increase in poaching and use of high-powered weapons.
In February, two unarmed game guards and 14 elephants were gunned down in Bouba Ndjidda National Park in northern Cameroon. During the past few months at least 40 elephants in and around protected areas were killed for their ivory and it is estimated that about 400 elephants have been killed within the last four years in three national parks in Cameroon alone.
“It´s crucial that central and western African nations suppress the brazen poaching, mainly fueled by organized crime and illegal ivory markets openly operating within their borders before any further ivory sales take place,” said Sybille Klenzendorf, Managing Director of Species Conservation at WWF-US. The sight of ivory openly on sale in many cities of Central and Western Africa sends a potent signal to poachers, smugglers and consumers that it is legal to buy and sell unregulated ivory.
CONGO RDC :
KENYA :
ANGOLA :
SOUTH AFRICA:
AFRICA / AU :
Africa is destination next for India Inc
economictimes.indiatimes.com/28 Mar 2010
The move by India’s top telecom player Bharti Airtel to acquire the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain marks the biggest foray of a domestic company
into the continent. The landmark deal, estimated at $10.7 billion, raises the level of Indian investments in Africa to $16.7 billion.
Airtel’s entry into Africa is hugely significant as it underlines the enormous potential available in the continent for Indian industry. In the telecom sector alone, the sky is the limit as far as growth is concerned. Tele-density in the continent is only about 30 percent. At the same time, Airtel will have to contend with stiff competition from MTN, a company it tried to merge with on two occasions, which is already making aggressive public comments about the Indian company having made a mistake in going with Zain.
But Airtel is not the only company looking for growth in Africa. The Tatas, India’s largest industrial group, were the first to make their presence felt there. The group is estimated to have already made about $1.6 billion worth of investments in Africa, the latest being a luxury hotel in Cape Town.
The other Indian corporates which are active players in Africa include automobile majors Ashok Leyland and Mahindra and Mahindra, electronics and white goods giant Videocon, consumer products firms Marico, Dabur and Godrej, energy giant Suzlon, breweries group UB, drugs manufacturers Cipla, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, software and IT education firm NIIT, and diversified houses Kirloskars and Essar.
Even state-run firms like the Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) bought a 25-percent stake in Sudan’s Greater Nile Project seven years ago in a bid to improve the country’s energy security, raising quite an eyebrow. But crude supplies to India have already begun and ONGC maintains its entire investment of nearly $1 billion had been paid off in three years.
Unfortunately, ONGC has been less than successful in recent years in acquiring oilfields in less controversial parts of Africa like Uganda and Algeria, where it has been outbid in some cases by China. This, in turn, highlights the fact that Indian investment in Africa are way behind that of China which is estimated to have invested about $60 billion in that continent.
Thus despite India’s traditional ties with countries like Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, China has recently made substantial investments that go far beyond the Indian private sector initiatives.
Even so, it is clear that there is vast potential for Indian industry to have a larger presence in Africa. One major plus point is the huge middle class estimated to range from 350 million to 500 million, even larger than the Indian market.
Automobiles, IT and fast-moving consumer goods of Indian companies have already made their mark. The pharmaceutical industry has also played a role in providing cheap and effective drugs for a market that earlier relied on high-value drugs produced in developed countries.
As for telecom, Airtel is not the first Indian entrant to the African market as Essar has already launched its YU brand in Kenya and is planning to be a pan-African player. Telephone density ranges from 14 percent in Congo to 123 percent in Gabon though most countries are in the lower ranges. In the consumer goods sector, Marico has already acquired a hair products brand in Egypt while Godrej has bought Tura, a soaps and lotions brand that is a household name in Africa.
The main challenge in the continent, however, remains the diversity of its countries. The northern region is very different from the south and there is a wide range of cultures. The levels of political stability and economic progress are also markedly different in each area. Marketing strategies will thus vary widely from country to country.
As far as India-Africa trade is concerned, a target of $70 billion has been set for the next five years from the existing level of about $40 billion annually. This is much lower than the existing level of China-Africa trade, currently estimated at $109 billion. At the same time, there appears to be a recognition in official circles that India needs to ramp up political and economic ties with Africa.
The recent Africa-India conclave in New Delhi, sponsored both by industry and government agencies, managed to discuss business projects worth $10 billion. Simultaneously there was an effort to highlight the difference in the Indian and Chinese agendas in the continent, with India’s focus being on capacity building, training and private investment. The effort was to stress the fact that in contrast to the mere profit- seeking approach of China, India’s approach was to bring about empowerment of the continent.
Airtel’s buyout of Zain’s African assets thus is not a mere indicator of the growing strength of Indian industry. It also highlights the increasing importance of Africa as an investment destination and market for Indian goods and services.
It seems even India Inc. is turning away from the tried and tested markets of the West and is finally taking the plunge into the relatively less-explored countries of Africa. With growth momentum picking up in many African economies, this is clearly the time for India Inc. to make the right moves in this highly potential and yet greatly neglected part of the world.
UN /ONU :
USA :
Please don’t make us integrate: First black rector faces challenges at S. African school
DONNA BRYSON/Associated Press Writer/March 28, 2010
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — The first black leader in the 106-year history of the University of the Free State started his tenure last year with a surprise.
In his inaugural speech, rector Jonathan Jansen declared that the university would drop its criminal case against four white students accused of making a video where four black janitors eat a stew apparently spiked with urine. Jansen also offered two of the students who had been expelled the chance to resume their studies — the other two had graduated.
Jansen’s controversial move rippled across a country that is still struggling to unify, 16 years after Nelson Mandela won its first all-race elections. Some blacks were outraged, including the local head of the African National Congress Youth League, who accused Jansen of racism.
But Jansen said he was trying to start a conversation, and that racism cannot be resolved in the courts. Human rights lawyer Mothusi Lepheane, who has been advising the janitors, said he understood.
“Where should they go?” the lawyer said of the students. “We don’t have a camp or university for racists. Bring them back, let them learn how to live with others.”
And retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, often seen as South Africa’s measured, moral voice, said Jansen was setting an example for the nation.
“Revenge and retribution are easy,” Tutu said. “Forgiveness is not for sissies.”
The furor points to the complexity of Jansen’s mandate: To integrate a university in South Africa’s conservative heartland, where blacks are still ushered to the back of restaurants. The university, virtually all white a generation ago, is now 60 percent black. But black and white students largely live and learn separately. And when Jansen took over, white students begged him, “Please don’t force us to integrate.”
He will. Jansen says preparing students for a future in a multiracial country means insisting: “If you want to study here, then you’re going to have to learn to live together.”
___
A University of the Free State residence is more than just a dormitory. What’s known here as a “rez” is closer to a U.S. fraternity or sorority, but with even more influence. Students take rooms in the residences where their parents once lived. They follow initiation rites that have been passed down for generations.
One residence was named for Hendrick Verwoerd, South Africa’s prime minister from 1958-1966, a period during which apartheid was entrenched and black rights decimated. The name was not changed until 2006, to Armentum, Latin for a herd of large animals such as elephants, the house’s mascot.
Most of the white students come from the surrounding province. They were nurtured in all-white schools and all-white churches in isolated farming communities where everyone spoke Afrikaans, the language of the descendants of early Dutch settlers. For more than a century, what was once known as the Orange Free State was an independent Afrikaner republic.
Lawyer Lepheane said that in 2005, one of his first cases in Bloemfontein involved a liquor store with separate entrances for blacks and whites. Half a decade later, a black Bloemfontein car dealer brought Lepheane a case where white colleagues had replaced a picture of him in a newspaper ad with that of a monkey.
In 2006, the Free State administration before Jansen’s bowed to pressure and called for residences to be integrated. That’s when the now-infamous video was made. It ends with the janitors being invited to move into the residence, and then an Afrikaans phrase appears in supertitles: “This is what we really think of racial integration.”
Jansen was brought in to try integration again. He announced that the new groups going into every residence would be half black and half white. But because those already living in the residences were not affected, the houses remain largely segregated.
Jansen has already stopped one residence from forcing first-year students to bow before the statue of a residence founder.
“There you have black students bowing to a white guy they have no connection to,” he said. “There are traditions that are not shared and are offensive.”
Jansen’s work day often begins at 7 a.m. with an hour devoted to students who drop by his ground floor office with their concerns. Twice a month, Jansen sets up a few chairs on the campus lawns or hallways of a classroom building for more chats with students.
Colleagues say if they have a date to walk to a university event with him, they allow plenty of time to cross campus because of his habit of stopping to engage students.
It’s a stroll through a segregated landscape. Here, a dozen black students go over class notes on the lawn. There, white students chat in the campus cafe.
The divide is also economic. While many of the white students drive their own cars to campus, the black students are alighting from buses.
___
At 53, Jansen grew up in a South Africa where racism reached levels of brutality unknown to most Free State students today.
As a teenager, Jansen would leave Cape Town to visit his grandparents in the rural Western Cape. On one visit, his grandmother sent him to buy a loaf of bread. As he walked to the store, he was clipped on the heel by a brick a white boy threw from a yard.
Jansen rushed at the boy, only to find the father, an off-duty police officer, was at home. Jansen was forced into a car, and beaten on the way to the police station. An aunt came to plead for him, and he eventually was released.
Jansen’s family had property in that country town confiscated under apartheid laws around the time he was born.
“I think my grandfather went blind because they took his land away to give to white people,” Jansen said.
Jansen himself was angry.
“I was angry with Mandela when he talked truth and reconciliation. Steve Biko made a lot more sense to me than Mandela for a long time,” he said, referring to the black consciousness activist who was tortured to death by police in 1977.
Jansen said he learned to forgive when working with white students as dean of education at another Afrikaner bastion, the University of Pretoria. In the end, he came to embrace Mandela’s argument that retribution would only lead to bloodshed and destroy the country.
In a country that is 80 percent black, simple demographics say South Africa’s future leaders will be drawn from among Jansen’s black students. He hopes to teach them that forgiveness and generosity aren’t just personal choices, but a duty of black leaders in a fledgling democracy.
It is a message that could easily be drowned out in today’s South Africa. A prominent member of the governing African National Congress recently led students at another university in a rendition of an anti-apartheid era song about killing whites. And Afrikaner media and rights group keep up a relentless chorus of their own about crime and corruption that has clear, if coded, racial overtones.
___
Whether Jansen is pushing fast and hard enough for change is a matter of debate on campus. As he sat with friends at a picnic table on campus, Nande Ngxwana, a 20-year-old black student in his second year at the university, said he understood the rector’s impulse to reach out to whites.
“Can you blame a person for being racist?” he said. “I feel racism is something that was instilled in you. You grow up with it.”
But his friend Lwandile Magoda, also 20, said whites shouldn’t be excused for their racism.
“It gets to a point when you’re, like, 18, you have to thi
nk for yourself.”
Jansen said he understands that black Free State students are rankled by the lack of blacks in senior positions in a faculty that is a third white.
Jansen said one of his first acts as rector was to ask for a list of deans about to retire. There were 17, and he determined 15 would be replaced by women and blacks. But pushing whites out to make room for blacks more quickly would only repeat the mistakes of the past, when whites advanced at the expense of other groups, Jansen said.
Language is also a loaded issue: During apartheid, black students were forced to learn Afrikaans, the language of the white oppressor.
In his inaugural address, Jansen pledged to “open discussion on ways in which we can get every white student to learn Sesotho … and every black student to learn Afrikaans, and all our students to learn to write and speak English competently.”
Every course at the university is now offered in both Afrikaans and English. The result is that whites are isolated in the Afrikaans classes, and blacks in the English ones.
In her five years at Free State, Sune Geldenhuys, a 23-year-old white medical student, has rarely shared a class with a black student. But when students worked with patients in a black neighborhood this year, she had to turn to black students for translations. Geldenhuys said she could imagine returning to Free State to teach one day.
“The way things are going, I think it’s going to be different,” she said. “I hope in a good way.”
Black law student Thopelo Chacha, also 23, has joined a relatively new group of black and white students training to give advice to other students about AIDS and safe sex. Chacha said he could even imagine counseling a white student about those sensitive topics.
“I have to be part of the transformation,” Chacha said.
Jansen is invited by groups around the country to explain what he is doing at Free State, or to talk about his new book, “Knowledge in the Blood”, about his experiences as dean of education at the University or Pretoria. He also writes a weekly column for a Johannesburg newspaper addressing race, politics and education.
Jansen says — and his staff attests — that he spends 12 hours a day on campus, and another six at off-campus activities, many of them involving mingling with students.
One of them, Marzanne Lombard, a 21-year-old white third-year marketing student, left a predominantly white residence this year to move into an all-black one. Jansen visits Welwitchia House often, once bringing flowers to the young women, Lombard said.
“When we walk out of here, we’ll have so much more to be proud of than hanging on to old traditions,” Lombard said.
Congo rebels kill, kidnap villagers by the hundreds
March 28, 2010/By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN/The New York Times
Depleted by a U.S.-backed offensive and seemingly desperate for new conscripts, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), one of the most infamous armed groups in Africa, has killed hundreds of villagers in a remote part of Congo and kidnapped many more, marching them off in a human chain several hundred people long, witnesses say.
TAPILI, Congo — Depleted by a U.S.-backed offensive and seemingly desperate for new conscripts, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), one of the most infamous armed groups in Africa, has killed hundreds of villagers in a remote part of Congo and kidnapped many more, marching them off in a human chain several hundred people long, witnesses say.
The massacre and abductions are a setback to the effort to stamp out the last remnants of the army, a rebel force that fielded thousands of fighters in the late 1980s and nearly defeated the Ugandan government. In recent years it has degenerated into a band of several hundred fighters living deep in the bush in Congo, Sudan and Central African Republic with child brides and military-grade weaponry.
The United States is providing millions of dollars to the Ugandan army — in fuel, trucks, satellite phones, night-vision goggles and air support — to hunt them down. It is one of the signature programs of AFRICOM, the new American military command for Africa, which is working closely with the State Department to employ what U.S. officials call “the three D’s” — defense, diplomacy and development — to help African nations stabilize themselves.
These efforts appeared to be succeeding, eliminating up to 60 percent of the Lord’s Resistance Army fighters in the past 18 months, U.S. officials said. But that may have been why the fighters tore off on their raid late last year, to get as many new conscripts as possible, along with medicine, clothes and food. They also kidnapped nurses from hospitals, witnesses said, and stripped blood-splattered clothes off corpses for themselves, a sign they are increasingly desperate to survive.
Human Rights Watch, which sent a team to investigate the killings in February, said the army killed at least 320 people in the Makombo area of northeastern Congo, calling the massacre one of the worst in the armed group’s 23-year, atrocity-filled history.
Witnesses said the number could be several hundred higher, and most victims had been taken from their villages, tied at the waist and forced into the jungle, often with enormous loads of looted food balanced on their heads. Along the way, fighters randomly selected captives to kill, usually by an ax blow to the back of the head.
“They only scream once,” said Jean-Claude Singbatile, a high-school student who said he spent 14 days in captivity and witnessed dozens of executions.
What the attack shows, said Anneke Van Woudenberg, one of the Human Rights Watch researchers who was recently in Congo, “is that whether they are weakened or not, the LRA’s capacity to kill remains as strong as ever.”
CANADA :
Earth Hour 2010: Record 121 Countries to Go Dark
Sunday, 28 March 2010/ by PT Editor Eng.k.almallahi /www.paltelegraph.com .
World, March 28, 2010 (Pal Telegraph)- For Earth Hour 2010, record-breaking millions of businesses, homes, and landmarks around the world will turn off their lights Saturday evening for the sake of the planet, conservationists say.
Now in its fourth year, Earth Hour—which takes place from 8:30 to 9:30 local time on March 27—will be bigger than ever this year, said Leslie Aun, a spokesperson for the conservation nonprofit WWF, which organizes the annual event.
“We’re off to a terrific start,” Aun said.
Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia, in 2007 with about two million participants. The voluntary one-hour blackout has since grown into an international event involving hundreds of millions of people as a show of support for action against global warming.
Earth Hour’s energy-saving impact is limited, however: It does very little to reduce the greenhouse emissions that contribute to global warming. But WWF maintains that Earth Hour’s real value is symbolic.
New Landmarks to Go Dark for Earth Hour 2010
Thousands of cities in a record 121 countries—34 more than in 2009—are set to officially participate in Earth Hour 2010.
In the U.S., 27 states have signed on for official participation in Earth Hour 2010, nearly four times more than were on board last year.
“We’ve had three states join up in the last 24 hours,” Aun said. “We’re telling people there’s still plenty of time. We’ll take them until the end.”
The celebrity endorsements of Earth Hour that began last year will also continue for Earth Hour 2010. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady; his wife, model Gisele Bündchen; actor Edward Norton; and others have recorded public service announcements for television to help raise awareness of the event.
Landmarks to go dark for Earth Hour for the first time in 2010 include South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls at the U.S.-Canada border, the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, the Great Pyramids in Egypt, Table Mountain in South Africa, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan.
Family Focus for Earth Hour 2010
While cities and famous landmarks get the most attention, families and individuals are responsible for much of Earth Hour’s momentum, Aun said. In a WWF survey conducted after Earth Hour 2009, 80 million U.S. citizens said they had participated, according to Aun.
“Cities and businesses are the ones you’re always hearing about, because they have the skyscrapers and the big marquees. But Earth Hour has always been an event about families and individuals as well,” Aun said.
“It’s really about Americans and people all over the world standing up and saying climate change is real and we need to do something about it now.”
Families are certainly the focus at the Ontario Science Centre in Canada, which is hosting its third-annual Earth Hour event this Saturday.
“It’s mostly families that attend. We have something for every age,” said Karen Hager, the associate director of events and public programs at the center.
Visitors to the Science Center during Earth Hour 2010 will be able to stargaze through high-powered telescopes, hear live music, and learn how to reduce the causes of climate change.
Hager added she’s seen interest in Earth Hour steadily grow over the years. “Last year, we had just over 2,600, and we’re anticipating this year to be even bigger.”
Earth Hour 2010 Sending the Wrong Message?
Some people claim that Earth Hour is sending the wrong message. A student club at the University of Michigan called the Students of Objectivism is staging Edison Hour—named after inventor Thomas Edison—at the same time and day as Earth Hour.
Instead of turning lights off, Edison Hour encourages people to turn all their lights on as a way to “celebrate all the things that technology has brought us,” said Victoria Miller, a junior at the university and club vice president.
“We have a problem with Earth Hour, because it suggests that the proper route to progress for humanity is shutting down and moving backward toward the Middle Ages,” Miller said.
Miller’s group argues that technology — especially “green” technologies such as wind and solar power and electric car engines—are the best tools for reducing the effects of global warming.
“If you accept that humanity is having a catastrophic impact on the environment, then the way to solve it is through the continued use of technology,” Miller said. “The point of environmentalism should be to do things more efficiently, not stop doing things.”
The group has set up a Facebook page for people interested in Edison Hour. Miller estimates that about a thousand people will participate in the event this year.
Like Earth Hour, Edison Hour is also meant to be “purely symbolic,” Miller said, and it will have little negative environmental impact by itself.
AUSTRALIA :
EUROPE :
CHINA :
Backgrounder: China-South Africa relations
www.istockanalyst.com/Xinhua News Agency/ Mar. 28, 2010
BEIJING, Mar. 28, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) — Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is scheduled to arrive in Cape Town on Sunday for an official visit to the Republic of South Africa.
Since China and South Africa forged diplomatic ties on Jan.1, 1998, the two countries have been steadily promoting the bilateral cooperation and exchanges.
In 2000, China and South Africa founded a bi-national commission. In 2004, the two countries established a strategic partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit and common development.
In recent years, frequent high-level exchanges have deepened their strategic partnership.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao respectively paid visits to South Africa in 2006 and 2007. During Wen’s visit, China and South Africa signed the “Program of Cooperation on Deepening the Strategic Partnership.”
Many South African leaders have also visited China. In 2006, the then South Africa President Thabo Mbeki attended the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. In 2008, Jacob Zuma, the incumbent South Africa president, visited China as head of the African National Congress.
In 2008, China and South Africa carried out various activities to celebrate the 10th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, and both vowed to further consolidate bilateral relations.
During the last 10 years, the two countries have obtained remarkable achievements in cooperation in economy and trade. In 2009, Bilateral trade volume between the two countries stood at 16.1 billion U.S. dollars.
In 2009, the two countries also signed more than 50 cooperation agreements, covering nuclear energy, science and technology, health, culture, tourism and other fields.
(Source: iStockAnalyst )
China’s Chalco sinks into red in 2009
March 28, 2010 /AFP
China’s largest aluminium producer Chalco said it swung into the red in 2009 with a loss of 4.65 billion yuan ($A750 million) as the financial crisis took its toll.
“In 2009, (Chalco) was hit by the global financial crisis, demand for aluminium plummeted, and aluminium prices were low for a relatively long period of time,” the company said in a statement on the Shanghai stock exchange.
“The firm’s production and operations suffered unprecedented difficulties and challenges,” it said in Saturday’s statement.
The loss compared to a net profit of 9.2 million yuan in 2008, although this too was a significant drop from the previous year due to higher energy prices, falling demand and inventory devaluations as metal prices sank.
Chalco – which posted sales of 70.3 billion yuan in 2009 – is the listed unit of Chinalco, which struck a $US1.35 billion ($A1.49 billion) deal with mining giant Rio Tinto earlier in March to develop a huge African iron ore field.
Last June, Chinalco suffered a blow when its $US19.5 billion ($A21.49 billion) bid to effectively double its stake in Rio Tinto to about 18 per cent collapsed.
The following month, four employees of the Anglo-Australian miner were arrested on charges of accepting bribes and stealing trade secrets, during fraught iron ore contract talks between top mining firms and the Chinese steel industry.
The four were tried this week and the verdict is due on Monday. Chinalco has distanced itself from the case, saying it has no connection to the failed deal.
INDIA :
Africa looks up to Punjab for ‘green revolution’
March 28th, 2010 / ICT by IANS /By Alkesh Sharma/www.thaindian.com
Chandigarh, March 28 (IANS) African countries are eyeing Indian technology and expertise, especially from Punjab, to bring in a green revolution that will help them ensure food security and even export food grains to other countries.
“With a proven, impressive track record in the field of agriculture, India is a role model for us. We are hoping to bring the same green revolution in Africa that India saw many years back,” Jose Maria Morais, Mozambique high commissioner, told IANS here.
“Ninety percent of our population is living in the countryside and is engaged in agriculture. Agriculture is our government’s priority and there is huge scope for Indian farmers and investors. In fact, to attract Indian farmers, our government is offering them countless tax benefits and other incentives,” he said.
Morais was here as part of an African delegation of ambassadors and high commissioners to participate in a conference on opportunities for agriculture in Africa and a business meeting in Patiala.
Nimisha J. Madhvani, high commissioner of Uganda, said: “Out of the 33 million population of Uganda, 98 percent is pursuing agriculture and its share in our economy is nearly 65 percent. It would be a win-win situation for Indian entrepreneurs and farmers if they move towards Uganda at this juncture.”
“We have an open investment policy and a free monetary system. They do not require buying the land and can take it on lease for a period of 49 years or more,” said Madhvani, who has her roots in Gujarat from where her grandfather had migrated decades ago.
She said that since 2008 Indian entrepreneurs have established three sugar mills in Uganda.
“They are earning good profits and besides sugar they are also set to generate power from the same plant. Indian farmers have done wonders throughout the world. Therefore, we are very keen on attracting them,” said Madhvani.
Jonathan Wutawunashe, ambassador of Zimbabwe, said: “In Punjab, we see exciting level of use of technology, innovation, hard work and commitment to agriculture. Zimbabwe is very eager to collaborate with them so that we can bring same changes in our fields.”
“We want Indian farmers to bring their technology to Zimbabwe and invest in huge pockets of fertile land lying unused there. We are yearning to bring a green revolution in Zimbabwe through working closely with Punjab farmers,” he added.
Africa is a vast continent with about 900 million people living in 54 countries. The world’s three percent (900,000 hectares) of the total organic agriculture land, which is very good for production, is in Africa.
Gennet Zewide, ambassador of Ethiopia, told IANS: “Indians are taking thousands of hectares of land on lease basis for 25 to 50 years. In Ethiopia weather conditions and soil are very favourable. At some places we have fertility and organic content as high as six percent whereas in India at most of the places it is below one percent.”
“Around 400 Indian investors have invested $4 billion in Ethiopia in the last few years – in different areas like mining, floriculture and horticulture,” said Zewide.
The Indian government is quite supportive.
“We have identified over 350 people to impart training in the Sub-Saharan region and other areas in Africa where food processing units can be set up for Indian investors,” said Gurjit Singh, joint secretary in the ministry of external affairs.
India-Africa trade has surged from a mere $5.2 billion in 2002-03 to $45 billion at present. It is expected to reach $55 billion by 2012, of which the share of agri-business would be around $15 billion, officials said.
(Alkesh Sharma can be contacted at alkesh.s@ians.in)
Africa’s Fight Against Infant Mortality to be Inspired by India
March 28, 2010 /www.medindia.net
Indian Health News
A scheme that saw infant mortality reduced by 54% in Uttar Pradesh is all set to be replicated in Africa. The Saksham project in Shivgarh district of UP will be initiated in African countries like Malawi, according to Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Foundation had invested $9.9 million in this project, which saw pregnant mothers and their in-laws educated against high-risk birth practices.
“In UP, we found that `kangaroo’ caring and early breastfeeding reduced infant mortality by 54%. We will now spread these practices in Malawi,” Melinda Gates confirmed. “We need cultural change. We found that in UP, most mothers delivered squatting. The babies therefore fell on the ground.”
She added that other practices included washing the baby with soap instead of simply wiping it. “”We told women and their in-laws that simple practices like allowing the mother to hold her child close to her chest, breast-feeding from the first day and wiping not washing the newborn dramatically increased the baby’s chances to live,” Mrs Gates added.
Data shows that 9 million children die before the age of five worldwide with 25% coming from UP and Bihar.
Source-Medindia
RAS
BRASIL:
EN BREF, CE 28 mars 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,28/03/2010
