{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 24 mai 2010 – news.bbc.co.uk- May 24, 2010–Israel’s President Shimon Peres has denied a report which claims there was an alleged nuclear pact between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

BURUNDI :

High turnout for Burundi polls
2010-05-24/- Reuters

Bujumbura – Burundians on Monday voted in district elections that had been postponed twice in the first of a series of polls in which the tiny African nation will also vote for representatives to parliament and its next president.

Incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza this year seeks another term in elections pitting him against Agathon Rwasa, leader of former rebel group Forces for National Liberation.

District elections are often an indicator of how the rest of the vote will go. A political party that gets over 50 percent of the votes in the communal election in the first round is likely to win the presidential and parliamentary poll.

In some areas, voters formed long queues at several polling stations an hour earlier than the official 6 a.m. starting time, in the second democratic election since Burundi emerged from a two-decade war.

“Before coming here to vote, I went to church first to pray so that we can have a peaceful election,” said Jeremie, a voter in the southern Bujumbura district of Kinindo.

Some 3.5 million Burundians are expected to vote for 1 935 district councillors.

“I arrived here at 05:30 a and was among the people who voted first,” said 45-year-old Amissi Nahimana at the Buyenzi commune. “My expectation is that the election be free and fair.”

Missing voting materials

Authorities postponed the vote to Monday from Friday because most voters did not have their cards and voting materials were missing in many stations. UN helicopters were used throughout the weekend to transport election materials around the country.

Political analysts say at least six parties will offer stiff opposition for President Pierre Nkurunziza’s CNDD-FDD ruling party. The presidential vote will take place on June 28.

The parliamentary vote is due on July 23, and one for senators on July 28.

The electoral process will end with local elections to be held separately in September.

The elections are a test of the landlocked country’s stability. It has enjoyed relative peace since the last Hutu rebel group, the FNL agreed last year to lay down weapons and joined the government.

Burundi: UN human rights expert launches mission in the context of general elections
Source: United Nations Integrated Office in Burundi (BINUB)/www.reliefweb.int/24 May 2010

The UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Burundi, Akich Okola, will undertake his 13th mission to Burundi from 23 to 29 May, to assess the human rights situation in the context of country’s elections.

“These are the second elections since the Arusha Peace Accords of 2000, and the country is at an important juncture,” Mr. Okola said. “A constructive dialogue with the Government and relevant national stakeholders is necessary to ensure that the elections are held peacefully, democratically and with due respect to human rights.”

“During my visit, I will gather first-hand information on human rights developments related to the electoral context, including freedom of assembly, association and expression,” the Human Rights Council envoy said. He will meet with State officials, civil society members and representatives of United Nations and international organizations.

A press conference will be held in Bujumbura at the conclusion of the visit at 11h30 on Friday 28 May, in the United Nations Conference Room of BINUB Human Rights and Justice Division, Bujumbura.

Mr. Okola’s visit will also be his last to the country, as his six-year tenure as Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Burundi ends in July 2010.

RWANDA

Criminal defense lawyers dispute Rwanda’s genocide history
May 24, 2010/www.sfbayview.com/by Ann Garrison

The ad hoc organizing committee of the Second International Criminal Defense Conference being held in Brussels on May 21-23 thanked Rwandan Chief Prosecutor Martin Ngoga and Kigali’s New Times for publicizing their efforts.

This week, as the conference dates approached, The New Times published several articles condemning it and quoting Ngoga saying, “For a few years now, some defense lawyers at the ICTR have badly deviated from their professional duties and turned into activists and advocates of genocide denial.”

Ngoga and The New Times thus drew international attention to the significance of the conference to the ongoing struggle over disputed histories of Rwanda’s 1994 tragedy and related violence in Central Africa, both before and since.

Last week Ngoga warned leading opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire that she might be jailed once again if she continues speaking to the press. The election is scheduled for Aug. 9. Ingabire has not been allowed to register to formally run against Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

The ad hoc conference organizing committee also said that they are defending the right to freedom of speech and thought and expect the conference to be a non-disruptive exchange of ideas that would be subjected to public critique and historical and scientific evaluation, as the ideas exchanged at the November 2009 Hague Conference on the Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda were.

They said that Rwanda Chief Prosecutor Ngoga had mischaracterized the historic Military-1 Trial Judgment of February 2009 in the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, which completely rejects the theory that what the world has come to know as the Rwanda Genocide was the result of a longstanding conspiracy planned well in advance of April 1994, as the Nazi death camps were planned by the Third Reich.

They reaffirmed that the judgment had:

•Acquitted all four defendants of “planning or conspiracy” to commit genocide or other crimes, either before or after April 6, 1994;
•Acquitted the highest ranking officer to be tried at the ICTR, Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, of all charges; and
•Acquitted Col. Bagosora (who is represented by Rafael Constant of Paris, not Professor Erlinder) of all charges that occurred before April 6 and after April 8, 1994.
The committee also said, “Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime habitually calls its political opponents ‘criminals’ as has been demonstrated in the arrest and prosecution of Madame Victoire Inagabire and others in the run-up to the August presidential elections,” and “Kagame used the same tactic to virtually eliminate political opposition in the 2003 sham presidential election that formalized his monolithic regime.”

The conference organizing committee rejected the Kagame government’s efforts to make it illegal to question the role of Kagame’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front Party (RPF) in crimes that the RPF instead accuses its opponents of.

They said that Kagame and the RPF’s responsibility for the assassinations of the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda is the subject of French and Spanish indictments and of a wrongful death civil case in U.S. federal court and that RPF responsibility for these crimes has been confirmed by former Chief ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and others from ICTR Prosecutor’s Office.

Members of the ad hoc organizing committee of this week’s International Criminal Defense Conference in Brussels were Professor Peter Erlinder, Beth Lyons, Ken Ogetto, John Philpot and Andre Tremblay.

Kagame threatens challenger with prison for talking to press
President Kagame’s chief opponent in the Aug. 9 election, Victoire Ingabire, is now facing criminal charges brought against her for challenging Kagame and his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front Party government. According to Ngoga:

“The prosecution is more specifically concerned with the continued posting of declarations and newspaper interviews she has been doing. The case against her is not one of robbery in which restraining physical movement would be enough to contain further damage. It is a case of destructive and divisive ideology whose damage does not require physical proximity of the offender.”

Law Professor Peter Erlinder, the U.S. attorney and lead defense counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, who has been retained to defend Ingabire, said:

“Ngoga’s threats reveal that the real purpose of the criminal charges against Madame Ingabire is to serve notice that no political opposition will be tolerated in Rwanda. And that the 2003 ‘sham elections,’ as reported by EU election monitors and other outside human rights observers, will be repeated in 2010, unless the Rwandan government completely changes its policies to permit a functioning democracy.”

Ingabire is charged with associating with terrorists and violations of the “genocide ideology” statutes creating speech and thought crimes unique to Rwanda, which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and even the U.S. State Department have denounced.

Professor Erlinder will appear at Ingabire’s next hearing, on May 24 in Kigali, to insist on her continued release on bail, return of her computers and property, an end to the state’s interference with her presidential campaign and the full disclosure of prosecution evidence and witnesses.

Erlinder has said he intends to argue that Ingabire’s internationally recognized rights to free speech have been violated and that she is being denied due process.

He has also submitted letters to his Minnesota senators and congressional representative and to the U.S. State Department to request protection, stating that he has reason to believe that his own life could be in danger while he is in Rwanda because of leaked memos identifying him as a foreign enemy of the government and target for assassination.

The Human Rights Committee of the EU Parliament has written to Rwanda’s Ambassador to Belgium Gérard Ntwari objecting to Ingabire’s arrest and to ongoing repression of political and civil rights, including the right to free speech.

Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in San Francisco, a regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, Global Research and Digital Journal and a news producer for KPFA Radio, Berkeley. This story combines two stories that first appeared on Digital Journal, at http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/292310 and http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/292033.

Rwanda: Dialogue Will Resolve the Nile Water Dispute
24 May 2010/The New Times/allafrica.com

Kigali — River Nile flows through several Central, East and Northern African countries, but the distribution of its waters among the Nile basin countries has, for long, been a bone of contention in the region.

Colonial agreements handed Egypt and the Sudan powers to veto projects in the countries upstream that could use the water. The agreements guaranteed both the countries a combined use of almost 90 per cent of the waters of the Nile.

Recently, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia signed the Nile River Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) in Entebbe, which seeks to ensure equitable use of the Nile waters among the basin countries.

The Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi have also made it clear that they will sign the agreement.

Egypt, however, declined to s
ign or entertain any discussions that are meant to change the colonial agreements that guaranteed the country more control over the waters.

The Egyptian minister for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is quoted as having rubbished the treaty signed by other countries that share the Nile. He referred to the agreement as non-binding, insisting that his government still stands by the colonial agreements. Another Minister, went on to say that Egypt will take “whatever steps are necessary” to protect its “historic rights.”

While Egypt is one of the countries that rely on the Nile to survive, it is important that there is dialogue to avoid escalation of disagreement. The Nile waters are important to the countries through which the river flows and is a potential source of conflict.

There should be dialogue involving various sectors, including governments, civil society and development partners to resolve the issue.

Rwanda: Traders Urged to Tap Into the EAC Market
Paul Ntambara/The New Times/allafrica.com/24 May 2010

Huye — The Minister of East African Community Affairs, Monique Mukaruliza, has urged residents, especially business persons, to take advantage of a wider market provided by the East African economic bloc.

Speaking to local leaders, the business community and members of civil society organisations in Huye district, Mukaruliza warned that the country will not benefit much if business persons continue to work as individuals.

“A foray into the EAC market requires big capital which can only be mobilised if business people pull resources together for investment,” she said.

Mukaruliza called for innovativeness and competitiveness on the part of business people if they are to survive in the now larger EAC market that includes countries like Uganda and Kenya with a much more vibrant private sector; seen as a key component in the integration process.

She cited low capacity of the private sector, lack of skilled personnel, lack of knowledge on the opportunities in the EAC and slow adaptation to change as some of the challenges, on the part of Rwanda, in the EAC integration.

“You need to go out and source for business opportunities, change is coming fast and if you don’t change, it [change] will change you,” she warned.

The Minister revealed that after the EAC common market, the penultimate stage of the EAC integration will be the monetary union – the use of one currency in the EAC – adding that a team of experts has completed a study on how a monetary union will be attained.

“One of the proposals is that people in EAC will be able to use local currencies in all member countries until one currency, expected in 2012, is put in place,” she said.

Participants in the meeting wondered why the common market has not meant reduction in the price of goods imported from within the region.

“Most goods manufactured within the region cost the same or even more than those imported from outside the EAC, we see this as a big contradiction,” Charles Kobuceye, a Sector Executive Secretary wondered.

The Minister explained that the cost of goods has been pushed high by fuel prices despite the reduction on taxes. She, however, criticised unscrupulous traders who continue to rip-off consumers under the pretext of high taxes.

“We need to strengthen consumer associations which are vital in the fight for consumer rights,” she said.

Sylvere Mutenderi, a farmer and business man called on government to make flexible loans available if business persons are to compete in the EAC market.

“Many business people have big business plans but there is no funding, we call upon government to intervene by making available flexible loan facilities to help business people,” he said.

Rwanda: Cecafa to Report TP Mazembe to CAF
Bonnie Mugabe/The New Times/allafrica.com/24 May 2010

Kigali — THE regional football governing body, Cecafa is set to report African Champions TP Mazembe to the Confederation of African Football (Caf) this week after their unruly behaviour during Saturday’s Kagame Cup tie with APR.

“We are definitely going to forward the case to CAF and for the record, they will never play in this competition,” the body’s Secretary General Nicholas Musonye said.

Mazembe captain Tresor Mabi Mputu led the assault on the Ethiopian referee Girma Zekeria after being shown the red card.

By the time the match was abandoned, APR was leading 1-0 courtesy of a Kabange Twite 34th minute strike.

Police was even forced to retain one of TP Mazembe’s players Basisila Lusadisu after an attack on a senior police officer.

UGANDA

MTN Uganda trumpets text money
May 24, 2010/ By Sapa-AFP

MTN Uganda, the country’s largest mobile phone provider, says that nearly 900 000 people are using its text message money transfer since the service was introduced 15 months ago.
Since the launch of the MobileMoney service in March 2009, its 890 000 users have made 11.8 million transactions worth 195 million dollars, according to statistics released by the company.

“MobileMoney is one the fastest growing money transfer services in the world,” Richard Mwami, who heads the initiative, told AFP.

The company said it expects to have two million users by the end of the year and 3.5 million by 2012.

In Kenya, where Safaricom’s M-PESA programme pioneered SMS money transfers two years ago, the popularity of the service has jumped from 52,000 users in April 2007 to 9.7 million as of last month, according to company statistics.

Figures from Uganda, Kenya and South Africa reveal that this enormous growth is primarily driven by small sum transactions among low-income earners.

“A lot of people have access to the technology of cell phones, but do not have access to a formal bank account,” Franco Gresse, product manager of the eWallet at South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) told AFP.

FNB customers are now sending roughly 130,000 dollars a day using the eWallet and, Gresse explained, city-dwelling breadwinners who send money home to rural areas are the service’s major users.

In Uganda, where the average MobileMoney transfer is 21 dollars, roughly 60 percent of the recipients live in rural areas.

Conn grads salute mom and dad
By Claire Bessette /Publication: The Day/Published 05/24/2010

Class of 2010 also remembers classmate killed in I-395 crash

New London — The Connecticut College president, two clergy members, nearly 450 graduates and thousands of family members and guests prayed that the rain would hold off Sunday morning for a pleasant outdoor graduation experience.

“Ah, the power of prayer,” Rabbi Aaron Rosenberg said during the invocation and the Rev. Florence Clarke repeated at the benediction nearly two hours later.

In between, the thousands gathered on the Jean C. Tempel Green saw clouds and sun, but felt no drops – except perhaps a few teardrops on the cheeks of emotional parents when President Leo I. Higdon Jr. asked the graduates to stand and salute their families in gratitude.

“I’d like to add my own thanks to the parents and supporters here today,” Higdon said. “These graduating seniors are a very special group. I want to thank you for entrusting them to us.”

Higdon said he felt a special connection to the Class of 2010, as this class greeted him as freshmen when he arrived four years ago.

A hint of tragedy accompanied Sunday’s celebration. One name stood alone at the end of the list of graduates in the commencement program. “In Memoriam: Elizabeth Young Durante.”

Durante was killed in March 2009 in a head-on crash with a wrong-way driver on Interstate 395 in Montville as she and seven other Connecticut College students were on their way to Boston to fly to Uganda for a humanitarian medical mission.

Durante’s friend, classmate and project partner in the Ugandan effort, Stefanie J. Hinman of Norfolk received the Anna Lord Strauss Medal for outstanding public and community service. Hinman, a human development major, worked with young children in schools throughout the New London area and also continued Durante’s work in Uganda. In spring, Hinman helped establish a medical clinic in Uganda that was named in Durante’s honor.

Sunday’s keynote speaker, economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, applauded Connecticut College graduates for their world view and commitment to improving society.

In a speech filled with scathing statistics on today’s world condition, Sachs still urged graduates to be optimistic.

Noting news that scientists have digitized a genetic code and created a synthetic cell, Sachs asked the graduates to “shape a new social genome to guide us.”

He offered plenty of examples of what isn’t working: the controversial Arizona law that he said allows police to “chase down” people suspected of being illegal aliens, the $100 billion the United States is spending in Afghanistan, “a country we barely understand,” and a recent court ruling that allows the United States to hold foreigners in foreign prisons indefinitely without charges.

Sachs asked graduates to challenge the “age-old” idea that the world is dangerous and only the strong and competitive survive and embrace the equally old idea that humans can solve problems created by humans.

“There’s an inherent benefit to being more optimistic,” he said, that it gives society more opportunities to find mutual cooperation and avoid future wars and environmental disasters. He said their Liberal Arts education at Connecticut College, their studies abroad and worldwide humanitarian efforts prepared them for that mission.

“You have been empowered to help solve problems,” Sachs said.

Sunday’s message wasn’t only about sending Connecticut College students out into the world.

Class President Alexandra Felfle said she found Connecticut College from far away – 2,748 miles away from her home in Colombia, South America. As she got on that plane four years ago, Felfle said she decided to “live in the present” and not regret leaving behind her familiar world, family and friends. She thanked them in Spanish Sunday for their support and understanding.

Felfle told fellow graduates that living in the present meant that they should be aware of their world and to be committed to living in it.

“My fellow Camels, I want you to be committed to your life,” she said. “Committed to your family. Committed to change the world. Committed to finding love. Whatever it is that you choose, I want you to be passionate about it. I want you all to follow through and persist, because character is destiny.”

EU trains 400 Somalis in Uganda
Monday 24 May 2010 /Muhyadin Ahmed Roble, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya

The European Union is training 400 Somali forces in Uganda as part of its support to Somali government battling Islamist insurgents. About 2,000 Somali troops are expected to be trained in western Uganda town of Bihanga. “We are expecting more to come,” said EU mission public relations officer Pita Juan.
Juan added: “However, that will depend on the things happening in Somalia.”

This addition training support was funded by United States of America. AU has already said they expect to train 6,000 troops to take over the country’s security.

“The military support is part of a comprehensive engagement in Somalia with a view to responding to the priority needs of the Somali people and stabilising Somalia,” said EU head of mission in Uganda, Vincent De Visscher.

The EU will train 1,000 Somalis in the first six months while another 1000 forces will get in the next six months. The programme will end June 2011.

Spain is leading 150 EU personnel who conduct the training under a mission named EUTM Somalia. EU has paid €5 million ($6 million) for the training.

Islamist insurgents run most of southern Somalia and government controls a few areas in the capital Mogadishu, where AU sent 5,000- strong peacekeepers. Western security agencies warned that Somalia is becoming a haven for international terrorists.

TANZANIA:

Millicom Chief Plans Services Blitz to Counter Bharti, Movil
May 24, 2010/By Diana ben-Aaron/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — Millicom International Cellular SA, a company with mobile-phone customers in countries from Guatemala to Tanzania, plans to counter Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s Africa entry with services such as money transfers, banking and insurance.

“I don’t think Bharti is proven outside of India, so let’s see what they bring,” Chief Executive Officer Mikael Grahne said in an interview in Stockholm. “We just need to accelerate and come out with new things.” Millicom was interested in some of Zain’s Africa assets that Bharti agreed to acquire for $10.7 billion in March, he said.

As Bharti, France Telecom SA, Vodafone Group Plc and America Movil SAB de CV, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, expand on Millicom’s turf, Grahne is pushing third- generation services for wireless Internet. He’s also broadening the company’s portfolio that includes SMS-based information services and microloans for topping up prepaid balances.

Grahne has standardized Millicom’s brand and business, selling units that couldn’t be among the top two operators in their countries. Millicom, whose mobile-service brand name is TiG, was established 20 years ago by Sweden’s Kinnevik Investment AB as a holding company for cellular assets.

The company may bid for a license in Costa Rica, and would consider other greenfield operations or mergers if they were capable of becoming first or second in their markets and producing at least $100 million in annual revenue, he said.

Target Customers

“Sooner or later markets come to a certain level of maturity and to get growth from then on you need new products and services, so we are very heavily focused on anticipating that,” he said. The company will pursue customers who can pay more for extras and better network quality, rather than competing strictly on price of basic services, he said.

Millicom, based in Luxembourg, has made its strategy work so far. First-quarter net income increased 11 percent to $155 million as sales rose 16 percent to $905 million, aided by stabilizing economies, broadband and other add-on services.

The company’s shares have advanced almost 50 percent in Nasdaq trading in the past year, giving it a market value of $8.8 billion.

Bharti’s entry into Africa is likely to spark a wave of consolidation as less profitable players exit the market, Informa analysts Nick Jotischky and Matthew Reed wrote in a recent report. Millicom competes with the Zain units being acquired by Bharti in Tanzania, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.

France Telecom, Vodafone

“We don’t believe in global scale or regional scale,” Grahne said. “The only size that counts is in-market size, and in the markets we are in, we haven’t yet seen in-market consolidation.”

France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard has said he expects to invest as much as 7 billion euros ($8.8 billion) in deals focused on Africa and the Middle East in the next five years. Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said this month that sub-Saharan Africa is among the three “priority areas” for the world’s largest mobile-phone company.

Millicom would participate in the consolidation in its markets if it furthers the company’s goal of building market- leading operators, Grahne said.

Millicom is the third-largest operator in Colombia, Rwanda and DRC, and number one or two in all its other markets, he said. A deal to divest its last Asian unit, in Laos, to VimpelCom Ltd., is still pending.

Network Sharing

Central America is in a fairly stable competitive situation with Millicom, America Movil SAB de CV and Telefonica SA dividing up the market, Grahne said. Africa has too many licenses, he said.

Grahne, 57, took over the CEO job from Marc Beuls in March 2009 after seven years as chief operating officer. He previously worked for Procter & Gamble Co., PepsiCo Inc., and was Seagram Co. Ltd.’s Latin American chief.

He has cut costs by spinning off towers in Ghana into a separate company that can also serve other operators, and aims to do more network sharing to cut costs.

“I wouldn’t mind sharing a 3G network with a competitor,” he said, referring to networks that provide higher speeds for Internet surfing. The company would also consider buying more spectrum to serve the growing consumption needs of its customers, he said.

Euro Weakness

Millicom is joining with Tele2 AB, a Swedish phone company with operations in Russia and another Kinnevik investment, to negotiate with equipment suppliers. Kinnevik owns 35 percent of Millicom, its website says.

The euro’s decline against the dollar is likely to affect the company because Chad and Senegal have currencies pegged to the euro, and it has also made foreign-exchange markets more volatile, Grahne said.

“Globally it’s still a very nervous place, people are still nervous,” he said. “We are not in our plans counting on any uptick or improvement in this environment. If it comes we will take advantage of it.”

–Editors: Vidya Root, Heather Harris

CONGO RDC :

Roundup: Egypt’s Mubarak reviews Nile water issues with Congolese,Kenyan leaders
May 24, 2010/www.istockanalyst.com

CAIRO, May 23, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held talks Sunday here with Congolese president and Kenyan prime minister as part of Egypt’s intensive diplomatic campaign over the issue of sharing the Nile River water.

During his talks with Mubarak, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga asserted that neither Kenya nor any other Nile upstream countries bore Egypt ill will, Egyptian presidential spokesman Suliman Awwad said in a press briefing.

Despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan, five Nile basin countries, namely, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, signed earlier this month the Cooperative Framework Agreement on the usage of Nile River water, a move to alter the historic sharing of the Nile water.

According to Awwad, Odinga also said in very clear words that none of the Nile Basin countries thinks of harming Egypt’s water interests.

“Kenyan prime minister was the one who raised the issue of Kenya’s signing on the Framework Agreement for Nile Basin Initiative,” Awwad said.

“Neither Kenya, nor any other upstream countries, would ever think about or go on doing any harm to Egypt’s Nile water interest. ” he added.

The proposed framework agreement was first drafted in 2007 to establish a permanent Nile Basin commission that includes all ten Nile riparian states: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, the democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

Mubarak and Odinga also touched on bilateral relations and cooperation among the Nile-basin countries, especially in agriculture and irrigation domains.

During a separate tete-a-tete summit between Mubarak and the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Joseph Kabila, the two sides discussed bilateral relations and main issues in the African and Nile Basin arenas, Egypt’s official MENA news agency reported.

Kabila reaffirmed that his country, one of the five countries that refrained from signing the agreement, would not hurt the Egyptian interests in the Nile water.

“The Congolese president said his country was totally convinced that any Nile Basin accord must be unanimously approved and must achieve the mutual interests of both the upstream and downstream countries without doing any parties any harm,” Awwad said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stressed his country’s support for reaching stability and development in DRC.

Egypt has launched intensive talks with Nile basin countries, seeking to preserve its claim to the Nile water. However, upstream countries want to be able to use more of the Nile water for development projects.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Saturday contacts with the signatories will continue until a joint vision of the water-sharing treaty is reached, which will determine whether Egypt will join or stay out of the agreement.

Egypt and Sudan want to maintain the status quo stipulated in two colonial agreements they signed with Britain in 1929 and 1959, which granted them the right to use more than 85 percent of the Nile water.

The agreements also demanded that other riparian countries should first seek permission from Egypt and Sudan before embarking on any large scale development projects that would affect the level and flow of the Nile water.

(Source: iStockAnalyst )

KENYA :

Kenyan girls flee their homes to avoid controversial traditions
Monday, May 24, 2010/www.greeleytribune.com/By Cece Wildeman For The Tribune

Two longtime Kenyan traditions — early marriage and female genital mutilation — drive girls to the Olooloitikoshi Girls’ Rescue Center in Kenya, as many of them have been threatened with or affected by one of the two practices.

Female genital mutilation can include “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for nonmedical reasons,” according to the World Health Organization’s

It is practiced on about 93 percent of Maasai girls, which is a high rate in Kenya, where 25 percent to 50 percent of women are affected by the mutilation, which can cause infection, problems during childbirth and interference with the natural function of a female’s body.

“A girl can cry to be circumcised because it makes her feel like a mature woman and then she is ready to be married,” said Chief Orket, a chief in the Kajiado district in Maasailand. “We are trying to show maturity instead through showing educated and successful women who are uncircumcised.”

Orket said the mutilation is done mainly because it is an old belief that girls don’t become women until after female genital mutilation. After the mutilation, a girl is thought to be a woman, and she is ready to be married. It is also meant to take away a woman’s sex drive in hopes that she will be more faithful to her husband.

In Maasai culture, Orket said, a man cannot marry an uncircumcised girl. Churches, schools, non-governmental organizations, the government and other opponents of the practice are working to change this mentality, he said.

Because circumcision prepares girls for marriage, they are usually married shortly after the procedure, which is done around age 11 or 12.

Sometimes girls are married so their father can gain a dowry of livestock. This makes the girls more vulnerable during drought, when livestock is dying and men are trying to get more, said Jacob Auma, program manager for Christian Mission Aid.

Sometimes they are married because their parents don’t have school fees after primary school. According to the Kenya government website, primary school is free and secondary school tuition is subsidized, causing the cost for families to go up.

Once married, they are unable to continue their education. The average age for a girl to marry in Maasailand is between 10 and 14 years old, Auma said.

Most of the girls at the rescue center say education is one of the main reasons for running away.

The Maasai Association, a community-based nonprofit organization, indicates on its website that “both men and women of the Maasai society are traditionally eager to undergo through circumcision. This initiation is performed shortly after puberty. It is important to note that with the rising challenges of the 21st century in the Maasai society, many young Maasai women no longer undergo circumcision.”

“We are not supposed to be circumcised, we are not supposed to be married. We are supposed to go to school by the grace of God,” said center resident Joselyne Sanet, 16.

ANGOLA :

Angola Seeks Infrastructure Loans From African Development Bank
May 24, 2010/By Nasreen Seria/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — Angola has asked the African Development Bank for loans to help rebuild its economy following a 27-year civil war, adding to funds from the International Monetary Fund and a possible international bond sale.

Angola doesn’t currently qualify to borrow long-term loans from the bank because of its low-income status and has requested the lender to change this policy, Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, said in an interview yesterday in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast.

The southern African nation told the IMF in a letter published on May 19 that it needs $6 billion in loans to help rebuild infrastructure, such as bridges and ports, destroyed during the civil war that ended in 2002. Angola has also said it may sell bonds to raise funds and the country was awarded its first credit ratings from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service last week.

“The opportunities in reconstruction of Angola are enormous,” said Kaberuka. “There are ports, there’s the issue of urban housing. I’ve just opened a large office in Angola. I was there to assess opportunities for infrastructure and for the private sector.”

The IMF said on May 11 it disbursed $171.5 million to Angola as part of a $1.3 billion loan program it approved for the nation in November.

The African Development Bank is finalizing its assessment of Angola before deciding how much it can lend to the country, Kaberuka said.

Policy Change

“We look at a country’s ability to repay, the fiscal situation, current account, governance issues, if there’s risk of default,” Kaberuka said. “Once you’ve submitted that analysis, then you decide at what level you can lend at. They haven’t come to us for a particular amount. They’ve asked us to change the policy to allow them to borrow.”

Kaberuka was speaking ahead of the African Development Bank’s annual meeting on May 27 and 28, where the bank’s 77 members are expected to approve a tripling in the lender’s capital base to about $100 billion. That will allow the bank to sustain an increase in lending following the global financial crisis, Kaberuka said.

“It’s a big, big boost to the work of the bank,” Kaberuka said. “The capital increase will give us the firepower to increase our support to infrastructure, to the private sector, while at the same time not breaching our prudential limits.”

About 60 percent of the bank’s lending is on infrastructure projects, mainly in energy and transport.

“Infrastructure is the single biggest obstacle to the growth of Africa’s domestic market and the ability to connect Africa to the rest of the world,” Kaberuka said.

–Editors: Philip Sanders, Karl Maier

Canada not keeping pace with child mortality drop: study
Tobi Cohen, Canwest News Service /www.nationalpost.com/May 24, 2010

Weeks before G8 leaders gather in Ontario cottage country for what promises to be a heated discussion on child and maternal health in the developing world, a new study suggests global efforts to reduce child mortality are working and should be maintained and enhanced.

The University of Washington study, to be published on Monday in The Lancet, found 7.7 million children under five have died in the past year, compared to 11.9 million in 1990.

But while the global trend is improving, researchers are cautioning countries such as Canada to remain vigilant.

Ranked ninth among 187 nations for the fewest child deaths per thousand 20 years ago, Canada has since dropped to 28th, according to Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and co-author of the paper.

While not quite as bad as the United States, which dropped to 42nd place from 29th during the 20-year period, Dr. Murray said Canada is not keeping pace with other high-income countries, such as Australia, Spain and Singapore, which now claims the fewest number of child deaths in the world.

“This is a wake-up call,” he said. “It should trigger, essentially, a national debate about what needs to be done to not fall behind the progress other countries have been able to achieve.”

He attributed poor child-mortality rates in the U.S. to a lack of access to antenatal care and quality delivery services. While less certain of the reason for Canada’s poor ranking, he agreed doctor shortages, particularly in rural and aboriginal communities, would most certainly contribute to child mortality.

That said, Dr. Murray was pleasantly surprised by the overall findings.

According to the study, which is based on vital statistics in developed nations and surveys conducted in the developing world, child mortality is down 35% in the past 20 years. Although it still falls far short of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal, which calls for a two-thirds reduction by 2015, many of the world’s poorest nations have made tremendous strides.

The study found 31 developing countries are on track to meet the UN goal, including Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia and Egypt. And while 12 countries had child-mortality rates greater than 200 deaths per thousand in 1990, figures today show not a single one has such high rates.

Even sub-Saharan Africa is showing a marked improvement, according to the study, which found 14 countries on the continent — including Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya — have seen child-mortality rates decline.

A good example is Ethiopia. The study found there were 202 deaths of children under five per 1,000 live births in 1990. Today, there are half as many deaths.

Dr. Murray attributes declining child mortality in the developed world to a number of factors, including maternal education, reductions in HIV transmission and the expansion of targeted health initiatives, such as immunization clinics and malaria-net distribution programs.

“I think we’re seeing evidence that all the money and effort that’s been going in to tackling maternal and child health is actually having an effect,” Dr. Murray said.

“We should be far more optimistic about our ability at the G8 to influence and accelerate progress in poor countries.”

Dr. Murray said the study should allay some of the pessimism from critics who argue international development isn’t yielding results. It’s also an endorsement of the G8’s commitment to put maternal and child health on the agenda.

Still, the job is far from over.

While places like Madagascar and Malawi are making rapid strides, other African nations such as Botswana and Zimbabwe are not, he said. India, too, has improved child-mortality rates, said Murray, noting Pakistan is right next door, but has not.

The goal of G8 policy-makers, he said, should be to figure out what successful countries are doing right, and to try and apply their strategies to neighbours who aren’t doing as well.
Canwest News Service

Officials still searching for missing aircraft in Angola
www.afriquejet.com/24052010

News – Africa news .Luanda, Angola – Officials of the Angolan National Commission for Civil Protection on Sunday continued the search for an aircraft, belonging to the Angolan business group, Chicoil, which disappeared since early Friday within the country.

The Civil Protection and Fire-brigade Commission’s spokesperson, Pedro Goncalves, told the press that the search had not yielded any result so far, but pledged that the search would continue.

The plane went missing with two crew members and one passenger, said to be a Mauritanian, on board.

SOUTH AFRICA:

Israel strongly denies report of South Africa nuclear talks
“The Office of the President regrets “The Guardian’s” decision to publish such an article without requesting comment from any Israeli officials.”
Ran Rimon/www.globes.co.il/24 May 10

“There exists no basis in reality for the claims published this morning by “The Guardian” that in 1975 Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, “The Guardian” elected to write its piece based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts,” states the Office of the President of Israel in response to the report by the British daily.
“Israel has never negotiated the exchange of nuclear weapons with South Africa. There exists no Israeli document or Israeli signature on a document that such negotiations took place.”
President Shimon Peres’ office added, “The Office of the President regrets “The Guardian’s” decision to publish such an article without requesting comment from any Israeli officials. The Office of the President intends to send a harsh letter to the editor of “The Guardian” and demands the publication of the true facts.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on May 24, 2010

South African Stocks: Anglo Platinum, MTN, SABMiller, Wesizwe
May 24, 2010/By Janice Kew/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — South Africa’s FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index rose for the first time in four days, climbing 229.91, or 0.9 percent, to 26,488.12 at 11:58 a.m. in Johannesburg. UBS AG raised its recommendation on the local equities to “overweight” from “neutral” and JPMorgan Cazenove recommended investors “buy the dips.”

The following are among the most active stocks in the South African market today.

Anglo Platinum Ltd. (AMS SJ), the world’s biggest platinum producer, advanced 19.07 rand, or 2.7 percent, to 722.07 rand. Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. (IMP SJ), the world’s second- largest, gained 3.81 rand, or 2.1 percent, to 181.81 rand. The metal used in clean-emissions technology by carmakers climbed for the first time in four days, advancing as much as 2 percent to $1,530.25 an ounce.

MTN Group Ltd. (MTN SJ) increased 2.50 rand, or 2.5 percent, to 101.10 rand, the biggest intraday gain in almost two weeks. Africa’s largest mobile-network operator was raised to “buy” from “neutral” at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

SABMiller Plc (SAB SJ), the world’s second-biggest brewer, rose 4.07 rand, or 1.9 percent, to 213.89 rand, snapping two days of declines. China Resources Enterprise Ltd., the Chinese partner of SABMiller, said first-quarter profit increased almost ninefold as its retail business improved and it made money selling some units.

Wesizwe Platinum Ltd. (WEZ SJ) rallied the most in almost seven months, climbing 24 cents, or 12 percent, to 2.24 rand. The platinum miner said it has agreed to a takeover by Jinchuan Group Ltd. and China-Africa Development Fund to fund the development of a mine in South Africa.

–Editor: Ana Monteiro.

S.Africa transport strike enters 3rd week, hits ports
May 24 /Reuters

* Workers from bigger union back at work, others continue

Stocks | Global Markets

* Strike hits metals, car, fruit exports

* Other protests loom ahead of World Cup

JOHANNESBURG, May 24 (Reuters) – Members of the biggest trade union at South African logistics group Transnet ended a strike on Monday, but the stoppage which has hit ports and railways dragged on after a smaller union rejected a revised pay deal.

The strike, now in its third week, has curbed exports of metals, cars, fruit and wine to Europe and Asia, as well as imports of vehicle parts and fuel supplies three weeks before the soccer World Cup starts.

“Our members have returned to work,” said George Strauss, President of the United Transport and Allied Trade Union (Utatu).

The smaller union at Transnet, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), said its members remained fully behind the action.

“The strike is still on, none of our workers are back to work,” said Zenzo Mahlangu, General Secretary at Satawu, which represents 39 percent of the 54,000 workers at Transnet.

Transnet said no meetings were planned with Satawu for Monday, but the rejected pay offer was still on the table.

Economists have estimated losses in the hundreds of millions of rand, but this could rise to billions if the strike drags on, and it may take weeks to clear the backlog at ports.

South Africa hosts the World Cup in June and July, and soccer’s world governing body FIFA said imports of some equipment for the event have been affected.

So far, coal exports to power plants in Europe and Asia have not been affected thanks to stocks at the ports, and fuel supplies to petrol pumps are also as yet unaffected.

The strikers are under pressure from the government to end the stoppage, while the workers themselves are feeling the pinch because they are not being paid while off the job.

More protests loom before the tournament.

A strike by half of the workers at state-owned power utility Eskom due to start on Wednesday could disrupt electricity supplies in Africa’s biggest economy, and embarrass President Jacob Zuma’s government before one of the world’s premier sports events.

Civil servants, including nurses, police and teachers, may also consider striking unless a mediator helps to resolve a wage dispute with the government.

The transport strike has hurt global miners with operations in South Africa, forcing some to declare force majeure, and car makers — a big employer and contributor to the economy — warned that they would shut their operations if it persists.

Anglo American Plc (AAL.L), Xstrata (XTA.L) and the world’s top steelmaker ArcelorMittal (ISPA.AS)(MT.N) declared force majeure on the supply of iron ore, ferrochrome and steel respectively. Transnet also declared force majeure on coal destined for export.

AFRICA / AU :

Israel’s Peres denies South Africa nuclear weapons deal
Monday, 24 May 2010/ news.bbc.co.uk

Israel’s President Shimon Peres has denied a report which claims there was an alleged nuclear pact between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

Documents to be published in a new book show Israel agreed to give South Africa nuclear weapons in 1975, the Guardian newspaper has reported.

Mr Peres was Israel’s defence minister at the time and was named in the Guardian article.

The news comes as tension over nuclear weapons in the region is increasing.

Mr Peres’ spokeswoman, Ayelet Frisch, “categorically denied” there had been any negotiations between the two countries.

“We regret that the newspaper did not find it right to ask for an official response and examine the facts with other Israeli sources,” the Israeli Ynet news website quoted Mrs Frisch as saying.

‘Ambiguity’

The Guardian reported that the previously secret documents, unearthed by American academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky, provided the first official documentary evidence of the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons.

Israel operates a policy of “ambiguity” over its nuclear programme, but in 1986 Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu revealed details of a nuclear reactor in Israel. The Federation of American Scientists estimates Israel could have produced up to 200 nuclear weapons.

The Guardian also said the documents could undermine any claim that Israel might make that it is a responsible country and can be trusted to hold nuclear weapons, while Iran is not.

The alleged deal also indicates the strength of the relationship between the Israeli government and apartheid South Africa, the Guardian said.

Weapons ‘in three sizes’

The secret documents were declassified by the post-apartheid South African government.

They include minutes of secret meetings between officials of both countries – one cover note is apparently signed by PW Botha, then South Africa’s defence minister, and Mr Peres.

They refer to an offer of Israeli weapons “in three sizes” this is thought to refer to conventional, biological and nuclear weapons.

The original documents state the “very existence of this agreement” were classified as “secret and shall not to be disclosed by either party”.

But the evidence contained in the report could be argued to be circumstantial, the BBC’s Middle East correspondent Tim Franks says.

A previously declassified memo written by South Africa’s military Chief of Staff laid out the benefits to South Africa of acquiring Israel’s Jericho ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads attached.

That memo was written on the same day as the meetings which Mr Peres now denies took place.

In the end, the South Africans rejected the deal because it was too expensive.

They developed their own nuclear weapons programme, which was dismantled between 1983 and 1993.
 

Opposition might challenge Ethiopian vote count in court
Associated Press / May 24, 2010

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Members of Ethiopia’s opposition said they might contest the results of yesterday’s national election in court after reports of intimidation and vote-rigging, hoping to avoid the violent street clashes that marred the last poll five years ago and left nearly 200 dead.

The election in Africa’s third most populous nation is being closely watched by international observers, and by critics who say the US-allied ruling party has harassed voters and challengers. The European Union’s chief election observer said yesterday the vote was largely calm although there were reports of irregularities.

The Ethiopian Election Board said it had received no complaints and would begin releasing results today. The poll will probably lead to a new decade of power for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who seized control in a 1991 coup.

The largest opposition bloc, Medrek, complained of intimidation soon after yesterday’s vote began. Spokesman Negasso Gidada said some of his party’s observers had been blocked and arrested in northern Ethiopia, and others had been intimidated in southern Ethiopia.

“We think we may not accept the results,’’ he said, emphasizing that the party would settle any election irregularities by appealing in court. But Negasso said his party would not refuse to participate in the government if elected, as some opposition leaders did in 2005.

Another opposition candidate, Hailu Shawel, also said observers had been turned away yesterday in different parts of the country.

Government spokesman Bereket Simon, however, said he was not aware of any election-related problems.

Report: Childhood Mortality Rates Declining
www.allheadlinenews.com/David Goodhue – AHN News Reporter/May 24, 2010

Washington, D.C., DC, United States (AHN) – Worldwide child mortality rates have declined significantly since 1990, according to U.S. researchers.

In a study published in the medical journal the Lancet, the researchers from several universities stated that worldwide mortality in children under 5 years has dropped from 11.9 million deaths in 1990 to 7.7 million in 2010. The numbers include 3.1 million neonatal deaths, 2.3 million postneonatal deaths and 2.3 million deaths in children ages 1 to 4 years old.

Most of these deaths happen in poorer and developing nations, according to the report.

Thirty three percent of deaths in children under 5 occurred in south Asia and almost half – 49.6 percent – happened in sub-Saharan Africa. Less than 1 percent of the deaths happened in high-income countries.

The global decline of across 21 countries between 1990 and 2010 is 2.1 percent per year for neonatal mortality, 2.3 percent for postneonatal mortality and 2.2 percent for childhood mortality.

In praise of… Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven MonjezaNo one should hesitate to declare the ruling by the Malawian courts was appalling
Editorial /The Guardian/Monday 24 May 2010

There are two responses to the miserable news that a Malawian couple, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, have been sentenced to 14 years’ hard labour for the supposed crime of loving each other. The first must be to deplore their outrageous conviction for “unnatural acts”. The pair were brave to declare their homosexuality. Now they are suffering the backlash of a political culture that is defining its nationalism through the ostentatious defiance of western liberalism. They are not being punished for any wrong they may have done, but for the values their relationship is deemed to represent. That fact underlines a second understandable reaction to their conviction: a reluctance to lecture a small, aid-dependent and conservative nation about its failure to uphold liberal ideals which even this country did not put into law until well after the second world war. Yet no one should hesitate to declare the ruling by the Malawian courts was appalling. Its effects will be entirely negative – not just on the rights of gay men and women in Malawi, and elsewhere in Africa, but on the reputation of a usually friendly nation which likes to see itself as “the warm heart of Africa”. Malawians should realise that Mr Chimbalanga and Mr Monjeza are no threat to anyone: just two young, frightened men who have not been cowed into hiding the truth. They have become caught up in a bigger battle between aid donors and the Malawi government. They were convicted out of prejudice. They must be released.

Somalia Fighting Kills 15 People in Mogadishu (Update1)
May 24, 2010/By Hamsa Omar/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — At least 15 people were killed and 30 wounded after Somali insurgents attacked army bases in northern Mogadishu, the capital, and the presidential palace, a paramedic for Nationlink and Lifeline Africa ambulance services said.

Fighters of the Islamic Al-Shabaab movement battled government troops and forces of the African Union peacekeeping mission on May 22 and yesterday. “Most of the casualties were collected around Bakara market,” paramedic Ali Muse Sheikh said by phone yesterday.

Somalia’s Western-backed government, led by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed since January 2009, has been battling Islamist insurgents for the past three years. The Horn of Africa nation hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

An al-Shabaab military commander claimed in a statement on the Shabelle radio station yesterday that the insurgents captured army bases in both northern and southern Mogadishu and killed dozens of soldiers.

Somalia’s Defense Minister Yusuf Mohamed Siyad blamed Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke for the army’s setbacks, accusing him of failing to provide soldiers with adequate ammunition, pay and medical supplies.

“My soldiers left the northern base because they lacked the required ammunition, it wasn’t the case that they were overpowered,” Siyad told reporters yesterday in Mogadishu.

He urged the international community to stop training Somali soldiers and instead to provide financial and logistical support for the current force. Because of poor supplies, he said, newly trained troops have defected to al-Shabaab and another Islamic rebel group, Hisbul Islam.

“It is not required to train more soldiers at this time,” he said. “If it happens, the extra trained soldiers will join Al-shabaab and Hisbul Islam and will increase their power dramatically.”

–Editors: Karl Maier, Phil Sanders

Australia lags on child mortality rates
DANNY ROSE /news.smh.com.au/AAP /May 24, 2010

Australia is lagging behind other countries in the global effort to reduce the number of children who die before they turn five.

Poorer health outcomes for the nation’s indigenous people account for part of Australia’s performance in the assessment of how countries are tackling child mortality.

Published on Monday in the Lancet, it paints an overall positive picture of declining mortality rates globally.

University of Queensland Professor Alan Lopez was co-author of the report, which shows for every thousand children born in Australia, 4.7 under the age of five would die this year.

This was a significant improvement on the figure 20 years ago (9.9 in 1990) and 40 years ago (23.1 in 1970) but Prof Lopez said other countries had made bigger improvements.

“We haven’t been quite as successful in terms of child mortality,” Prof Lopez told AAP.

“The absolute risk of child death in Australia is very low, less than five per 1,000 births, but in some countries like Singapore it is actually less than three.”

“So there is still a little bit of a gap there, and there are a lot of countries in western Europe that are between Singapore and Australia.”

Singapore now has the lowest rate of child mortality in the world, at 2.5 deaths per thousand births and this was down from 29.2 in 1970.

Poorer health outcomes in Australia’s indigenous communities could explain some of the nation’s lower rate of decline, Prof Lopez said.

“We certainly have a two-speed health status,” he said.

“… where indigenous Australians have three times higher risk of child death than non indigenous Australians and that is a very unfortunate situation.”

“That accounts for part, but not all, of the gap.”

The research took in more than 1,600 different measures of mortality in young children, from official death registries in developed countries to household surveys in developing nations.

Looking globally, the report forecast 7.7 million children aged under five to die in 2010 and this figure was down from 11.9 million deaths in 1990, and 16 million deaths in 1970.

Less than one per cent of these deaths occur in high income countries such as Australia, with almost half (49.6 per cent) in sub-Saharan Africa and 33 per cent in south Asia.

The research also pointed to positive “evidence of accelerating declines” in child mortality over the past decade compared to the 1990s, with substantial improvements seen in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Kenya, China, Burma, Somalia and Pakistan.

“This is a good message for global public health that we are being successful in reducing child mortality, but that residual burden of 7.7 million deaths a year is largely preventable and we need to keep at it,” Prof Lopez said.

The worst performing countries was Equatorial Guinea with 180.1 child deaths in 2010 per 1,000 births.

Sigma change to drug market
From: Herald Sun /May 24, 2010

SIGMA is still considering a proposal from South African drug firm Aspen which would transform it into Australia’s biggest supplier of prescription medicines.
Sigma Pharmaceuticals Ltd’s board is considering the proposal and recommended that shareholders take no action at this stage.

“Sigma will make a further announcement in due course,” she said.

Sigma said last week it had received a takeover offer of 60 cents per share by way of a scheme of arrangement or other whole of business transaction but didn’tb say who had made the offer.

The offer values the company at about $707 million.

Sigma stock closed on Friday at 48 cents.

Aspen Pharmacare Holdings is the largest listed pharmaceutical company in South Africa with a market capitalisation of 35 billion rand ($A6.09 billion), according to information on Aspen Australia’s website.

The company’s Australian operations commenced in May 2001 and generated sales on $10.5 million, the website said.

“Current annualised sales are over $180 million and growing,” the company says.

The takeover offer followed Sigma’s announcement last Thursday that chairman John Stocker and non-executive director Doug Curlewis had resigned.

Dr Stocker and Mr Curlewis were due to retire from the board after the company’s annual general meeting on June 21.

The company posted a $390 million loss for fiscal 2010, reported on March 31.

Sigma blamed the loss for the 2010 fiscal year on a big writedown on the goodwill of its generic drugs business.
Sigma makes and markets its own branded drugs and manufactures drugs under contract.

It supplies drugs and provides retail services to pharmacies under the Amcal, Amcal Max and Guardian banners.
Sigma’s over-the-counter product brands include Herron, Chemists’ Own, Ural and Coloxyl.

African Bank, BHP, Lonmin, MTN: South Africa Stocks Preview
May 24, 2010/By Carli Lourens and Ron Derby/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in South Africa tomorrow. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names and prices are from the last close.

South Africa’s FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index fell 79.3 points, or 0.3 percent, to 26,258.21 in Johannesburg. The index declined 4 percent last week.

African Bank Investments Ltd. (ABL SJ): The lender said profit for the first half through March was unchanged at 930 million rand ($118.9 million) from a year earlier. African Bank retreated 55 cents, or 1.9 percent, to 29.10 rand.

BHP Billiton Ltd. (BIL SJ): The company sees a strong outlook for its oil and gas unit in the next fiscal year, J. Michael Yeager, chief executive officer of BHP’s petroleum operation, said. Billiton rose 3.86 rand, or 1.9 percent, to 205.10 rand.

Coal of Africa Ltd. (CZA SJ): The coal miner appointed John Wallington as its chief executive officer effective from June 15. The company declined 25 cents, or 1.9 percent, to 12.75 rand.

Lonmin Plc (LN SJ), the world’s third-largest platinum producer, said it will need to toll refining to meet this financial year’s sales target of 700,000 ounces of platinum after a leak occurred during the recommissioning of its Number One furnace. The shares rallied 5.24 rand, or 2.9 percent, to 184.465 rand.

MTN Group Ltd. (MTN SJ): Africa’s largest mobile-network operator was raised to “buy” from “neutral” at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The shares fell 75 cents, or 0.75 percent, to 98.60 rand.

Pioneer Food Group Ltd. (PFG SJ): South Africa’s second- largest food company said profit for the first half through March declined to 163.2 million rand from 273.2 million rand. The shares rose 10 cents, of 0.3 percent, to 39 rand.

Telkom SA Ltd. (TKG SJ): The fixed-line network operator was raised to “neutral” from “underperform” at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Shares advanced 98 cents, or 2.8 percent, to 35.58 rand.

Wesizwe Platinum Ltd. (WEZ SJ): The platinum miner said it has agreed to a takeover by Jinchuan Group Ltd. and China-Africa Development Fund to fund the development of a mine in South Africa. Shares were unchanged at 2 rand.

The following shares begin trading without the rights to their latest dividends:

Allied Technologies Ltd. (ALT SJ) was unchanged at 69 rand, Coronation Fund Managers Ltd. (CML SJ) lost 0.2 percent to 11.18 rand, Redefine Properties Ltd. (RDF SJ) declined 0.7 percent to 7.14 rand.

Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows:

Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) rose 5.3 percent to $18.01. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) fell 1 percent to $38.92. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) gained 5.1 percent to $52.90. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) fell 0.5 percent to $4.17. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) slid 0.5 percent to $12.59. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) declined 2.2 percent to $9.04. Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPUY US) increased 1.5 percent to $22.79. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) rose 1.8 percent to $3.35. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) rose 3 percent to $35.24.

–Editor: Ana Monteiro.

Zambia: African Unity, a Reality Or Still a Dream?
Steve Kaliminwa/Times of Zambia /24 May 2010

TOMORROW, May 25, 2010, Zambia joins the rest of Africa in commemorating the 52nd Africa Freedom Day.

From 1963 the event has coincided with the birth of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) the forerunner of the present day African Union (AU).

Africa Freedom Day, sometimes called Africa Day or Africa Liberation Day arose out of a conference resolution to “mark each year the onward progress of the liberation movement, and to symbolise the determination and exploitation.”

On April 15, 1958 in the city of Accra, Ghana African leaders and political activists gathered at the first conference of independent African States.

The Conference itself was significant as it represented the first Pan-African conference on African soil and was attended by representatives of governments of Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia.

The initiative was the brainchild of Ghana’s president Kwame Nkrumah who strongly believed that the continent should be united and strengthened in order to make it less vulnerable to outside influence.

At that time, a number of African countries were still under colonial rule.

Thus in the late 1950s, Dr Nkrumah started a movement which stressed the need for immediate unity of the African continent.

And on May 25, 1963, 32 independent African States, who had genuine hopes and visions for the African continent, came together in Ethiopia to create the OAU.

Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, the venue of the conference later became the seat of the OAU headquarters.

However, while African states were unanimous about the African unity concept, there was general disagreement on how this was to be implemented, and to some extent threatened to destroy the very unity that the member states wanted to preserve.

On one hand there were those countries, which believed in the immediate unity of Africa. These countries were originally Ghana, Guinea and Mali known as the Casablanca group. Later Egypt, the Transitional Government of Algeria and Morocco joined the group.

On the other hand, the 24 member Monrovia Group conservatives which included Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Togo and many others believed in a much more gradual approach to the question of African unity.

There were fears then that the rift would become permanent and thus end the hopes and dreams of African unity.

But for some reason- though many speculate that the great respect for Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was the cause- many independent states softened their position and agreed to merge to form the OAU in May 1963.

Nevertheless another contentious issue arose as to which country the seat of the OAU would be.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Ketema Yifru who had worked ever so hard to bridge the gap between the Monrovia and Casablanca blocks, argued strongly that Addis Ababa should be crowned the OAU headquarters.

In a meeting with Emperor Haile Selassie and Prime Minister Aklilu Habtewold, Yifru lobbied that the struggle would be in vain if the OAU headquarters did not end up being in the Ethiopian capital.

The young Foreign Minister did not stop at that. He embarked on a campaign sending out delegations to travel around the continent to thank the various governments for graciously accepting the invitation and for being instrumental in making the summit a success.

The delegations also lobbied many African nations to support the idea of having the OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa.

The campaign worked! And that is how Addis Ababa became the headquarters for the OAU.

The creation of the OAU was indeed a significant and historic moment for the continent of Africa because Africans were able to come together under the umbrella of their newly formed organisation.

With a concerted voice, the African continent was now able to fight the evil forces of colonialism. Through the OAU’s liberation committee and the United Nations (UN), Africans were able to work collectively to bring about an end to colonialism.

The plight of the African people became known to the entire world.

Indeed, Pan Africanism, which was the driving force of the continent in the 1960s, had proved a point- that the obstacles that Africa was faced with could be solved through the unity of its people.

In the early years of its creation the OAU was able to engage in conflict resolution.

The Ethiopia-Somalia and Algeria-Morocco conflict are examples of how the OAU was able to divert potential wars by peaceful means.

At that time, it seemed that the Africans had come to a point where they had mastered the art of solving their own problems with their homegrown solutions.

Can the same be said today?

No. African leaders do not seem to be able to solve the numerous conflicts that have engulfed nearly every region.

At present there is the Spanish Sahara issue, which has persisted.

The problem in the Darfur region and the sick man of Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) just to mention a few

The Pan Africanist atmosphere of the 1960s that brought an understanding that any conflict in Africa’s regardless of its geographical location was an African problem and therefore should be solved by Africans has since waned.

The focus now should be more about promoting instead international cultural and language exchange.

The AU must revive the Pan African spirit of that time and come up with an African solution to the problems that face the continent.

Sex and bribes: RBA exposed
RICHARD BAKER AND NICK MCKENZIE /www.smh.com.au/May 24, 2010

A RESERVE BANK currency firm was willing to supply prostitutes and pay bribes to foreign officials to win banknote supply contracts, according to a federal police witness at the centre of the nation’s most serious corruption investigation.

The explosive revelation is one of many made by a key witness in the Australian Federal Police inquiry into the Reserve Bank’s polymer currency company, Securency International.

The witness has told an investigation by the Herald’s sister newspaper The Age and ABC TV’s Four Corners – to be aired tonight – that a middleman hired by Securency to win contracts from foreign governments told him that he intended to bribe a central bank governor from an Asian country.

The witness, who was a Securency employee, has given federal police his diary in which he recorded the middleman telling him in 2007 that the “governor would be very happy if the commission [payment] was increased”.

Of the request to get a prostitute, the witness has revealed that one of the most senior Securency managers told him to arrange an Asian prostitute for a visiting deputy governor of a foreign central bank.

“Next time that this official was in town, [I was told] that I was to procure him a bodyguard, and with raised eyebrows and a wink … a particular type of bodyguard being an Asian woman,” the police witness told Four Corners. “He was suggesting I might like to procure a prostitute for one of the central bank officials on his visit to Melbourne.”

The witness said he did not act on the request, although he believed other employees had arranged prostitutes for central bank officials.

In a 2008 diary entry, the police witness recorded that a consultant employed in Asia by Australia’s overseas trade agency Austrade told him that to win contracts Securency needed to hire someone to bribe officials or “to pass white envelopes for you”.

Austrade confirmed last week that the Securency employee turned police witness reported the comment to an Australian ambassador in the country where it was made in 2008, but said it had never been brought specifically to Austrade’s attention.

Austrade also emphasised it has never endorsed bribery by Australian businesses.

Securency is a Melbourne polymer bank note company half-owned and supervised by the Reserve Bank. It has employed a network of global agents to help it convince foreign central banks and governments to buy its polymer notes.

A federal police taskforce is investigating Securency for allegedly bribing government officials in countries including Nigeria, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Leading international figures, including the former Malaysian deputy prime minister turned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and the Nigerian central bank governor Lamido Sanusi, have urged the Australian government to reveal how far the bribery scandal reaches.

“How could Securency allow … huge bribes in the name of commissions,” Mr Ibrahim asked Four Corners. “It’s something very difficult for me to comprehend; how is it a system [in Australia], with such a strong institution and respect for good government . . . could allow this.”

Labor and Coalition senators have on three occasions voted against a motion by the Greens leader, Bob Brown, for a parliamentary inquiry into Securency’s overseas dealings and the role played by government agencies.

In a 2008 diary excerpt from the witness, a Securency employee is recorded as telling him Securency paid exceptionally high commissions to middlemen to secure a contract in Nigeria. “A range of senior government . . . officials and central bank officials would’ve been getting a slice of that 20- 25 per cent commission,” the witness said.

The Age has previously revealed that Securency paid millions of dollars into overseas accounts linked to mysterious middlemen who helped the company win deals in Africa and Asia.

In March, the Securency board released a seven-month audit of its dealings with its global network of agents who have received almost $50 million in commission payments since 2003.

The KPMG audit was scathing of Securency management’s conduct in appointing, monitoring and paying its agents, several of whom operate in countries seen as the world’s most corrupt.

After the release of the audit, the Securency board, chaired by the bank’s assistant governor, Bob Rankin, announced the departure of the company’s two top executives, Myles Curtis and John Ellery.

UN /ONU :

Israel’s complicity in apartheid crimes undermines its attack on Goldstone
To rubbish the former judge’s report on Gaza, Israel has dredged up his record in South Africa – while forgetting its own
Gary Younge, The Guardian/Monday 24 May 2010

On 5 January 2009 the Israeli army rounded up around 65 Palestinians (including 11 women and 11 children under the age of 14) in Gaza, several of whom were waving white flags. After handcuffing the men and stripping them to their underwear, the soldiers marched their captives 2km north to al-Atatra and ordered them to climb into three pits, each three metres high and surrounded by barbed wire. The prisoners were forced to sit in stress positions, leaning forward with their heads down, and prohibited from talking to one another. On their first day they were denied food and water. On the second and third, each was given a sip of water and a single olive. On the fourth day the women and children were released and the men were transferred to military barracks.

It was just one of the stories to emerge from the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict conducted by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone. The report accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and “possibly” crimes against humanity. But in a conflict that saw 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians killed compared with about 1,400 Gazans, Goldstone was particularly scathing about Israel’s “deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population” – which he said amounted to “collective punishment”.

The Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobbies concentrated their displeasure not on the substance of Goldstone’s report but the essence of his identity. Branded a “self-hating Jew”, he was effectively barred from his grandson’s bar mitzvah after the South African Zionist Federation threatened to picket it. The prominent US constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz has described Goldstone as a “despicable human being”, “an evil, evil man”, “a traitor to the Jewish people” and the UN’s “token court Jew”.

Then this month came “revelations” from an Israeli newspaper that, as a judge under the apartheid regime, Goldstone sentenced black people to death. This, according to Israel’s government, discredits not only Goldstone but everything he discovered about Gaza and, by association, international criticism of the occupation. “Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists, who are not subject to the criteria of international moral norms,” argued the Knesset Speaker, Reuven Rivlin.

“Although he was involved in clear racist activity, he had no problem writing such a report,” said the chairman of the Knesset’s state control committee, Yoel Hasson, who called Goldstone a hypocrite. Not to be outdone, Dershowitz (a strident advocate of torture) has now likened Goldstone to the Nazi geneticist Josef Mengele.

This crude one-downmanship in identity politics has no winners and many losers. Facts about racism in the past cannot excuse realities about racism in the present. Playing off the legacy of South Africa’s townships against the plight of the captives of al-Atatra seeks not to alleviate the suffering of either group but in effect to dismiss them. But for all the hyperbole and absurdity, there are important principles at stake about who can claim moral authority, on what basis, and to what end.

Let’s start with the most obvious. This is a cynical ploy by the Israeli government to divert attention from the findings of the UN report. Government officials have almost said as much. A foreign ministry official described the investigation by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth as “explosive PR material”. Hasson claims: “Had [the Israeli foreign ministry discovered this earlier], it would have greatly helped us in our activity against the report.” But the report is about Gaza, not Goldstone. Having lost control of the message, Israel is now trying to shoot the messenger.

That Israel would try to do so on the backs of black South Africans is a laughable indication of its desperation. For if Goldstone was complicit in apartheid’s crimes, then Israel was far more so. Israel was South Africa’s principal and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons.

“Throughout the 70s and 80s Israel had a deep, intimate and lucrative relationship with South Africa,” explains Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa. “Israel’s arms supplies helped to prolong the apartheid regime’s rule and to survive international sanctions.” No criticism of Goldstone’s complicity from representatives of the Israeli state can be taken seriously that does not acknowledge and condemn Israel’s even greater support of the self-same system.

But just because the Israeli government wants to change the subject doesn’t mean that we have to. Goldstone’s apartheid record matters. For the left to claim it doesn’t, simply because he came up with a conclusion about Gaza that they agree with, would also be cynical. Appointed senior counsel in 1976, the year of the Soweto uprising, Goldstone rose through the South African judiciary during one of apartheid’s most vicious periods. While in power he ordered the execution of two black South Africans and turned down the appeals of many others.

“A historian who finds excuses for such conduct by references to the supposed spirit of the times or by omission or by silence,” wrote the late Trinidadian intellectual CLR James in The Black Jacobins, “shows thereby that his account of events is not to be trusted.”

Goldstone’s claim that faced with a “moral dilemma” he thought “it was better to fight from inside than not at all”, is inadequate. Not only did he uphold apartheid laws, he enforced them. This is not a question of 20:20 hindsight: many in a similar position at that time chose a more principled stand. Both morally and professionally he had other options, and he is compromised by not having taken them.

But his record did not end with apartheid. While he may not have led the drive to a non-racial democracy, he followed it eagerly. When the system started to collapse, he fully embraced change. Nelson Mandela asked him to chair the commission into public violence primarily because he was trusted by both sides. As such, he was an archetypical transitional figure. After that he went on to produce respected reports into the ethnic conflicts in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. So while his credibility as a human rights advocate might be diminished, it is by no means destroyed.

Finally, there is the insidious role that Israel has attempted to play as ideological gatekeeper for acceptable political behaviour among Jews. The attempt to tarnish any criticism of Israel, regardless of its merits, as unjust is untenable; to castigate them as un-Jewish is deplorable. “What saddens me today is that any Jew who speaks out with an independent voice, especially with the conduct of the state of Israel, is regarded as a self-hating Jew,” says retired South African supreme court justice Albie Sachs, who is also Jewish. “Why should someone be made to choose between being a Jew and having a conscience?”

Gary Younge’s book Who Are We – and Should It Matter in the 21st Century? is published on 3 June

Study: fewer kids dying than previously thought
By MARIA CHENG (AP)/24052010

LONDON — Child deaths worldwide seem to have fallen faster than officials thought, as a new study estimates far fewer children are dying every year than previously guessed by the United Nations.

Using more data and an improved modeling technique, scientists predicted about 7.7 million children under 5 would die this year, down from nearly 12 million in 1990. The study was published online Monday in the British medical journal, Lancet.

The new estimate is substantially lower than UNICEF’s last estimate of
child deaths from 2008. Then, the agency said about 8.7 million children were dying every year of preventable causes such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria.

“We’re quite a bit farther ahead than we thought,” said Christopher Murray, one of the paper’s authors and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Murray and colleagues assessed information from 187 countries from 1970 to 2009. They found child deaths dropped by about 2 percent every year, lower than the 4.4 percent needed to reach the U.N.’s target of reducing child deaths by two-thirds by 2015.

Murray said death rates were falling surprisingly fast in countries including Liberia and Niger, but that progress had stalled in rich countries like Britain and the United States.

Where information was limited, researchers used modeling projections to estimate the number of deaths. The research was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“We’re very excited because this study reinforces our belief that the scale-up of interventions such as (malaria) bed nets, vaccines and vitamin A (pills) are starting to show an impact,” said Mickey Chopra, UNICEF’s director of health. UNICEF was not linked to the study.

He was particularly impressed with progress in countries like Niger and Malawi, where there hasn’t been much economic growth. “Even while we wait for poverty levels to reduce, there is still a lot we can do to improve health,” he said.

But given the fluctuating figures common in global health, not everyone was swayed by the new research. There was also no evidence to show U.N. programs are responsible for the drop in child deaths. Murray said the reduction could be because the AIDS epidemic peaked several years ago and is now hitting fewer kids.

William Aldis, a former senior World Health Organization expert who has worked in Africa and Asia, said the numbers were not entirely reliable, given the uncertainty in the data from poor countries with patchy surveillance.

Mit Philips, a health analyst at the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, said she was encouraged fewer children were dying, but much more still needed to be done. “If you start off with a very high mortality rate, like some places in sub-Saharan Africa, even if you reduce it, it’s still very high,” she said.

Philips said improving health in poor countries required comprehensive health services, not just one-off campaigns handing out malaria bed nets or administering vaccines.

“Whatever the modeling shows, the picture on the ground can be quite different,” she said. “In some places in southern Africa, there is a lot less progress than you’d expect.”

Government Welcomes Presence of UN in Inauguration of Al Bashir
Monday, May 24 /by admin /www.sudanvisiondaily.com/Khartoum- Staff Writer

The Government welcomed the high level participation of the United Nations in the inauguration ceremony of President Omar Al Bashir on Thursday where a large number of African and Arab leaders and officials besides officials from European countries are expected to attend.

The Government described the attitude of the United Nations towards the inauguration of Al Bashir as reasonable and balanced and denied, through a reliable source, the existence of a rupture between the Sudan and the United Nations. The statement said that the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has on many occasions been in touch with President Al Bashir saying that the participation of the head of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), Haile Menkerios and the joint head of the African Union/ UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Ibrahim Gambari, comes in the framework of good relations between the two parties.

In the same context, the government played down the call by Human Rights Watch to the international and regional organizations to boycott the inauguration of President Al Bashir considering that the organization’s call comes as a part of its hostile attitude against the Sudan.

The UN spokesperson, Marie Okabe had announced that the international organization authorized its two top officials in Sudan, Menkerios and Gambari to attend the inauguration of President Omer Hassan Al Bashir next Thursday.

Death threats against Zapiro ‘un-Islamic’
Staff Reporter/ www.iol.co.za/May 24 2010

The Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) has denounced death threats against Zapiro over his cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and has called on Muslims to refrain from making such threats.

MJC president Maulana Igsaan Hendricks said the organisation also rejected calls for the boycott of the Mail and Guardian newspaper, which published the cartoon many Muslims have found offensive, as Islam forbids any depiction of the prophet.

While rejecting the cartoon, Hendricks called death threats against the cartoonist “un-Islamic”, saying such threats had no place in the religion or society.

“It only implies that Muslims lack the intellect to resolve disagreements through proper dialogue and communication, which is far from the truth.”

He said the organisation respected Zapiro’s right to freedom of expression, but the cartoonist had to apply this with sensitivity to religious beliefs.

“By not doing so, Zapiro has simply chosen to stoke the flames of religious sensitivity, which, considering the furore in Denmark and… the arrest of an al-Qaeda suspect over threats he made precisely for the same reason, is unfortunate and lacks consideration for the interests of South Africans as hosts to the World Cup.”

Zapiro said his cartoon was not meant to offend Islam, though he wanted it to be “challenging”.

A meeting is expected to take place today between Muslim representatives and the Mail and Guardian.

Hendricks said he hoped Zapiro would also attend.

NAOMI CAMPBELL MAY BE SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY AGAINST CHARLES TAYLOR
www.diamondintelligence.com/24 May 2010

Supermodel Naomi Campbell may be subpoenaed to testify as a witness in the U.N. case against former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in fuelling Sierra Leone’s civil war.

Prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague have filed a motion seeking testimony from Campbell which may help tie the former warlord to using rough diamonds for personal enrichment and for arms purchases for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone.

The supermodel allegedly received rough diamonds from Taylor as a gift in 1997 when the two attended a dinner at the home of former South African president Nelson Mandela.

Campbell previously declined to voluntarily testify in the trial and has consistently declined to publicly talk about the case, telling prosecutors that she was concerned for her safety, sources say.

However, Campbell’s former agent, Carole White, and Hollywood actress Mia Farrow, both of whom were also present at the reception, are voluntarily willing to testify about Campbell’s gift from Taylor, according to international media reports. The two women reportedly overheard Taylor say at the dinner that he was going to give Campbell diamonds and then were both told by the model the next day about how she received the rough diamonds. Farrow reportedly presented to the court a photo of Taylor and Campbell together at the dinner. The actress also told ABC News that Campbell said she would give the diamonds to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, which says they have no records of having received the diamonds from Campbell.

The Prosecution opened their case in June 2007 but Taylor boycotted the proceedings and dismissed his legal team. The trial was adjourned until new counsel could be assigned.

The Prosecution opened witness testimony in January 2008 and formally closed their case in February 2009 after having presented testimony from 91 witnesses. The Defense opened their case in July 2009. Sources say that the Prosecution has asked the court to allow it to reopen its case to present witnesses.

Taylor has pleaded not guilty to all counts of murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers and torture.

Non-proliferation regime ‘bankrupt’
By Robert Grenier / english.aljazeera.net/Monday, May 24, 2010

The drama over the nuclear deal signed by Brazil, Turkey and Iran demonstrates one thing above all: The bankruptcy of the current non-proliferation regime dominated by the nuclear weapons states.

Last Monday’s announcement of Iran’s agreement to ship roughly half of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for 20 per cent enriched uranium fuel rods suitable for Tehran’s research reactor came as an unwelcome surprise in the P-5 capitals – the five permanent members of the United Nations security council – despite the agreement’s resemblance to one negotiated last October by those very nations.

Status quo

The great powers’ response was not long in coming: The following day, word emerged that the P-5, including the Russians and Chinese, had agreed on a draft UN security council resolution tightening, at least marginally, existing nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

The two processes were not necessarily in conflict. But lest anyone miss the point, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, was quick to release a statement: “This announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken by Tehran over the last few days as any we could have taken.”

The message from Clinton and the US could hardly have been clearer: ‘We like the current P-5-led global non-proliferation regime just fine, thank you, and we don’t need any credulous mid-level powers messing about with it.’

Rather than addressing the substance of what Brazil and Turkey were attempting to achieve, Washington – and by limited extension the rest of the P-5 – were implicitly suggesting that the fruit of their efforts was in fact due to effective manipulation on the part of Iran to avoid the looming specter of enhanced UN sanctions.

Confidence-building measure

To be sure, the Tehran agreement is of limited utility.

It does not address the fundamentals of Iran’s nuclear programme, nor does it do anything to enhance long-term international safeguards over Iranian nuclear activities consistent with its obligations under the 1970 Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – of paramount concern given Tehran’s past pattern of duplicitous behaviour.

The agreement is best considered a confidence-building measure, and one which would help buy further time for a more effective negotiated agreement; but that is precisely what could be said of the original swap agreement negotiated last year, before the Iranians decided to back out.

Far more significant than the details of Monday’s agreement are the sentiments and principles which stand behind them – views which do not reside solely in Turkey and Brazil, but which are strongly shared by other emerging powers whose acceptance of, and complicity with, international non-proliferation efforts is critical to their long-term success.

Prominent among these non-aligned leaders are Egypt, Indonesia and South Africa.

Fearful nuclear have-nots

It is worth noting that both Turkey and Egypt, in particular, have strong reasons to fear Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, which could threaten them directly and which would certainly have the effect of upsetting the power balance in their region.

Those fears are largely nullified, however, by the countervailing fear that efforts led by the US and the Western members of the nuclear weapons club ostensibly aimed at containing Iran would have the effect, whether intended or not, of creating precedents which would constrain their freedom to develop an independent nuclear power capability, albeit one under strict international inspections.

Indeed, the current tone and tenor of US-led efforts to strengthen international sanctions on Iran is increasing these fears among the nuclear have-nots.

By focusing almost exclusively on enforcement of current UN resolutions demanding the suspension of Iran’s uranium-enrichment activities, Washington is exacerbating international fears that its real intent is to permanently proscribe nuclear enrichment in Iran under any and all circumstances.

In fact, the only justification for those UN resolutions is that they are designed to keep Iran from developing a complete nuclear fuel cycle capability in the absence of effective safeguards.

International coalition

Washington would be doing itself and its allies a great favour if it would keep its eye on the ball: That is Iranian acceptance and full implementation of the Additional Protocol of the NPT – something all concerned and responsible powers could accept and work effectively for in the Iranian context.

I have long said that the primary problem with the current effort to impose and enforce effective safeguards on Iran’s nuclear programme is not with its goals, but with who leads it: The P-5, plus Germany.

Why should those nations have an interest in policing Iran more compelling than that of the countries in the region – particularly those who, unlike Israel, lack a nuclear deterrent of their own?

In the view of many countries, their compulsion – albeit only partially shared by Russia and China – is based on their perceived interest in preserving their own nuclear weapons monopoly, a monopoly which per
mits them to dictate to others, and which therefore fundamentally undermines the credibility of the international non-proliferation regime they purport to champion.

Rather than seeking to thwart the efforts of the Brazils and Turkeys of the world, the US and the rest of the P-5 should seek to reassure them of their rights under the NPT and to engage them effectively in international negotiating efforts.

The emerging powers will not support the non-proliferation regime if they believe it works against their interests.

On the other hand, their solidarity in legitimate international efforts to control nuclear weapons – including a credible process of nuclear weapons reductions among the current weapons states – would confront the Iranians with a far more effective international coalition and, thus, a far more compelling rationale for responsible behaviour.

Robert Grenier was the CIA’s chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre

USA :

Secret US spaceplane spotted in orbit by hobbyists
Mysterious ‘black’ roboshuttle located – for now
www.theregister.co.uk/By Lewis Page/Posted in Space/24th May 2010

Amateur astronomers believe they have located the X-37B US military unmanned spaceplane, which was launched into orbit on a classified mission a month ago.
According to the authoritative skygazers’ site Heavens-Above, the X-37B is in an orbit angled up 40 degrees from the Equator, meaning that it passes regularly over all nations between southern Europe and South Africa and corresponding portions of south Asia, Australia, Latin America and much of the USA. The little spaceplane is at a height of approximately 400km above Earth.

The X-37B is operated by the US Air Force and its mission, budget and other particulars are classified, or “black”. Nonetheless, various facts about the project are known as it began life as a NASA programme.

The X-37B takes off inside a fairing atop a normal disposable launch stack, in this case an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral a month ago. It is much smaller than a space shuttle, but like the shuttle has delta-shaped wings which should offer similar “cross range” abilities during re-entry – that is the X-37B could potentially make a landing somewhere well off its orbital track.

Another difference from the Shuttle is that the little robot wingship has a deployable solar array rather than fuel cells for electric power generation, and the air force has stated that it can remain in orbit for up to 270 days. The planned duration of the current mission hasn’t been revealed.

Then the X-37B also has a powerful thruster and substantial propellant tanks, which indicates that it may be intended to change orbit quickly and/or frequently – it will certainly be no surprise if at some point the sky-watchers lose track of it again.

The US air force has refused to discuss the X-37B’s mission in any detail, though spokesmen have emphasised its usefulness as a testbed for developing space technologies and also for trying out rapid-response and quick turnarounds with runway-landing spacecraft. A second X-37B has already been ordered.

The secrecy has led to much speculation regarding the little craft: that it may be intended to service or deploy the planned new “fractionated” mini-sat clusters, or as a way of rushing custom spy packages into space in response to emerging crises.

No obvious mission would seem to require the X-37B’s delta wings and the cross-range re-entry capability they appear to offer, however. A lifting-body or stub wing design would have been able to carry more payload and still make a runway landing – just not one well off the craft’s orbital track.

This has led us here on the Reg space-war desk to wonder whether there might just be plans in some quarters for crafty one-orbit flights like the “Mission 3A/3B” planned for (but never actually executed by) the space shuttle. Such missions would allow the X-37B to escape the notice not just of amateur skywatchers, but also of foreign powers with space-tracking capabilities.

It’ll probably be a long time before any details emerge, however. ®

Many disillusioned Pakistanis look beyond U.S. for work, travel and education
By Tara Bahrampour and Pamela Constable/Washington Post Staff Writer /Monday, May 24, 2010

A series of international terrorism incidents linked to Pakistanis, including a failed car bombing this month in Times Square, has prompted many Pakistanis who once had deep ties to the United States to look elsewhere for work, education and travel. It has also left some Pakistani Americans feeling uneasy in their adopted homeland.

The stress of living under suspicion has had a palpable effect, Pakistani American community leaders say. Travel agents say bookings between Pakistan and the United States are down, and U.S. visa applications for travel from Pakistan appear to be dwindling. Though the U.S. government has ended a policy implemented after an attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing that involved extra scrutiny for travelers from 14 countries, including Pakistan, many Pakistanis still feel they are being watched.

Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad “has put us all in this situation where everyone will look at us Pakistani Americans and wonder if they have any connection,” said Shaista Mahmood, 54, a community leader who lives in Mount Vernon.

In Pakistan, increased scrutiny of visas and more stringent U.S. airport searches have exacerbated feelings of rejection and discomfort. Many Pakistanis say they do not want to travel to the United States anymore, whether to study, visit relatives or take once-desirable jobs.

Anger and anxiety

“All these U.S. policies have given a whole generation of Pakistanis the psyche that the United States doesn’t want us,” said Arsalan Ishtiaq, a visa adviser in the city of Rawalpindi who has not received a single U.S. student visa inquiry in two years. “Not only is it much harder to get a visa now, but the few who do get them worry they may get in trouble or implicated in something if they go.”

A dozen technology students in Islamabad and Rawalpindi who once would have given anything to work in the United States said they were instead seeking jobs in Britain, Australia, Canada or the United Arab Emirates. Several said they had heard about humiliating searches at U.S. airports and spoke angrily of Pakistanis being branded as Islamist radicals. The Times Square incident, they said, was the last straw.

“Now the Americans will think we are all terrorists,” said Asalan Khan, 21, who recently completed a course in cellphone technology and plans to work in South Africa. “Why should we study so hard, take all those tests and pay all those expenses if they are not going to respect us?”

The Times Square incident has generated hundreds of comments by bloggers, columnists and others in Pakistan. Some were perplexed and angry that an apparently successful Pakistani American might be connected to the bomb plot; others warned of new crackdowns and humiliations.

Some younger Pakistanis said friends in the United States have told prospective employers that they are of Indian origin to avoid problems. Others said relatives who are longtime U.S. residents have faced criticism from friends still living in Pakistan, whose views have become much more anti-American in recent years.

“My uncle has been living in the United States for years,” said Akmal Abassi, an English language instructor and visa adviser in Rawalpindi. “He still admires the American values of freedom and equality, but now it is much harder for him to convince people here at home.” Abassi says the majority of his students now seek advanced degrees in Britain.

Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have relatives in the United States, and several said they have decided not to visit them for now, to avoid unpleasant encounters.

‘As a parent, it gets scary’

There has been no shift in the number of U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin seeking visas to travel to their native land, said Nadeem Haider Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. But he said that such a shift would be hard to gauge until this summer. “Most travel to Pakistan during summer vacation, so we’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

None of those interviewed in Pakistan said their family members in the United States had encountered personal problems with U.S. authorities. But Adnan Khan, who has lived in the
United States for 28 years, said that this summer, for the first time, he will send his wife and daughter alone on the regular family visit to Pakistan and keep his 19-year-old son with him in Walnut, Calif.

“Reports coming out now are that it’s five or six hours in the airport,” he said, referring to tales of Pakistani travelers, usually young men, being detained for questioning. The last time the Khan family returned from Pakistan, three years ago, the son was pulled aside for questioning. It unsettled the father. “Why is he being separated and why am I not included?” said Khan, president of the Council of Pakistan American Affairs. “As a parent, it gets scary.”

The effects of the negative publicity could be lasting, Khan said. “We’re going to have a whole generation of kids . . . growing up seeing their parents sitting down every night and the discussion was this whole terrorism thing,” he said. “I think they’ll need therapy, once this war ends, telling them they’re not terrorists.”
Constable reported from Pakistan.

BHP set to join new oil-gas explorers in South Africa
Mon May 24, 2010/Reuters

(Reuters) – BHP Billiton (BHP.AX)(BLT.L), the world’s biggest diversified miner, plans to drill for gas off South Africa’s west coast and will get exploration permits by August, an official said.

Deals

BHP should receive off-shore oil and gas exploration permits from South Africa by then, but it was unsure when activities would start due to a scarcity of drilling rigs, David van der Spuy, a resource evaluation manager at Petroleum Agency SA, which promotes and regulates oil and gas exploration and production in South Africa.

Africa’s largest economy is a net importer of crude and refined oil products and unlike the continent’s top oil producers Nigeria and Angola, South Africa has limited proven hydrocarbon reserves.

The permits would allow BHP to take part in exploration, currently being pursued by companies such Anglo Operations Ltd, a unit of Anglo American (AAL.L), and oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L).

Billiton owns 90 percent of Block 3B/4B, which Van der Spuy said had the potential for “large amounts of oil” although this remained unproven until drilled.

Under South Africa’s mining laws, the government has taken over as custodian of mineral rights, and all companies must reapply for mining and prospecting licenses. Van der Spuy said BHP was likely to be awarded the new permits soon.

“BHP Billiton holds the area on sub-lease under the previous legislation and have had to convert as have other explorers… The conversion is imminent,” Van der Spuy told Reuters.

Billiton, in partnership with South Africa’s national oil company PetroSA and Sasol (SOLJ.J), the world’s top coal-to-fuel maker, would also explore for shallow water gas in block 3A/4A.

This area is immediately south of the Ibhubesi gas field being developed by U.S. company Forest Exploration International with production forecast by 2013.

POTENTIAL FOR UNCONVENTIONAL GAS RESOURCES

However, it was developments on land that Van der Spuy felt could hold the best chance for South Africa to significantly reduce its dependence on imported crude oil and gas.

About 40 licenses have been approved to explore for coal bed methane (CBM) — gas associated with large coal deposits and concentrated in the Mpumalanga and Gauteng areas.

“Coal bed methane is a major industry in Australia, in the U.S, but is unproven here. Its size in terms of gas resource is entirely unknown (in South Africa),” he said.

However, Anglo’s operations in the coal-rich Waterberg region provided positive clues, showing extractable CBM potential resources of more than one trillion cubic feet of gas.

Another alluring area of unconventional gas reserves, found mainly in the Karoo Basin, was shale gas which had helped decouple the gas price from the oil price in the United States, said Van der Spuy.

He said Shell, as well as U.S.-based Falcon Oil and Gas, have started with a technical cooperation permit agreement which gave them a year to examine data without the need for drilling.

The two companies will submit a report early in 2011 on the area’s prospectivity, and will have first option to explore.

(Editing by Sue Thomas)

CANADA :

A grossly indecent imprisonment in Malawi
It is wrong to single out homosexuals, to undermine their dignity and to violate their privacy, and laws that permit this must be repealed.
From Monday’s Globe and Mail /24052010

.The jailing of a Malawi gay couple for celebrating their engagement has been rightly condemned by Canada – and is a devastating reminder of just how far many African countries have yet to go on human rights.

It is wrong to single out homosexuals, to undermine their dignity and to violate their privacy, and laws that permit this must be repealed.

Criminalizing gay sex also drives it underground, making it harder to curb the spread of HIV in Africa, where homosexuality remains illegal in 37 countries. In Malawi, nearly one million people – an estimated 12 per cent of the population – are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

In handing out a maximum sentence to Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, the Malawi judge called the couple an affront to the country’s moral code. Their crime was to hold a symbolic ceremony at a hotel in December, committing publicly to marriage – an act of sufficient gravity to merit a conviction for “unnatural acts and gross indecency” and 14 years’ hard labour in prison.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon was quick to denounce the case, which has become a flashpoint for human-rights advocates – including the pop singer Madonna – who fear it could lead to even more homophobia.

“We will be following this case,” said Mr. Cannon. “Canada has a great reputation internationally because we stand up for human rights, and speak out on things that need to be denounced.”

The issue of homosexuality is complicated for Africans, some of whom see same-sex liaisons as a Western import – and resent foreigners’ intrusion into what they see as a domestic issue. The criminalization of homosexuality dates back to the British colonial era when legislators outlawed “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.”

It is now the West’s duty to speak out against these discriminatory laws. Malawi relies on donors for 40 per cent of its development budget; if it violates the rights of minority groups, it could be shunned, though so far no donor has withdrawn aid.

Ironically, Malawi – a recent invitee to the G8/G20 summit – is seen as one of the nations leading Africa’s democratic renaissance. But with democracy comes respect for human rights – even if the evolution is a long and painful one.

While Canada decriminalized homosexuality in 1969 – and legalized same-sex marriage in 2003 – anti-sodomy laws remained on the books in the U.S. until 1986. Those laws continued in 13 states until 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck them down.

Feeding the cancer of discrimination will not help Malawi in any way – it is only by establishing equal rights for all that this impoverished country can truly transform itself.

China’s Arctic Ambitions
ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/24

Today’s idea: China has set its sights on the Arctic, an article says, since global warming is expected to transform the frozen region into new shipping lanes over an ocean rich in oil and natural gas.

World | The United States, Russia, Canada and other countries near the Arctic have claim upon it, but China? Whether it does or not, Paul McLeary writes in World Politics Review, it’s making its move. The notable holdout on climate-emissions cutbacks has been expanding its navy and its quest for resources and land from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East. Now this:

… It’s not what China has done so far, but instead what it appears to be planning to do, that has raised eyebrows among members of the Arctic Council [the federation of Arctic powers].

Specifically, not only does the Beijing government operate the world’s largest non-nuclear icebreaker — the Xuelong (Snow Dragon), purchased from Ukraine in 1993 — but in October 2009, China’s State Council declared that that Xuelong needed “brothers and sisters,” approving construction of a $300 million Chinese-built icebreaker expected to be operational in 2013. Between the two ships, China will have larger and more modern icebreakers than either the United States or Canada. While the new vessel is smaller than the Xuelong, with a displacement of 8,000 tons to the Xuelong’s 21,000 tons, its construction is a bold statement from a country that would benefit from the seasonal shipping lanes many expect to open up over the next several decades, as well as from the possibility of future oil and gas extraction in the unclaimed far north.

China- and Arctic-watchers have also noted that the new Chinese Embassy in Reykjavík, Iceland, will be the largest in the capital, and that the Chinese have been making investment overtures in the country since the island nation’s economy collapsed in 2008. The Chinese, as usual, have been circumspect about all of this activity. [World Politics Review]

SKorea, China, Japan trade chiefs praise FTA study
By KELLY OLSEN (AP) /24052010

SEOUL, South Korea — Trade ministers from China, Japan and South Korea on Sunday praised efforts to explore a potential joint free trade deal to boost commerce among three of Asia’s biggest economies.

South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming and Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Masayuki Naoshima met in Seoul for one day of talks.

The three countries, which represent 18.6 percent of the global economy as measured by gross domestic product, have been holding trilateral meetings at the trade minister level since 2002. Japan is Asia’s largest economy with China close behind. South Korea ranks No. 4. behind India.

South Korea, China and Japan earlier this month in Seoul held the first meeting of a joint committee consisting of representatives from government, business and academia to study a free trade agreement.

Kim, Chen and Naoshima said in a statement that they hoped the study, targeted for completion by 2012, would “contribute to deepening the already mutually beneficial economic interactions among the three countries towards the realization of economic integration of the region in the long term.”

As that language suggests, achieving such an ambitous deal would likely take years. Efforts by South Korea and Japan, for example, to reach a bilateral free trade agreement have gone mostly nowhere largely because of disagreement over how to handle trade in rice.

South Korea has been the most aggressive among the three countries in pursuing bilateral free trade agreements.

Seoul has pacts in force with Chile, Singapore, India, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Free Trade Association, which comprises Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

It has signed a deal with the United States and concluded negotiations on one with the European Union, though the agreements remain unratified. The country is also negotiating eight other agreements with Australia, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and others.

Sunday’s meeting came as concerns grow over the state of the world economy amid Europe’s debt crisis, which has shaken financial markets and raised fears over a possible broader impact on commerce.

Global trade, which plummeted in the wake of the worldwide financial meltdown in late 2008, is expected to rebound in 2010, the World Trade Organization said in March. Trade volume will grow 9.5 percent this year after contracting 12.2 percent in 2009, the biggest decline since World War II, the WTO said.

The ministers did not mention current financial unease in their statement, though said they “support the open and fair multilateral trade regime of the WTO” and highlighted the need to “fight against protectionism in any form.” They also vowed to work toward an “ambitious, balanced and early conclusion” of a stalled global trade agreement within the WTO, the so-called Doha round.

They also said they would cooperate ahead of summits this year of the Group of 20 — scheduled for Toronto in June and Seoul in November — “to ensure that the G-20 delivers its promise to strengthen the international financial system and lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced growth of the world economy.”

AUSTRALIA :

EUROPE :

Ethiopia monitors to probe fraud claims in ‘calm poll’
Monday, 24 May 2010/news.bbc.co.uk

European Union election observers in Ethiopia are investigating complaints of irregularities in Sunday’s vote, but say it was largely peaceful and calm.

The opposition has complained of electoral malpractice, but the EU said the turnout had been “encouraging”.

The BBC’s Will Ross in Addis Ababa says the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is expected to win.

The parliamentary poll is seen as a test for the country after the 2005 disputed election led to violence.

‘Massive’

“I do not know what the final turnout will be but it was very high. I think this in itself is encouraging,” the chief EU observer Thijs Berman said

“The Ethiopian citizens have expressed their vote in a democratic, calm and peaceful way and massively,” he said.

Mr Berman said technical errors had been reported and complaints received from political parties and candidates.

“We do not know at this stage yet what the extent of these irregularities can be, and how serious they are. We are busy evaluating this,” he said.

Our correspondent says that after almost two decades in office, Mr Meles and his Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) are confident of victory.

The opposition may be citing irregularities but it knows it had little chance against the might of the ruling party machine, he says.

Five years ago, Mr Meles had a shock as an opposition coalition came close to winning the election.

Protests against the result led to almost 200 opposition supporters being shot dead in the streets and opposition leaders were detained.

This time, there will be much debate as to whether the ruling party’s certain victory is down to impressive efforts at developing the country or state harassment of the opposition, our reporter says.

There were thousands of local observers spread out across the country although some in the opposition do not see them as neutral.

The Ethiopian government banned foreign embassy staff from monitoring the poll. It did not see them as experts on elections and said it did not want diplomatic relations blurred.

The European Union had 170 observers on the ground.

Some 32 million people were registered to elect the 547 members of the lower House of Representatives, along with regional councillors who in turn choose the upper house of parliament.

Ethiopia’s electoral commission has until 21 June to declare the results.

S Korea trade chief hosts meeting with China and Japan
www.taipeitimes.com/AP, SEOUL /Monday, May 24, 2010

Trade ministers from China, Japan and South Korea met yesterday to discuss issues including a possible three-way free trade agreement, amid worries over the world economy sparked by Europe’s debt crisis.

South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming (陳德銘) and Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Masayuki Naoshima began one day of talks at a Seoul hotel with handshakes.

The three countries, which represent 18.6 percent of the global economy as measured by GDP, have been holding regular trilateral meetings at the trade minister level since 2002, South Korea said.

Japan is Asia’s largest economy with China close behind. South Korea ranks No. 4. behind India.

The ministers were expected to discuss general issues, including an ongoing joint study for a possible three-way free-trade agreement as well as stalled efforts to reach a new global trade deal within the WTO, Kim Sung-soo, an official at South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said on Saturday.

The meeting comes as concerns grow over the state of the world economy amid Europe’s debt crisis, which has shaken financial markets and raised fears over a possible broader impact on commerce.

South Korea, China and Japan are studying a possible free-trade deal, though achieving one could take years. Efforts by South Korea and Japan to reach a bilateral agreement have gone mostly nowhere because of a dispute on how to handle trade in rice.

Seoul has been the most aggressive in pursuing bilateral free-trade pacts.

South Korea has pacts in force with Chile, India, Singapore, ASEAN and the European Free Trade Association, which comprises Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

It has signed a deal with the US and concluded negotiations on one with the EU, though the agreements remain unratified.

CHINA :

Jinchuan, China Fund, to Invest in South African Platinum Miner
May 24, 2010/By Carli Lourens and Ron Derby/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — Jinchuan Group Co., a producer of industrial and precious metals, and the China-Africa Development Fund plan to make the biggest investment by Chinese companies in Africa’s platinum industry.

The investors proposed to pay $227.5 million for a 51 percent stake in South African explorer Wesizwe Platinum Ltd. and provide $650 million in loans to finance the Frischgewaagd- Ledig mine, Wesizwe’s first, the Johannesburg-based company said today in a statement. There’s not yet a “firm intention” on the part of Jinchuan and CAD Fund to make an offer, it said.

“It’s certainly the largest investment in Africa’s platinum sector by a Chinese company,” Martyn Davies, chief executive officer of Frontier Advisory, which brokered the deal, said by telephone from Johannesburg. It’s the second-biggest foreign direct investment by a Chinese company in South Africa, after Industrial & Commercial Bank of China bought 20 percent of Standard Bank Group Ltd. for 36.7 billion rand ($4.65 billion) in 2008, he said.

Wesizwe jumped the most in almost a year in Johannesburg trading after backing the proposal. The shares rose as much as 18 percent to 235 rand, the biggest intraday gain since June 5, 2009, and were at 224 rand as of 1:07 p.m. local time.

Wesizwe shelved a plan to start digging its mine northwest of Johannesburg last year after the global recession eroded demand for platinum, slashing prices of the metal by two-thirds from a record $2,250.50 an ounce in 2008.

Funding Boost

“They didn’t have the necessary capital to develop the project,” Odette Smith, an analyst at Avior Research Ltd., said today by telephone from Johannesburg. “Now it looks like they’ll have it.”

Prices for platinum, used in cars to reduce harmful emissions and in jewellery, have dropped this month on concern Europe’s debt crisis will slow economic growth and curb consumption of raw materials. The metal traded at $1,524 an ounce as of 1:15 p.m.

Declining prices may lead to a weakening of the South African currency against the dollar and may not hurt Wesizwe’s project, Smith said.

The agreement “will provide Wesizwe with the financial muscle to enable it to examine future growth opportunities,” Michael Solomon, the company’s CEO, said in the statement.

–Editors: Amanda Jordan, Tony Barrett

(CCTR) China Crescent Pursues $200 Million Greenfield Partnership Revenue Goal
www.marketwatch.com/May 24, 2010

DALLAS, TX, May 24, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. /quotes/comstock/11k!cctr (CCTR 0.02, 0.00, 0.00%) kicked off its Trade Mission and Greenfield Partners CEO conference today in Shanghai in conjunction with the 2010 World’s Fair, or Expo 2010. The World’s Fair, which opened at the beginning of the month and runs through October 31 in Shanghai, is expected to attract some 70 million visitors. Greenfield Partner representatives and Trade Mission delegates from the United States, Africa, Southeast Asia and South America converged today in Shanghai to pursue the joint opportunities outlined in a 2010 Greenfield Summit hosted earlier this year in Shanghai. At the conclusion of the 2010 Greenfield Summit in March, China Crescent’s CEO outlined a Greenfield Program opportunity to achieve a potential $200 million in combined revenue between all participant companies in 2010 through project collaboration in China.

The CEO conference this week is expected to concentrate on developing a channel to provide brand name Chinese-based technologies in East Africa. China Crescent is a Huawei and Lenovo reseller and has plans to expand its regional reseller footprint into East Africa through its partnerships with Nova and NuMobile. Nova and NuMobile already have a presence in the East Africa region. China Crescent is a systems integration service provider of brand name technologies and reported $45 million in profitable annual revenue in 2009.

Sign Up to Receive Regular China Crescent Investor Updates China Crescent sends regular email updates to its opt-in, permission-based email database. Interested investors can easily, safely and quickly register to receive these communications directly on the corporate website homepage (www.chinacrescent.com). Recipients can manage their own email contact profile and safely unsubscribe at any time.

About China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (www.chinacrescent.com) China Crescent is a systems integration service provider that markets technology outsourcing services in China including the sale and service of brand name technologies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, IBM, HP and Dell. Following a strategic acquisition last year, the Company expanded its business line to include original design manufacturing (ODM). China Crescent reported $45 million in profitable revenue in 2009 after reporting over $40 million in revenue for both 2007 and 2008 and has set a goal of reaching $100 million in revenue in 2010.

Headquartered in Dallas with operations in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian and Beijing, China Crescent bridges the gap between global business cultures to assist clients worldwide realize the advantages of the high quality, low cost technology products and services available from China. China Crescent also assists clients in localizing products and services to realize the tremendous growth potential available by expanding into the Chinese Market.

“SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT” UNDER THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995 This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The statements in this release are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results, events and performance could vary materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause China Crescent’s actual results in future periods to differ materially from results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, product demand and market competition. You should independently investigate and fully understand all risks before making investment decisions.
Contact:
China Crescent Enterprises, Inc.
ir@chinacrescent.com
214-722-3060

SOURCE: China Crescent Enterprises, Inc.
mailto:ir@chinacrescent.com

Factbox: Sources of tension between China and the U.S.
Mon May 24, 2010/Reuters

(Reuters) – Top U.S. and Chinese officials are meeting in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

Politics

The annual meeting provides a high-level forum to manage a vital but sometimes tense bilateral relationship between the world’s only superpower and the fastest-rising emerging economy.

Frictions that marred ties earlier this year have eased somewhat, but politicians on both sides face a challenging job cooperating on global economic and security while reassuring key constituents they are watching out for national interests.

Here are the main sources of tension:

CURRENCY AND DEBT

The United States complains that China keeps its currency artificially undervalued, unfairly helping exporters.

China has unofficially pegged the yuan to the dollar since mid-2008. The yuan has gained against a trade-weighted basket of currencies this year, tracking a strengthening dollar.

Beijing says a stable currency has helped the world economic recovery. It wants “quiet discussions” about exchange rate issues, and loud lobbying will only delay movement on the yuan, a senior official said this week.

The Chinese government has its own concerns about U.S. economic policy. It fears the value of its dollar holdings could be eroded by massive debt issuances to fund the U.S. stimulus.

China is the world’s largest holder of Treasuries with $895.2 billion, and added to its stockpile in March for the first time in seven months.

Rash U.S. moves that threaten China’s massive purchases of U.S. debt, and its funding of the U.S. deficit, are unlikely.

TRADE AND INVESTMENT

Anti-dumping measures and other trade frictions have piled up faster since the global economic crisis began in 2008 — even though both governments are quick to denounce protectionism.

Disputes center on everything from tyres, steel products and poultry to Chinese tariffs on raw materials exports, and quality concerns over Chinese-made food, toys and other goods that Chinese manufacturers view as a type of protectionism.

U.S. firms investing in China complain about intellectual property theft, murky regulations, corruption and unfair advantages enjoyed by domestic rivals.

U.S. officials say they are particularly worried about parts of China’s “indigenous innovation” programme to promote homegrown technology, which they say is creating barriers to foreign high-tech companies seeking to win government supply contracts.

China complains about investment barriers on the U.S. side, citing resource investments blocked on national security grounds.

In 2009, U.S. exports to China totaled $77.4 billion, but were dwarfed by $220.8 billion in exports from China to the United States, China’s second biggest trade partner. Falling U.S. demand thanks to the financial crisis narrowed the trade gap.

In February, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed hope that trade frictions would ease and said China was not deliberately seeking a trade surplus with the United States.

TIBET AND TAIWAN

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama makes frequent visits to the United States and met President Barack Obama in the White House in February, drawing condemnation from Beijing, which denounces him as a separatist.

China accused Obama of damaging ties by meeting the Dalai Lama and said it was up to Washington to repair relations. Beijing fears ethnically distinct Tibetan areas will strive for independence, taking with them one-sixth of China’s territory.

Taiwan also remains a sore point. China has threatened sanctions against companies making weapons or planes that under a U.S. $6.4 billion arms sale plan would be destined for the self-ruled democratic island off the mainland’s cost.

Beijing has never renounced the use of force to reclaim Taiwan, which it considers sovereign territory. The United States says it is obliged by U.S. law to help the island defend itself.

China has yet to act on its sanctions threat, and recently allowed a U.S. aircraft carrier to visit Hong Kong. But Beijing has said it will curtail military exchanges to show its anger.

DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY INFLUENCE

As China has grown to the world’s third-largest economy, it is gaining greater clout, especially in Asia and Africa.

It is also upgrading its military and space capability, and Washington has said Beijing should be more open about its defense spending and strategic intentions.

China is wary of the United States’ global military strength. U.S. patrols in waters China considers its exclusive zone led to minor incidents last year. In 2001, a U.S. spy plane was forced to land in China after colliding with a Chinese fighter.

Yet China and the United States work together in talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme. Washington wants China to put stronger pressure on North Korea, as well as Iran, over their nuclear activities.

INTERNET FREEDOMS

U.S. Internet firms have fared poorly in China, which censors content and blocks many foreign websites, including popular social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and YouTube.

In March, Google Inc shut its mainland Chinese-language portal and began rerouting searches to its Hong Kong site, after suffering a sophisticated cyber-attack that it said came from within China.

The United States has recently become more vocal in opposing other governments’ censorship of the Internet, but said the bilateral relationship is “mature enough” to handle differences as they cooperate on issues of common interest.

(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison)

Docherty given new role at GM
Robert Snell / The Detroit News/May 24. 2010

General Motors Co.’s former marketing chief, Susan Docherty, has been reassigned to the automaker’s international operations.

Docherty will coordinate sales, marketing and after sales in GM’s Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States.

The reassignment comes less than three weeks after she was ousted in the latest shakeup of GM’s North American leadership.

She was replaced by Joel Ewanick, former marketing chief for Hyundai Motor Co. in North America since 2007, where he developed the successful “Hyundai Advantage” marketing campaign that offered to let people who lost their jobs return their Hyundai.

“Growth in China and other emerging markets is important to the company’s future,” GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre said in a prepared statement. “We are counting on Susan to make a significant contribution, and I am glad to have her running this critical part of our business.”

Docherty, 47, also will be responsible for market performance and customer opinion and consideration of the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Holden and Cadillac brands.

Docherty will report to Tim Lee, president of GM’s international operations, which is based in Shanghai.

She replaces Don Johnson, who will be reassigned.

Almost half of GM’s sales come from the countries that comprise the automaker’s international operations. The region, particularly sales in China, has been helping fuel GM’s rebound since emerging from bankruptcy court last summer.

INDIA :

Israel ‘tried to sell nuclear weapons’
By Michael Edwards/www.abc.net.au/24052010

Documents unearthed by an American academic indicate Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 1970s.

Israel has never confirmed it has nuclear weapons despite a large amount of evidence that it has as many as 200 warheads.

The documents provide the first proof Israel not only has enough nuclear weapons for its own defence but has enough to sell elsewhere.

Like India, Pakistan and North Korea, Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In the 1980s, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician who worked at Israel’s main nuclear facility, revealed the extent of the country’s arsenal.

Four years ago, former prime minister Ehud Olmert accidentally acknowledged the country’s nuclear capability on German television.

And now an American academic, Sacha Polokow-Suransky, has unearthed documents which appear to indicate Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons during the era of apartheid.

The deal between Israel and South Africa did not proceed. But questions remain as to whether Israel helped South Africa develop nuclear weapons later on.

Dr Gil Merom, an international security expert from Sydney University, says Israel looked for alliances all over the world.

“Israel looked for any possible alliance and any possible support so South Africa could deliver to Israel mostly, I think, resources of the type of raw uranium,” he said.

The claims come as 190 nations are meeting in New York at the Nuclear Non-proliferation Review Treaty.

Experts say they are likely to add more pressure on Israel to declare itself a nuclear power.

Dr Andrew Davies, an expert on nuclear issues from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says the news is unlikely to surprise anyone.

“Being found out as being a proliferator never helps anybody’s case for taking the higher moral ground on nuclear weapons,” he said.

“But I don’t think any new revelation about Israel is going to come as a terrible surprise to anyone.”

Israel has played a strong role in the effort to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapons.

Dr Ron Huisken, an expert on nuclear weapons from the Australian National University, says the Iranians will use further proof Israel has nuclear weapons to justify its own program.

He also says the revelations could force the United States to ratchet up the pressure on Israel to admit having nuclear weapons.

“If Obama and co. were serious about a sustained process of nuclear diminution, an early part of that process has to be an Israel that comes out of the closet, and in the process of doing that, says yes, we’ve got the bomb,” he said.

“We’ve got it for these reasons, and then begin to talk to its neighbours about the motives behind it and … what Israel thinks the neighbours need to do for Israel to consider giving the capability up.”

The NPT Review conference ends on Friday.

Sohm To Sell Branded Generic Pharmaceutical Products In Africa
24-May-2010/contractservices.pharmaceutical-business-review.com

Sohm, a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer that produces and markets generic drugs covering all major treatment categories, has signed a sales and marketing agreement to sell its generic pharmaceutical products in Africa.
Sohm said that the sales are expected to begin in Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia under the Sohm brand as soon as the necessary measures have been completed in each country. All of the generic drugs are expected to be produced by Sohm’s India-based licensed manufacturing facility.

Shailesh Shah, vice president for corporate strategy at Sohm, said: “Our team has worked to finalise the Sohm brands entry to the African market.

“We are well on our way with our new partner in Africa. We have expanded our market share in India and feel confident we will be successful in Africa as well. Africa’s challenges are our market opportunities.

“We will continue to explore other collaborations within Africa that will drive sales of our products across the continent.”

Brazil, Turkey and the Rise of the Democratic Rest
Daniel M. Kliman/World Politics Review /24 May 2010

Much ink has been spilled discussing the nuclear fuel swap deal that Brazil and Turkey brokered with Iran last week. The pundits have focused on whether the deal will resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, or whether Tehran is simply playing for time, as well as what the deal says about the growing prominence of Brazil and Turkey. Yet the real meaning of the nuclear deal has gone largely overlooked: The dominant trend of the early 21st century is the rise of democratic powers to positions of regional and even global influence.

Of course, the most prominent rising power, China, is no democracy. But in this, China is the great outlier. All of today’s other rising powers feature representative governance, as a cursory look around the world makes readily apparent.

The most obvious ascending democracy is India. With a population second only to China, a booming economy, some of the world’s most innovative firms, and an increasingly formidable military, India is Asia’s second emerging superpower. Already, it exercises a decisive voice in efforts to combat global warming, promote free trade, and ensure maritime security.

Long overshadowed by the “Colossus of the North,” Latin America now boasts a colossus of its own — Brazil. The world’s fifth-most populous nation, Brazil has a sophisticated industrial base and natural resources ranging from rain forests to undersea oil. It is a pivotal player on trade and climate change, and as the Iranian nuclear deal demonstrates, on nonproliferation as well. And Brazil, too, is a vibrant democracy.

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim democracy and one of the world’s foremost emerging markets. It sits athwart the strategic crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Comprising more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia exercises stewardship over the second-largest concentration of biodiversity on the planet. On environmental and maritime issues, Indonesia is an actor of the first order.

Another Muslim democracy, Turkey, has over the past decade taken on a leadership role in the Middle East, of which Ankara’s role in brokering the nuclear deal with Iran is simply the latest example. Turkey has one of the most dynamic economies in its region. As a country belonging to both the West and East, combining both secularism and Islam, Turkey serves as a sharp contrast to the dichotomized identities prevalent elsewhere in the Middle East.

South Africa underwent a peaceful transition from apartheid to democratic rule in 1994. Producing one-third of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, it is a motor for regional economic development. Politically, South Africa’s support is essential for moving forward African institutions. At the global level, South Africa wields considerable clout on issues like climate change and trade.

As these five democracies rapidly emerge as full-fledged powers with far-flung influence, their rise is cause for optimism about the future. Why? To be sure, shared values do not guarantee a complete congruence of interests. The United States, Europe, and Japan will not always see eye to eye with these arriviste democracies, as is already evidenced by differences over climate change, trade, and Iran. However, the fact that an overwhelming majority of rising powers are democracies has strongly positive implications for the nature of the global order that is coming into existence.

First, most of the new players in this global order will behave predictably. Democratic governance is premised on internal checks and balances. Garnering a consensus among multiple domestic groups is time-consuming and compels leaders to shy away from extreme positions. The dispersion of authority that democracy entails therefore tends to minimize variation in a state’s foreign policy.

Democracies may shift course, but they do so slowly, and within relatively confined boundaries. A world where internal checks and balances regularize the behavior of recently arrived powers will be considerably easier to navigate than one where newly influential states lack domestic ballasts.

Second, democracies can rise without producing a global order riven by fear and hostility, because of the domestic transparency made possible by democratic institutions. In democracies, the media can extract information from government authorities and convey that information to the world. Although unable to disclose classified information, officials representing a democracy can still engage in open, far-ranging conversations with their foreign counterparts. This domestic transparency enables outsiders to readily discern a democracy’s intentions.

History teaches us that uncertain ambitions combined with growing capabilities breed fear. In the case of rising democracies, however, domestic transparency will short-circuit the cycle of mistrust, reaction, and counter-reaction that typically accompanies the ascendance of new powers.

Third, a world of rising democracies is a world ripe with opportunities for access, meaning the ability to intervene inside another state’s policymaking process. This can take the form of lobbying government officials, playing off rival bureaucracies, or cultivating powerful societal groups that in turn pressure the government.

Because they feature checks and balances and domestic transparency, democracies inherently present outsiders with opportunities for access. Decentralization of authority enlarges the number of groups that participate in decision-making, while a free media and communicative officials enable other states to identify friends and capitalize on internal disagreements. Access means that rising democracies are highly permeable to outside influence. Their trajectories can be shaped and their power channeled in ways that reinforce an open international system.

So regardless of how it ultimately plays out, the Iranian nuclear deal is already good news. It demonstrates the growing influence of arriviste democracies, and more importantly, their inclination to play a constructive role in the emerging global order. A world of rising democracies is a world that America should feel comfortable welcoming.

Dr. Daniel M. Kliman is a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is completing a book on rising powers.

India’s Ambani brothers speak “harmony” after acrimony
Mon May 24, 2010 /Reuters

(Reuters) – Billionaire Indian brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani know how to spring a surprise — from squabbling over their sprawling business interests to launching audacious takeover bids.

Deals

And they’ve done it again — by choosing a quiet Sunday afternoon to announce they were patching up their differences and ending a non-compete agreement, moving toward reconciliation in their long-running feud and giving a timely boost to the local stock market.

Under the non-compete deal, neither brother was free to do what he wanted. Ending that agreement normalizes the way they can do business. They can now compete on each other’s turf, with the exception of gas-fired power plants, removing a source of friction between Mukesh’s Reliance Industries (RELI.BO) and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

The two business empires spoke of creating an environment of “harmony” and “collaboration,” just a fortnight after a bitter price dispute over gas went to the Supreme Court.

Mukesh and Anil, with an estimated joint worth of $43 billion, both live in Mumbai, but had not been on speaking terms during their protracted dispute.

They split a business empire inherited from their father Dhirubhai Ambani in a 2005 deal brokered by their mother, Kokilaben, and some of India’s top bankers.

The brothers’ feud and their grip on corporate India has been a hot topic for years among the country’s executives, politicians and the wealthy Gujarati community to which they belong.

Mukesh, 53, owns a cricket franchise in India, and spearheaded textile major Reliance Industries’ foray into petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas exploration and production.

A chemical engineer by training, Mukesh dropped out of an MBA program at Stanford University where he was a classmate of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and joined Reliance in 1981.

The rift between the two brothers broke into the open soon after Dhirubhai, a schoolteacher’s son, died in July 2002. Since then, they have fought over business interests from energy and retail to telecoms, financial services and infrastructure.

The two were seen together at their mother’s birthday last year, raising hopes of a reconciliation. A brief handshake at an awards function sparked a media frenzy.

BOLLYWOOD, MARATHONS

This weekend’s agreement is the first time the brothers, who reportedly met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh separately earlier this month amid talk of political pressure to patch up, have talked about “eliminating any room for further disputes.”

Talks between Anil’s Reliance Communications (RLCM.BO) and South Africa’s MTN Group (MTNJ.J) more than two years ago to create a top-10 global telecoms firm were scuppered by Mukesh’s right of first refusal on shares of the Indian mobile firm.

Anil, 50, was a regular on the Bollywood party circuit with his wife, a former actress. At conferences before the brothers split, it was Anil who made presentations and took questions from reporters, whose names he made a point of remembering.

Mukesh, who said last year he would take a two-thirds pay cut after the prime minister criticized “vulgar salaries,” nonetheless gave his wife a private jet on her birthday and is spending $1 billion on a new 27-storey home. For years he has shared a home with his brother and mother.

Anil, who has a business degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, controls interests in power, financial services, infrastructure and entertainment.

Ranked 36th on the Forbes rich-list, the teetotal Anil is a self-confessed fitness fanatic dubbed “Marathon Man” by the media. He runs every morning and is a regular in the annual Mumbai Run.

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Millicom Chief Plans Services Blitz to Counter Bharti (Correct)
May 24, 2010/By Diana ben-Aaron/Bloomberg

May 24 (Bloomberg) — Millicom International Cellular SA, a company with mobile-phone customers in countries from Guatemala to Tanzania, plans to counter Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s Africa entry with services such as money transfers, banking and insurance.

“I don’t think Bharti is proven outside of India, so let’s see what they bring,” Chief Executive Officer Mikael Grahne said in an interview in Stockholm. “We just need to accelerate and come out with new things.” Millicom was interested in some of Zain’s Africa assets that Bharti agreed to acquire for $10.7 billion in March, he said.

As Bharti, France Telecom SA, Vodafone Group Plc and America Movil SAB de CV, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, expand on Millicom’s turf, Grahne is pushing third- generation services for wireless Internet. He’s also broadening the company’s portfolio that includes SMS-based information services and microloans for topping up prepaid balances.

Grahne has standardized Millicom’s brand and business, selling units that couldn’t be among the top two operators in their countries. Millicom, whose mobile-service brand name is Tigo, was established 20 years ago by Sweden’s Kinnevik Investment AB as a holding company for cellular assets.

The company may bid for a license in Costa Rica, and would consider other greenfield operations or mergers if they were capable of becoming first or second in their markets and producing at least $100 million in annual revenue, he said.

Target Customers

“Sooner or later markets come to a certain level of maturity and to get growth from then on you need new products and services, so we are very heavily focused on anticipating that,” he said. The company will pursue customers who can pay more for extras and better network quality, rather than competing strictly on price of basic services, he said.

Millicom, based in Luxembourg, has made its strategy work so far. First-quarter net income increased 11 percent to $155 million as sales rose 16 percent to $905 million, aided by stabilizing economies, broadband and other add-on services.

The company’s shares have advanced almost 50 percent in Nasdaq trading in the past year, giving it a market value of $8.8 billion.

Bharti’s entry into Africa is likely to spark a wave of consolidation as less profitable players exit the market, Informa analysts Nick Jotischky and Matthew Reed wrote in a recent report. Millicom competes with the Zain units being acquired by Bharti in Tanzania, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.

France Telecom, Vodafone

“We don’t believe in global scale or regional scale,” Grahne said. “The only size that counts is in-market size, and in the markets we are in, we haven’t yet seen in-market consolidation.”

France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard has said he expects to invest as much as 7 billion euros ($8.8 billion) in deals focused on Africa and the Middle East in the next five years. Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said this month that sub-Saharan Africa is among the three “priority areas” for the world’s largest mobile-phone company.

Millicom would participate in the consolidation in its markets if it furthers the company’s goal of building market- leading operators, Grahne said.

Millicom is the third-largest operator in Colombia, Rwanda and DRC, and number one or two in all its other markets, he said. A deal to divest its last Asian unit, in Laos, to VimpelCom Ltd., is still pending.

Network Sharing

Central America is in a fairly stable competitive situation with Millicom, America Movil SAB de CV and Telefonica SA dividing up the market, Grahne said. Africa has too many licenses, he said.

Grahne, 57, took over the CEO job from Marc Beuls in March 2009 after seven years as chief operating officer. He previously worked for Procter & Gamble Co., PepsiCo Inc., and was Seagram Co. Ltd.’s Latin American chief.

He has cut costs by spinning off towers in Ghana into a separate company that can also serve other operators, and aims to do more network sharing to cut costs.

“I wouldn’t mind sharing a 3G network with a competitor,” he said, referring to networks that provide higher speeds for Internet surfing. The company would also consider buying more spectrum to serve the growing consumption needs of its customers, he said.

Euro Weakness

Millicom is joining with Tele2 AB, a Swedish phone company with operations in Russia and another Kinnevik investment, to negotiate with equipment suppliers. Kinnevik owns 35 percent of Millicom, its website says.

The euro’s decline against the dollar is likely to affect the company because Chad and Senegal have currencies pegged to the euro, and it has also made foreign-exchange markets more volatile, Grahne said.

“Globally it’s still a very nervous place, people are still nervous,” he said. “We are not in our plans counting on any uptick or improvement in this environment. If it comes we will take advantage of it.”

–Editors: Vidya Root, Heather Harris

Nissan Micra India
24 May 2010/news.puggal.com

Nissan Motor India has launched its home made car named Nissan Micra which has been built at Chennai center of the company and its assembly of the parts most of which have been produced locally have also been done in the same center. The car has been designed keeping in view the demand of the consumers and it will be supplied to markets of Africa, Middle East and Europe. The car uses three cylinder engines which will provide initially an engine of 12 HR capable of making 80 PS and pressure of 108 Nm of torque. In addition to that, the buyers of the car will also get two transmission options viz. a continually variable transmission and a five speed manual.

The Chennai center is probably the hub for the generation of the cars at a much larger scale from where cars will be provided not only to the local clients but will also be sent to Europe. The plant has a generation capacity of 400,000 cars in a year which was built after spending 990 million dollars on it. The plant is extended up to an area of 640 acres and will produce in the beginning 200,000 units. The plant is employed by nineteen hundred workers and the number of the workers will be increased to three thousand in the next two years.

The display of the car will be made at all the showrooms of the country from tomorrow and the car will be available for sale from the month of July this year. The initial booking price of the car will be fifty thousand rupees.

BRASIL:

GM names Docherty to international sales role
May 24/Reuters

* Docherty takes international sales-marketing spot June 1
* Docherty was replaced as U.S. marketing VP in early May

DETROIT, May 24 (Reuters) – General Motors Co [GM.UL] Vice President Susan Docherty, who had a short stint as head of U.S. sales and marketing, has been named vice president of international operational sales, marketing and aftersales, the automaker said on Monday.

Docherty, 47, had been replaced in U.S. sales in March and in marketing earlier in May under the fourth executive turnover in that area since GM emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009. She takes the international role on June 1.

GM sells almost half of its new vehicles in the international region that includes the emerging markets of China, India, Brazil and Russia. Growth in those area is important to GM’s future, the automaker said.

Docherty replaces Don Johnson, 53, who will have a new position within GM, the automaker said. (Reporting by David Bailey, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

EN BREF, CE 24 mai 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,24/05/2010