{jcomments on}OMAR, BXL, AGNEWS, le 19 juillet 2010 — The 15th Ordinary Session of the Summit of the African Union (AU) got underway in Kampala, Uganda, on Monday, under the theme: “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa”.

BURUNDI :

RWANDA

Singapore Signs Open Skies Agreements with Barbados, Brazil, Jamaica and Rwanda
www.asiatraveltips.com/Monday, 19 July 2010

Singapore has concluded Open Skies Agreements (OSAs) with Barbados, Brazil, Jamaica and Rwanda.

The OSAs with Barbados and Jamaica are the first between Singapore and the Caribbean Community. The Singapore-Brazil OSA comes on the back of the Singapore-Peru OSA, which was concluded in 2009 together with the establishment of Air Services Agreements with Colombia and Ecuador. The OSA with Rwanda is Singapore’s second with an African country, after the Singapore-Zambia OSA that was concluded in 2008.

Without restrictions on capacity, frequency or routing, OSAs allow carriers the full flexibility to introduce services when market opportunities arise. Carriers are also able to tap on traffic from and to third countries to improve the commercial viability of their operations.

Direct air links with Singapore will allow businesses in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbeans to access more markets by tapping on Singapore’s excellent connectivity to the Asia Pacific region. This will reinforce the growing people and trade flows between these regions and Asia Pacific. The establishment of liberal air services frameworks between Singapore and more countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbeans pave the way for such benefits. There are currently no direct flight connections between Singapore and Latin America or the Caribbeans. In Africa, Singapore Airlines operates passenger services to Egypt and South Africa, while Singapore Airlines Cargo operates cargo services to Kenya and South Africa.

Apart from sealing OSAs with the four countries, Singapore and Fiji have also concluded an open skies framework for cargo services and expanded traffic rights entitlements for passenger operations between and beyond both countries.

Mr Yap Ong Heng, Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore welcomed the recent developments, said, “Airlines operate in a challenging environment with dynamic markets. It is thus critical for countries to proactively put in place air services frameworks that enable airlines the commercial freedom to respond to market opportunities. The Open Skies Agreements that Singapore and these countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America have concluded recognise the benefits that they can bring to airlines, the travelling public and the wider economy through increased trade, tourism and people flows.” 

Singapore now has OSAs with over 40 countries, including the four new OSAs.

UGANDA

AU summit kicks-off in Uganda
Date: 19 Jul 2010/- BuaNews-NNN

Pretoria – The 15th Ordinary Session of the Summit of the African Union (AU) got underway in Kampala, Uganda, on Monday, under the theme: “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa”.

According to the AU website, the draft agenda of the Session will include the 20th Ordinary Session of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) from 19-20 July.

It said the 17th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council will also be held from July 22-23.

As a sideline event, the Government of Uganda hosted an African Youth Forum AYF alongside the 15th AU Summit from 17-19 July under the theme “Maternal, Infant and Child Health: African Youth Call for Action”.

Expressing her anticipation in an interview, the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Bience Gawanas, said: “It is important for the AU, our leaders and the continent that the July summit should not just be an end in itself, but a means to an end… this summit will not aim for just another declaration.

“We are looking forward to an outcome that will make a real difference – not just another commitment,” she said. 

President Jacob Zuma, who is currently on a working visit to Libya, is expected to attend the summit from next week when Heads of State and Government convene their session from 25-27 July. 

Many other Heads of State are scheduled to participate in the summit that is also expected to focus on peace and security, infrastructure, energy and food security. 

Ugandan authorities have assured that country was ready to host a safe summit despite the recent al-Shahab-inspired suicide bombings that killed more than 70 people.

TANZANIA:

CONGO RDC :

Israeli medical delegation in Congo takes heat while trying to soothe burns
By Cnaan Liphshiz /Ha’aretz/19.07.10

Approximately 50 victims were burned when an oil tanker caught fire two weeks ago, killing more than 230 people in the village of Sange near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Burundi. 

SANGE, Democratic Republic of Congo – the Israeli ambassador approaching the bed of Philippe Ovomba last week gave the injured Congolese boy a look of terror. Suffering from third degree burns in a village clinic without anesthetics, Ovomba, 12, mistook the diplomat’s visit last week for a doctor’s call. For him, doctors meant unbearable pain. 

Ovomba is one of approximately 50 victims burned when an oil tanker caught fire two weeks ago, killing more than 230 people in this village near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Burundi. 

Last week Israel sent five medical specialists from Sheba Medical Center for 10 days to treat the wounded. They were the first plastic surgeons to arrive. 

Twenty-five patients are being cared for at Sange. Most of the others are treated at a hospital in nearby Uvira. Since last week, Congolese physicians and officials have been telling these patients that Israeli specialists were on their way to treat their severe burns. 

Last Monday, a team of four Israeli physicians from Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, were the first to visit the region with proper know-how and equipment to treat the victims. 

They joined a crew of physicians from Doctors Without Borders that had made it to the region seven days after the tanker fire, though without proper equipment and expertise in skin transplants. Tension between the Israeli doctors and the NGO, which has been openly critical of Israel, was apparent at first, though officials said they were eventually able to work well together. 

Israel’s roving ambassador to Congo, Daniel Saada, had come to Sange to inspect the damage from the fire while the doctors treated victims in Uvira. Realizing Saada was no doctor, Ovomba settled back into his bed in the clean but poorly-ventilated clinic, where a team of physicians from the Spanish branch of Doctors Without Borders were treating 20 children and five adults. But his relief was short-lived. A nurse and local doctor soon approached him to clean his wounds and change the bandage. 

Ovomba began whimpering as they peeled back the bandage from the raw burns covering his legs and thighs. When they applied alcohol – the only disinfectant at the clinic – to his bloody calf, he began screaming uncontrollably, as the other children in the room watched. They endure the same three times a day. 

“We have nothing to give them to calm them down or numb the area,” the nurse explained to Saada. 

Doctors Without Borders has brought several tons of equipment and medicine to Uvira, some 40 kilometers away from Sange. Volunteers for the Dutch branch work at Uvira with anesthetics and pain-free antiseptics. But victims in Sange have no such luxuries. 

Protecting the goods 

Gila Garawy, an American-Israeli working with international NGOs in Congo to train local labor, said that anesthetics and a less painful antiseptic my have been sent to the clinic at Sange, “but never got there” – a frequent occurrence in this part of the world. 

The Israeli delegation that came with Saada brought over a ton of equipment and medicine, which they vigilantly kept with them. Fearing theft, they carried all unused materials back with them to the hotel every night, bringing it back with them to the government hospital in the morning. 

“The operating room is not equipped to modern standards,” said Dr. Eyal Winkler, the head of the Israeli medical delegation from Sheba, sent as a mission launched by the foreign ministry’s aid arm, Mashav. “I’ve never worked under such difficult conditions in my life,” he said after finishing his first operation in Uvira. This is his 10th aid mission abroad. 

While Dr. Gil Nardini took a break outside the makeshift operating tent, Dr. Shmuel Kalazkin, Dr. Ariel Tessone and nurse Noa Anastasia Ouchakova – all burn specialists from Sheba’s Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – were treating a boy with third degree burns who needed skin grafts. 

The Israeli team was the first delegation of plastic surgeons to treat the victims, 10 days after the July 3 fire. Belgium, Congo’s colonialist power, also sent a team of plastic surgeons, but they had not arrived by the time the Israelis finished operating. 

“Plastic surgery should not necessarily be performed immediately after the injury,” said Winkler. “First the patients are resuscitated, cleaned and remain under observation to make sure they are able to survive the operation. The time that passed since the injury and our surgery is quite normal.” 

Fear of contracting HIV 

At the hospital, the medical staff are visibly tense inside the stifling heat of the tent. They sweat profusely under protective gear – double masks and goggles. Their feet are wrapped in plastic bags to prevent their shoes from becoming soaked with blood and other bodily fluids during surgery. None of them has been to Africa before, and they are trying to avoid contracting HIV. 

“I don’t want anyone to rush into it on the operating table,” Winkler told his team in a prep talk in Burundi, where they landed from Israel. “I want you to practice every incision three times before you actually cut, and I want you to communicate very clearly every move you make to the rest of us.” 

He brought instant HIV detection kits from Israel, which can be used on the patient in case there’s fear of infection of one of the medical staff. But the Congolese doctors at Uvira − wearing simple scrubs − told the team that they have never heard about a single case of a doctor contracting HIV in Congo from a patient. The Israeli team left the kits unopened, intending to donate them to the Uvira hospital before they leave. 

Officially, DRC has an HIV prevalence rate of about 5 percent of the adult population, according to United Nations figures from 2003. But a later survey among pregnant women in rural areas in the DRC, Africa’s third largest country, revealed a prevalence rate of 8.5 percent. 

“The truth is there is no way of knowing how many people have HIV here,” Saada said. 

Currying favor, facing ostracism 

The request for Israeli assistance with the victims came from the highest levels of the Congolese government, and last Monday President Joseph Kabila called the delegation to thank its members. 

“You have experience with terrorist attacks, but we do not have experience or facilities when it comes to burns,” said Dr. Yves Bagale, medical director of Uvira Hospital. Mweze Tchibuzi, a Congolese diplomat serving in Burundi, also said he expected Israeli doctors would share their “experiences from the war” with the locals and with the team of physicians from Doctors Without Borders. 

Winkler − a stout energetic man not in the habit of mincing words − dismissed the awe of Israeli wartime experience with burns as “nonsense,” saying New York or Chicago “have more burn victims from house
fires in one month than all Israeli wartime burn victims in recent years.” 

Israeli doctors’ unique contribution is in motivation, speed of arrival, smart equipment and the ability to improvise in difficult situations, Winkler said.
The Israeli delegation was happy to respond to the DRC’s call for help. Israel closed its permanent embassy to the DRC in 2005, though Israeli businessmen such as Dan Gertler and Lev Leviev have extensive business interests there. “DRC is potentially a hugely important place for Israel, yet we have limited means to curry favor with the administration,” said Saada. “Speeches are nice, but an aid delegation is much more effective.” 

The doctors were able to cross the border from Burundi within a few minutes, though this can sometimes take hours. Congolese foreign ministry officials and the staff of Jean-Claude Kibala, the acting governor of the South Kivu province, where Sange is located, negotiated the crossing. 

While the Israelis were treated well by the host country, the Doctors Without Borders team was apparently less receptive to their arrival.
The relationship between the Israelis with the NGO’s staff at Uvira was tense at first. “This is an emotional time, there are obvious political sensitivities,” said Dr. Geert Morren, a doctor from Belgium who arrived at Uvira with Doctors Without Borders Netherlands, after meeting the Israeli delegation. 

Doctors Without Borders has repeatedly accused Israel of war crimes and obstruction of the organization’s efforts to help Palestinians. They also accused Israel of “devastating disregard” for civilians during its 2009 Gaza invasion. 

“I wanted to come here to show that Israel is not the Flotilla country it’s painted out to be. It’s part of the vision of Professor Ze’ev Rothstein, the head of Sheba Medical Center,” Winkler said. “But beyond the political game going on, we saved lives and instructed local MDs. It makes me feel I chose the right profession.” 

Winkler and the other members of the delegation said they felt the Doctors Without Borders staff treated them coolly and suspiciously at first, but added that the volunteers proved to be helpful and professional later on.
“If you want to know the effects of occupation, come see how doctors from international aid organizations treat a delegation of volunteer Israeli doctors to Congo like occupiers,” Winkler told Nati Harush, the foreign ministry’s deputy chief security officer who accompanied the delegation. Harush replied he wasn’t convinced this was the result of occupation. 

Morren, a surgeon, and the rest of the Doctors Without Borders team declined to be interviewed for Haaretz about their experiences working with the Israelis, explaining they needed authorization from the head office, which has not replied to Haaretz’s request. 

Poverty adding fuel to fire 

The fire at Sange started after locals broke open a truck carrying fuel which had overturned on a road on July 2. The oil leaked for an hour, attracting villagers who rushed to collect it, according to Kibala. “The liquid ran through the village and many houses were encircled by a ring of fire,” he told Haaretz during a tour of the village. Many victims were burned inside their homes as they watched the World Cup. Others, like Marie Okavo, 18, were severely burned while trying to rescue the children who ran in panic across the burning village. 

“I saw a small boy near my house and I thought he was my son, but it turned out he wasn’t, so I took him away and my legs got burned,” she said. Her children were not injured in the fire. Kibala, the acting governor, said he visited the site of the accident at Sange before it caught fire and that the authorities were “investigating who broke the truck’s locked fuel compartment to steal its content, and also how the fire was started.” 

He rejected media claims that the fire was ultimately the result of extreme poverty, in a country where the average worker earns around $2 a day, according to World Bank figures. 

“It’s a case of disobedience that led to a disaster,” he said. South Kivu has no firefighting force, and Kibala says he and rescue forces “had to watch helplessly as the fire consumed the village and wait for it to die down on its own.” 

Gerard Lanu, a representative of the Congolese ruling party, says that there is much resentment among the Congolese population toward the authorities for not blocking all access to the site of the crash. “It is after all their responsibility,” he said. 

The truck, according to Kibala − an engineer − overturned after parking on the partially collapsed asphalt of the shoulder. “The asphalt caved from the weight, and the drop rocked the rear part of the truck. This threw the truck on its side, but the fuel compartments remained sealed until people broke them open,” he said, standing by the truck’s charred remains. 

Pakistani peacekeeping UN troops stationed near Sange arrived at the scene of the overturned oil truck before it was engulfed in flames. According to some accounts, the peacekeeping force’s soldiers told villagers to stay away from the truck, but did not prevent access to it. 

To Jean-Michel Bolima, a social activist from eastern Congo, the oil truck incident represents many of the endemic problems faced by the vast, mineral rich and war-torn country with a population of just under 70 million which just last month celebrated its 50th Independence Day. 

“It is perhaps difficult at first to understand why a normal person who doesn’t suffer hunger, who even has a job perhaps, would risk his life and go near an overturned oil truck spewing fuel around,” he said. “But we are talking about a country where government officials sell stationary paper from their office to make something extra. It’s deep, deep corruption and it’s the heritage of the kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko,” Congo’s dictator from 1965 to 1997. “The people are conditioned to pocket anything they can, an they will even risk being shot by police to do it.” 

Bolima, a former student activist, had misgivings about the Israeli delegation’s reliance on the Kinshasa in arranging its aid operation. “Any resource given to the government is for naught. Medications, funds all will be siphoned. Aid needs to be done through the NGOs in the region,” he said. 

When the doctors return on July 19, they will leave materials they brought with Kibala, a soft-spoken man who fled his country in the 1980s and returned to Congo six years ago with his children and wife, whom he married in Germany. 

Saada says that Kibala − who drives his own car, an extreme rarity among African officials − can be trusted to administer the material to the people who need it. 

“I came back to help make my country a prosperous place,” Kibala said. “Many people don’t understand why I did it, but I suspect you Israelis will understand very well.”

Dozens injured as truck rolls in Congo
July 19 2010/ iol.co.za /Sapa-AFP

Kinshasa – An overloaded truck carrying about 100 people as well as goods rolled in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the weekend, killing at least 27 people, a local official said on Sunday.

The truck, which was travelling too fast, rolled three times on Saturday in the Nord-Kivu province when the driver lost control, the administrator of the Walikale area told reporters.

“The toll is 27 dead and 40 wounded, 12 of them seriously,” said the official, Dieudonne Tshishiku Mutoke.

He said the wounded were evacuated to a health centre by helicopter from the United Nations mission in the volatile country.

There are regular road accidents in the DRC, largely because of the poor state of the roads and often-overloaded vehicles, and the carelessness of the drivers.

KENYA :

Phoenix acquires new plane in Kenya
www.capitalfm.co.ke/Jul 19

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 19 – Phoenix Aviation Limited has acquired a Beechcraft King Air 350 twin engined turbo prop aircraft which will strengthen the Company’s charter and air ambulance services. 

The aircraft is one of the very latest versions in the tried and tested King Air range. It cruises at 300 mph at an altitude of 35,000 feet and has a range of 1,600 miles. 

There are eight luxury seats in double club configuration and another seat for a flight attendant. When used for medical evacuations the King Air 350 has the capacity for two patients who are cared for by an ICU qualified flight nurse and a doctor using state of the art support equipment.

Sati Reel, the Managing Director of Phoenix Aviation Limited, said, “This aircraft has comprehensive instrumentation including weather radar. The King Air 350 is ideal for conditions in East and Central Africa and can be flown in and out of 1,200 metre unpaved airstrips.”

“We now have a fleet of three Cessna Caravan single engined aircraft, four Beechcraft King Air twin turbo prop aircraft and four Cessna Citation Bravo twin jets. In addition, we operate a Eurocopter with the capacity for five passengers.”

Phoenix Aviation also runs a repair and maintenance facility at Wilson Airport.

“This looks after the company’s fleet and provides services for the owners and operators of light aircraft within the East African region under the approval from the authorities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda,” he added.

Amnesty slams powers on arms
Mon, 19 Jul 2010 /www.presstv.ir

Amnesty International has denounced world powers for uncontrolled transfer of weapons, saying it increases human rights violations and war crimes worldwide. 

According to the report released on Monday, British, French, Chinese, Russian and US transport companies are transferring arms to countries where they can be used in violation of humanitarian law, AFP reported. 

“Lax controls on arms shippers and flyers who increasingly move conventional arms around the world are not confined to jurisdictions with weak arms export and import laws,” said Brian Wood from the London-based rights organization. 

While Britain and Germany claim to be committed to the ban, transfer and use of cluster ammunition, the report dubbed as “Deadly Movements: Arms Transportation controls in the Arms Trade Treaty”, says British and German companies transported cluster ammunition to Pakistan between 2008 and 2010. 

Elsewhere in the report, the group also highlighted that a cargo of machine and anti-aircraft guns was moved from Bulgaria to France and Kenya and used in conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

The group further stressed that more than 220,000 people were displaced and serious rights violations were committed in DRC, holding Bulgarian, French and Kenyan governments responsible for failure to stop the transit of the weapons. 

The report, which comes in coincidence with fresh UN talks on a proposed international treaty on arms trade, called on the UN to pay more attention to the role of “transporters and other intermediaries in arms supply chains.” 

HJ/MMA

It is now or never, Kenyans told
BY EVELYNE NJOROGE/www.capitalfm.co.ke/19072010

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 19 – Civil Society Organisations have warned that Kenyans will not have another chance to vote for a new Constitution this year, or in the near future, if the current document is rejected in the August 4 referendum.

Constitution and Reform Education Consortium Chairman Tom Kagwe said before March next year, no law can be written or passed to draft a new constitution, while mandates of various bodies such as the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) and the Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission are due to expire soon.

“If Kenyans squander this chance, then they should be prepared to wait for many years. This is because there is no room for amendment of the proposed Constitution currently, as Parliament cannot marshal the requisite 65 percent majority to change the Constitution of Kenya,” he argued.

The Constitution of Kenya Review Act and its key organ – the Committee of Experts – mandates will end by December 2010 and hence there will be nobody or law to re-start the review process, he stressed.

Under the slogan ‘Reject, Amend then Pass’ those campaigners opposed to the draft have been promising to improve the draft in at least two months and then subject it to another referendum before year-end.

This assertion was however dismissed by the activists who said that the only recourse would be to extend the life of the current Parliament, a move many Kenyans may not support.

George Nyongesa of Bunge La Mwananchi, however said they are determined to carry out civic education, in a bid to counter falsehoods that are being peddled by those opposed to the proposed law.

Doing so, he said, would enable those who are undecided on the draft to make up their mind and in turn increase the percent of those supporting the proposed Constitution.

Findings of an opinion poll released on Friday indicated that 18 percent of registered voters were still undecided but the activists said they would intensify campaigns particularly among young people in order to sway then to the ‘Yes” side.

Speaking during a press briefing, the two underscored the need for those in support of the proposed document to step up their efforts in all the eight provinces so that they achieve a national tally of at least 75 percent of the votes cast, a figure that would give the win unparalleled political legitimacy.

At the same time, the organisations under the umbrella of ‘Katiba Sasa Campaign’ said they would not relent in their resolve to oppose an increase in lawmakers’ salaries and allowances.

ANGOLA :

Angola’s presidency of Portuguese speaking community to mark a new era
7/19/10/www.portalangop.co.ao

São Tome – Angola’s presidency of the Portuguese Speaking Countries Community (CPLP) that will take place during the 8th summit of Heads of State and Government of the mentioned organisation, set for July 23, will mark a new era in co-operation among the states, ANGOP has learnt.

This was said by the São Tomean politician Guilherme Posser da Costa, in an interview to Angolan journalists for the occasion of the holding of this meeting in Luanda.

In his opinion, Angola is a country in a clear development that demands the co-operation, external experience and the solidarity of other peoples that constitute the community.

“without a doubt, it is a country that has gained a dimension and international stature of a recognised state and it causes there to be a greater attraction of investments from other countries that are part of the community”, he explained.

Commenting on the current situation of the organisation, that official said CPLP is still closed, very much focussed on the administrative structure of its secretariat, therefore its political and co-operation activities are not visible.

Guilherme Posser has already been president of the local MLSTP party and secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in São Tomé and Principe.

AngolaHub – a new economic information portal based in Macau
[ 2010-07-19 ] / (macauhub)

Macau, China, 19 Jul – Chinese and Angolan entrepreneurs have launched a free trilingual economic information portal called AngolaHub, at http://www.angolahub.com, with the aim of publicising the most significant economic events in Angola.

The portal was launched on Monday after a three-month trial period and will provide information in English, Chinese and Portuguese about the most relevant aspects of the Angolan economy.

“We want to publicise in Asia and particularly China the most important things happening in that African country, which is Beijing’s main commercial partner in Africa,” said Jose Maria Trindade, one of the project’s directors.

AngolaHub “aims to be a reference service in relations between Angola and China,” without forgetting the link to the Portuguese language countries, Trindade said.

The portal is based in Macau and maintains cooperation agreements with other international media outlets to ensure dissemination of its content.

Besides providing statistical information, AngolaHub has a reserved information area called Angola Monitor which only subscribers can access.

Also in the scope of promoting Angola-China relations, the AngolaHub portal presents a Chinese character every day, along with its meaning and how to write it, as a means to encourage Chinese language teaching in Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA:

S. African Trade Minister to Meet Kumba, Arcelor About Dispute
July 19/ (Bloomberg)

— South African Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies will meet officials of Kumba Iron Ore Ltd. and ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd. today to mediate a dispute that threatens to damage the country’s economy, DTI spokesman Sidwell Medupe said.

The meeting will be held at the DTI’s offices in Pretoria this afternoon, he said by phone from the city.

South Africa Applauded for Changing Track on AIDS
Yasmine Ryan /www.takepart.com/19072010

“Fellow activists,” began South Africa’s Deputy-President Kgalema Motlanthe, speaking to a room full of AIDS activists and professionals here in Vienna. Under President Jacob Zuma’s government, South Africa’s days on the “lunatic fringe” of the conversation on AIDS are officially over.

The nation’s new slogan is “I am responsible, we are responsible and South Africa is taking responsibility,” Motlanthe said. The audience celebrated his words—and Nelson Mandela’s 92nd birthday—with a standing ovation.

“I think that it’s the first time, in the fight against AIDS, in ten years that South Africa has been important,” Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS declared. Standing at Motlanthe’s side, the head of UNAIDS lauded South Africa’s massive testing campaign. Sidibé has made repeated visits to South Africa during the past year to meet with the new administration. Clearly, his efforts have born lifesaving fruit.

A decade ago, South Africa’s then-President Thabo Mbeki opened the International AIDS Conference in Durban with a speech denying the threat posed by the HIV virus. As recently as 2006, the South African exhibition booth offered beetroots and lemons as a “cure” for AIDS at the conference in Toronto.

Mbeki’s policies are directly responsible for 330,000 deaths, according to a 2008 study by Harvard School of Public Health.

Approximately 5.7 million South Africans were living with HIV/AIDS in 2009, more people than in any other country.

In a complete turnaround from the previous government’s policy, Zuma’s administration has embraced the fight against the epidemic. Taking the view that treatment is prevention, the government has committed to making ART available to eighty percent of those in need, particularly pregnant women . Male circumcision, proven to lower a man’s chance of catching HIV during intercourse with a woman, is being encouraged.

“Preventing new infections will break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic,” the deputy-president says.

To help with both treatment and prevention, the government is running a massive testing campaign to have 15 million of its citizens tested for HIV by June 2011.

President Zuma has himself taken the test, a move which, his deputy said today, helps challenge the social stigma surrounding the virus (Zuma’s sometimes cavalier sexual behavior, however, remains controversial among AIDS activists).

Already, South Africa is seeing a drop in new HIV infections among the young for the first time.

The South African leader called on activists to continue their advocacy on HIV/AIDS.

“It is very easy, even for the most progressive government to slide into complacency,” he told the audience. “You must remain in those trenches.”

Annie Lennox, long-time AIDS activist and UNAIDS International Goodwill Ambassador, applauded the dramatic change in policy.

“South Africa can be a beacon of hope, just as it was in the days after apartheid,” she said.

What better way to honor Madiba’s birthday?

World unites for Madiba
Staff Reporter/ m.iol.co.za /July 19 2010 

It’s a global do-good phenomenon. Yesterday, millions of volunteers around the world all pledged 67 minutes of their time to community work to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 92nd birthday in an effort to make the world a better place.

Last year, the first call was made to South Africans to rally together and dedicate one minute for every year Mandela spent in politics, working hard to serve his country. 

His birthday was also recognised by the UN as Nelson Mandela International Day, to be celebrated across the world.

From donating a unit of blood, reading a story or planting vegetables to pledging huge amounts of money, erecting large-scale artworks or performing in concerts, numerous acts of kindness were performed in Mandela’s name throughout the day.

And while people worked, the increasingly frail leader spent his birthday quietly at his Houghton, Joburg, home with his family. 

While he has withdrawn from public life, he is revered around the world for promoting peace and fighting against racism and HIV/ Aids through his 46664 campaign.

“He is very well… He is healthy, and taking into account the kind of life he had, it is really heartening… He is getting old, he is getting frail, but he is absolutely healthy, full of life, spirits high,” Mandela’s wife Gra231a Machel told the BBC.

“He is going to have a cake, his family will surround him… We will gather at home, we will sit around, give him a lot of love.” 

President Jacob Zuma yesterday addressed thousands of villagers at Mandela’s birthplace, Mvezo, one of the poorest areas in the country. Where once Mandela used to celebrate his birthday by throwing a feast for the village, now the villagers have been urged to spend 67 minutes of their time helping each other.

“Madiba’s 67 years of uninterrupted and selfless service to the people of South Africa and the world culminated in the birth of a new South Africa, united in diversity,” said Zuma.

A group of 30 bikers took to the road from Joburg to Cape Town, engaging in community service along the way. The group built a security fence at a centre for people living with Aids in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

“I take it as my connection to Madiba. We should do it every day,” said actor Morgan Freeman, who accompanied the riders.

The group were met at Khayelitsha by Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor, who spent the day volunteering at the Sibongile Day and Night Care Centre.

Madrid was the city selected to host the first official Nelson Mandela Internationa Day celebration concert, at which BB King was billed to perform. A 6.7km charity walk was also held in Madrid’s Retiro Park.

Another celebration concert was held in New York, where an installation celebrating Mandela’s life and legacy was displayed at the Grand Central Terminal. The installation features six illuminated 3-D action words: act, listen, lead, unite, learn and speak.

According to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Firenze City Council in Italy arranged for a Mandela documentary and the film Invictus to be aired in Florence.

Communities in Sudan were to participate in a Football for Peace tournament in El-Fasher, with the winning team awarded the Nelson Mandela Cup.

In South Africa, Cosatu members pledged “to devote 67 minutes of our time to giving service to humanity and helping to improve the lives of those in greatest need”. The trade union federation’s plans included handing out food parcels, clean-up operations and planting trees.

The Nelson Mandela Children’s Foundation hosted an event at the Orlando Children’s Home and the Joburg’s Inner City Ambassador Football Club organised a CBD clean-up, while the Musina community at the Zimbabwe border distributed food parcels to foreigners in refugee camps.

Sub-Saharan development charity The Lonely Road Foundation asked for donations of blankets for orphans and needy children.

Local hip-hop star Tabura Thabo Bogopa Junior, better know as JR, released a song titled 18 July.

Gauteng Infrastructure Development MEC Faith Mazibuko spent her 67 minutes with the Westonaria community, painting walls and donating books to two local pre-schools. 

Dr Pieter Mulder, the Freedom Front Plus leader and Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, organised the distribution of blankets and food to the poverty-stricken residents of the Wes-Moot in Pretoria, where about 5 000 “mostly Afrikaans-speaking” underprivileged people are living in temporary structures.

Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane and members of her executive council spent yesterday morning in Soweto repairing, cleaning and improving schools.

Gauteng MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development Nandi Mayathula-Khoza visited three schools in Evaton to develop food gardens. Community Safety MEC Khabisi Mosunkutu helped to paint the walls of the old-age home next to the Evaton police station.

The SA Medical Association joined the Nelson Mandela Foundation in a call to all doctors to donate blankets and non-perishable foods for needy communities.

Local Government and Housing MEC Kgaogelo Lekgoro was in Katlehong to “fix the toilets at Katlehong High School in honour of Madiba”.

Limpopo MEC for Roads and Transport Pinky Kekana and two local mayors helped to regravel part of a damaged road in Ga Sekgopo.

Aid organisation Gift of the Givers arranged a clean-up in Joburg and distribution of food parcels, blankets and clothes. 

Joburg Water installed a water connection at Kwena Molapo High School in Lanseria, a makeshift school with containers for classrooms.

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema spent yesterday in the Western Cape visiting refugee camps in Wellington and an old-age home in Paarl.

Bhutana To Quiz SAFA on R1 billion Windfall Plans
Monday, July 19, 2010 /www.newstime.co.za

The South African Football Association will appear before the legislature to account for its massive world cup windfall. 

The football body is expected to receive over R1 billion from world football governing body FIFA after successfully hosting a well run football world cup. Parliament, particularly sports portfolio chair Bhutana Khompela wants to know how SAFA plan to use these funds. 

Speaking to the Pretoria News today Khompela said “What we want from SAFA is development. Those (junior) teams are the feeder to the national team. SAFA must be clear when it talks to us about those things. They must show us their plan (in terms of) how this windfall will benefit the entire South Africa”.

Khompela also said that SAFA would need to explain what bonuses would be paid to officials for the hosting of the event and how those were calculated as justified. SAFA has in the past copped criticism for awarding key figures large bonuses that were not commensurate with their actual work.

AFRICA / AU :

Nigeria: Spotting the True Electorate
Aniebo Nwamu/Leadership (Abuja) /allafrica.com/19 July 2010

Our founding fathers must have foreseen the impracticability of the presidential system of government on the Nigerian soil when they chose the parliamentary system. We pretend we are in a democratic dispensation, yet I can’t see any democracy in the present system.

Every four years, we are fooled into believing that we can elect our leaders. But that has never happened. Hundreds of billions of naira are wasted or stolen in the course of organising “elections” but, in the end, it’s a small number of people that decides who gets what.

What do I mean? The 2011 elections have already been won and lost. Talks about zoning are a mere academic exercise. I don’t have to consult Paul the octopus that predicted the outcomes of football matches in South Africa 2010 to know this.

Given just a few days to go round the country, I can correctly predict almost all the persons that will be sworn in as president, governor or senator on May 29, 2011. So, why can’t the innocent people be saved from unnecessary bloodshed and rancour in the name of elections?

The battle of 2011 is one that will not be fought by the faint-hearted. With jobs vanishing and mouth-watering remunerations being enjoyed by public officeholders, the field has been thrown open to bandits masquerading as politicians. We should expect to see today’s kidnappers transforming to special advisers, senators and members of state houses of assembly by next year.

Electoral reform is dead and has been buried. It’s only the conspiracy of the elite that has not been concluded. If INEC chairman Professor Attahiru Jega likes, let him invite all the ICT companies in the world to help in organising free and fair elections for Nigeria.

There can’t be a credible voter register before May 2011. In fact, the very members of the elite that are expected to make informed choices on Election Day are not interested in voting for anybody. And that includes academics like Jega: but for his new appointment, I presume, he might not even have cared to obtain a voter card.

The only people that will be ready to queue up under the rain or sun to get registered as voters are the idle youths, villagers and the urban poor. As usual, many of them will be ready to be used by party “stalwarts” paid to “deliver” certain polling booths, polling centres or local government areas to their party.

Rather than keep pretending that power lies in the hands of the electorate, INEC should do something radical. In this space, on June 20 (“Nigeria On The March Again”), I advocated for the shifting of the handover date to October 1, 2012, to enable the nation organise a people’s conference and get a new constitution that would get rid of the current wasteful arrangement.

That would translate to tenure elongation for President Goodluck Jonathan alone after May 29, at the end of which he would step aside. Many readers have praised the idea, but I know it will not be accepted. There is scarcity of original thinkers in the present legislature.

And we have a corrupt judiciary. Because the suggested arrangement would be to the disadvantage of treasury looters, they would do everything in their power to abort it. Anything that would change the status quo is not welcome. However, we won’t stop offering free advice to the powers that be. It’s our country.

INEC could effect something close to reform by ensuring that the electorate truly elect our leaders. I suggest that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the tax collectors, be used to identify eligible voters.

Nobody should register as a voter until he has produced his tax clearance certificate. Consequently, every adult citizen who wishes to vote would be compelled to get his/her TIN (tax identification number) as the FIRS has been campaigning for. After a deadline, FIRS would send to INEC the list of eligible voters and their addresses. My guess is that, at the end of the project, the current 120, 000 polling stations would collapse into 25, 000.

If that happened, many people would not be registered of course. But the few responsible citizens would be able to elect good leaders if they are well-informed. The multitude that would be “denied” the right to vote – illiterate villagers mostly – had little interest in voting in the past.

They are also the people that are easily bought with salt, maize or a few naira notes. Politicians who would want to beef up the number of voters could also do so by paying taxes for persons who had been dodging them. They would be putting more money into the coffers of the government through FIRS.

I know, however, that FIRS may have problems with issuing the TIN to several people at the same time. It is the price we have to pay for frustrating all previous efforts at implementing the national ID card scheme, the SIM card registration and social security schemes. No doubt, it’s the ruling class that has been sabotaging all these. They know how important the data could be in ensuring free and fair polls, which will be against their interest.

I’m convinced that the politicians of the First Republic were head and shoulders above the politicians that have succeeded them either as military men or civilians. When cometh another Zik, Awo or Bello? Can we reasonably expect these clowns and gold diggers parading themselves as politicians to lead Nigeria to greener pastures?

Minimum Wage, Maximum Rage

President Goodluck Jonathan promised to raise the pay of civil servants from July 1. It is expected therefore that the white-collar workers will earn more from next week. Already the National Committee on Minimum Wage has submitted its report to the government. In fact, the content of the report is known already. And it is troubling.

The recommended minimum wage is about N17, 000 per month, up from N7, 500. But the maximum wage is in the region of N465, 000. You could see the footprints of oppression. So, the panel’s members spent all the days and weeks in a five-star hotel, eating the best dishes the hotel could offer, and probably messing around with women only to make that recommendation.

What a country! One worker has to earn N17, 000 but another has to earn 28 times that. And both have to buy from the same market. Besides, it’s those at the top that enjoy most of the perks. They are also the people that steal from the treasury by awarding overinflated contracts to themselves using cronies. Meanwhile, it is the junior workers that do the actual job.

All the members of the committee deserve to be given 36 strokes of the cane on their bare buttocks! I hope the white paper will close this wide gap in wages. It’s better to make the minimum wage N100, 000 and the maximum N220, 000 per month. And that should affect the salaries of pubic functionaries, including the president, governors, senators, local government chairmen and all other politicians who do nothing other than fight and steal our money. Enough of jumbo pay and constituency allowances.

A major source of worry is the inflation that is sure to follow. The traders, artisans and other self-employed persons may not understand that federal workers who will benefit from the maximum wage are fewer than 500, 000 pers
ons. And many state governments and private employers are not likely to match the federal government’s pay.

Perhaps 60 million other Nigerians receive between nothing and N5, 000 per month. Let’s plead with those in the informal sector not to increase the prices of their goods and services. Yes, we are suffocating. Higher prices may trigger a revolution that may be difficult to control. The menace of kidnappers is enough socio-economic trauma for most Nigerians.

Al-Qaida-linked Somali group claims Uganda blasts
The Associated Press/Monday, July 19, 2010 

An al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group claimed responsibility Monday for twin bombings in Uganda that killed 74 people watching the World Cup final on TV, saying the militants would carry out attacks “against our enemy” wherever they are. It was the group’s first international attack.

The claim by al-Shabab, whose militants are trained by militant veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, raises concerns about insecurity in East Africa and has broader implications for global security. Al-Shabab has in the past recruited Somali-Americans to carry out suicide bombings.

“We will carry out attacks against our enemy wherever they are,” said Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, a militant spokesman in Mogadishu. “No one will deter us from performing our Islamic duty.”

Ugandan officials had said earlier that they suspected the Somali group was involved. One of the targets was an Ethiopian restaurant _ a nation despised by the militants. The blasts came two days after an al-Shabab commander called for attacks in Uganda and Burundi, two nations that contribute troops to the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

The attacks on two soft targets filled with civilians raised concerns about the capabilities and motives of al-Shabab, which the U.S. State Department has declared a terrorist organization. Analysts said other countries such as Kenya, Burundi, Djibouti and Ethiopia _ named directly by the militant group or because of their proximity to Somalia _ may also face new attacks.

A California-based aid group, meanwhile, said one of its American workers was among the dead. Police said Ethiopian, Indian and Congolese nationals were also among those killed and wounded, police said.

At least three of the wounded were in a church group from Pennsylvania who went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala early to get good seats for the game, said Lori Ssebulime, an American who married a Ugandan. Three Ugandans in the group were killed when a blast erupted. One of the wounded was 16-year-old American Emily Kerstetter.

“Emily was rolling around in a pool of blood screaming,” said Ssebulime, who has helped bring in U.S. church groups since 2004. “Five minutes before it went off, Emily said she was going to cry so hard because she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay the rest of the summer here.”

Ugandan government spokesman Fred Opolot said Monday there were indications that two suicide bombers took part in the late Sunday attacks, which left dozens wounded. Opolot said the death toll also had risen to 74.

Blood and pieces of flesh littered the floor among overturned chairs at the scenes of the blasts, which went off as people watched the game between Spain and the Netherlands.

“We were enjoying ourselves when a very noisy blast took place,” said Andrew Oketa, one of the hospitalized survivors. “I fell down and became unconscious. When I regained, I realized that I was in a hospital bed with a deep wound on my head.”

The attacks appeared to represent a dangerous step forward by al-Shabab, analysts said, and could mean that other East African countries working to support the Somali government will face attacks.

“Al-Shabab has used suicide bombers in the past and shown no concern about civilian casualties in its attacks,” said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and a professor at George Washington University. “Some elements of al-Shabab have also prohibited the showing of television, including the World Cup, in Somalia.”

At a wrap-up news briefing Monday in South Africa, FIFA President Sepp Blatter denounced the violence against fans watching the game.

“Can you link it to the World Cup? I don’t know… Whatever happened, linked or not linked, it is something that we all should condemn,” he said.

Florence Naiga, 32, a mother of three children, said her husband had gone to watch the final at the rugby club.

“He did not come back. I learnt about the bomb blasts in the morning. When I went to police they told me he was among the dead,” she said.

Invisible Children, a San Diego, California-based aid group that helps child soldiers, identified the dead American as one of its workers, Nate Henn, who was killed on the rugby field. Henn, 25, was a native of Wilmington, Delaware.

“He sacrificed his comfort to live in the humble service of God and of a better world,” the group said in a statement on its website.

The FBI has sent agents based at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya to assist in the investigation and look into the circumstances of the death of the American citizen, a State Department official in Washington said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the probe.

International police agency Interpol said in a statement Monday that it is also dispatching a team to Uganda.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni toured the blast sites Monday and said that the terrorists behind the bombings should fight soldiers, not “people who are just enjoying themselves.”

“We shall go for them wherever they are coming from,” Museveni said. “We will look for them and get them as we always do.”

Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said it was too early to speculate about any military response to the attacks.

Somalia’s president also condemned the blasts and described the attack as “barbaric.”

Al-Shabab, which wants to overthrow Somalia’s weak, U.N.-backed government, is known to have links with al-Qaida. Al-Shabab also counts militant veterans from the Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts among its ranks. Their fighters also include young men recruited from the Somali communities in the United States.

Ethiopia, which fought two wars with Somalia, is a longtime enemy of al-Shabab and other Somali militants who accuse their neighbor of meddling in Somali affairs. Ethiopia had troops in Somalia between December 2006 and January 2009 to back Somalia’s fragile government against the Islamic insurgency.

In addition to Uganda’s troops in Mogadishu, Uganda also hosts Somali soldiers trained in U.S. and European-backed programs.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the U.S. was prepared to provide any necessary assistance to the Ugandan government.

President Barack Obama was “deeply saddened by the loss of life resulting from these deplorable and cowardly attacks,” Vietor said.

Officials said the Sunday attacks will not affect the African Union summit being held in Uganda from July 19-27. Many African leaders are expected to attend.

Sunday’s terror attacks are not the first to hit East Africa. U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were the targets of deadly twin bombings by al-Qaida in 1998, killing 224 people including 12 Americans. An Israeli airliner and hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, were targeted by terrorists in 2002.

The United States worries that Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, particularly since Osama bin Laden has declared his support for Islamic radicals there.

Sudan brutally suppressing dissent, says Amnesty
(AFP)/19072010

LON
DON — Amnesty International on Monday accused Sudan of using arrests and torture to brutally suppress dissent, days after an international court filed charges of genocide against President Omar al-Beshir.

The London-based group in a report entitled “Agents of Fear” accused Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) of perpetrating institutionalised human rights violations “for years.”

“The NISS rules Sudan by fear. The extensive, multi-pronged assault on the Sudanese people by the security services has left the critics of the government in constant fear of arrest, harassment or worse” said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty’s Africa programme director.

The report accuses the NISS of carrying out arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, ill-treatment, unlawful killings and enforced disappearances.

“The Sudanese authorities are brutally silencing political opposition and human rights defenders in Sudan through violence and intimidation. NISS agents benefit from total impunity for the human rights violations they continue to commit.”

During the first half of 2010 Amnesty International documented the arrests of at least 34 individuals by the NISS, including journalists, human rights activists and students.

“Anyone seen as posing a threat to the government” is a target, the report says, adding that opposition figures and supporters were singled out for ill treatment and torture, and that arrests had peaked at times of political tensions.

The report records the testimony of Ahmed Ali Mohamed Osman, a doctor arrested in March 2009 for a web article critical of the government’s decision to expel humanitarian organisations from Sudan and rapes in the Darfur region.

“They leaned me over a chair and held me by my arms and feet while others hit me on the back, legs and arms with something similar to an electrical cable,” said the doctor, who also goes by the name Ahmed Sardop.

“They kicked me in the testicles repeatedly while they talked about the report on rape in Darfur,” he told Amnesty, adding he began receiving death threats after going to the police and now lives in exile.

Newspaper editor Abuzar al-Amin was arrested last May and taken into NISS detention where he was interrogated about his writings and work, beaten and kicked, and given electric shocks to his body, the report says.

“Families are often threatened and harassed by NISS agents to put further emotional pressure on the victim,” Amnesty said, adding that, “Women have also been harassed and intimidated by law enforcement agents and the NISS, and sexually assaulted while in their custody.

“The National Security Act must be reformed so that agents are no longer provided with extensive powers of arrest and detention. All immunities should be removed,” said Borght.

Last week, Sudan issued expulsion orders against two top overseas relief officials in Darfur after the International Criminal Court charged Beshir with genocide over the seven-year conflict in the region.

The Sudanese president already faced war crimes charges and charges of crimes against humanity over his government’s alleged use of proxy Arab militias in a scorched earth campaign against ethnic minority civilians in Darfur.

Darfur, an arid region the size of France, has been gripped by civil war since ethnic minority rebels rose up in 2003. The conflict has killed 300,000 people and left 2.7 million homeless, according to UN figures. Khartoum says 10,000 people were killed during the war.

Amnesty said it had not been granted permission to visit northern Sudan for fact finding missions since 2006, and that information and testimonies for the report were obtained during research visits to Uganda and Eastern Chad in 2009 and 2010.

Security high on AU summit agenda
Jean-Jacques Cornish /www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/Monday, 19th July

Security will dominate the African Union summit that gets underway in Kampala on Monday.

Officials are gathering in the Ugandan capital where Somali terrorists killed 76 people in two explosions during the World Cup final last week.

Officially the theme of the 15th African Union summit is maternal health.

But even before foreign ministers and heads of state arrive in Kampala, it is clear that the bombings by Somali Islamists will loom large.

Both Uganda, that suffered the worst terrorist attack on African soil in a dozen years, and Burundi, that has been directly threatened, will ask why they alone are bearing the brunt of African peacekeeping operations in Somalia.

Seven dead in Somalia after stray shell hits school
Jul 19, 2010/www.monstersandcritics.com

Mogadishu – Seven people were killed and 26 injured after a stray shell hit a school in the Somali capital Mogadishu during fighting between insurgents and government forces, officials said Monday. 

‘We have admitted 26 wounded people to hospital, including a dozen school children,’ Ali Muse Sheikh, head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service, told the German Press Agency dpa. ‘We also collected seven dead bodies.’ 

Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab, which eight days ago carried out a twin suicide bombing in the Ugandan capital Kampala that killed 76, is battling to oust the weak Western-backed government. 

A spokesman for al-Shabaab on Sunday said that the group attacked government positions on Sunday, and captured several positions. 

The government denied the insurgents had made any gains. 

More than 20,000 people have died in the insurgency, which kicked off in early 2007 after Ethiopia invaded to oust the Islamist regime in control at the time. 

Al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda, controls much of south and central Somalia, while the government is penned into a few districts in Mogadishu. 

The group’s attack in Kampala, which targeted football fans watching the World Cup final, was its first on foreign soil. 

It said the bombings were in retaliation for indiscriminate shelling of civilians by Ugandan and Burundian troops, part of an African Union peacekeeping mission shoring up the Somali government.

UN /ONU :

Uganda tricked Rwandans into trucks and deported them, UN says
By Faith Karimi, CNN/RFI /July 19, 2010 

(CNN) — A top Ugandan official on Monday defended a decision to load hundreds of Rwandans in trucks and forcibly return them home in an operation condemned as illegal by the United Nations.

Police went to two refugee camps in southwestern Uganda at gunpoint last week and forcibly returned 1,700 asylum seekers back to Rwanda, the United Nations refugee agency said.

Two died after they jumped out of the trucks, according to the refugee agency. At least two dozens were injured, some from police beatings.

In one of the camps, Rwandans were lured into groups on pretext that they would get information on their asylum claims, said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Panic spread among the group when police intervened, firing shots,” Fleming said. “Force was used to push people onto trucks. They were then driven across the border to Rwanda, where they arrived the following morning.”

Police went to another location and used food distribution as a pretext for the roundup, Fleming said.

“Once in the building, the group was surrounded by armed men and police. Those who did not manage to escape were forced onto waiting trucks. Many were not permitted to take their personal belongings with them,” she said.

A Ugandan official decried the criticism and said the government followed proper procedure. Those deported were in the country illegally, said Musa Ecweru, the state minister for refugees.

“No refugee was deported. What we did is deport those who were taking advantage of our economy,” Ecweru said. “These are people who did not qualify for asylum. We had to send them back to their country.”

United Nations officials said while some had been denied asylum, others were in the middle of the process and should not have been returned home.

Ecweru said the Rwandan government was aware of the operation and supported it.

“Uganda has the most liberal refugee policy in the world and recognizes any refugee as a human being, and therefore we will be the last people to abuse refugees,” he said. “Those we deported had been taking advantage of the floodgates and encroaching on land illegally.”

The east African nation allocates land to refugees who have been granted asylum.

Those taking advantage of the ‘floodgates” to illegally get land will continue to be deported, Ecweru said.

Uganda has been taking in Rwandan refugees since the latter’s genocide in 1994 that left at least 800,000 people dead. 

“We have underlined that anyone deserving international protection be allowed to remain in Uganda,” Fleming said.

Rwanda is scheduled to hold elections next month. Deadly grenade attacks have struck the capital, Kigali, and some newspapers have been shut down. A key opposition leader was found dead last week.

However, Ecweru said, the operation was not tied to the ballot.

“We have no interest in what happens in Rwanda,” he said. “Of course we wish them a peaceful election, but this had nothing to do with that.”

The deportations also have no connections to the bombings that killed 76 in the Ugandan capital of Kampala last week, the minister said.

Pakistan lauds African leadership for promoting peace, security
Monday, July 19, 2010/www.dailytimes.com.pk

* Haroon says world should emulate role of Africa’s leadership

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has paid tributes to the African leadership for addressing the challenges of peace, security and nation building across the continent. 

“I am proud to say that the Africa of today is leading the way with so many practical examples that we indeed can learn from you,” Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon told the UN Security Council.

Speaking during a day-long debate on “Optimising the use of preventive diplomacy tools: prospects and challenges in Africa”, he underscored the African Union’s role in providing strategic coherence, leadership and on-ground management in nearly all conflicts in the continent. The rest of the world would do well to emulate Africa, he said. “In the first half of the twentieth century, the independent movements in the Subcontinent and the freedom struggle against colonialism in Africa were mutually inspiring,” he said. 

Haroon pointed out that 8,700 of the nearly 11,000 Pakistani peacekeepers in United Nations missions were in Africa, which had installed a solid peace and security with built-in conflict-prevention and mediation mechanisms. 

The United Nations had some success in using preventive diplomacy to solve conflicts in Africa and elsewhere, he noted. However, more must be done to strengthen and make full use of the comparative advantages of regional, national and local capacities in mediation, conflict prevention, reconciliation and dialogue, he said.

The Security Council must make wider and more effective use of the procedures and means for the peaceful settlement of disputes envisaged in Articles 33 to 38 of the Charter, he said. app

Extra 1.2 million people able to gain access to antiretroviral drugs, says UN health agency
By RFI /Monday 19 July 2010

The World Health Organisation said at a conference in Vienna that the largest yearly increase in the number of people able to gain access to antiretroviral drugs was an “extremely encouraging development”.

Official figures show that an extra 1.2 million people were able to obtain medication to repress the virus that causes Aids bringing the total figure to 5.2 million.

The WHO issued new recommendations on Monday for earlier treatment of people with HIV, with the goal of eventually expanding the number of cared-for to 15 million.

Antiretroviral therapy is a combination of powerful drugs that prevent the human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] from replicating in immune cells. Administered at a key stage of infection, it can reduce the virus to negligible levels, allowing the patient to live an almost normal life.

USA :

Sudan criticizes U.S. stance on ICC’s indictment of Bashir
Monday 19 July 2010 /www.sudantribune.com

July 18, 2010 (KHARTOUM) — Two Sudanese officials today blasted recent statements by U.S. in which they called on president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir to surrender himself to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The court on Monday accused Bashir of three counts of genocide, saying there were “reasonable grounds” that he masterminded a plan aimed at exterminating Darfur African tribes of the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.

Statements made by U.S. president Barack Obama and State department called on Sudan to cooperate with ICC and noting that special envoy Scott Gration, who is currently in Khartoum, will convey this message to Sudanese officials as he did before.

However, Gration was quoted as saying that the recent ICC move against Bashir will complicate his mission given that the North controls the solution to crises in Darfur, South and counter-terrorism.

The Sudanese presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie was cited by state media as saying that the U.S. stance in supporting the ICC is inconsistent with any positive American work towards Sudan and diminishes its feasibility.

“U.S. position towards Sudan concerning ICC issue is lacking credibility and the ethical stand in itself” Nafie told reporters following his meeting with Gration.

“The U.S. excluded itself from the jurisdiction of the ICC to protect its soldiers who are killing innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan and denying others their right to preserve security and sovereignty in Sudan” he added.

He said that U.S. State Department on the reflects the ethics of westerners and lack of principles adding that Washington is controlled by anti-Sudan lobbies.

The Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Al-Deen Al-Attabani also echoed the same sentiments in a separate meeting with Gration accusing the U.S. of exploiting the ICC against Sudan and warning that these “two faced policies” could impact bilateral ties.

The U.S. is not a party to the ICC and has remained hostile to it. Washington had threatened to veto resolution 1593 referring Darfur case to the Hague tribunal adopted in March 2005 but eventually bent down to domestic and international pressure and abstained from voting after adding a clause exempting non-state parties of ICC from being investigated.

The U.S. has recently showed signs of warming up to the court despite its long standing fears that it may be used to bring frivolous cases against its troops.

Sudan insists that it has not ratified the ICC statute and therefore cannot be obligated to comply with the court decisions.

(ST)

CANADA :

African Queen Mines Commences Field Exploration at Rongo Gold Field Project in Kenya’s Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt
July 19, 2010/www.marketwatch.com

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jul 19, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — AFRICAN QUEEN MINES LTD. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has now commenced its Phase 1 Exploration Program on the Rongo Gold Field Project in the Kanango gold mining area of the Migori District of Nyanza Province in Southwest Kenya near Lake Victoria. The Project is subject to an Earn-In and Joint Venture Agreement (the “Agreement”) between the Company and Abba Mining Company Limited (“Abba”), pursuant to which the Company may earn up to an 85% interest in the Project, which is covered by a license encompassing approximately 112 sq. km., by funding prescribed optional stages from exploration through feasibility. The Agreement and all planned work programs for Phase 1 have been approved by the Commissioner of Mines and Geology of the Government of the Republic of Kenya. 

The work covering Phase I will include (i) comprehensive rock and soil sampling, trenching and pitting over the license area; (ii) geological mapping and evaluation; and (iii) airbourne geophysical studies. The objective of the Phase 1 Exploration Program is to assess the overall geologic structure of the License area and the likelihood of a commercially viable gold deposit within the License area, as well as to identify discreet drill targets for a Phase 2 core drilling program. The costs for Phase 1, estimated at up to U.S. $300,000, are being paid by the Company. 

The Project is situated some 380 km. by road from the capital city of Nairobi and 60 km. N of the border with Tanzania, forming part of the rich Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt extending from Tanzania and hosting known world-class gold deposits including African Barrick Gold’s Bulyanhulu and North Mara Mines, within approximately 100 km. of the Project, and AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Mine. The area of the license covers Archaean age metavolcanics and granites of the Nyanzian System within which historical records of gold production are known. The area is situated over the northern contact of the Kinjere Granite with Nyanzian greenstones. Migori, one of the earliest gold mines in Kenya, is situated along the southern contact and has a similar geological setting. Active artisanal mining is presently occurring on the Kamwango area of the license, which has been prioritised for detailed field study. 

Field visits and liaisons with all the relevant local governmental bodies and responsible persons have now been completed and the detailed Phase 1 sampling, trenching and pitting program is now underway on the ground. Supervision and geological mapping and sampling of this area is being conducted by Remote Exploration Services of Cape Town, S.A. (“RES”) who have been responsible for carrying out most of the preceding years’ field work for the Company’s projects in Mozambique and Ghana. Overall project management is being provided to the Company by Senior Consulting Geologist Pete Siegfried (M.Sc., MAusIMM), a qualified person, who has approved the contents of this press release. 

It is planned to use the trenching and pitting initially for orientation and sampling of the area presently producing artisanal gold. As much of the area is covered by a few meters of recent alluvial material, detailed mapping of the geology has been hampered in the past. It is the Company’s intent to identify potential gold bearing, quartz veined fault structures and drill these zones later this year in order to establish grade, thickness and depth extent of the underlying gold mineralization. 

Approval has now been granted by the civil aviation authorities of Kenya (“KCAA”) to commence a detailed airborne geophysical survey and it is expected that flying will commence prior to month-end. The magnetic survey is anticipated to highlight areas of structural interest such as faults and shear zones. Terrascan Airborne GmbH & Co Kg, based in Germany, has been contracted to carry out the survey on behalf of the Company and has had extensive experience working in remote parts of Africa. Terrascan’s geophysicists will be providing the necessary quality assurance with quality control being provided by Mr. Rainer Wackerle based in Windhoek, Namibia. Mr. Wackerle for many years oversaw quality control for the airborne geophysical surveys completed by the Namibian government through various SYSMIN and related grants. 

According to Irwin Olian, CEO of the Company, “We are very excited to be commencing our work programs in Kenya. While the Rongo Gold Field is a highly prospective area on the Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt with potential to host a major deposit, it has to date been underexplored as a result of overburden which largely concealed the mineralized zones below surface. This has created a great opportunity for us to add value and we are now moving forward with our exploration programs with all due haste. The Kenyan authorities as well as our JV partner Abba have been extremely helpful in providing necessary support and cooperation, with the result that we are already at work on the ground only a few months following consummation of our underlying agreement.” 

About African-Queen 

The Company is an exploratory resource company with diversified mineral properties in Southern and West Africa. It is exploring its properties in Mozambique, Kenya and Ghana for gold and other metals and it is exploring its properties in Botswana and Namibia for diamonds. The Company’s licenses in Botswana and Namibia comprise approximately 9208 sq km of diamond prospects. In Mozambique it has approximately 230 sq km of gold and other metals licenses under an agreement with another company. In Kenya it has approximately 112 sq. km. of gold and other minerals licenses under an agreement with another company. Its operations in Botswana are carried out through its operating subsidiary, PAM Botswana (Pty) Ltd.; its operations in Namibia are carried out through its operating subsidiary PAM Minerals Namibia (Pty) Ltd.; its operations in Mozambique are carried out through its subsidiary PAM Mocambique Limitada and its operations in Ghana are carried out through its subsidiary AQ Ghana Gold Limited. Its operations in Kenya are being carried out through its operating subsidiary AQ Kenya Gold Limited. The Company has its executive offices in Vancouver, Canada. 

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF 

AFRICAN QUEEN MINES, LTD. 

“Irwin Olian” 

Irwin Olian 

Chairman & CEO 

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of the information contained herein. The statements made in this press release may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual events or results may differ from the Company’s expectations. 

SOURCE: African Queen Mines, Ltd.

Zambia: Zambia starts copper mine audits to verify earnings
Monday, July 19, 2010/Reuters

Zambia is conducting an audit of mining companies to determine their earnings and will punish companies found cheating over declaration of revenues, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said on Saturday.

Musokotwane said the southern African country, the continent’s largest copper producer, was also on course to produce 700,000 tonnes of copper this year following a rebound in metals output at the mines and a rally in global prices.

Copper output at 675,000 tonnes last year was far above expectations of a forecast 500,000 tonnes.

Musokotwane said the audit had been ordered following claims by some Zambians, including the opposition parties and mining analysts, that the country was not reaping enough benefit from its key mining industry because of mis-reporting of revenues by some foreign owned mining companies.

Major opposition parties and civic groups have even asked for re-introduction of a 25 percent windfall tax the government scrapped this year, after an outcry from the mining companies.

“We have asked for a special audit to be done on the mining sector and if we find someone cheating, we will deal with that,” Musokotwane told Reuters in a telephone interview from Lusaka.

“Cheating is dealt with by punishing offenders, but you cannot deal with cheating by increasing tax rates, you can’t,” he said.

Musokotwane said Zambia would in the long term begin to accrue more revenue from its mines after foreign investors put in up to $5 billion in reviving the mining industry in the last eight years.

“You have to be patient that you allow investments to come, make it stablise and then the tax revenue will come and I am absolutely sure the tax revenues will come up,” he said.

Analysts say pressure has been mounting on the government from the opposition to raise taxes in view of a presidential election in 2011 with mining discussions increasingly becoming emotive in this country of 13 million people, where the mines are a major employer.

Musokotwane said the government would continue with policies that support growth of the mining sector to ensure the mines help with the diversification of the economy.

“We need a strong mining sector to help us diversify the economy,” Musokotwane said.

Some of the foreign mining companies operating in Zambia include Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc, Equinox Minerals,Glencore International AG of Switzerland and Metorex of South Africa.

AUSTRALIA :

Miners Down on New Safety Rules
July 19, 2010/blogs.wsj.com

Three of the four biggest fallers among larger Australian mining listings in early trading Monday were platinum miners, after South Africa’s government promised to tighten safety rules.

The pledge follows the deaths of five miners for Aquarius Platinum in early-July rockfall. The rules would limit the carve-out of underground chambers, reducing profitability. Aquarius fell A$1.23, or 23%, to A$4.03, while Platinum Australia, an explorer with projects in North West province and neighbouring Limpopo province, was down 4.6%, at 73 cents. Zimplats Holding, an explorer in Zimbabwe, shed 4.6% to A$10.02. 

South Africa’s mining unions are pushing for tighter safety standards across the industry — 80% of global platinum production is from South Africa. 

“Any loss of life is a huge blow to the mining industry and we have to do everything in our power to prevent further loss of life,” said Susan Shabangu, South Africa’s mineral resources minister, following the meeting she had called with 15 chief executive officers of platinum mines. 

She said the industry has agreed to look at how rock engineers can work with government mine inspectors and with trade unions to share information and best practice models. She and the executives also agreed, among other things, that skills and training specific to the platinum industry must be a priority. 

“Government, business and labor have a responsibility to save lives and so we must work together to find ways of improving safety in our mines,” Shabangu said. 

Gavin Mackay, a spokesman for Aquarius Platinum, said the general message from the meeting was that the industry needs to work together to continue to improve safety. Among other things, a structure was put in place to review safety research every three months, he said. 

A shaft at Aquarius’s Marikana mine near Rustenburg, west of Pretoria, has been suspended since falling rock last week killed the five contract workers. The company at the start of the month said it would review safety at its Blue Ridge platinum mine in the country following two fatalities the month before. 

The government regularly suspends mining operations following fatal accidents to allow time to investigate and for safety measures to be improved. Members of the National Union of Mineworkers, the country’s biggest trade union, also often put down their tools for a day to mourn the death of a colleague in a mining accident. 

According to government figures, there were 65 mining fatalities between the start of the year and July 7 compared with 84 in the same period last year. The current figure includes 16 deaths in platinum mines and 34 in gold operations. 

– Robb M. Stewart and David Fickling

UPDATE 1-Australian Sigma gets bids for two drug arms – report
Mon Jul 19, 2010/Reuters

* Bids depend on Aspen bid outcome

* Sigma shares up 1.2 pct, but below Aspen offer

* Sigma declines to comment (Adds Sigma no comment, updates shares)

MELBOURNE, July 19 (Reuters) – Australia’s Sigma Pharmaceuticals (SIP.AX) has received three bids for its Herron drugs arm and three bids for its Orphan Australia drugs business, as it seeks an improved bid from South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare (APNJ.J), a newspaper reported on Monday.

Sigma declined to comment on the report.

The company is battling to pay off A$100 million in debt by March under pressure from its lenders after it broke its loan covenants, reporting a loss for the year to January 2010. The first A$40 million is due in September.

The bidders for Herron and Orphan are local and overseas-based drug and healthcare companies, The Age newspaper reported.

Their bids are dependent on the outcome of talks with Aspen on its A$648 million ($563 million) offer.

Sigma’s shares jumped 1.2 percent to A$0.425, bucking a slide in the broader market on hopes it might be able to ease its debt woes, but remained well below Aspen’s offer price of A$0.55 a share.

Orphan licenses specialty drugs from foreign pharmaceutical companies to treat life-threatening diseases, which are mostly sold to hospitals. Herron owns a portfolio of over-the-counter pain killers and vitamins, which struggled to expand sales last year due to tough competition in supermarkets. (Reporting by Sonali Paul; editing by Balazs Koranyi) 

World shares retreat after Wall Street tumble
By PAMELA SAMPSON (AP)/19072010

BANGKOK — World stock markets fell Monday after U.S. consumer confidence plunged and corporate results fell short of expectations, signs the world’s biggest economy may be in danger of falling back into recession.

Oil prices fell slightly to below $76 a barrel as traders eyed falling global stocks markets ahead of more key corporate earnings reports this week. The dollar rose against the yen, while the euro strengthened.

Major bourses in Europe opened lower. Britain’s FTSE 100 index fell 1 percent to 5,158.85; Germany’s DAX was slightly down by 0.2 percent to 6,026.30; France’s CAC-40 was 0.2 percent lower to 3,493.70.

Wall Street looked set to head higher — barely — after a disappointing session Friday, with Dow futures up 3 points to 10,062 and S&P 500 futures up 2.5 points to 1,065.60.

U.S. stocks took a beating Friday, with all major indexes losing 2.5 percent or more. Second-quarter results from Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. disappointed investors because revenue fell even as the banks generated an increase in profits.

Traders also were shaken up as a volatile stock market, near-double-digit unemployment and a stalled housing market led to a drop in U.S. consumer confidence in July — to its lowest point in nearly a year. That resulted in a chill on spending, bad news for Asian economies whose exporters rely on America as a key market.

“That really shows that people don’t have faith in the future. People are afraid of losing their jobs and are putting off buying things,” said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. “America is in danger of falling into recession. If the economy does not pick up, it will go the way of Europe.”

One exception in Asia was the Chinese market. Lun said the Shanghai benchmark — up 2.1 percent or 51.15 points to 2,475.42 — may have enjoyed a lift from speculation that the government was committed to supporting the Agricultural Bank of China’s initial public offering to prevent it from dropping below its offer price. Indexes in Thailand and India also showed small gains.

Elsewhere, markets were down. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index shed 159.21 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 20,090.95. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.5 percent to 4,358.30. Seoul’s Kospi closed 0.4 percent down at 1,731.95.

Markets in Japan were closed for a national holiday.

In Seoul trade, major banks lost ground, with KB Financial Group Inc. down 1.2 percent and rival Woori Finance Holdings Co. falling 2.7 percent.

Australia’s Aquarius Platinum Ltd. tumbled nearl
y 25 percent amid worries over the potential impact of new mining safety rules by South Africa.

In New York on Friday, the Dow fell 261.41, or 2.5 percent, to 10,097.90. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 31.60, or 2.9 percent, to 1,064.88. The Nasdaq composite index fell 70.03, or 3.1 percent, to 2,179.05.

In currencies, the dollar rose to 86.84 yen from 86.56 yen. The euro rose to $1.2972 from $1.2929.

Benchmark crude for August delivery was down 23 cents to $75.78 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

EUROPE :

SACU advocates win-win solution – by Desie Heita
19 July 2010 /www.newera.com.na

WINDHOEK – Southern Africa Customs Union has reached a common agreement on how to proceed with the European Union on Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. 

This is the position that the presidents of Bots-wana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa agreed to earlier, and would ensure that there is no difference in tariffs or rules of origin among SACU-member countries when negotiating with the EU.

The next negotiating meeting is scheduled for Brussels in the last week of this month to discuss rules of origin and ta-riffs.

“The heads of state and government direct the ministers to develop strategies to promote win-win solutions to address [various] challenges,” says the statement issued after the meeting in Pretoria on July 15.

The challenges include “developing the necessary policies and procedures to conclude the establishment of institutions”, and “developing SACU positions on new generation issues, taking into account ongoing negotiations”.

While they adhere to the principle of unified engagement among themselves in trade negotiations with third parties, they also take cognisance of the different levels of development and capacity among themselves.

Nevertheless, SACU has also agreed to work on strengthening internal matters such as ensuring that all work on industrial, agricultural and competition policies, unfair trade practices and other priority commitments in the SACU agreement are being implemented, as well as developing a SACU trade and tariff policy, and trade strategy that support industrialisation in SACU.

The heads of state have realised that there is an urgent need to deve-lop deliberate initiatives to promote intra-SACU trade. The other pressing matter is how to finance cross-border trade and the meeting has agreed that the SACU secretariat investigate various financing options.

Unfair trade practi-ces, as well as industrial, agricultural and competition policies must be addressed to make the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) more effective. SACU executive secretary, Tswelopele Moremi, says strategies needed to be developed and promoted in this regard to create win-win solutions.

SACU celebrates its 100th year of existence this year. According to Moremi, one of the problems the customs union faced was ensuring its members followed the principle of unified engagement in trade negotiations with third parties.

She said it had been decided that the different levels of development, of member countries, and their capacities, needed to be taken into account.

“Current calendars and strategic opportunities require that we do things in a different way to the benefit of all members of SACU,” Moremi said.

President Jacob Zuma said he was confident that decisions made at the meeting would take the organisation forward and lay the required building blocks for SACU’s future.

“This must be an organisation that is capable of advancing the promotion of cross-border trade and development. It must be able to forge new partnerships with regional, continental and global trade entities that will contribute to our development priorities,” explained Zuma.

UN Britain – Security Council Debate on Optimising the use of preventive diplomacy tools: prospects and challenges in Africa
www.isria.com/19_July_2010

Statement by HE Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations

Thank you Mr President,

Today’s debate is a welcome opportunity to highlight once again the importance of preventive diplomacy. I would like to thank you Minister for convening this meeting his morning. I would also like to pay tribute to Nigeria’s contribution to the work of the Security Council, including your stewardship of the Council this month. 

I would like to thank the Deputy Secretary General and Sarah Cliffe for their insights earlier in this debate.

Mr President,
I want to make three main points.

Firstly, the UK believes that the international community needs to give greater attention to conflict prevention. Particularly in the Security Council, with its unique responsibilities, we have a duty to ensure that people do not suffer the devastation that comes with violent conflict when it could have been prevented. And let us be clear, conflict prevention is an essential part of maintaining international peace and security. Indeed, arguably, it is the most important part.

Prevention is also cheaper than cure, but the balance of resources seems to have settled disproportionately in favour of peacekeeping rather than preventive diplomacy – that is, responding to conflict rather than preventing it. But powerful preventive diplomacy is not just a question of more resources. It is about making use of the full range of tools available to the UN across different stages of the conflict cycle. Recent experience in Kenya and the eastern DRC has demonstrated that the rapid deployment of mediation teams can be crucial for effective conflict prevention. We have shown ourselves capable of deploying forces preventatively to halt an escalation of tension into armed conflict. A good example of this was the deployment of a preventative force in Macedonia in 1995. And effective peacebuilding is, after all, a key means of preventing a relapse into conflict and I thought that Sarah Cliffe’s statistics on the relapse into civil war were very telling on this point. We need to be more confident that we are directing our resources to the places where they will have the greatest impact. And this means that however difficult it may be, we must have confidence that we can evaluate any efforts undertaken to prevent conflict.

Secondly, the Security Council – along with the rest of the UN system – needs to develop a genuine culture of prevention. This is largely a question of political will. It will sometimes involve difficult decisions about fast-moving situations in countries that are not currently on the Security Council’s agenda. But if the Council is to meet its responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security, Council members must be prepared to take those difficult decisions. 

As a practical step, we should minimise the obstacles to action by improving the information flow, between UN bodies, between the Secretariat and the Security Council, and between the UN and regional and sub-regional organisations:

– The Security Council should hear, as a matter of course, from the Secretary-General and his senior staff when they have visited regions where potential conflict is a concern. This is not to criticise their efforts to date. We, the Members States of the Council, must be ready to draw on the Secretariat’s early warning analysis and reporting on emerging conflicts; Linked to that the Secretary-General should offer regular advice to the Council on potential emerging conflicts, a sort of horizon scanning exercise.

– We should encourage greater exchange of expertise and information across the UN system on potential precursors to conflict. And there needs to be a mechanism within the UN for drawing tog
ether the different strands of information and analysis. We therefore welcome the work underway to strengthen the UN’s early warning capacity; 

– We should also seek a stronger dialogue with regional and sub-regional organisations on ways to prevent conflict, including on issues which we know can drive conflict such as illicit extraction of natural resources. 

Thirdly, the international community should continue to support and help develop the capacity of regional and sub-regional organisations. Timely AU-facilitated mediation, in areas such as Madagascar, Kenya and Guinea, played a vital role in preventing the escalation of conflict. The UK welcomes the efforts by the UN and the African Union together to create a Mediation Support Unit at the headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States. Through the African Peace Facility, the EU has provided €300 million in the last three years to support African-led peacekeeping operations. There is more still more that could be done.

Mr President,
As the British Foreign Secretary William Hague recently said, we need “a sharper focus on conflict prevention and to support the capacity of regional actors to take a leading role in promoting stability” and we hope that the Presidential Statement adopted today will provide some measure of political support to those ongoing efforts.

Thank you

CHINA :

China Should Reduce Dollar-Reserve Assets, Yu Writes
July 19/ (Bloomberg)

— China should reduce its holdings of U.S. dollar assets to diversify risks of “sharp depreciation,” Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the central bank, wrote in a commentary in the China Securities Journal.

The nation should convert some holdings currently in U.S. dollars into assets denominated in other currencies, commodities and direct investments overseas, he recommended. China’s dollar assets are surplus to requirements and the proportion is too high, Yu said.

“It’s completely possible and also necessary for China to expand direct investments in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” he wrote. “It’s also a rare opportunity for Chinese companies to acquire businesses overseas.”

The dollar has declined 7.5 percent against the euro since reaching a four-year high on June 7 as concern eased that a debt crisis would spread from Greece across the continent. Europe remains a key investment destination for China’s foreign- exchange reserves, Premier Wen Jiabao told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing on July 16, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

China, the biggest foreign investor in U.S. government bonds, lowered its holdings by $32.5 billion in May to $867.7 billion, the Treasury Department reported in Washington on July 16. The nation bought a net 735.2 billion yen ($8.3 billion) of Japanese bonds in May, doubling purchases for this year.

It is a good time to sell because demand for U.S. Treasuries is high, Yu wrote. China should adjust its investment holdings in U.S. debt by increasing exposure to short-term bills and reducing long-term notes, Yu said, according to the article.

China has slashed holdings of short-term U.S. debt, including bills, which dropped to $6.8 billion in May from a peak of $210.4 billion a year earlier, Treasury data showed.

Euro Swings

Yu said in an interview in May that swings in the euro shouldn’t have a “significant impact” on China’s strategy of diversifying its foreign-currency reserves. He said an “appropriate” policy for China would be to allocate its reserves with reference to the weightings of Special Drawing Rights, a unit of account of the International Monetary Fund.

The benefits of investing in U.S. government debt include “relatively good” safety, liquidity and low trading costs, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said July 7 in a statement on its website. China increasing or cutting the amount of U.S. debt it owns “is normal” and decisions are made based on market conditions, it said.

–Jiang Jianguo, Belinda Cao. Editors: Sandy Hendry

INDIA :

India’s Reliance comm shares jump on reported deal
(AFP) /19072010

MUMBAI — Shares in India’s Reliance Communications rose nearly four percent Monday on a media report that Abu Dhabi’s Etisalat was close to buying a 26-percent stake in the firm for 3.0 billion dollars.

Reliance, the country’s second biggest mobile phone firm, led by billionaire Anil Ambani, is looking for an investor to help raise cash to reduce its debt and upgrade its network.

Reliance Communications shares rose to a day’s high of 194.45 on Monday, up 3.92 percent. They have risen over 40 percent in the past two months, on speculation about interest by an overseas investor in the company.

“Etisalat is close to buying a 26 percent stake in Reliance Communications,” the Financial Times reported Monday, citing unnamed sources.

A Reliance official declined to comment on the matter.

Etisalat operates in 18 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, servicing over 100 million customers.

Last month, the Reliance Communications board gave the nod for a strategic or private equity investor to pick up 26-percent stake in the company.

Reliance paid the government 85.8 billion rupees (1.86 billion dollars) for third-generation (3G) spectrum at a recently concluded auction and is now expected to spend billions more upgrading its network.

BRASIL:

EN BREF, CE 19 juillet 2010… AGNEWS /OMAR, BXL,19/07/2010