[Africa’s first female Nobel Peace Laureate, Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai, 71, died of cancer, it was announced Monday by the environmental group she founded.]
BURUNDI :
Burundi : Inauguration du Centre mère-enfant Princesse Caroline
26/09/2011/ Podcast Burundi.mp3 (155.52 Ko)/ /www.podcastjournal.net
Dans la province de Bururi, l’une des 17 provinces du Burundi, le “Centre mère-enfant Princesse Caroline” a été inauguré par une délégation monégasque.
Le “Centre mère-enfant Princesse Caroline” est une structure de santé dans le cadre du programme qui vient en aide à 13000 enfants orphelins et à 40000 femmes enceintes. Cet organisme est appuyé et soutenu par l’AMADE Burundi, l’AMADE Mondiale, Fight Aids Monaco et par le Gouvernement Princier depuis 2008.
C’est lors de son déplacement au Burundi pour une mission “d’aide au développement menées dans le pays”, que la délégation monégasque, composée de MM. Francis Kasasa, le secrétaire général de l’AMADE et du directeur de la coopération monégasque, Jérôme Froissart, a participé à “l’inauguration officielle du Centre mère-enfant Princesse Caroline”. Celui-ci a été nommé ainsi afin de rendre hommage à l’investissement personnel de S.A.R. la Princesse de Hanovre auprès des enfants burundais.
Le Burundi est aujourd’hui le 16e pays le plus touché de l’Afrique subsaharienne par le VIH. Il compte 80000 orphelins et autres enfants vulnérables (OEV).
Un projet s’intitulant “Prise en charge communautaire des orphelins et autres enfants vulnérables” appuyé également par l’AMADE Burundi, l’AMADE Mondiale, Fight Aids Monaco et le Gouvernement Princier depuis 2008, s’est déjà vu noter des résultats très positifs, notamment concernant “l’accès aux soins de santé primaire pour 12700 OEV à partir du centre médico-social de Bururi et des centres de santé partenaires ; la scolarisation de 15000 OEV et la distribution de 36000 kits scolaires ; la construction de 240 logements sociaux ; la sensibilisation de 40000 femmes enceintes au dépistage du VIH/Sida et la formation professionnelle de 120 chefs de foyer, tuteurs d’orphelins”.
Prévue jusqu’en 2014, cette structure envisage aussi d’enrichir les prestations assurées par le “Centre mère-enfant Princesse Caroline” en y ajoutant des services de consultation prénatale, de planning familial, de consultation et de vaccination des nourrissons. Les personnes atteintes du VIH/SIDA se verront également bénéficier d’une meilleure prise en charge en matière de santé.
Un beau projet à suivre…
Grève des magistrats au Burundi
Pana /25/09/2011
Justice – Les magistrats du Burundi, en grève depuis lundi dernier, ont décidé de la prolonger jusqu’à fin septembre, si aucun accord n’intervenait entre le syndicat des magistrats du Burundi(SYMABU),et les pouvoirs publics sur une série de revendications corporatistes, apprend-on de source syndicale à Bujumbura.
D’après le président du syndicat, Claude Kabera, les revendications portent, entre autres, sur la mise en application intégrale du statut des magistrats en souffrance depuis 11 ans, le déblocage de la carrière des magistrats, ou encore l’indépendance de la magistrature.
Des négociations, ouvertes jeudi dernier, n’ont pas abouti, à ce jour, à des compromis satisfaisants pour les magistrats qui en sont à leur second mouvement de grève depuis le début de l’année 2011 pour les mêmes raisons.
RWANDA :
Rwanda: Local Investment Seminar Held in the Netherlands
25 September 2011/The New Times
The Rwanda Investment Seminar was an initiative of the Embassy, in collaboration with the Rwanda Chamber Foundation (RCF).
The purpose of the Seminar was to create awareness within the Dutch business community, of the abundant investment opportunities available in the Rwandan market, with the view to attracting potential investors to Rwanda.
In order to achieve this objective, key officials from both governments made presentations on the policies of both countries. Additionally, representatives of Dutch multinationals gave their first hand experiences in the Rwandan market.
Further, a four-persone delegation from Rwanda elaborated on investment options in various sectors. To provide the glue for future collaboration, enabling institutions provided various financial instruments and other incentives availableto facilitate future sustainable partnerships.
In her opening remarks, the Ambassador of Rwanda to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, H.E.Immaculée Uwanyiligira, highlighted the recent realignment of Dutch foreign policy as it pertains to development cooperation.
This new policy, she revealed, emphasizes, among others, economic diplomacy and the creationof an enabling environment which fosters an increasing role played by the private sector through international trade and investment.
She pointed out that this new policy is exactly in line with Rwanda’s own policies and thrust to energize and invigorate the private sector, which Rwanda has identified to be one of the critical engines for development.Ms. Uwanyiligiraunderlined that the convergence of both countries’ policies creates tremendous synergy poised to generate an impetus for closer colaboration within the two countries’ business communities.
Among the speakers were H.E. FransMakken, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Rwanda, who provided an overview of Rwanda’s investment environment, the regional perspective, the opportunties and challenges¸as well as the role of the Embassy in fostering cooperation under the new policy.
Mr. Simon Smits, the Director General of Foreign Economic Relations in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, (EL&I),further elaborated on the new Dutch development cooperation policy and emphasized his government’s commitment to engage with Rwanda.
On the same subject, Mr. Joost Bolt from EVD International, an office within the same Ministry, provided details on various government instruments available to assist the private sector, both in the Netherlands and in Rwanda, chief among them: the Private Sector Initiative (PSI) for foreign businesses, the Match Making Facility (MMF) to match foreign and Dutch businesses; and the ORIO program for large scale government projects in developing countries.
Mr. Bob van der Bijl from the Netherlands African Business Council (NABC), delivered a presentation on the role of the NABC in linking Dutch entrepreneurs with the African entrepreneurs.
He praised the initiative of the Embassy of Rwanda and pledged NABC’s support for future initiatives and follow up activities.
Key among the speakers, were representatives of Dutch conglomerates operating in Rwanda, namely: Heineken and Rabobank. Mr. Sven Piederiet, the CEO of Bralirwa/Heineken, provided an overview of Bralirwa’s history, its partnership with Heineken, and the long-term, profitable cooperation between the two companies that have yielded profits for the two companies and also for shareholders in its initial public offering (IPO) on Rwanda’s stock exchange.Mr.Piederiet gave a positive demographic outline of the consumer market in Rwanda and encouraged other companiesto invest in Rwanda’s dynamic emerging market.KLM was also represented in the audience.
Mr. Paul van Apeldoorn, Chief Commercial Officer for BanquePopulaire du Rwanda/Rabobank, gave an orientation of the financial sector and emphasised that Rwanda’s financial sector was stable and provided a variety of services for investors.
He also mentioned interesting aspects of Rwanda’s financial sector, such as the mobile banking, whichhe pointed out, were better developed than those in the Dutch financial sector.
Mr. Co Meijer, Managing Director of Kadaster International, described the success of his company, which recently completed a land registration project in Rwanda.
Investment opportunities in Rwanda
A four-person delegation travelled from Rwanda to participate in the Seminar. The delegation included Mr. James Mpunga, Director of the One Stop Shop, Rwanda Development Board (RDB), who gave the audience a flavour of the main reasons to invest in Rwanda;Ms.AlphonsineNiyigena, First Vice Chairperson, Private Sector Federation (PSF), who gave an outline of Rwanda’s nascent private sector;Mr. James Sano Deputy Director General, Water and Sanitation; Energy Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA), who gave two presentations on Water and Sanitation as well as the Energy Sector;and Mr. Alex Kanyankole, Deputy Director General, National Agriculture Export Board (NAEB), who gave a summary of investment opportunities in various sub-sectors in the Agriculture sector.
The event was attended byapproximately 100 participants, more than three quarters of whom were business leaders. This tremendous enthusiasm and interest demonstrated by the Dutch business community represents a positive momentum, which the Embassy will build upon to create tangible investment projects in the near future.
A concrete resolution that resulted from the Seminar was to plan a trade mission early in the coming year 2012.
Embassy Projects
Discover Rwanda Magazine
The Embassy used the occasion to introduce two projects commissioned by the Embassy. Just hot off the press, the Discover Rwanda magazine was a result of collaboration between the Embassy of Rwanda in the Netherlands with Your World Publishers.
The magazine contains tourisms oriented information as well as investment information.
Its sister magazine in the Dutch language, Ontdek Rwanda, will be available on newsstands across the Netherlands for the next three months. Discover Rwandawill also be available as a downloadable Apple applet on the online Apple Store.
University of Groningen Research Study on Dutch FDI in Rwanda
The Embassy also commissioned an academic study at the beginning of the year, to examine opportunities for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Rwanda as it pertains to the Dutch companies.
The study was carried out by students of the University of Groningen by six students, four of whom travelled to Rwanda in March/April for three weeks to collect data. The Results Book was published in June 2011.
The Embassy used this opportunity to introduce this Results Book to the business community, which is an invaluable resource for companies wishing to critically examine the Rwandan market by sector.
Rwanda: President Kagame Named Regional Development Icon
26 September 2011/The New Times
Inspire Africa, an NGO that brings together young entrepreneurs’ in East Africa, has named President Paul Kagame an icon for development in the region and an inspiration for the future poverty free generation.
Speaking to the media after visiting Gisozi Genocide Memorial yesterday, the chief executive of Inspire Africa, Nelson Tugume, noted that they decided to name Kagame the icon considering the tremendous reforms he has championed in Rwanda over the last 17 years.
“There is no doubt that out of all the leaders we have in the region, it is only President Kagame who has taken ICT, youth and women empowerment, business reforms as well as rural empowerment, as a priority and it is evident now,” he said.
Tugume is leading a 23-member delegation of young entrepreneurs from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the host Rwanda, which is in the country to support their fellow young entrepreneurs to set up their own businesses through a business competition that will see the winner bag US$50,000.
He noted that many youth interviewed in the region during the business competition referred to President Kagame as their inspiration to take up entrepreneurship.
In areas of empowerment, President Kagame was awarded the Global Leadership Award in March 2003 by the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) in recognition of his commitment and tireless work to address crises, to foster understanding, unity, and peace to benefit all people.
He also scooped “The Distinction of the Grand Cordon in the Most Venerable Order of the Knighthood of Pioneers” by Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in March 2009, for his exemplary exceptional contribution and leadership in promoting women rights. While in June 2009, he received the Children’s Champion Award by for UNICEF for Promoting Children’s Rights.
Tugume noted that in order to close the leadership crisis that is looming in Africa, there is urgent need to have leaders to inspire the young generation and also build an economic and political platform for young people to take up from.
“We are having these crises in Africa because we lack leaders who are willing to invest in their people especially in key drivers of economy like ICT, education and agriculture,” he said, adding that for Africa to develop, there must be leaders who are able to invest in easing doing business to attract more investors and support upcoming entrepreneurs.
Tugume, who is a young entrepreneur himself, with a car dealership company, among other ventures, said that Rwanda is destined to attract more investments because of the current reforms.
“I have been to many countries in Africa but I have not seen where it takes only one hour to register a business and this is what we need so that our investments can make us profits.”
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Francois Kanimba, re-affirmed the government’s commitment to making the country the ideal investment destination.
“We are now investing in promoting exports, trying to see how we can add value to our exports and also attracting more investors and it is obvious that what we have done is succeeding”, the minister noted
Tugume urged young entrepreneurs and business people to always contribute to social development to build potential markets for their products and services.
RDC CONGO:
RDC: la crainte d’un scénario “Côte d’Ivoire bis”
26/09/11/ belga/mb/ www.7sur7.be
Un candidat d’opposition évincé de la course pour l’élection présidentielle du 28 novembre prochain en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), le révérend Jean-Paul Moka Ngolo Mpati, a mis lundi en garde contre un scénario “Côte d’Ivoire bis” (des violences post-électorales) et appelé la communauté internationale à faire respecter les droits des candidats.
La Commission électorale nationale indépendante (Céni) a refusé d’accepter sa candidature, invoquant le fait que son dossier était incomplet faute du paiement des 50.000 dollars exigés comme caution. Le rejet de sa candidature a été confirmé ensuite par la Cour suprême de Justice (CSJ). Mais dans les deux cas, les procédures n’ont pas été respectées, a dénoncé M. Moka, qui préside le Mouvement bleu.
Selon lui, il a bien fourni la preuve du paiement de la caution, fait par le biais de l’Union des Banques congolaises (UBC), conformément aux instructions communiquées par la Céni. Mais, a-t-il accusé, la Céni s’est servie de la même feuille que pour les élections de 2006 sans se rendre compte que la banque UBC avait été liquidée en 2006 et reprise par la Banque Congolaise (BC).
Quant à la CSJ, elle s’est contentée d’annoncer sa décision à la télévision, sans recourir à un huissier pour la transmettre aux plaignants, a indiqué le révérend Moka, récemment rentré à Kinshasa d’exil en Belgique.
“Cette succession de faits me réconforte dans la conviction que la Côte d’Ivoire bis est bel et bien en marche et que les assurances de la Monusco (la Mission de l’ONU en RDC) n’y feront rien”, a-t-il indiqué dans un communiqué.(belga/mb)
26/09/11
RDC: plus de 19 000 candidats en lice pour les législatives
dimanche 25 septembre 2011 /www.rtbf.be/ Belga
Plus de 19 000 candidats vont s’affronter pour les 500 sièges de l’Assemblée nationale lors des élections législatives prévues le 28 novembre en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), a indiqué la Commission électorale nationale indépendante (Céni) sur son site internet.
La Céni a publié cette semaine en deux vagues, mercredi et vendredi, la liste provisoire de ces 19 253 candidats aux législatives enregistrés pour les onze provinces congolaises. Ce nombre est un record par rapport aux élections de 2006, où quelque 9 600 candidats s’étaient présentés pour 500 sièges également, souligne le Céni dans un communiqué.
Le plus grand nombre de candidatures pour ce scrutin à un tour a été enregistré dans la province-ville de Kinshasa, où 51 sièges sont à pourvoir, avec pas moins de 5734 dossiers déposés. Viennent ensuite le Bandundu (2325), le Katanga (2255), le Kasaï Oriental (1516), l’Equateur (1463), le Nord-Kivu (1457), le Kasaï-Occidental (1304), la Province orientale (1259), le Bas-Congo (980), le Sud-Kivu (879) et le Maniema (325).
Les recours en contestation peuvent être déposés à la Cour suprême de Justice (CSJ) du 24 au 27 septembre. La Commission doit aussi publier lundi la liste définitive des candidats retenus pour la présidentielle du 28 novembre, qui sera couplée aux législatives. La liste provisoire compte onze noms, dont celui du chef de l’Etat sortant, Joseph Kabila, candidat à sa propre succession pour un mandat de cinq ans.
Belga
RDC: élections législatives, fin des réclamations
radiookapi.net/ 2011/09/26
La Commission électorale nationale indépendante (Ceni) a clôturé, dimanche 25 septembre, la réception des réclamations des candidats aux élections législatives. A Kinshasa, plusieurs candidats étaient encore présents dimanche au bureau central de réception et de traitement des candidatures dans la commune de la Gombe pour signaler des erreurs matérielles.
Certains candidats se plaignent de la mauvaise orthographe de leurs noms. D’autres affirment avoir vu leurs noms repris deux fois sur la liste de leurs partis.
Certains partis politiques ont présenté un nombre de candidats supérieur au nombre de sièges à pourvoir dans la circonscription. Ce qui constitue une violation de l’alinéa 2 de l’article 22 de loi électorale RD Congo qui stipule qu’une liste présentée par un parti politique, un regroupement politique ou une candidature présentée par un indépendant est déclarée irrecevable lorsqu’elle porte un nombre de candidats supérieur au nombre maximum de sièges fixé pour chaque circonscription.
Le Parti du peuple pour la reconstruction et la démocratie (PPRD), par exemple, a présenté dix-sept candidats à la circonscription de Tshangu à Kinshasa alors qu’il n’y a que quinze sièges à pourvoir.
A Masimanimba dans la province du Bandundu, l’Union pour la nation congolaise (UNC) aligne neuf candidats et le Renovac, treize alors qu’il n’y a que six sièges à pourvoir.
Le Mouvement de libération du Congo (MLC) aligne quatre candidats dans la circonscription de Bongandanga en Equateur. Cette circonscription ne dispose que de trois sièges à pourvoir.
De son côté, la Ceni indique que les contestations liées au contenu de ces listes doivent être adressées à la cours suprême de justice.
La date de la fin du dépôt des réclamations pour les provinces du Katanga, Bandundu et Kasaï-Oriental est fixée pour le mardi 27 septembre.
UGANDA :
Is the tide changing in favour of term limits within NRM?
By William G. Naggaga /www.monitor.co.ug/ Monday, September 26 2011
One fine day in 1996, I had a candid discussion with Mr James Wapakhabulo, then Speaker of the National Assembly and formerly the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1995 Constitution of Uganda. The late Wapakhabulo and I had known each other right from our teenage days in Mbale. He was no doubt one of the friendliest and most reliable persons one can find anywhere. A staunch member of the NRM, Mr Wapakhabulo mixed freely with the opposition legislators; who saw him as the “acceptable face of the Movement”. NRM is indeed the poorer without him.
In our discussion, I pointed out to him that the new Constitution had areas where the drafters could have done a better job; in particular the imposition of decentralisation as a substitute for federalism, the excessive powers given to the President and the failure to properly “entrench” term limits in the Constitution, in order to prevent future manipulations. I will stick with the issue of term limits.
Mr Wapakhabulo’s view was that enough safeguards had been built into the Constitution to prevent political opportunism. He was confident the NRM leadership, as he knew it, was totally committed to upholding and protecting the Constitution it had itself engineered. A new political era had dawned and President Museveni would hand over power after his second term of office. Wapa was certainly an idealist and believed his comrades in the Movement were committed to same principles. I had my doubts and told him so.
My idea of entrenching the term limits was informed by the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which provided for a directly elected president to serve for a single six-year term of office. This has been respected by all Mexican presidents to this day. In the case of Uganda, however, the two-term limit was never even tested to see how it would work, as Parliament in 2005 amended the Constitution to remove term limits altogether.
Recent events in North Africa and Uganda have reinforced my belief that the drafters of the 1995 Constitution should not have left the doors open for the Constitution to be amended so easily for reasons of greed and selfishness. Across North Africa, regimes that had overstayed their welcome or ‘sell by date’ were falling like dominos – Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, as people pressed relentlessly for change tired of looking at the same old faces at the top for decades, without end. A colleague of mine recently reminded me that, the older we get the more stubborn and incorrigible we become. Unlike wine which gets better with age, the reverse is true especially with men. The erratic and bizarre behaviour of once respectable men like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Dr Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi are a case in point.
Finally, the revelations in WikiLeaks of ‘confessions’ to the American Ambassador by some NRM stalwarts; calling on the US and the UK to put pressure on President Museveni to reinstate term limits is a sign that within NRM itself, many are beginning to question the wisdom behind the decision to abolish term limits in 2005. Mr John Nagenda, Senior Presidential Adviser on media matters, also weighed in by publicly stating that over the years the President has become mischievous and more autocratic (is it age?) and it was time for him to slow down and delegate more; while preparing to exist the stage. It was a bold statement by a steadfast defender of the President but let us not celebrate yet. There is no mass movement in NRM to cause this change in the near future.
Mr Naggaga is an economist, administrator and retired ambassador.
Uganda could refund $405m in tax as oil company lodges dispute in London
By Halima Abdallah and Julius Barigaba /www.theeastafrican.co.ke/ Sunday, September 25 2011
Uganda could return over $405 million in taxes to Heritage Oil and Gas Ltd should a dispute the company has lodged for arbitration in London against the government succeed.
According to documents seen by The EastAfrican, Heritage makes further claims on interests on the sum accruing from May last year, and damages for delay on the part of government to transfer its interest to Tullow oil.
The money in dispute arose from Heritage’s sale of its rights at $1.45bn to Tullow oil.
Basing its assessment on the provision of Income Tax Act, the Uganda Revenue Authority arrived at $405m of which $121.4m, representing only 30 per cent of the claim amount, was paid.
“The disposal of Heritage’s rights under the Production Sharing Agreement, including licences, gives rise to no income derived from sources in Uganda. Heritage will ask the arbiters to declare so,” Heritage says.
However, the government made its consent conditional upon Tullow Oil making a payment of $313.4m under the terms of the memorandum of understanding that was signed in March. Tullow obliged, paving the way for further deals with France’s Total and China’s CNOOC.
Indemnity
In an effort to recover its money, Tullow sued Heritage in a commercial court in London. Tullow’s argument incidentally exonerates the government from any liability in respect to Heritage. According to Tullow, the money it paid was within the scope of the taxation indemnity of the PSA agreement.
Tullow’s argument corroborates an earlier statement that the former energy minister, Eng Hilary Onek, made before the 8th Parliament that the $405m was paid and that the MoU that was signed between Tullow and the government allowed all disputes to be settled in the country.
“Tullow’s claims in these proceedings are not well founded. Heritage will claim the costs of these proceedings, subject to giving credit for sums recovered from Tullow,” Heritage contends.
In a twist of events, Heritage has invoked the arbitration clause as per the PSA, claiming that it does not have any tax liability. Alternatively, should the arbiters find it liable, it should declare that it is because of changes in laws or regulations.
The company is relying on a provision within the PSA to prove its case.
“If following the effective date there is any change or series of changes in the laws or regulation of Uganda which materially reduces the economic benefits derived or to be derived by the licensee, the licensee may notify the government accordingly and thereafter the parties shall meet and negotiate in good faith and agree upon the necessary modifications to this agreement to restore the licensee to substantially the same overall economic position as prevailed prior to changes,” reads the PSA.
Heritage’s view is that the Ugandan government should have taken the matter for arbitration as per the PSA, but chose to initiate a litigation process in the Tax Appeal Tribunal. The TAT proceeding was halted early this month pending resolutions from arbitration.
Heritage’s opting for an arbiter is to provide room for negotiation and making necessary modifications to the PSA signed with government in 2004. The modifications will ultimately indemnify Heritage in respect of any tax liability and restore it to substantially the same overall economic position as prevailed prior to the relevant changes.
“If Tullow’s claims are well founded, and Heritage does not recover damages for breach of PSA, it will ask for a restitution award against the Ugandan government in respect of the amount of any judgment sum, including interests awarded in favour of Tullow. The Uganda government would otherwise be unjustly enriched at Heritage’s expense,” Heritage stated in its arbitration document.
The Ugandan government has allocated $4.2 million to the case that is before the London Court of Arbitration.
There is pressure from parliament that the government make public the oil deals that were signed in 2004 before it declares whether or not Uganda should be before the Court of Arbitration over the $405 million tax dispute that resulted from Heritage’s sale of its oil blocks to Tullow in 2009.
At the height of this tiff last year, former energy minister Hillary Onek said that once Uganda had been paid the tax it was demanding from this transaction, it was free from the conspiracies of the oil firms to cheat Uganda, and hence, had lost any interest in this case.
The Shadow Attorney-General has led a campaign to gather signatures of MPs that would cause the recall of the House from its recess to urgently debate the oil agreements and determine the way forward regarding Uganda’s status before the Court of Arbitration.
According to Mr Onek, Uganda’s current status in the case was that of observer.
Uganda to block counterfeits
Monday, 26 September 2011 / Paul Tentena / . www.busiweek.com
KAMPALA, UGANDA- Uganda is working out measures that will ensure that all counterfeited products are blocked from entering the country from where they are shipped to Uganda.
According to Mr. Nyombi Thembo, the State Minister for Information and Communications Ttechnology, after the enactment of the anti counterfeiting bill, Ugandan high commissions and embassies would be used to monitor and block suspected counterfeits destined to Uganda.
“The embassies and our missionaries will help us to ensure that these goods don’t come. We’re also strengthening the Uganda National Bureau of Standards to ensure blockage and prosecution at all border points,” said the minister.
He was welcoming Hewlett-Packard, commonly referred to as HP an American multinational information technology corporation. The company opened an office in Uganda to ensure that the HP products that are supplied to Uganda are not counterfeits.
Uganda’s Anti Counterfeiting Bill of 2008 was delayed, after health rights activists campaigned against it, insisting that, despite some improvements, the bill could affect the availability of generic medicine.
The bill stated that “in the case of medicines, (counterfeiting) includes the deliberate and fraudulent mislabeling of medicines with respect to identity or source, whether or not such products have correct ingredients, wrong ingredients, have sufficient active ingredients or have fake packaging.” This was opposed by health activists.
Mr. Stefanos Giourelis the managing director Hewlett-Packard Africa said commercial customers would access HP products and services, allowing them to transform their businesses by taking advantage of the improved IT infrastructure, a future based cloud computing and connectivity services.
“Governments can leverage our technology to drive economic growth and stability by modernizing the delivery of services in key areas such as education, healthcare and e-Government services,” said Giourelis.
The HP boss who appointed Mr. Chris Mutua, the country manager, added that his company will broaden access of its consumer printer and PCs in Uganda.
SOUTH AFRICA:
South African Markets – Factors to watch on Sept 26
By Ed Stoddard / Reuters /Mon Sep 26, 2011
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 26
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 26 (Reuters) – The following company announcements, scheduled economic indicators, debt and currency market moves and political events may affect South African markets on Monday.
DIARY
For South Africa corporate diary, click on
For southern and South Africa diary, click on
COMPANIES
Avi Ltd , Kap International and Group 5 trade ex-dividend.
SOUTH AFRICAN MARKETS
South Africa’s rand jumped more than 2 percent against the dollar on Friday, rebounding from 28-month lows overnight as investors tip-toed back to high-yielding assets they had dumped on a global wave of risk aversion this week.
Government bonds were slower to pick up after a sell-off that has seen net foreign outflows of more than 8 billion rand ($967 million)worth of local debt so far this month, compared with inflows of nearly 11 billion rand in August.
South African stocks ended lower on Friday but bounced off session lows as investors snapped up downtrodden stocks such as ArcelorMittal South Africa.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Asian shares and the euro fell on Monday as investors reacted cautiously to reports that European leaders were working on new ways to stop the fallout from the euro zone sovereign debt crisis wreaking more damage on the world economy.
WALL STREET
The Dow Jones industrial average on Friday suffered its worst week since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, stung by severe anxiety over Europe’s spiraling debt crisis and a warning from the Federal Reserved about the U.S. economy.
But stocks ended higher on Friday after a disastrous four days of selling, which helped push down the S&P 500 index 6.6 percent for the week.
For the week, the Dow dropped 6.4 percent for its worst weekly performance since October 2008 and the Nasdaq lost almost 5.3 percent
GOLD
Gold and silver prices tumbled on Monday, led by a nearly 10 percent drop in spot silver prices , as investors liquidated their positions on fears of an impending recession.
Spot gold fell more than 3 percent to $1,604.29 an ounce, wiping off gains over the past two months.
EMERGING MARKETS
For the top emerging markets news, double click on
– – – –
Some of the main stories out in the South African press:
BUSINESS DAY
– Tanzania not rushing mines tax.
– Global demand for copper, especially in China, is putting pressure on the Gautrain, which has lost millions through cable theft, the CEO of the Gautrain Management Agency says.
BUSINESS REPORT
– Kumba employees to get 500,000 rand ($60,400) windfall: employee share option scheme described as “exceptionally generous.” ($1 = 8.273 South African Rand) (Compiled by Ed Stoddard)
Anglo, Amalgamated Appliances: South African Equity Preview
September 26, 2011/By Stephen Gunnion/ Bloomberg/ www.businessweek.com
Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) — The following stocks may rise or fall in South Africa. Symbols are in parentheses and prices are from the last close.
The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index declined for a third day, dropping 261.83, or 0.9 percent, to 30,061.21 at the 5 p.m. close in Johannesburg, extending the week’s loss to 3.2 percent.
Anglo American Plc (AGL SJ): Operations at the mining company’s Los Bronces mine in central Chile returned to normal after a power outage that blacked out the country’s central regions on Sept. 24 affected a crusher, Anglo American spokesman Marcelo Esquivel wrote in an e-mail. The stock closed 1.1 percent higher at 285.72 rand.
Amalgamated Appliance Holdings Ltd. (AMA SJ): The distributor of brands including Hoover and Pioneer releases results for the year through June. Earnings per share from continuing operations will be as much as 27 percent higher, the company said in a trading statement on July 13. Shares in the company declined 0.6 percent to 1.71 rand.
The following stocks will begin trading without the right to the latest dividend: AVI Ltd. (AVI SJ), Clover Industries Ltd. (CLR SJ), Group Five Ltd. (GRF SJ), Kap International Holdings Ltd. (KAP SJ), Mustek Ltd. (MST SJ).
–Editor: Anthony Aarons
South Africa Hajj Turmoil .
OnIslam & Newspapers /Monday, 26 September 2011
CAIRO – Thousands of South Africa Muslims have been denied hajj this year due to inaccurate number of Muslims the Saudi government believed to exist in the country on which the hajj quote is defined.
“The whole Hajj industry in South Africa is in turmoil,” Shaheen Essop, secretary-general of the South African Hajj and Umrah Council (Sahuc), told Independent Online.
This year, 8000 South African Muslims applied to embark on the spiritual journey to Makkah this year, 79% of whom were first-time applicants.
However, the hajj permission was given only to 3000 of them, shattering the dreams of thousands of Muslims.
The Saudi government cited the rejection due to the number of Muslims it believed to be in South Africa, which was 2.5 million.
But these figures were believed to be based on the 2001 census, which were much less than actual figures currently.
“Census 2011 may help to correct these figures if the question of religious following is asked,” Essop said.
Muslims from around the world pour into Makkah every year to perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam.
Hajj consists of several ceremonies, which are meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials of Prophet Abraham and his family.
Every able-bodied adult Muslim who can financially afford the trip must perform hajj at least once in a lifetime.
Islam was first introduced to the then Cape of Good hope in 1654 by political exiles and slaves working for the Dutch East India Company that operated between Cape Town, Holland and the then East Indies.
According to 2001 census, Muslims make up to 1.5 percent of South Africa’s 44-million population.
Great Loss
The decision to deny thousands hajj visa this year was devastating to many Muslims who dreamt of performing the spiritual journey this year.
“I am 42 years old and wanted to go with my wife,” Johannesburg resident Afzal Moola said.
Moola paid a deposit of R40 000, which he has yet to recover. He has high blood pressure and wants to go now, “while I still can”.
Mohammed Waza, 33, of Mpumalanga, was one hopeful pilgrim whose dream ended in disappointment.
He will reapply next year.
Not only hajj hopefuls were disappointed by the decision as many travel agencies lost millions of rand.
“From an agent’s point of view it’s frustrating,” Abu-baker Ahmed, Flywell travel agency owner, said.
“We budgeted on 800 people and accommodation is prepaid 18 months in advance. Now we don’t even have 200 places.”
Ahmed urged the Saudis to increase the quota of South African Muslims to cope with the actual number of Muslims in 2011 census.
“The Saudis must increase our quota,” he said.
“I agree with quotas. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina do not have limitless space and there is a lack of infrastructure for everybody to come at once,” he added.
South Africa police chief faces suspension: report
(AFP) /25092011
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s top policeman is expected to be suspended in the coming days over allegedly fraudulent police leases, the Sunday Times reported.
According to the South African Sunday paper, President Jacob Zuma will sign a letter suspending Bheki Cele upon his return from New York, where he attended the UN general assembly.
The national police commissioner was accused by the country’s anti-graft body of turning a blind eye to lease agreements reached with businessman Roux Shabangu for police office space at three times the market rate.
Zuma’s spokesman was quoted by the newspaper as admitting that a suspension had “the potential for causing some uncertainty in the police force.”
South Africa’s crime intelligence chief Richard Mdluli appeared in court on Thursday over fraud allegations, adding to a murder charge which led to his suspension in March.
Cele was appointed police chief in 2009 to replace Jackie Selebi, who had also been suspended on corruption charges and was last year sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Afrikaner: ANC Government Must Issue Visa To Dalai Lama
www.unpo.org/ September 26, 2011
The ANC has rejected the Dalai Lama’s request for a visa to visit South Africa. This rejection by the ANC will tarnish South Africa’s human rights image as it places economic opportunities through strengthening relations with China over promoting the right of self-determination world-wide.
MEDIA RELEASE
SUBJECT : ANC GOVERNMENT MUST ISSUE VISA TO DALAI LAMA
ISSUED BY : Dr. Corné Mulder
CAPACITY : FF Plus spokesperson: International Relations
DATE : 23 September 2011
The ANC’s international view on human rights and self-determination is becoming increasingly ambiguous, dishonest and confusing. As far as Palestine goes, the ANC has given its support to the Palestinian application to be granted membership of the UN as an independent state, as according to the ANC, Palestine is entitled to self-determination. When it however deals with Tibet’s claim to self-determination, the ANC is not even prepared to issue the Dalai Lama with a visa to enter the country. The only explanation for this is that the ANC does not like Israel but is great friends with China.
“The ANC should however keep in mind that the Dalai Lama has just returned from Brazil following an extended visit to that country. Just like South Africa, Brazil is also part of the Brics group and did not at all give heed to China’s attitude toward the Dalai Lama. South Africa will therefore not be able to use the excuse that the visit of the Dalai Lama will result in economic restriction from China, as China did not place any economic restrictions on its other economic partner in Brics, i.e. Brazil,” Dr. Corné Mulder, the chief spokesperson on International Relations for the Freedom Front Plus says.
“President Zuma blasted the UN yesterday because NATO used military power to assist the National Transitional Council in Libya to get rid of Gaddafi. The ANC does however not see any problem with the fact that China had invaded Tibet in 1959 with military power to “free the people of Tibet from the oppression of the Dalai Lama”, Dr. Mulder added.
The ANC, for fifty years fought its struggle against apartheid under the banner of human rights. They mustered huge international support with it. The price which the ANC is going to pay, should they refuse to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama is huge. The damage to the South African government’s “human rights image” cannot be counted in rand and cent alone. By taking such a decision, South Africa will lose the international perception that following 1994 the country is “unique” and different to the rest of the African countries. The government will lose the moral high ground, which up to now has determined South Africa’s status in many international forums.
From an Afrikaner point of view, it would once again reveal the ANC as an organisation which says one thing and does another. It is necessary that the world gets to know the ANC as it really is. Should the ANC refuse to issue the Dalai Lama with a visa, it would once again display its double standards to the international community.
TANZANIA:
Political thuggery in Igunga deplored
Monday, 26 September 2011/By Bernard Lugongo,The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam. Political observers have been alarmed by the deteriorating security in Igunga and are calling on the government, politicians and the general public to ensure civility prevails as campaigns for the forthcoming by-elections continue.
Speaking to The Citizen yesterday, a cross section of commentators appealed to law enforcement agencies to effect the necessary interventions in Igunga and restrain political parties and politicians endangering peace.
Amid the calls, reports from Igunga said yesterday that political thuggery continued and at one point a journalist was assaulted by men said to be security detail for one of major political parties.
Those who commented on the developments, told The Citizen that civilised wananchi should ensure there is peace by shunning parties and individual politicians who are inclined to violence.
They were reacting to fresh fears and tensions that dominated the Igunga constituency when on Saturday, it reached a point where some people opted to sort out their political differences with the use of firearms.
Police have already interrogated a number of politicians in connection with the Saturday incident where a vehicle belonging to Ms Easther Bulaya (Special Seats – CCM) was damaged.
The incident was part of a series of disputes and hate speeches characterising the ongoing campaigns ahead of next Sunday poll in the area.
The co-chair of the University of Dar es Salaam’s Research on Democracy Education in Tanzania (Redet), Dr Benson Bana, said the situation was shocking. He said such acts, if not controlled immediately, threaten the growth of democracy in the country.
He said the stiff competition was expected in Igunga, but right thinking Tanzanians did not anticipate politicians would sink to the level of using guns against one another.
“But the police have also proved a failure… the Inspector General of Police should beef up security in the constituency, otherwise we will witness more nasty incidents,” he said.
He also asked the political parties participating in the by-election to sit with security organs and discuss the matter in a bid to find an immediate solution.
Mr Ali Salehe, a journalist and political commentator based in Zanzibar, also said the Government should call political parties and discuss with them before the situation gets out of hand.
He also said the National Electoral Commission (NEC) should immediately act in accordance with the prevailing laws. The Tanzania Centre for Democracy (TCD) should also intervene swiftly, he urged.
He called on political parties to understand that Igunga was not different from any other constituency. “They should not treat it like a special case,” he warned.
For his part, the CCM publicity and ideology secretary, Mr Nape Nnauye said the only way to avoid chaos was to for everybody to respect the law.
“This is not a question mediation, there is no need to reach that point, we’re all supposed to subscribe to the laws of the land and regulations. if we do so, this by-election will be concluded peacefully,” he said.
Mr Julius Mtatiro, CUF deputy secretary-general (Mainland), argued that Police Force had the responsibility of taking instant actions to protect the people.
“Security organs must ensure that they effectively control campaign rallies by providing full security,” he said
According to him, Igunga residents have the power to end the chaos by distancing themselves from parties and politicians that have been fuelling disorder.
However, he urged the ruling CCM and opposition Chadema to marshal wisdom in handling their differences.
The secretary General of the opposition NCCR-Mageuzi, Samwel Ruhuza also called on wananchi to shun chaos acts those who perpetrate it.
Meanwhile, a journalist with Jambo Leo, Mr Mussa Mkama, was on Saturday evening beaten by people believed to be CCM security guards at Peak Hotel where he was honouring an interview appointment with Ms Bulaya.
The incident occurred after the interview when Mr Mkama was called by one security guard who started to beat him. His colleague, Mr George Maziku, was unable to restrain the assailants and only the intervention by another security guard saved Mr Mkama from further punishment.
During the scuffle, Mr Mkama says, he lost valuable documents and property including a modem and a wallet with about Sh425,000.
Reached for comment, Ms Bulaya confirmed to have had an interview with Mr Mkama but denied to have any knowledge of the assault as she immediately went to another meeting after that.
The matter has been reported to the police and Mr Mkama has received treatment at the Igunga district hospital.
(Additional reporting by Ray Naluyaga, Igunga).
Tanzania Increases Prices of Gasoline, Diesel, Kerosene
By David Malingha Doya – /www.bloomberg.com/ Sep 25, 2011
Tanzania increased gasoline, diesel and kerosene prices as the cost of petroleum products rose in international markets.
The price of gasoline has been raised by 3.6 percent, diesel by 2.4 percent and kerosene by 1.8 percent, the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority said in an e-mailed statement today. The changes will be effective for two weeks starting Sept. 26.
The so-called indicative price for gasoline will be 2,102 Tanzanian shillings per liter, while the same measure of diesel will be 1,999 shillings and kerosene 1,967 shillings in Dar es Salaam, the country’s commercial capital, according to the statement.
KENYA:
First African woman to win Nobel Peace Prize dies
www.usatoday.com/ 2011-09-26
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Wangari Maathai, the first African woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, died after a long struggle with cancer, the environmental organization she founded said Monday. She was 71.
One of Kenya’s most recognizable women, Maathai won the Nobel in 2004 for combining environmentalism and social activism. She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, where over 30 years she mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees.
Edward Wageni, that group’s deputy executive director, said Maathai died in a Nairobi hospital late Sunday. Maathai was in and out of the hospital since the beginning of the year, he said.
In recognizing Maathai, the Nobel committee said that she had stood up to a former oppressive regime in Kenya and that her “unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression.”
Maathai said during her 2004 acceptance speech that the inspiration for her life work came from her childhood experiences in rural Kenya, where she witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed biodiversity and the capacity of forests to conserve water.
Although the Green Belt Movement’s tree planting campaign did not initially address the issues of peace and democracy, Maathai said it become clear over time that responsible governance of the environment was not possible without democracy.
“Therefore, the tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilized to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement,” Maathai said.
Tributes poured out for Maathai online, including from Kenyans who remember planting trees alongside her as schoolchildren. One popular posting on Twitter noted that Maathai’s knees always seemed to be dirty from showing VIPs how to plant trees. Another poster, noting Nairobi’s cloudy skies Monday, said: “No wonder the sun is not shining today.”
A long time friend and fellow professor at the University of Nairobi, Vertistine Mbaya said that Maathai showed the world how important it is to have and demonstrate courage.
“The values she had for justice and civil liberties and what she believed were the obligations of civil society and government,” Mbaya said. “She also demonstrated the importance of recognizing the contributions that women can make and allowing them the open space to do so.”
A former member of Kenya’s parliament, Maathai was the first woman to earn a doctorate in East Africa — in 1971 from the University of Nairobi, where she later was an associate professor in the department of veterinary anatomy. She previously earned degrees from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas and the University of Pittsburgh.
Maathai first latched on to the idea of widespread tree planting while serving as the chairwoman of the National Council of Women in Kenya during the 1980s.
The Green Belt Movement, which was founded in 1977, said on its website that Maathai’s death was a great loss to those who “admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and better place.”
Maathai is survived by her three children. Funeral arrangements were to be announced soon, the Green Belt Movement said.
Kenyan Shilling Weakens to Record Low, Passing 100 Per Dollar
By Editors: Ana Monteiro /www.bloomberg.com/ – Sep 26, 2011
…Kenya’s shilling weakened to a record low, breaching 100 per dollar on concern that Europe will struggle to contain its debt crisis, curbing demand for riskier, frontier-market assets.
The currency of East Africa’s biggest economy depreciated as much as 1.7 percent to 100.5 per dollar and was trading 1.6 percent lower at 100.38 by 11:08 a.m. in Nairobi, the capital.
“The weakening of the shilling is a reaction to the unresolved euro debt crisis which is causing all emerging-market currencies to weaken, and with businesses’ month-end obligations coming through it’s likely to remain under pressure,” Jeremiah Kendagor, acting head of trading at Nairobi-based Kenya Commercial Bank Ltd., said by phone
Emerging-market stocks fell to a two-year low and most European equities retreated as Europe’s finance ministers and central bankers urged policy makers to intensify efforts to contain the region’s debt crisis.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner warned at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund that failure to combat the Greek-led turmoil threatened “cascading default, bank runs and catastrophic risk.”
Kenya’s central bank said it injected liquidity into domestic financial markets last week and vowed to take further action to smooth currency volatility after the shilling fell to a 17-year low. The shilling has depreciated 20 percent this year, making it the world’s second-worst performer against the dollar as inflation in East Africa’s biggest economy soared to 16.7 percent, more than triple the government’s target.
Market Rate
Central Bank of Kenya said it is “committed to a market- determined exchange rate as long as it is supported by fundamentals,” Governor Njuguna Ndung’u said in an e-mailed statement from Nairobi on Sept. 23.
“The central bank statement may spook investors who may interpret it to mean the regulator may impose any type of currency restriction,” Aly-Khan Satchu, head of Rich Management, a Nairobi-based advisory company, said by phone.
The shilling may weaken to as low as 110 shillings per dollar, he said, without giving a timeline. “One hundred is a totemic number that captures the market’s imagination and that of every single Kenyan,” Satchu said.
Kenyan Chelimo sets scorching pace
By RANDY PHILLIPS, The Gazette /www.montrealgazette.com/ September 26, 2011
As gruelling as running 42.2 kilometres was in unseasonably warm and humid conditions, Luka Kipkemboi Chelimo still managed a wave and a smile to an appreciative crowd as he crossed the finish line of Sunday’s Montreal Oasis Marathon.
The 32-year-old professional runner from Eldoret, Kenya, won the 21st edition of the marathon in record time. Chelimo crossed the line in the elite men’s event in two hours, 13 minutes, 44.5 seconds, more than two minutes faster than the record set in 2007 by fellow Kenyan Moiben Laban.
Seventeen-year-old Ethiopian Serkalem Abrha successfully defended her title in the elite women’s category Sunday, posting a record time of 2: 33.21.
A record 24,000 participants took part in the multidiscipline running spectacle, which ended on a tragic note with the death of a 32-yearold male participant of a suspected heart attack. The unidentified man collapsed at Pie IX Blvd. and Rosemont Ave., shortly after 11 a.m. with less than two kilometres to go to the finish area in Maisonneuve Park.
Urgences Santé spokesman Guy Saint-Pierre said paramedics were nearby when the man fell to the ground, and they tried to resuscitate him. He was transported by ambulance to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
It was believed the man suffered cardiac arrest, which Saint-Pierre suggested may have been the result of the hot conditions, which saw upward of 40 participants require medical attention, including more than a dozen who were taken to hospitals.
Chelimo led an impressive sweep by Kenyan runners of the top five places in the elite division, as 30-year-old Thomas Omwenga and 23-year-old Peter Lemayian Nkaya, both from Nairobi, finished second and third in times of 2: 14: 35 and 2: 18.06, respectively.
Chelimo and Abrha each took home first-place prize money of $10,000.
The full marathon and 21-kilometre half-marathon started from the centre span of the Jacques Cartier Bridge and finished in the huge park north of Olympic Stadium for the first time, after having finished inside the stadium in previous years.
“It was a good race on a good course,” said Chelimo, who finished more than three minutes off his personal best of 2: 10: 11 set last October in South Korea.
“There weren’t any steep hills to go up … or down, and that was good because it was very warm (and humid) today,” he said. “I had to take lots of water.”
Chelimo and Omwenga, who are training partners, ran practically shoulder to shoulder for much of the race before the latter started to fall behind a few paces.
“The lead went back and forth for a while, but not by much,” Omwenga said.
“With the (humidity) the last 16 kilometres were very difficult.”
It was Chelimo’s fourth career marathon win, coming a little more than a year after he took the 2010 Perth Rebel Sports City to Surf Marathon in Australia.
It also was the second victory by a Kenyan in an international marathon Sunday, following Patrick Makau at the Berlin Marathon. Makau ran to a world record time of 2: 03: 38 – 21 seconds better than the old record set in 2008 by Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie in Berlin.
Lamech Mokono, who won in Montreal in 2008, finished fourth yesterday in 2: 18: 51.1, and Choge Julius Kirwa, the defending champion, was fifth in 2: 24: 59.9.
rphillips@ montrealgazette.com
Kenya PM says under pressure to close Somali border
(AFP) /25092011
UNITED NATIONS — Kenya’s prime minister said Saturday he was under mounting pressure to close the border with Somalia as he joined other African leaders pleading for help to counter a spreading famine.
With tens of thousands already dead and a camp in Kenya now housing 500,000 famine refugees, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the United Nations should set up camps inside Somalia.
Odinga and leaders from Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia pushed for greater international action at a UN summit on the crisis as the World Bank near quadrupled aid to the Horn of Africa countries to $1.9 billion from $500 million.
The United Nations estimates that 750,000 people are at risk of death from starvation and that 13 million need urgent help.
The Dadaab camp in Kenya has become the world’s biggest refugee complex because of the famine crisis with thousands arriving each week.
Kenya has “a problem” with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) over the location and cost of camps, Odinga said at the launch of a charter to avoid hunger before summit. “We don’t share their argument,” he said.
“There have been a lot of pressures on us to close the border. But as a government we cannot close the border because that would mean condemning innocent people to death.”
Many refugees are fleeing areas of Somalia under the control of Shebab Islamist insurgents who have restricted access to the UN and private aid groups.
Odinga said however that there are growing problems getting water and fuel for Dabaab which was designed to house 90,000 people.
“We are calling for much stronger collaboration among the international community to deal with this, so that we can create another zone within Somalia and put up tents and camps there.”
He said the international community should send supplies “so that people can be fed in Somalia so that they don’t have to cross the border to come into Kenya.”
But UN Humanitarian Coordinator Valerie Amos said the United Nations opposed opening camps in Somalia.
“Kenya has been very generous in terms of hosting refugees from Somalia since 1991,” she said.
UN agencies were seeking to increase the number of people getting food and healthcare in Somalia, but Amos said the UN was “not in favour” of camps on the Somali side of the border.
Somalia’s Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali told the UN summit that another 500,000 people have fled to the capital Mogadishu, where government forces and African Union troops have taken control of most zones from Shebab fighters.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the “crisis grows deeper by the day” across the Horn of Africa as he appealed for greater international financial assistance.
He said $750 million dollars would be needed to provide food and medicine this year and even more next year.
The World Bank said its extra finance would be spread over three years with $288 million in “rapid response” funds to be given between now and next June.
Bob Geldof, the rock singer who organized the Live Aid concerts to raise funds for Africa in 1985, also appeared at the “Charter To End Extreme Hunger” and said the western world was allowing a “grotesque horror” in the Horn of Africa.
“It is bewildering for me to be talking like this 25 years later,” Geldof said at the ceremony where the Kenyan prime minister became the first government leader to sign the charter drawn up by a group of aid agencies.
“There seems to be a perfect storm of social challenges confronting us … ones that we appear to be incapable of dealing with,” Geldof said, blasting “a chronic lack of leadership by the governments of the world.”
Kenya: 17 Killed in Bus Accident
Barnabas Bii and Bernard Kwalia/Daily Nation On The Web/25 September 2011
Nairobi — Seventeen people were killed and over 80 others injured when a bus they were travelling in crashed on the Kakuma-Lodwar highway.
Four passengers died on the spot while the injured were taken to Lodwar District Hospital after the Kitale-bound bus rolled several times near Nasger in Loima, some 40 km from Lodwar town.
“The vehicle veered off the road and rolled several times after hitting a pot hole,” said the Turkana Central police boss, Mr Njoroge wa Mwaura.
He said two passengers were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Hospital sources said 11 other passengers died while undergoing treatment following the 5 pm accident.
In critical condition
Three critically injured passengers have been referred to Eldoret’s Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital for specialised treatment.
A rescue team, led by Mr Mwaura, Kenya Red Cross and World Vision personnel helped save victims who had been trapped in the mangled vehicle.
It took them almost four hours to rescue casualties trapped in the bus.
Turkana Central Medical Officer of Health Epem Esekon said doctors on leave were recalled to attend to the victims.
Makeshift tents were erected to offer services to some of the injured, as the bed capacity at the hospital could not accommodate the huge number of accident victims.
A medical team from Lodwar Medical Training College was also mobilised to attend to the huge number of casualties.
According to one of the passengers, Mr Joseph Kimani, the front tyres of the bus came off after hitting a pothole.
“The bus rolled several times before landing on its body after hitting the ground,” Mr Kimani told the Nation at the hospital.
The driver of the vehicle said the front wheel axle and bolts of the tyres flew off after hitting a pothole.
“I do not know what exactly took place but the bus landed on its roof after the front wheels got off,” said the injured driver, who gave his name as Daniel.
“We urge drivers and conductors to always ensure that vehicles are in good condition to contain road carnage,” appealed Mr Mwaura.
But the residents blamed the pathetic state of the Kakuma-Lodwar highway for the accident and appealed to the government to carry out repairs.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has, during a recent tour of West Pokot County, pledged to have the Kitale-Lodwar road repaired to improve transport operations in Lodwar and Lokichoggio which is the gateway to South Sudan.
The accident adds to road carnage even after President Kibaki ordered a crackdown on errant drivers to contain the menace.
Magid: From child porn to cybercrime, many Internet issues are global
By Larry Magid/for the Mercury News/ 09/26/2011
I’m in Nairobi, Kenya, this week to serve as a panelist at the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum. I’m not sure what will be accomplished, but it’s an opportunity for “multi-stakeholders” from around the world to talk about important Internet-related issues such as child protection, cybercrime, privacy, censorship, managing critical Internet resources and making sure that the Internet is accessible in developing countries. The conference starts Tuesday and ends Friday.
One major issue at IGF is child protection. In addition to workshops on protecting youths against exploitation and exposure to pornography, there will be some on “digital citizenship,” to explore how we can protect children’s rights online while encouraging responsible behavior and making sure children have a meaningful voice. The issue has come to the forefront lately with increased attention to cyberbullying and sexting. But in addition to adults pressuring children to behave, at least some of us at IGF will be focusing on ways to reinforce the role of children and youths as active participants, which is what “citizenship” (digital or otherwise) is supposed to be about.
There will also be conversations about child pornography. Many countries have laws that prohibit trafficking in sexually explicit images of children but the laws are far from universal or consistent. Because of the Internet, images produced in one country can easily find their way to others,
regardless of local laws.
The Internet Governance Forum doesn’t have any power, but it does have influence because it brings together people from around the world who help set the agenda for further discussions and, possibly, regulations. Its origins date back to the 2005 meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society. Unlike most U.N. bodies, IGF consists not just of government representatives, but people from industry and nonprofit organizations.
I’m going as a representative of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety organization where I serve as co-director along with Anne Collier, who is chairing an IGF panel on digital citizenship. Although it’s mainly an adult-oriented event, London-based Childnet International is bringing young people to participate in the dialogue. There will also be young people from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
The fact that IGF has no formal power is actually a good thing because it serves as an alternative to international regulations that — if some had their way — could be draconian. There are governments, including China, Iran and Brazil, that have called for strict laws regarding what is acceptable on the Internet. Here in the United States, we’ve had a history of robust debate about regulations, including several laws to “protect children” against pornography that have been struck down by courts because they would have also limited adults’ rights to access legal content.
If we can’t all agree on what’s acceptable in the United States, there is no way we can reach global consensus. China, for example, famously restricts access to Facebook and other social networking sites and numerous countries prohibit so-called adult pornography that is legal in the United States and many western countries.
Even issues like hacking, don’t necessarily lend themselves to international regulations. I’m pretty sure that most governments would agree that people who break into websites and servers should be prosecuted, but there is no global agreement on what constitutes cybercrime. It gets even hazier when we talk about issues such as copyright enforcement, which engenders vigorous debate even within the borders of many countries.
Having said that, there is a role for greater international cooperation because — unlike physical objects — data can travel between countries in the blink of an eye and typically without detection. That’s mostly a good thing, but not when it comes to child porn, malicious software or schemes to steal money or intellectual property.
John Carr, who serves as an Internet security adviser to the British government, argues that “Individual countries can and should be doing a lot more, particularly when it comes to stopping online child pornography.” Interpol, which coordinates law enforcement actions for numerous countries, does have procedures to intercept “the worst of the worst” images that show sexual exploitation of pre-pubescent children but, said Carr, “Many countries don’t have any laws in place.”
The National Center for Missing &Exploited Children (where I serve as a board member) reports that 19 percent of identified (child pornography) offenders had images of children younger than 3; 39 percent had images of children younger than 6; and 82 percent had images of children younger than 12.
There will be some at IGF who clearly want to emphasize the “G” in its initials by working toward some type of world governance system for the Internet, but many at the event, including representatives from the U.S. delegation, will want to encourage its role as an international forum where people can talk about the issues without the pressure or presumption of having to craft laws to actually control what happens between borders.
UN praises Kenya for hunger relief efforts
By KEVIN J KELLEY, NATION CORRESPONDENT in New York/Posted Sunday, September 25
Kenya should be recognised for its “profound achievement” in preventing the worst regional drought in 60 years from causing famine among its own people, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared on Saturday.
The country also earned remarks from UN humanitarian aid director Valerie Amos for its “very generous” hosting of Somali refugees for the past 20 years. (Read: Kenya PM signs hunger pact)
But Ms Amos differed with Prime Minister Raila Odinga on how best to respond to the ongoing displacement of Somalis fleeing hunger and violence.
Speaking at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York, Mr Odinga suggested that donors should set up emergency camps inside Somalia.
He noted that Kenya’s Dadaab complex now holds five times the number of refugees it was designed to accommodate.
The UN is “not in favour” of establishing camps across Kenya’s border inside Somalia, Ms Amos said.
She pointed out, however, that relief agencies are trying to provide food, water and shelter in parts of Somalia.
Kenya has been under “a lot of pressure” to close its border with Somalia, Mr Odinga added at the news conference.
But the government has rejected that option on the grounds that it “would condemn innocent people to death.”
Also on Saturday, the World Bank and 13 donor nations pledged to provide a total of about $1.5 billion in new assistance to 13 million hungry Kenyans, Somalis and Ethiopians.
The bank announced it was more than trebling its aid, while a group of mainly European nations promised at a UN “mini-summit” on hunger in the Horn to add $218 million to the relief effort.
Even with those funds, humanitarian programmes in the Horn are still about $500 million short of the amount of funding the UN says is needed.
KENYA: Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai, Dies
September 26, 2011 /latimesblogs.latimes.com
REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG — Africa’s first female Nobel Peace Laureate, Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai, 71, died of cancer, it was announced Monday by the environmental group she founded.
Maathai had been admitted to hospital last week. She died late Sunday surrounded by her friends and family.
Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental and social activism. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, a women’s environmental organization that challenged unbridled development in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and planted more than 30 million trees.
The U.S.-educated activist was also the first Kenyan woman to receive a doctorate, from the University of Nairobi in 1971.
“Professor Maathai’s departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her—as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine; or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place,” said a statement on the Green Belt Movement’s website Monday.
Maathai grew up in rural Kenya and received a scholarship to study at Mount St Scholastica College in Atchison Kansas, where she majored in biology, graduating in 1964.
She then did a masters degree in biology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was inspired by environmental activists pushing for clean air regulations. She also studied in Germany, returning to the Unversity of Nairobi in 1969 to continue her doctorate studies.
She founded the Green Belt Movement, believing that environment degradation was one of the root causes of Kenyan poverty. She encouraged poor women to collect native tree seeds in the wild, cultivate them and set up tree nurseries for a livelihood.
in the 1980s, Kenya was ruled by the increasingly autocratic government of Daniel arap Moi, with corruption rampant. Maathai concluded that there could be no real environment progress without democracy and her tree planting movement broadened its campaign to pro-democracy and human rights issues.
In 1989, she successfully led protests against the construction a 60-storey building in Nairobi’s beautiful Uhuru Park. In 1992, she and other members of a pro-democracy group were arrested and charged with treason. The charges were dropped after intense international pressure.
She leaves three children and a grandchild.
Maathai ‘belongs in the league of Mandela’
NICKOLAUS BAUER /mg.co.za/- Sep 26 2011
South Africans paid tribute on Monday to late Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Muta Maathai, who died in a Nairobi hospital on Monday.
Maathai had been undergoing treatment for cancer at the age of 71.
She founded Kenya’s Green Belt Movement and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in combating deforestation — the first African woman to do so.
“Wangari Muta Maathai will go down in history as a woman who put the people of Kenya before herself and was one of the most deserving recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize,” Professor Shadrack Gutto of the African Studies department at the University of South Africa told Mail & Guardian on Monday.
Tireless in her fight against the destruction of forests across Africa and Kenya in the 1980s and 1990s, Maathai was often beaten and detained, most famously while campaigning against the industrialisation of natural land in Kenya.
In 1989, then-president Daniel arap Moi was forced to abandon a plan to erect an office tower in a Nairobi park on the back of protests by Maathai and her supporters.
In 1999, she was whipped and beaten by security forces during a protest against the commercial sale of natural vegetation in Nairobi.
“It’s a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem,” Maathai once said.
A loss for Africa
The South African government described the death of Maathai as a great loss.
“Professor Maathai did a lot of work on this continent and for her country in putting environmental issues on the agenda. We extend our deepest condolences to her family, her party and the people of Kenya,” Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesperson Clayson Monyela told M&G.
An emotional Gutto spoke fondly of the time he had spent with Maathai at the University of Nairobi where she worked as veterinary anatomy professor before entering a life of activism.
“I am very, very sad. She was a public intellectual of the highest order and a true African woman. So loving, caring, and unassuming, she really spoke to her people, unlike so many academics who are often aloof and un-engaging,” he added.
Although Maathai entered Kenya’s Parliament in 2003 as assistant environment and natural resources minister, Gutto said she was never a politician in the true sense of the word.
“She belongs in the league of Nelson Mandela. Someone who fought for others and never thought of herself, working tirelessly to advance the freedom and dignity of others without expecting anything in return.”
Green Belt issued a sombre statement on the passing of its founder.
“Her departure is untimely and a very great loss to all of us who knew her — as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine — or those who admired her determination to make the world a peaceful, healthy, and better place for all of us,” the statement said.
Greenpeace Africa said it was deeply saddened by Maathai’s death.
“It is a sadness we are sharing with people right across the African continent,” it said in a statement.
“She is an exemplary character in the environmental movement and her legacy will be felt by many future generations” said Anne Lamont, interim executive director for Greenpeace Africa. – Additional reporting by Reuters
