8 September 2009

THE Erongo Police on Friday arrested three suspects for being in possession of, and allegedly wanting to deal in, 170 kg (375 pounds) of uranium oxide (U3O8).

At the current market price of US$47,50 per pound, the confiscated material is worth about N$135 000. This is believed to be the biggest theft of uranium oxide in Namibia. In 2004, three men were arrested for the theft of about 28 kg of U3O8. Recently the police found three 500ml bottles filled with uranium oxide in a house in Arandis.

The Erongo Police Chief, Commissioner Festus Shilongo, told The Namibian that the three suspects had been under surveillance since June to establish the total number of people involved in the alleged syndicate, and their reasons for stealing U3O8 from the mines.

"We also wanted to remove this dangerous material from the community and get it back into safe storage," he said.

According to Shilongo, the suspects were allegedly on their way to sell the material for U$35 000 (N$265 000) per kg. They were stopped and arrested on the road between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.

"Obviously these people did not know what they were asking in relation to the actual worth of uranium on the international market," said Shilongo.

"However, because of greed and lack of information they wanted U$35 000 per kilogramme. We are therefore convinced that the purpose for their criminal activity was purely for commercial purposes."

"We request the management of the uranium mines to educate their employees and the public at large about the danger posed by this mineral, including its market value," Shilongo said.

On Sunday, Rio Tinto's Rössing Uranium Mine sent out a press statement on the incident. It said the Police had requested assistance in testing and identifying the confiscated materials, "which was done and confirmed to be radioactive material".

Rössing's management expresses concern about illegal possession of uranium and wishes to inform the general public that uranium in small quantities has no commercial value as it can only be used in overseas nuclear power reactors after the uranium has been converted, enriched, and assembled into fuel rods for nuclear power stations to generate electricity," the statement read.

The three suspects, Abraham Isack, Riaan Maasdorp and David Shindinifa, appeared in the Swakopmund Magistrate's Court yesterday before acting Magistrate Gerda Engelbrecht. The State was represented by Prosecutor Maria Shilongo.

They face a charge of dealing in uranium. All three suspects opted to be represented by a private lawyer. The case was postponed until September 17 for further investigation. The suspects were not granted bail due to the possibility of them interfering with the investigation. They remain in Police custody in Swakopmund.

Riaan Maasdorp is an employee at Rössing Uranium, Abraham Isack is a contractor at Rössing Uranium and David Shindinifa is a member of the Namibian Defence Force, according to Jerome Mutumba, Rio Tinto's RössingUranium Manager Corporate Communications & External Affairs. He told The Namibian that internal disciplinary action will be taken.

allafrica

8 September 2009

The United Nations emergency humanitarian relief wing today warned of an outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea rife in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa that is threatening to continue its spread across other regions of the country.

Local health authorities reported a total of 2,330 new cases of the disease and 22 deaths between 17 and 23 August, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In response to the epidemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has committed $30,000 for surveillance, case management and training activities, while the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) pledged $100,000 for training and operational costs.

UNICEF also sent 20,000 bottles of water guards to the Addis Ababa health bureau to enable the same number of households to access clean water for one month. The agency is also finalizing preparations to establish sanitation facilities in a number of areas in the coming two weeks

Meanwhile, the lack of food in many areas in eastern Ethiopia has prompted the World Food Programme (WFP) to underscore the need for an immediate and comprehensive contingency plan to feed the vulnerable people, especially given the prospect of poor food production in the coming months.

allafrica

8 September 2009

Kampala — The discovery of vast reserves of oil in western Uganda has sparked widespread conflict over land ownership, as ethnic groups in the region vie for a share in the wealth.

Uganda's energy ministry says that two billion barrels of oil have so far been discovered in the Bunyoro area, but predicts that this could rise to as much as six billion over the next few years.

This would put the country on the same footing as neighbouring Sudan, which has the fifth-largest proven oil reserves of any country in Africa.

The find has been made in exploration areas near Lake Albert by British independent operator Tullow Oil and Canada's Heritage Oil. Press reports say the companies are looking for bigger partners to cooperate on exploitation and building a pipeline to Mombasa, Kenya, that would be needed for any exports.

Tribal disputes have largely occurred between the indigenous Banyoro tribe and the Bakiga, who are relative newcomers to the area.

The Bakiga, sometimes disparagingly referred to as Bafuruki (meaning illegal immigrants), are thought to have arrived in Uganda from Rwanda.

Although there has probably been a Bakiga presence in the area for hundreds of years, their numbers rose significantly after the Second World War due to a series of resettlement schemes that promised the Bakiga people a better life.

Numbers swelled further in the early 1990s, when many tribal members fled to Uganda to escape persecution in Rwanda.

At the heart of current tensions lies a dispute over whether or not the Bakiga settled in the region legally.

The discovery of oil in the region has given greater importance to the issue of land ownership, which has coloured the history of the two tribes in the region for many years.

Uganda does not have a previous history of oil production, but distribution of the oil wealth will probably be defined according to the Mining Act, which was amended in 2003.

Under this legislation, the largest share (80 per cent) of revenue from minerals mined in the country goes to the central government. The remaining 20 per cent is split between local government (17 per cent) and landowners (three per cent).

Davis Rwamungu, the youth chairman of the ruling National Resistance Movement, NRM, in Bunyoro, says that it is important to accurately map out land ownership in the region so that officials can remove illegal occupants

One resident, who asked to remain anonymous, says that it is unfair for the Bakiga to enjoy a large share of the oil revenue, since they are only tenants on the land.

"We are very angry because the government is compensating the Bakiga, who are here as immigrants, leaving the indigenous Banyoro suffering," the resident said.

He added that the Banyoro have been very accommodating of immigrants to the region, providing refuge for people from northern Uganda who have been displaced by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.

Rwamungu maintains that the Banyoro have a history of being cheated out of their land rights.

He says that land was taken away from the tribe as a punishment for the support they gave to the anti-colonialist movement and that successive governments - including the current administration of President Yoweri Museveni - have done nothing to sort out the problem.

A particular grievance is the distribution, by the British when Uganda was a colony, of the land of Buyaga and Bugangaizi counties to the Buganda people of the region.

A 1964 referendum agreed to reunite these counties with the Bunyoro region, but Rwamungu complains that the result of the referendum was never fully implemented, and that the land that had been stolen was never returned.

Rwamungu fears that history may be repeating itself and that, once again, the Banyoro will lose out to government policy.

"We want the issue of revenues to be sorted out before any production kicks off to avoid any further bloodshed," he said. "We cannot be cheated on our land."

In a bid to counter Banyoro discontent, Museveni has suggested "ring-fencing" key political positions in local government for ethnic Banyoro but this has caused uproar from people of the region from other tribes.

"It's our constitutional right to participate in politics of this country," said Haidah Nawanje, a resident of Hoima town and member of the Bakiga tribe. "We shall work hard to ensure that our dreams come true. Nobody, not even the president, should neglect our needs in Bunyoro. This land was provided to us freely by God and we must share it."

Nawanje says that the government's attempts to resolve the tribal wrangling in the region could mean non-Banyoro groups are squeezed out of participation in the oil revenues.

Barnabas Tinkasiimire, member of parliament for Buyaga county, says that it is unfair for the government to seek to constrain certain ethnic groups politically.

He points out that, under the national constitution, all Ugandans should enjoy the same rights and privileges of citizenship in whatever part of the country they live.

"It makes no sense to say that a Ugandan can become an immigrant in his own country," said Tinkasiimire.

However, Dr Beatrice Wabudeya, a minister for the presidency, defends the government's position, arguing that critics in the region have deliberately misinterpreted the proposal in order to stoke ethnic tensions.

She told IWPR that time would tell who is behind the Bunyoro crisis.

The presidential spokesman, Tamale Mirundi, said that the president had been brave enough to present a proposal on a very complex crisis.

He said that Museveni's proposals came amid concerns that some ethnic Bakiga had taken over vast tracts of productive Banyoro land, rendering them "slaves on their own land".

"The president wanted to find the root cause of the problem and a solution to it," Mirundi told IWPR by phone. "The critics are ignorant and do not understand the president's intent."

The Ugandan government says that it hopes oil production in the region will start by 2011, although the peak flow of 150,000 barrels a day may not be reached until 2015.

The imminence of large-scale oil drilling makes resolving the ethnic disputes in the area all the more urgent.

There is a fear that, unless an agreement is reached that is satisfactory to all parties, war and suffering could descend upon a region that has enjoyed decades of relative peace.

Solomon Gafabusa Iguru, the Omukama (king) of the Bunyoro region, told IWPR that they have been holding meetings to find a lasting solution to the conflict.

"We don't want this confusion to escalate because it will result in serious bloodshed," he said.

Bill Oketch is an IWPR-trained reporter.

allafrica

8 September 2009

Harare — DEFIANT Monomotapa are scheduled to fly out to Tunisia tonight for their make-or-break Champions League Group B encounter against Etoile du Sahel in Sousse on Saturday night.

After showing so much promise in the competition, Monoz have lost their way with the modest Harare side now needing more than just their own results to secure a semi-final berth.

Monoz got off to a blistering start to their Group B campaign when upstaging Etoile Du Sahel with a 2-1 win over the 2007 winners at Rufaro.

Sadly for Monoz, the victory at Rufaro remains their only triumph in Group B, as they went on to lose their next three games against Heartland of Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo giants TP Mazembe twice.

Those three straight defeats, especially their 5-0 humiliation by Mazembe in Lumbumbashi, have left Rodwell Dhlakama's men teetering on the brink of elimination from a possible semi-final slot.

Tonight Monoz will fly out to Tunisia via Johannesburg, South Africa, and Cairo in Egypt, knowing that anything short of victory will also mean that they would need to beat second-placed Heartland by a bigger margin at Rufaro in their last game.

Defeat in Sousse will also mean that Monoz's last group match would be of academic interest. Dhlakama yesterday made few changes to his squad when naming the final travelling party.

Former CAPS United striker Tendai Gwata, who came on as a second half substitute in the 2-0 defeat to TP Mazembe, has been left out so has former Chapungu goalkeeper Jorum Muchambo, who makes way for Tapiwa Mafunga.

But with the technical department likely to retain faith in Mangove, Mafunga, who joined from the now defunct Eastern Lions, might have to contend with a place on the bench.

Fidelis Mangezi, who has been struggling with his game at right back, has also been left out with the hard-working Tapiwa Khumbuyani -- who had a good game against Underhill in the 3-0 Premiership win over the Beitbridge outfit -- forcing his way into the reckoning.

Khumbuyani, who arrived from Chapungu at the start of the year, was included in the 24-member delegation released by club treasurer Bhekithemba "Far" Ndlovu yesterday.

Dhlakama has, however, kept the core of the side that has regularly done duty in this competition with the talented Darryl Nyandoro, roving midfielder Asani Nhongo, and the influential trio of Daniel Kamunenga, Daniel Zokoto and Charles Chiutsa available for selection.

The Monoz coach will also be hoping that his charges will continue with the scoring form they have shown in the domestic league in the last week. After struggling with their game for much of the season, Monoz fired six goals in two games inside a week.

They first crushed Njube Sundowns 3-1 at Rufaro last Wednesday before thumping Underhill 3-0 at Dzivaresekwa on Sunday. Dhlakama will also be happy to note that newboy Tawanda Nyamandwe has finally found his range at Monoz.

Nyamandwe, who joined Monoz from Kiglon just before the start of the mini-league campaign, broke his goal duck in the victory over Sundowns before finding the target again with the third goal in their triumph over Underhill.

Chiutsa also remembered how to score when grabbing a brace that set the tone for Monoz's victory over Underhill.

Monomotapa delegation:

Team:

G. Mangove, T. Khumbuyani, O. Mushure, L. Simango, V. Chitema, M. Maphosa, C. Semakwere, D. Zokoto, C. Chiutsa, D. Kamunenga, T. Nyamandwe, D. Nyandoro, A. Nhongo, L. Mdluli, A. Chimusaru, B. Mapfumo, T. Mafunga, T. Samanja.

Technical: R. Dhlakama (coach), T. Mangwiro, (assistant coach); C. Munemo (team manager); L. Maungwa (medic).

Officials: D. Makombe, O. Makwengura (head of delegation).

allafrica

08 Sep 2009

The Sudanese Union of Journalists has secured the release of a female reporter jailed over refusing to pay a fine for wearing "indecent" trousers in public.

Lubna Ahmed Hussein was freed on Tuesday after spending a day in detention. The union paid fine, the equivalent of $200, amid international outcry over the arrest of a dozen women in a restaurant for breaking decency laws.

A court ruling on Monday found the journalist guilty but spared her the punishment of 40 lashes, the customary punishment in Sudan for clothing deemed indecent.

The former UN media officer was arrested along with 12 other women in July in a restaurant in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for wearing a pair of green slacks. She appeared at a Khartoum court attired in the same pair.

Ten of the women have since been subjected to floggings by police.

Hussein has resigned from her UN post to stand trial and remains defiant over the charges, vowing to appeal the sentence.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday condemned the sentencing as a breach of international law and fair trials noting that the problem went deeper.

UN spokesman Rupert Colville said another concern was the possible arbitrary nature of arrests, since "the criminal code does not define what constitutes indecent dress and leaves wide discretion to police officers."


presstv

8 September 2009

Lagos — Tunisian Carthage Eagles coach, Paulo Coelho, has told Nigerians to erase any hope of picking the sole group B ticket for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

He said this after playing 2-2 with Nigeria in Abuja on Sunday.

According to him, Mozambique and Kenya cannot stop their ambition of a fifth World Cup consecutive appearance, hinting that they are no threats.

The coach, who said picking a point in Abuja was all the team needed to qualify for the World Cup, added that Super Eagles lacked concentration, while saying that their next opponent in the World Cup qualifiers are no threat.

"Super Eagles has always been the stumbling block. If we can beat or hold them in Nigeria, then, we will make it to next World Cup" the coach said, adding, "with the outcome of this encounter with Nigeria on Sunday, we will defiantly make it to the World Cup," the coach boasted.

While saying no country in the group would be underrated in their quest to hit South Africa World Cup, Coelho said the friendly encounter with Cote D'ivoire before the match and the good camping facility in Sousse, helped them prepare well for the Abuja qualifier.

He also said other friendlies are being planned before their match with Kenya on October 30.

Tunisia will host the Harambes Stars in Tunis, while Nigeria will be home to Mozambique Mambas.

The last of the qualifiers will hold on November 14, when Tunisia will travel to Maputo with Nigeria being guest of Kenya in Nairobi.

allafrica

8 September 2009

Lagos — Libya has commenced massive deportation of Nigerians in the last five days, THISDAY has learnt. The deportees, who were seen walking in droves along Airport road towards the Domestic wing of Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, condemned the Libyan government for shabby treatment and also the Federal Government for its insensitivity to their plights.

As at the last count, over 600 Nigerians had been so far deported from Libya.

Some of the deportees, who volunteered to speak with THISDAY under condition of anonymity, explained that the security officials treated them as slaves.

"We were beaten like animals; treated like outcasts; and condemned to death even before any proper prosecution process could take place. More than 200 of us were packed inside a room like frozen fish," one said.

The deportees who were described as "illegal immigrants" by the Libyan authorities are mainly from Zamwia-Zamzu prison in Tripoli. After months of detention in this prison, the Libyan authorities moved these illegal immigrants to Zahba Camp.

"We were given the option to voluntarily buy our air tickets and return to Nigeria. But some of us who don't have money were given free tickets and deported to Nigeria. Each day since September 1, 2009 the Libyan authorities have been deporting 140 people from Zahba Camp alone. The camp houses both Nigerians and non-Nigerians already condemned by the Libyan authorities over issues bordering on illegal immigration," another deportee said.

When asked to describe the shabby treatment meted out to them by Libyan security officials, one of the deportees said: "We were lucky to be alive. We were beaten, treated like slaves, but we thank God that we were not summarily executed. Many Nigerians have been so killed and as we are talking many will still be killed."

But when told that the Federal Government of Nigeria had come out to deny the allegation of summary execution of Nigerians by Libyan security officials, a young deportee angrily said: "Nigeria is insensitive to the plight of Nigerians in Libya. The government most especially Nigerian government officials in Libya can only live in denial. But I tell you conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal. As a graduate, if our government has really provided us with the enabling environment to realise my dreams, I wouldn't have become a victim of Libya's illegal immigrants. It is true that we have thousands of Nigerians who are caught while trying to escape to Europe through this route. Nobody can deny that. The worry is the brutal way Nigerians are executed like fowls. We were being constantly reminded by Libyan security agents that they don't need foreigners to develop their land. There are still many Nigerians languishing in Libyan prisons."

When a call was put through to a Nigerian lady currently detained in Jadida Prison in Tripoli, she admitted the harrowing experience they are going through. "We are more than 100 in a very small room. Other Nigerians have been moved to our prison. We were asked to wait. So we hope to be deported to Nigeria by tomorrow Sunday or next. We have suffered enough. Regardless of the business you have come to do in Libya, the authorities see you simply as illegal immigrant that must be crushed," she said.

allafrica

8 September 2009

The head of the United Nations refugee agency today kicked off a five-day tour to North Africa to assess the conditions for people still sheltering in makeshift camps in Algeria after fleeing conflict in Western Sahara in the mid-1970s.

UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has been providing assistance to the Saharawi people since they fled to western Algeria in 1975-76, after fighting broke out between Morocco and the Frente Polisario - a Saharawi movement - at the end of Spain's colonial administration of Western Sahara.

Morocco has since presented a plan for autonomy, while the Frente Polisario's position is that the territory's final status should be decided in a referendum on self-determination that includes independence as an option.

António Guterres' mission to the camps - which takes place during the month of Ramadan - is the first visit from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees since 1976, and is meant as a sign of solidarity with the populations in the area, UNHCR spokesperson, Andrej Mahecic, told reporters in Geneva.

Mr. Guterres is slated to visit Western Sahara and Morocco, as well as the refugee camps in western Algeria to observe the humanitarian work carried out by UNHCR.

Among the programmes Mr. Guterres will review is a scheme aimed at alleviating the effects of prolonged separation between the Saharawi refugees in the camps and their families in Western Sahara by helping arrange family visits and providing a free telephone service in the camps.

During meetings with top Government officials in Algeria and Morocco, Mr. Guterres plans to discuss the issue of refugee protection in North Africa and efforts to build national asylum systems.

allafrica

8 September 2009

Kenya recently completed a controversial census that enquired into, among other things, the ethnicity of its citizens. For Kenya's Human Rights Commission and other organisations, probing ethnic origins poured salt on fresh wounds, even though for minority groups such as the Ogiek people, reliable statistics on their numbers would help policymakers develop relevant solutions to the Ogiek's often obscure needs as a hunter-gatherer community. However, the furore over this one part of the census questionnaire obscures a more important subject – Kenya's persistent inequality.

The census came 18 months after Kenya had erupted into a spate of violence that claimed nearly 1,200 lives and left hundreds of thousands of people without homes. The clashes were ostensibly a response to a disputed election result, but the tenor of the violence exposed the ethnic tensions that have simmered beneath the surface of Kenyan politics for decades. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) mission to the country in 2006 had predicted that ethnic conflict would compromise Kenya's longstanding reputation as a bastion of stability in a neighbourhood prone to political and social unrest.

Not only does any discussion of ethnicity still strike a raw nerve among Kenyans eager to shed the unwelcome image of their country as a hotchpotch of warring tribes; they are worried that census results could be wrongfully manipulated by the ruling elite in order to exploit ethnic divisions during the next election, scheduled for 2012. The Human Rights Commission, among others, called upon the public to respond to the ethnic question in the census by identifying themselves only as "Kenyan".

Given that ethnic conflict is still fresh in the memories of most Kenyans, it is unsurprising that ethnicity is still such a sensitive subject. Yet what seems to have been glossed over in the recent debate is any discussion of Kenya's most pressing problem – economic and other forms of inequality – and the capacity of a well-run census to provide the data which will help the country address the issue.

For Duncan Okello, executive director of Nairobi's Society for International Development (SID), inequality is Kenya's true Achilles heel, and has not received the attention it deserves. On the contrary, he says discussion about inequality has fallen foul of what he calls a "conspiracy of silence."

As the SID points out, statistics already available have exposed gaping inequality on several levels. The country's top 10 percent of households earn 42 percent of its total income, while the bottom 10 percent earn less than one percent of income.

More worryingly, life expectancy and access to health services, childhood mortality and other critical social services are markedly unequal across gender and regional lines. Kenyans living in the southwest province of Nyanza can expect on average to die 19 years earlier than their counterparts in the Central province. Nationally, about 20,700 Kenyans share one doctor but in the North Eastern province the doctor-patient ratio is 120,000 to one.

While Kenya has managed to establish itself as one of a few countries to invest successfully in HIV/Aids treatment – before the displacement of caused by the December 2007 post-election violence – wide disparities in income make access much more difficult for the poor. Those hit hardest live on an average salary of 15,000 Kenyan shillings, or about U.S. $200 dollars per year – a very small amount on which to manage effectively the treatment and lifestyle required to cope with the disease, according to Kenya's National Aids Control Council.

To its credit, the Kenyan government has placed the creation of wealth and the bridging of inequality at the centre of its "Vision 2030" national development strategy. Encouragingly, the country is committed to implementing a wide array of reforms through its National Programme of Action under the APRM.

But the debate over the controversial census question on ethnicity suggests that much still needs to be done to elevate the discussion over what is arguably Kenya's most crucial challenge – bridging the gap between the rich and the poor. African countries which support Kenya's quest for sustainable solutions to its problems should not only provide support for the coalition government which was established after the post-election violence, but hold it accountable for the implementation of its Programme of Action.

George Katito is a researcher on the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

allafrica

Hassna Qassim with her grandchildren outside their hut at an IDP camp in Jowhar

JOWHAR, 8 September 2009 (IRIN) - If she is lucky, Hassna Qassim, 58, returns at the end of the day to her makeshift shelter in a camp for the displaced with 1kg of rice to share with her five grandchildren. Qassim is one of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) struggling to survive under extremely difficult circumstances in the Somali town of Jowhar, 90km north of the capital, Mogadishu. When her daughter abandoned the children a year ago, Qassim took on the task of caring for them. Her oldest grandchild is eight while the youngest is 18 months old, yet she has to leave them alone for long hours every day. Qassim spoke to IRIN on 8 September:

"We used to live in Shiirkole area [south Mogadishu] but when the Ethiopians [soldiers deployed in the country to assist the federal government] came, it became one of the most dangerous places in Mogadishu; there was fighting every day. It became impossible to stay.

"The road to Jowhar was the closest to us, so we took it and came here.

"I don’t know what happened to my daughter but she just left them [the children]. Now I have to take care of them. I don’t have anything to give them so every day I have to leave them and look for work.

"I don’t like leaving them but I have no choice if I am to find food for us. I either leave them and look for work or we starve. The eight-year-old looks after the others.

"I go to town every day. Sometimes I wash people's clothes. If I can't find any work, I collect grass and sell it to livestock owners.

"Most days I find enough for the night's meal. I cannot remember the last time we had more than one meal a day.

"But there are nights when I put the children to sleep with nothing. In the last two weeks, a Somali man in Galkayo, who heard about us, sent me US$100. I have never seen $100 before but it was a Godsend. The last two weeks the children have been eating every day.

"But life is often very hard and is not getting any better. It seems every year things are getting worse. Just when I think that things will improve, they get worse.

"My grandchildren have never known peace and they may never know it. All I can do is pray and hope that peace will come so we can return to our homes and lives."


irinnews

8 September 2009

Kinshasa — THE Sadc Council of Ministers shot down attempts by some lobbyists to have Zimbabwe on the agenda of the Heads of State and Government Summit that opened here yesterday with member-states saying the region was faced with more pressing issues than discussing the "staffing situation in Zimbabwe".

The summit agenda is essentially set by Foreign Affairs Ministers sitting as the Council of Ministers, who met this past weekend to review recommendations made by committees of experts who, in turn, converged here last week.

Officials from at least three countries yesterday revealed that Sadc member-states generally felt that the situation in Madagascar -- which was said to be on the verge of forming a transitional government -- was more urgent than a review of the Global Political Agreement and the inclusive Government in Zimbabwe.

"Zimbabwe will most likely not be a main agenda item. Yes, the Heads of State (and Government) will receive a brief from ex-Sadc chair President (Jacob) Zuma (of South Africa) and from your own President, but it seems this will not be within the context of the main agenda but as 'any other business'.

"The situation in Madagascar is more urgent. We don't feel we as Sadc should act as a staffing officer who determines who should occupy which office in your administration. You will have to sort that out yourselves with the full knowledge of our collective goodwill," said an Angolan minister after the official opening.

In a separate interview, an official from Namibia's delegation added: "The most pressing issue from a peace and security perspective was that we wanted the (Global Political) Agreement signed and the unity Government created. It is there now and the people of Zimbabwe must learn to resolve other internal issues without running to their neighbours all the time."

A South African delegate to the summit said their country was not pleased by the "attempts to lobby other countries ahead of Cde Zuma's briefing" as this made it appear that elements within Zimbabwe's inclusive Government did not trust him.

"The general feeling right now is that the attempt to lobby individual Sadc members as if Cde Zuma's briefing is already public reflects distrust. President Zuma has been in close contact with what has been happening in Zimbabwe.

"Sending a non-government delegation to lobby against a Sadc president at a Sadc summit means that these people don't trust Cde Zuma's integrity and they have not done themselves any favours by this. They are shooting themselves in the foot," he said.

Information doing the rounds at the African Union City -- the summit venue -- was that MDC-T has sent a delegation here to lobby Sadc leaders to take a hardline stance against President Mugabe and Zanu-PF over the implementation of the GPA.

It was also intimated by two reliable Sadc secretariat sources that MDC-T had lobbied hard, albeit unsuccessfully, for the summit to be moved from the DRC to -- "most likely" -- Botswana because the party "does not trust President Kabila".

"What they told some very senior colleagues of ours in the secretariat was that the DRC did not have the technical capacity to host the summit. The idea is that, we believe, they didn't want President Kabila to chair Sadc because they feel

he is too close to President Mugabe because Zimbabwe sacrificed a lot for the DRC. But then as a secretariat we are not dictated to by mere political parties and even President Mugabe's party cannot determine who will host the next summit," they said.

At the time of writing, it was understood that President Mugabe -- who is the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces -- would brief his colleagues on the progress of the GPA and how best to follow up pledges made by fellow Sadc leaders to assist the country when they met in Swaziland earlier this year.

On the issue of the Sadc Tribunal, The Herald understands that the summit would be brought up to speed on the opposing arguments surrounding the contested legality of the court but would in all likelihood thereafter refer the matter back to regional Justice Ministers and Attorneys-General to thrash out the technical issues.

In his welcome remarks at the official opening of the summit here yesterday, host President and new Sadc chair, Joseph Kabila thanked Sadc member states -- led by Zimbabwe -- who contributed troops to safeguard his country's territorial integrity after it was besieged by Western-backed rebel forces from Uganda and Rwanda.

The DRC operation code-named Operation Sovereign Legitimacy, was spearheaded by Zimbabwe in its capacity as chair of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation.

President Kabila lauded the intervention of the Sadc contingent -- in which Zimbabwe had the largest deployment of troops and equipment -- saying such unity augured well for Southern Africa's development.

He urged the regional bloc to build from its past achievements to foster greater regional development through unity of purpose.

"We will always be grateful to Sadc members who deployed troops to defend our territorial integrity in our time of need."

He reiterated these remarks in his acceptance speech after taking over the Sadc chairmanship from President Zuma.

In reference to the political challenges facing various member states, President Kabila said: "We have been there before and faced similar challenges. We owe it to the support of Sadc member states for the stability we enjoy today.

"We hope that we can still count on your solidarity in this time of consolidation of our peace because a peaceful DRC is important for the Southern Africa region . . . I am happy that in Zimbabwe you have signed an agreement and formed a unity government. I encourage you to implement this agreement."

Congolese musicians emphasised this message by performing a song in which they sang the praises of the countries that had sent soldiers to sacrifice life and limb in the DRC, while also thanking President Kabila for his fortitude in the face of the strife of the past decade.

In his farewell address, President Zuma appeared to borrow from the words of one of his predecessors, Cde Thabo Mbeki, when he was accepting the chairmanship of the bloc in Sandton last year, by reminding Sadc that it was the progeny of the Frontline States and must draw from this rich past to engender greater unity for development and enhanced regional integration.

"We are built on a solid foundation and therefore cannot fail in our mission of people-oriented development. We should build on the achievements of the past for the economic and social development of our people."

He said Africa had not played a part in the triggering of the current international economic meltdown but was suffering from it acutely all the same, and there was need for the region to create more mutually beneficial ties with the South instead of concentrating unduly on the North.

Zambia's President Rupiah Banda, representing the outgoing Sadc Organ Troika on Politics, Defence and Security, said the summit presented an excellent opportunity to review the bloc's operations and chart a sustainable way forward.

"Although the achievements we have made in the past 29 years are commendable, we have here an opportunity to energise and emphasise the importance of regional integration to improve the welfare of Sadc citizens.

"We are still faced with the daunting challenge of eradicating poverty . . . The prospects of mobilising resources from the West are doubtful in the present global financial crisis and there is an urgent need to intensify the mobilisation of domestic resources," he said.

Nine heads of state and government from the DRC, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia are here for the summit that ends today.

Apart from peace and security matters, Sadc leaders will also be seized with the global financial crisis, food security, climate change and how to speed up regional economic integration.

President Mugabe is accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, his Justice and Legal Affairs counterpart Patrick Chinamasa and several senior Government officials.

allafrica

8 September 2009

Kigali — The Japanese government under its 'Non-Project Grant Aid' (NPGA) initiative has given Rwanda Rwf 3 billion (600 million Yen) grant to be spent in areas that government deems a priority within the national budget.

Receiving the grant on behalf of government, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rosemary Museminali expressed gratitude for the excellent relations that exist between the two countries.

In the past, a similar form of grant was used by the government to replenish her strategic fuel reserves. The money is not tagged to any specific expenditure program but instead goes straight to the national budget.

"It is our sincere hope that this Non-Project Grant Aid will contribute towards realization of Rwanda's development goals," Ambassador Shigeo Iwatani, Japan's envoy to Rwanda said.

The last NPGA grant was disbursed in 2007 and it was used in the rehabilitation of Kigali Institute of Science and Technology and Tumba College of Technology.

allafrica

08 Sep 2009
Over 250,000 people have fled violence in Mogadishu since May, bringing the total number of displaced within Somalia to over 1.5 million, the UN says.

The two main opposition groups, the al-Shabab and Hezb al-Islam, have been fighting with government forces to topple the US-backed interim President, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who came to power earlier this year.

On Monday alone, heavy clashes between the rebels and government forces left at least 15 people dead and many more injured.

The Somali government had earlier said it's in direct talks with local fighters to try to end months of deadly violence.

Al-Shabab fighters are still in control of some southern cities and parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

The renewed fighting -- kicked off early in the year -- is part of a bloody insurgency that engulfed the conflict-torn country following the 2007 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

The clashes between government forces and local fighters in residential areas of the capital Mogadishu, has claimed the lives of over 18,000 people.

According to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, the fighting has left over 1.5 million people displaced -- the majority of them women and children.

Further more, over half of the Somali population is now dependent on food aid due to the conflict and drought.

Somalia has been embroiled in chaos, lacking a functioning government, since warlords overthrew Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

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Widespread flooding in West Africa has displaced over a quarter of a million people: The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of the floods in Burkina Faso

GENEVA, 8 September 2009 (IRIN) - Climate scientists describe Africa as an information "black hole". The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) notes that there are only 744 weather stations, but only a quarter of them are of international standard; at least 3,000, evenly spaced across the continent, are needed, with another 1,000 in densely populated areas; ideally, Africa should have at least 10,000 stations.

The need for better weather information is clear - last week, floods inundated West Africa, dislocating over 250,000 people; a quarter of the normal annual rainfall was dumped on Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, in one day. In contrast, the Horn of Africa is reporting a major drought every two years, and the countries there are taking up to five years to recover.

At the World Climate Conference (WCC3) in Geneva, Switzerland, Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of WMO noted: "Strengthening weather observation in Africa will benefit Africa, but it is also going to benefit the rest of us. It's a win-win situation." Government representatives at the conference did not have the required mandate to commit but the meeting laid out a blueprint for moving forward towards a global framework for collecting and analyzing climate information for adaptation to climate change.

Jarraud's sentiments were echoed by Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who stressed that it was important to standardize data and set up a global framework for providing climate services, so that experts and weather services could work from the same page.

"Different countries have different philosophies about information related to the climate," she said. "It is not that one is right and the other wrong; it is that they need to be harmonized."

''Different countries have different philosophies about information related to the climate''
The proposed framework has four components: observation and monitoring; research, climate modelling and prediction; a climate services information system; and a user interface programme. The first two components already exist but need strengthening. The last two components will constitute a "World Climate Service System".

An intergovernmental meeting at the end of 2009 will establish a task force to draft a blueprint for designing and implementing the framework, and submit its report to the WMO congress in 2011 for action.

Plans to improve climate services are already underway. One reason is that the wealthier industrialized countries realize that they are also being affected by climate change.

Thomas Karl, who heads the NOAA's climate services, reported that the US has been experiencing reduced rainfall in its western states and unusually heavy precipitation events in the northeastern states.

New opportunities

Growing recognition of the seriousness of the problem is opening the door to innovative ideas like "Weather Info for All", a global public-private partnership initiative to put automated weather stations on the cellular phone towers springing up across Africa.

The project involves the WMO, Ericsson, an international telecommunications and information technology company; Zain, a Middle Eastern telecommunications company; the Earth Institute at Columbia University in the US; and the Global Humanitarian Forum, an annual gathering of humanitarian community leadership in Geneva, Switzerland.

The automatic weather stations draw electric power from the cell phone towers and use sensors to measure temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed, precipitation and sunshine.

The information is transmitted to national meteorological and hydrological services, analyzed, and fed back to national decision-makers in Africa, and eventually to farmers and other clients in the field.

In the first phase of the project, 19 such stations are on a trial run in Tanzania; in phase II, 489 stations will be set up across the rest of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, and become operational after technical kinks have been ironed out. The initial roll-out of 508 automated weather stations is expected to cost just under US$9 million, and the partnership hopes to expand the programme to the rest of Africa.

One of the functions of the climate services framework will be to provide hard data to demonstrate to decision-makers and the public why it is important to act now.

In Africa, especially, there has been an understandable tendency to spend on pressing short-term problems and worry about the weather later, but it is becoming increasingly clear that major climate events like floods, droughts and cyclones are driving more people below the poverty line.

Sudden increases in rainfall also increase health risks, ranging from malaria to red fever and meningitis, and decision-makers need a broader understanding of the hidden threats of climate change.

Climate emergencies cannot be avoided, but with good planning based on solid information, a country's vulnerability to such events and the often crippling costs of recovery and reconstruction can be reduced considerably. For these reasons, climate is emerging as a major factor in development.

Reducing greenhouse emissions is likely to prove more complicated, but NOAA's Lubchenco told reporters in Geneva that the urgency of dealing with the climate is now becoming apparent, even to sceptics who previously questioned global warming.

"Regardless of what happens in Copenhagen [where the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet in December to set new targets for emission cuts] the need for information will only increase."

irinnews[/font]

08 Sep 2009
Uganda has announced that it will send some 300 police officers to Somalia, as part of a UN-backed peacekeeping mission to stabilize the war-torn nation.

Major General Kale Kayihura, Uganda's Inspector General of Police said on Tuesday that the deployment would begin in December, adding that it would be independent of other UN operations in Somalia.

Kayihura said that some Ugandan police units are also to be deployed in the troubled western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Uganda, which is one of only two African Union countries sending troops to Somalia, currently has some 2050 soldiers in the war-wracked country.

The 5,100-strong AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which began its operations in March 2007, is made up of soldiers from Burundi and Uganda and is mandated to guard strategic sites in the volatile Somali capital, Mogadishu.

The mission also provides backup to government forces fighting a violent insurgency.

Mogadishu has witnessed fierce fighting and attacks on a daily basis since May, when rebel forces launched a major offensive against President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's UN-backed interim government.

The mission is the only foreign force currently present in Somalia, which has been mired in civil war since 1991.

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Children displaced by LRA attacks in Mundri, Western Equatoria State.
NAIROBI, 8 September 2009 (IRIN) - Conflict-affected areas of Southern Sudan, such as Ezo County in Western Equatoria State where Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have been active, are facing a high risk of epidemics, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns.

Conflict in Southern Sudan, WHO said, had damaged health facilities, displaced health workers and prevented people from accessing facilities that were still functioning.

LRA rebels have continued attacks in Western Equatoria, looting and ransacking homes, churches and health facilities, stealing food, killing innocent civilians and abducting children.

In recent weeks, the rebels have forced 80,000 people out of their homes. On 13 August, they looted and burnt local houses and churches in Ezo, ransacked health facilities, killed and wounded civilians and abducted 10 girls.

"The total number of people displaced following the recent attacks in Ezo is unclear," WHO said. "Many IDPs [internally displaced persons] are still hiding in the jungle due to persistent fear of LRA attacks, while most displaced are now living in camps organized by local authorities or host communities."

Humanitarian workers were evacuated following the attacks. "The humanitarian situation remains serious," the agency said. "Local churches have asked for emergency supplies of food, safe drinking water and medicines.

"The severe shortage of food may lead to malnutrition in children and pregnant women. Many healthcare workers were among the displaced, and very few health facilities are operational... National Immunization Days scheduled to take place in August were not conducted due to the insecurity."

Spreading panic

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the LRA has triggered widespread panic and fear in areas along the borders of Southern Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR).

"There are some 3,500 refugees from the DRC and CAR and an estimated 25,000 IDPs in Ezo and neighbouring districts," it said on 21 August. "These people are now without protection or assistance."

Altogether, an estimated 360,000 Congolese have been uprooted in successive LRA attacks in Orientale province of northeastern DRC while 20,000 have fled to neighbouring Sudan and the CAR.

During a recent visit to Dungu in northeastern DRC, Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), referred to the “Christmas Massacre” of 26 December, when the LRA attacked a Catholic church, hacking to death innocent worshippers.

"The population of Dungu live in constant fear of attacks from the LRA, who inflicted 20 years of terror in Uganda and other neighbouring countries," she said. "The LRA is notorious for kidnapping children, forcing them to kill and maim innocent victims and enslaving young girls as their concubines."

An estimated 320,000 people have been displaced from their homes since December 2007. In July, the rebels were believed to have been responsible for approximately 1,200 civilian deaths.

"The people are stuck between a rock and a hard place," Katharine Derderian, a humanitarian adviser for the aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Belgium, said recently. "They are too scared to return to the rural areas, so they are unable to cultivate their fields, or to even send their children to school because they fear the LRA will attack."

irinnews

07 Sep 2009
Gabon's defeated presidential candidates vow to challenge the election of Ali Bongo Ondimba, who succeeded his father -- late president Omar Bongo Ondimba.

Jean Eyeghe Ndong, acting as a spokesman for the coalition of 16 candidates, declared in a statement on Monday, "These results have no element of truth. They are all lies. This whole thing of an election was a farce which was imposed by police batons."

The opposition leaders demanded a recount, as they claim the vote count was interrupted by the president of the CENAP, the country's electoral commission.

Violence erupted in Gabon -- a former French colony -- when Bongo, 50, was declared the winner of the August 30 election.

The opposition candidates also charged that the unrest's death toll was "much higher" than the officially announced three deaths.

The opposition coalition includes former interior minister Andre Mba Obame, the runner-up, and Pierre Mamboundou, who finished third in the election.


pressv

ACCRA, 7 September 2009 (IRIN) - Dozens of farmers in northern Ghana claim they have been forced off their land with no alternative source of income after a multinational firm bought their farms to cultivate jetropha, a non-food crop whose seeds contain oil used to produce biofuel.

Biofuel Africa Ltd has acquired over 23,700 hectares of Ghanaian land forcing out the inhabitants of seven villages – all of them farming communities -- in Tamale district.

Farmer Mumud Alhassan Adam, 50-year-old father of five, lost his eight-hectare plot on which he cultivated maize and rice.

“I went to the farm one day but I realized somebody else was on the farm and then I was told the land had been sold off. Since then I have not been allowed to farm."

Local chiefs own most of the land in northern Ghana and rent it out to farmers or sell it to anybody who wishes to buy.

“There was no consultation with us (farmers) before the land was sold and I have not been paid any compensation since I was displaced,” Adam told IRIN.

He added: “A few of the farmers were offered employment on the jatropha plantation but many others were left with hunger and no sourceof income, while others like myself had to raise money to rent another plot of land several kilometers away. It has been a very difficult time for my family.”

But BioFuel Africa’s chief executive officer Steinar Kolnes said the company offered the farmers options: “We don’t pay compensation…We gave the farmers two options: To stay and farm their crops alongside the jetropha or leave to other more fertile lands we had provided for them.” He said those who chose to leave were given plots up to 10 times the size of their previous plots.

Adam said he knew of no farmers living in the area who have been given alternative land to farm.

Many farmers are trying to make the best of the change, rather than fighting for their land back. “If I get a job with any of these firms I will abandon crop cultivation and join them. And many of my colleagues would do the same,” John Akerebo, a farmer in the region, told IRIN.

Over 20 companies from around the world, including from Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Norway, are acquiring land in Ghana to produce biofuels, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farmland around the world have been subject to biofuels negotiations since 2006, according to the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Kwadwo Poku, a local consultant for several of the multinationals with business in Ghana, told IRIN: “With so much land uncultivated [in Ghana], these firms are doing this country a favour by…employing many more farmers."

In a communiqué on its website, BioFuel Africa says only 10 percent of the land in question was being cultivated for food crops and that its project is providing farmers with much-needed employment during the lean season.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that just 16 percent of Ghana’s arable land is cultivated, despite agriculture employing 60 percent of the country’s workforce.

Multinationals are attracted to Ghana by the land availability, soil types and a lack of regulation on acquisitions, according to the Food Security Policy Advocacy Network (FoodSPAN), based in the capital Accra.

But David Eli, FoodSPAN chairman, said the growing practice of carving up cultivable land for biofuel production could worsen Ghana’s food insecurity. "As a country we don’t produce enough food to feed everybody so if the argument is that we have enough land then why don’t we invest to cultivate that land for food crops?”

UP to 1.2 million Ghanaians are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme’s latest estimates, 453,000 of them in Northern Region. The government is drafting a US$10-million national food security plan, according to Agriculture Ministry director Nurah Gyiele.

The government has recognized the need for more clarity on the rights of farmers and companies in land deals concerning biofuels, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, and has called on the government's Energy Commission to draft legislation on land acquisitions.

Head of the Agriculture Workers Union, Kingsley Ofei Nkansah, said the legislation, which is currently being developed, must ensure that biofuels cultivation be limited to marginal lands; that all acquisitions include compensation for farmers and that chiefs prioritize land for food crop cultivation over biofuels.

irinnews

OUAGADOUGOU, 7 September 2009 (IRIN) - Recent floods have shut down Burkina Faso’s main hospital, interrupting dialysis treatments, preventing HIV diagnoses and overloading health centres ill-equipped to take on surgical cases, according to the Health Ministry.

To date, there have been seven reported deaths and more than 100,000 people made homeless by the storms. Most of the displaced have sought refuge in dozens of sites throughout the capital Ouagadougou.

The Health Minister Seydou Bouda told IRIN on 7 September that the three wards still open at the hospital – maternity; ear, nose and throat; and eye care – are only taking emergency cases. “Even in normal times, Yalgado [hospital] needed heavy repairs,” said the health minister. “Now this situation has come, which has made the renovations more pressing.”

Bouda told IRIN the hospital must suspend its activities in order to rebuild and replace equipment. “There is no use in rushing to reopen as if nothing had happened.” On 1 September, the city received one-quarter of its typical annual rainfall in an hours-long deluge.

HIV care

Equipment in the hospital’s HIV laboratory that was used to diagnose the disease countrywide has been destroyed. Three of the capital’s five reference laboratories capable of high-level accurate diagnoses – for more diseases than just HIV – have been damaged, the Health Ministry’s Secretary General Adama Traoré told IRIN. “We are in the process of contacting the makers of the CD4 count machines [used to diagnose HIV] in the hospital to find out how to make repairs or what can be done.”

He said the hospital needs to contact patients who are on anti-retroviral treatments for HIV in case the patients’ homes have been destroyed and medicines are lost, but it has lost contacts for most its patients. “If I had a patient before me right now, I could not tell you that patient’s medical history because we simply have no records. They washed away. Computers were damaged. Paper files destroyed.”

Nationwide there were about 10,000 people on ARV drugs as of June 2009, according to the government’s national HIV and sexually transmitted diseases council.

Health Minister Bouda told IRIN the government has requested emergency assistance from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dialysis

The hospital’s director general, Lansande Bagagné, told IRIN on 6 September that some dialysis patients were in a critical state and had started vomiting when their treatment had been discontinued for days. “We were able to get three generators working to continue their care.”

Altogether 50 dialysis patients had to stop treatments when the machines were destroyed, said the Health Ministry’s Traoré. “We are at a loss as what to do. We are simply lost. No other health structures are equipped to take them on,” said Traoré.

Traoré told IRIN the hospital is relying on radio and television advertisements to redirect people to other health centres. “We are managing and the health system has been able to react quickly, but we are still in the process of assessing how much we lost.”

Traoré told IRIN though the major stock of donor-funded medicines – including anti-malaria pills and anti-retroviral medication for HIV patients – were stored safely outside the hospital, any medicine at the hospital was destroyed.

When asked health centres’ operation plans if and when additional rains come, Traoré replied: “For the long-term, we should not build health structures in flood-prone zones. For the short-term, we move our papers to a higher and drier spot.”


irinnews

08 Sep 2009
Somali pirates active in the Gulf of Aden have reportedly demanded a ransom of some $20 million for the release of a Turkish-flagged bulk carrier Horizon 1 and its 23 crew members.

"The ransom they asked for is $20 million, but negotiations on kidnappings such as these usually end with agreement on 10 to 20 per cent of the amount asked," Nilgun Yamaner, who represents the owner of the ship, told AFP.

"In our case, that amounts to a figure between USD 2 to 4 million," she added.

The cargo ship MV Horizon-1 -- owned and operated by the Istanbul-based Horizon Maritime Trading Co. -- was carrying 33,000 metric tons of sulfur ore from Saudi Arabia to Jordan when seized on July 8, 2009.

As reported by the Turkish Navy, the vessel was brought first to the Somali port of Hordio, where it anchored on July 9. A day later, the Horizon-1 left Hordio and sailed to the so-called pirate haven of Eyl in northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region.

Piracy off Somalia, one of the world's busiest shipping areas, and other coasts of Africa has increased sharply over the past year, earning the pirates millions of dollars of ransom payments and pushing up maritime insurance rates.

Dozens of international naval ships are patrolling the waters off the Somali coast but despite efforts they have not been successful to stop pirate attacks.

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