20091208

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Nigeria's oil reform law should be enacted this month, the country's special advisor to the president on energy matters, Emmanuel Egbogah, told reporters on Tuesday.

"I am confident the bill will be passed this month," he said on the sidelines of a conference in New Delhi.

He said the new law would not impact investments.

Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and Chevron, which have dominated Nigeria's energy sector for decades, have criticised the Petroleum Industry Bill, saying it could threaten billions of dollars of investment if it goes ahead in its current form.

But Egbogah said the new law would offer many concessions and allowances for the industry and make operations transparent.

"No, there will be no investment that will be impacted. We have made it as a growth type of deal," he said.

20091208

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - China is ready to invest $50 billion to acquire 6 billion barrels of Nigerian oil reserves in a proposal made in June, a sum which could help the OPEC member fund its joint ventures with oil majors, a top adviser said.

Several state-run Chinese oil firms, including CNOOC, are in talks with Nigeria about Beijing's search for proven oil reserves, which include incursions into some oil blocks held by Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron.

"The application was to acquire reserves of 6 billion barrels which we are currently discussing. They are prepared to spend as much as $50 billion," Emmanuel Egbogah, Nigeria's presidential adviser on energy, told reporters in New Delhi where he is attending a conference.

Nigeria's junior oil minister said in September China would not be given all the reserves it was seeking, but Nigeria's state-run NNPC could sell stakes in joint ventures with existing oil partners if Beijing offered the right price.

Shell, which is one of several Western oil firms that operates in Nigeria through joint ventures with NNPC, has vowed to fight any possible efforts by the Nigerian government to hand control of its fields to Chinese oil companies.

Industry executives say Nigeria is using the spectre of a Chinese bid for its oil as leverage in difficult contract renewal negotiations with its existing Western oil partners.

Nigeria has had difficulty paying its share in its joint ventures with oil majors, forcing Africa's biggest energy producer to consider alternative ways to bridge the gap.

Egbogah said its funding shortfall has steadily increased to $6 billion from a few million dollars when joint venture arrangements were created in the early 1970s.

20091208

LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia, Africa's top copper producer, faces an uncertain long-term mining outlook despite a resurgence in copper prices and government assurances of stable mining taxes in 2010, an industry official said on Tuesday.

Frederick Bantubonse, general manager of the Chamber of Mines of Zambia, which represents foreign mining companies, said the country's foreign mining investors were still sceptical about its mining prospects.

"The long-term outlook for copper mining in Zambia is still very uncertain despite assurances by the government. Investors don't have sufficient confidence," Bantubonse told Reuters in an interview.

Zambia abolished long-term development agreements it signed with mining companies last year and raised taxes, sparking protests among foreign mining companies.

However, the government scrapped the high mining taxes earlier this year to keep afloat mining projects following a fall in metal prices, amid criticism from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, who said the country should not have dropped a 25 percent mineral windfall tax.

Bantubonse said the government needed to give foreign investors stable long-term agreements to restore confidence and boost output.

"To restore investor confidence, there is need to look at the laws, and that we haven't done yet."

He said there was insufficient liquidity in capital markets and borrowing was still difficult and expensive for mining companies wishing to invest in Zambia and other countries.

20091208

LUSAKA (Reuters) - South Africa plans to invest $600 million in Zambia, Africa's top copper producer, to finance copper, agriculture and real estate projects in the next two years, Zambia's commerce minister, Felix Mutati said on Tuesday.

Mutati said during a meeting of Zambian and South African entrepreneurs held on the sidelines of a visit by President Jacob Zuma to Zambia that other investments from South Africa were going to be directed to Zambia's manufacturing sector.

Mutati said South Africa's African Rainbow Minerals would invest $250 million to develop the Konkola North Copper (KONOCO) project between Chingola and Chililabombwe, situated north-west of Lusaka.

"These are critical investments that over the next two years will be in excess of $600 million, surpassing what we have achieved in the last 15 years between the two countries," Mutati said.

Mutati cited other projects as the construction of a shopping complex in Lusaka by South Africa's HBW and a similar shopping complex on Copperbelt expected to cost $160 million.

"We see increased interest by many South African companies in investing in Zambia," Mutati said.

South Africa deputy minister for Trade and Industry Bongi Maria Ntoli said the global economic crisis had shown that Africa's buffer zone lies in promoting intra-continental trade.

Zambia is South Africa's fourth biggest trading partner in Africa while it is the biggest in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) with a total trade volume currently at $2.1 billion.

"There still remains huge untapped potential between the two countries in other sectors and to this end I would like to urge Zambian companies to look positively at exploring opportunities that exist in South Africa," Ntoli said.

The two countries, both faced with an energy crisis, also signed an agreement to jointly invest in new power generation projects for the smooth running of the nations' key mining and other industries.

A top UN official sounded the alarm Tuesday about "terrorists and anti-government forces" in Africa's Sahel belt increasingly using revenues from drug trafficking to fund their operations.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told the UN Security Council that "two streams of illicit drugs -- heroin in east Africa and cocaine in west Africa -- were now meeting in the Sahara, creating new trafficking routes across Chad, Niger and Mali."

"Like the Andeans and in west Asia, terrorists and anti-government forces in the Sahel extract resources from the drug trade to fund their operations, purchase equipment and pay foot-soldiers," he added during a debate on drug trafficking as a threat to international peace and security.

The UNODC chief warned that drug trafficking in the Sahel region, which stretches across the northern part of the African continent, was now "larger in size, faster at delivery and more high-tech," as evidenced by the November crash in insurgency-hit northern Mali of a Boeing plane used to transport cocaine from Venezuela to West Africa.

"It is scary that this new example of the links between drugs, crime and terrorism was discovered by chance," he noted.

In recent years west Africa has become an important transit point for South American cocaine being smuggled to the European markets.

In September, army representatives from Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- four countries bordering the Sahara desert -- worked out a plan for jointly tackling terrorism and cross-border crime.

Algeria shares a border with the three other countries and its security forces are under pressure from attacks by Islamist militants who claim to belong to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI).

The Sahel region has also been the scene of trafficking and smuggling of all kinds by organized crime groups.

Maria Costa stressed that no state could handle this transnational threat on its own and urged creation of a "Trans-Saharan Crime Monitoring Network" that could act as an early warning scheme to help review cases that warrant careful investigations.

He also painted a grim picture of the drug threat facing other parts of the African continent, including trafficking, production and consumption.

He noted that 50 to 60 tons of cocaine are trafficked every year across west Africa, particularly Guinea-Bissau while seven laboratories were recently discovered in Guinea, suggesting that the region was also emerging as a producer of synthetic drugs and crystal cocaine.

And 30 to 35 tons of Afghan heroin are being trafficked into east Africa every year, fueling a dramatic rise in heroin injection, the UNODC boss said.

Meanwhile the 15-member Security Council adopted a non-binding statement expressing growing concern about "the increasing link, in some cases between drug trafficking and the financing of terrorism."

It stressed the importance of "strengthening transregional and international cooperation ...in support of relevant national, sub-regional and regional organizations and mechanisms."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon for his part told the council that drug trafficking also threatened to reverse advances in UN peacebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, Haiti, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.

"States must share intelligence, carry out joint operations, build capacity and provide mutual legal assistance," he added. "So far cooperation between governments is lagging behind cooperation between organized crime networks."

www.inform.com

The Indian Navy prevents an attempt by Somali pirates to hijack a US-owned tanker in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia's coast.

The pirates made an attempt to hijack the private tanker, MT Nordic Spirit, by firing small arms at the crew members.

"The crew immediately sent out a distress signal and an Indian Navy ship, which was in the vicinity, responded to the SOS call," India's Navy spokesman Captain M. Nambiar said.

The warship, patrolling the piracy-infested Gulf of Aden since last year to protect transiting ships, flew out its helicopters with marine commandos to the endangered ship. The pirates on seeing them gave up their attempt to hijack the ship and left the area, the spokesman added.

The number of attacks in the Gulf of Aden and further out in the
Indian Ocean in 2009 is almost double the 2008 figure, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

As of November 30, there have been a total of 204 attacks by the pirates in the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. Of those attacks, 42 were successful.

PRESSTV

KHARTOUM, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese government condemned the killing of five soldiers of the United Nations and African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), who were killed in Darfur on Friday and Saturday, the official SUNA news agency reported on Monday.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned, in a statement, the unfortunate incident which led to the killing of five UNAMID Rwandan peacekeepers, the report said.

"The incident is a criminal act and terrorist activity which targeted the international peacekeeping force in the region to suggest to the international public opinion that the security conditions in Darfur are still disturbed," the statement said.

The ministry further stated that the incident was meant to undermine the prevailing security in the region during the past period, affirming that the armed forces and security organs would pursue the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

The ministry further expressed condolences to the Rwandan government and people and families of the dead soldiers.

Five Rwandan peacekeepers were killed in two separate attacks by unknown gunmen against UNAMID patrols in Saraf Umra and Shangel Tubaya areas in the North Darfur State in the last two days.

The incidents brought the death toll of UNAMID peacekeepers to 20 since the mission assumed its tasks in Darfur in January 2008.

20091207

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Riot police arrested three senior members of south Sudan's main political party and more than 100 supporters who demonstrated around Sudan's parliament on Monday despite an official ban, witnesses and officials said.

The three men were later released and two -- the Sudan People's Liberation Movement's (SPLM) Secretary General Pagan Amum and his deputy Yasir Arman -- received a hero's welcome at their party's headquarters in downtown Khartoum, according to a Reuters witness.

The SPLM and opposition parties had called the rally to demand democratic reforms ahead of next year's elections in a rare public challenge to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's dominant northern National Congress Party (NCP).

Sudanese authorities announced on Sunday that the rally was banned.

The SPLM is junior partner in the national coalition government formed by a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between Sudan's north and south.

Arman was detained after scuffling with police early on Monday outside the parliament, said a Reuters witness. The SPLM later said police also arrested Amum and Sudan's state interior minister Abbas Juma, an SPLM member.

Hundreds more banner-waving supporters gathered in the area and other parts of Khartoum's Omdurman suburb after the arrests and were dispersed by police using tear gas.

"The situation is brutal. More than 100 SPLM members have been arrested and many more other protesters have been detained," SPLM spokeswoman Keji Roman told Reuters.

20091207
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique's Constitutional Council has dismissed allegations by opposition party Renamo of voting rigging in elections which the ruling Frelimo won by a landslide, state-run newspaper Noticias reported on Monday.

Renamo said it would hold a nationwide protest after the Council turned down an appeal in which it called for results of the October 28 poll to be annulled and new elections held.

"What I can say, briefly, is that there is a lack of legal arguments that can support Renamo's electoral appeal," Geraldo Saranga, the Secretary General of the Constitutional Council, said in the newspaper report.

Renamo accused President Armando Guebuza's Frelimo, the party that has ruled Mozambique since independence in 1975, of stuffing ballot boxes and other "electoral crimes".

Official results showed Frelimo won 75 percent of the vote to 18 percent for Renamo. The victory gives the ruling party the power to change the constitution.

Renamo fought the Frelimo government in a 16-year civil war after independence from Portugal, and has accused it of fraud in all of Mozambique's four national elections since a 1992 peace agreement.

"Our position now is that we are going to organise a nationwide demonstration in protest at the ruling," Renamo national spokesman Fernando Mazanga told Reuters.

"We will demand the establishment of an electoral court because the Constitutional Council only deals with appeals and its ruling is final," he said.

Renamo submitted the 500-page appeal on November 16 to the National Electoral Commission, which forwarded it to the Constitutional Council, along with its own report on the poll.

20091207

BLANTYRE (Reuters) - Earth tremors hit Malawi for a second day on Monday and police said at least six people had been injured, two seriously, and buildings damaged in the uranium-rich northern Karonga district.

Hundreds of people fled their homes when an earthquake first struck on Sunday.

Karonga police spokesman Enock Levason told Reuters a woman and her child had been referred to Mzuzu Central hospital after a wall in their house fell on them. Four other people were being treated at a district hospital.

"The tremors are still occurring. A number of houses and school blocks have been destroyed, but we're still assessing damage in other remote parts of the district," he said.

Director of the Malawi Geological Survey Leonard Kalindekafe said his department had recorded 12 occurrences of tremors and continued to monitor the situation.

The tremors started at 1700 GMT on Sunday and residents in Mzuzu, Malawi's third largest city about 150 km (about 95 miles) south of Karonga, also felt them.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported four earthquakes measuring between 5.1 and 5.8.

In 1989, a 6.6 earthquake killed at least 9 people and injured 100 in central Malawi and left another 50,000 homeless, according to the USGS.

Karonga is the site of uranium mining by Australian firm, Paladin Eenrgy.

20091207
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline al Shabaab rebels have prepared two suicide bombers disguised as military and police officers who are planning to strike Mogadishu's seaport and airport, the Somali police said on Monday.

A suicide bomber disguised as a woman in a veil blew up a medical graduation ceremony in the capital on Thursday and killed at least 22 people, including three government ministers, several doctors, students and their relatives.

Western security agencies say the failed Horn of Africa state is a safe haven for militants including foreign jihadists who use it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.

"Our intelligence reports say al Shabaab has prepared two suicide bombers in high ranking police and military uniforms. They are going to target the airport and seaport," police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise told reporters in Mogadishu.

"We have alerted all our forces. They should not be deceived by these al Shabaab suicide bombers."

The United States accuses the insurgent group of being al Qaeda's proxy in the impoverished, drought-ravaged country.

Somalia has lacked a functioning central government since 1991, and the Western-backed administration of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed controls just a few strategic sites in the capital, including the heavily guarded seaport and international airport.

Fighting has killed at least 19,000 Somali civilians since the start of 2007 and driven 1.5 million from their homes, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.

20091207

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya said on Monday that threats to refer it to the U.N. Security Council for harbouring a leading Rwandan genocide suspect would not work because it did not know where he was, despite detaining him briefly in 1994.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Jallow, told the Security Council on December 3 that his office would seriously consider reporting Kenya for non-cooperation if it did not hand over Felicien Kabuga.

A Hutu businessman, Kabuga is accused of funding the militias that butchered some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over a span of 100 days in 1994. He is Rwanda's most-wanted man and the United States has put a $5 million bounty on his head.

The ICTR says Kenya has failed to act against Kabuga -- despite evidence of his entry into the country, application for residency, visa approval and the opening of a bank account.

But Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said on Monday that it was unfair to refer Nairobi to the Council when it had already arrested and handed over seven other genocide suspects.

"It is preposterous to ask for sanctions on an issue where Kenya has cooperated more than any other country," Mutua said, adding that Kenyan police had unknowingly detained Kabuga in a crackdown on illegal migrants just a month after the genocide.

"Since he was released by Kenyan police on 19th May 1994, Kabuga vanished. He could be in Kenya or anywhere else," Mutua told a news conference in Nairobi.

Last month, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues called on Kenya to hand over Kabuga and said the fact that it had not was part and parcel of the culture of impunity prevalent in east Africa's biggest economy.

Experts say Kabuga had extensive business dealings with powerful individuals in the government of former President Daniel arap Moi, and security sources believe he has been paying for protection in Kenya.

20091207

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan urged Kenya on Monday to accelerate efforts to improve living conditions in Nairobi's squalid slums, which experts say could pose a threat to stability and national security.

Annan chaired weeks of talks last year that gave birth to the country's coalition government and ended post-election violence in east Africa's biggest economy that killed at least 1,300 people and drove another 300,000 from their homes.

The capital's fetid shantytowns became ethnic battlegrounds during the crisis, and aid workers say the slums -- with their huge numbers of marginalised youths -- are "ticking time bombs" ahead of the country's next poll in 2012.

"It is slow, could be faster, but it is absolutely essential ... we must work together for clean drinking water, clean sanitation," Annan told reporters in Kibera, which is home to some 800,000 people sharing just 250 hectares (618 acres).

He said the continued resettlement of people from makeshift homes made of tin and mud bricks into apartment-style housing would improve their health and boost the economy.

"When fewer people call in sick it saves money for the government and for companies," he said during a tour of the slum's litter- and sewage-filled alleys. While progress had been slow, he said, it was still "very encouraging".

Kibera is Africa's biggest slum, but Nairobi also has several other informal settlements, in which an estimated half of the capital's 4 million population live.

Annan was touring Kibera to inspect work carried out under a joint initiative between the government and U.N.-agency HABITAT.

20091207

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The amount of money sent home by Kenyans abroad fell to $53.04 million in October from $53.35 million the month before and the central bank said on Monday that cumulative remittances had dropped 4 percent this year.

Remittances are the third-biggest source of foreign exchange for east Africa's biggest economy, following agricultural exports and tourism.

Kenyans sent home $504.60 million over January-October compared with $527.14 million over the same period last year, but up from $476.66 million in first 10 months of 2007.

Remittances in 2008 totalled a record $611 million, which the central bank says was as a result of Kenyans in the diaspora responding to cushion relatives against the multiple shocks of drought-induced inflation and post-election violence.

The Central Bank of Kenya said in a statement that remittances from North America and Europe decreased marginally in October, but that the contribution from rest of the world rose by 5.9 percent to $10.8 million.

The central bank says that more than half of remittances have come from North America in each of the past five years. It also studies the inflows to assess the extent of the international economic downturn when formulating policy.

20091207

LUANDA (Reuters) - Seven years after emerging from a civil war as one of Africa's top oil producers, an estimated 60 percent of Angola's population still live in poverty, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said on Monday.

In the opening speech to the ruling MPLA party's national congress, dos Santos said his party should do more to fight poverty and urged its members not to "pact with corruption and the embezzlement of assets from the public or the party."

Last month, dos Santos asked the MPLA, the ruling party for the last 34 years, to implement a "sort of zero tolerance" on corruption after the four-day party congress in a bid to improve the nation's image abroad.

"For every 100 Angolans, 60 are very poor and cannot eat normally every day, have no easy access to drinking water, health-care or a normal home for shelter," he said to loud applause from more than 3,000 MPLA members.

"Unemployment, illiteracy and poverty are three very grave and difficult problems to resolve that have an impact especially on women, families and children."

The government's top priority is to end widespread poverty, he said, blaming part of Angola's condition on its colonial past and a civil war that erupted immediately after independence from Portugal in 1975 and which only ended in 2002.

Since then, the ruling MPLA has been rebuilding Angola on the back of record oil exports and multi-billion dollar loans from China. But Angola still ranks as one of the world's 18 most graft-ridden nations, according to Transparency International.

Poverty has remained roughly the same since the end of the 27-year civil war, when the World Bank said almost two-thirds of Angolans lived on less than $2 a day.

Dos Santos is banking on a $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund -- designed to bolster Angola's foreign exchange reserves and social spending -- and rising oil prices and exports to improve the lives of ordinary Angolans.

Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer. The government is expected to spend almost a third of its $36 billion 2010 budget on health, education and housing. It also plans to build one million new homes for the poor in five years.

20091207

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Applications for World Cup tickets have surged following the draw for next year's event with almost 222,000 made in the 48 hours since the last phase of sales opened, FIFA said on Monday.

Around one million tickets were made available in the latest phase following Friday's draw in Cape Town when the groups for the 32-team finals were decided.

A statement from world soccer's governing body said there had been a sudden increase in applications following the draw.

Ticket applications can be made until January 22 after which a lottery will decide the successful fans.

South African organisers have made repeated appeals to locals to buy tickets, fearing that residents will be outnumbered by foreign fans.

South African residents have bought just over half of the 674,403 tickets sold in the first two phases of sales.

The third phase opened on Saturday with 219,162 applications made.

Tickets are being sold over the Internet. In South Africa, they are also being sold at local bank branches.

Prices range from $20 to $900, a massive jump from what locals are used to paying to watch domestic football.

20091207

HARARE (Reuters) - Aid agencies, led by the United Nations, on Monday launched an appeal for $378 million to meet Zimbabwe's humanitarian needs, amid signs that the crisis facing the country is easing under its unity government.

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government, formed by President Robert Mugabe and his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, has presided over improving social conditions in the country, but aid agencies say more needs to be done.

More than 70 aid organisations, including U.N. agencies, are requesting the money to for food security and to improve health, water and sanitation.

U.N. assistant secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Catherine Bragg, who presided over the launch ceremony in Harare, noted an improvement in Zimbabwe's social conditions under the unity government.

"Zimbabwe is experiencing a gradual shift from humanitarian crisis to recovery following political changes that positively affected socio-economic conditions," she said.

"Despite improvements in food security, the country still faces a substantial national cereal deficit and an estimated 1.9 million will need food assistance at the peak of the hunger season, between January and March."

Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis peaked last year when a cholera outbreak, blamed on collapsing health, water and sanitations systems, killed over 4,000 people in nearly 100,000 cases. About 7 million people needed food aid in 2008.

Bragg said the easing crisis meant the 2010 aid request would be the lowest since agencies and the U.N. began the appeals process in 2006.

Donors managed to provide 64 percent of the 2009 appeal of

$719 million.

Western donors, seen as key in Zimbabwe's recovery efforts, have been providing mostly humanitarian aid while holding out on direct assistance to the government until it implements broad political reforms.

20091207

The African Development Bank (AFDB) has approved a loan worth 110 million euros ($166.2 million) to help expand Morocco's electricity network.The loan will be used by state-owned National Electricity Office (ONE) to finance a thermo-solar power station project in Aïn Beni Mathar in eastern Morocco.
solar_panel

The project is to increase the capacity of the power station from 250 megawatts to 450-470 megawatts.

Morocco's Energy Ministry says the initiative is aimed at diversifying energy sources, securing energy supply and meeting the growing demand in energy, thereby supporting the country's economic growth, Reuters said.

The agreement was signed earlier this week in Rabat by Morocco's Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar, the vice-president of AFDB, Thierry De Longuemar and the director of ONE, Younes Maamar.

The loan is to be paid in 20 years including a 5-year grace period, according to Moroccan officials.

AfricaNews

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20091207
The 32 teams participating at next year's FIFA World Cup finals discovered their fate on Friday when the Final Draw for South Africa 2010 took place in Cape Town.

While South Africans learned that the host nation's Opening Match on 11 June would be played against Mexico at Soccer City, it was the Group D line-up which caused arguably the biggest stir. Germany, Australia, Serbia and Ghana will battle it out for two qualifying places for the Round of 16, meaning two nations with passionate support will depart the tournament early.

There could be a high-profile casualty from Group G too, after Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d'Ivoire, Portugal were drawn together.

An estimated global television audience of 200 million joined the 2,000 invited guests in the Draw Hall in watching the colourful and entertaining ceremony unfold. With African sporting stars such as athlete Haile Gebreselassie, rugby player John Smit, cricketer Makhaya Ntini, and footballers Matthew Booth and Simphiwe Dludlu assisting with the draw, along with England's David Beckham, it was always going to be an exhilarating occasion, but the undoubted centrepiece came when the eight groups were revealed.

An early highlight of the draw was the eye-catching encounter between England and USA, scheduled for 12 June, which evokes the Americans' famous 1-0 win over their transatlantic cousins at Brazil 1950. Argentina, Nigeria and Greece will get the chance to revive their group rivalry from 1994, while the heavyweight collision between Portugal and Brazil on 25 June also has the feel of a derby.

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana,
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d'Ivoire, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

A night to remember
With such an array of stars, the event dazzled from start to finish. After a welcome sequence from Lions Head, the mountain that provides Cape Town with such a dramatic backdrop, award-winning musician Johnny Clegg performed 'Scatterlings of Africa', a song made famous by the Academy Award-winning film Rain Main.

Fittingly, the first speech of the night came from the man without whom a FIFA World Cup in South Africa would never have been possible: the country's former president Nelson Mandela. The 91-year-old, speaking in a special video message, urged his nation to make the most of their opportunity as tournament hosts. "We must strive for excellence in our hosting of the World Cup, while at the same time ensuring the event leaves a lasting benefit to all our people," he said.

Next it was time for two special presidents to take to the stage. FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter and South African President Jacob Zuma showed their excitement at both the Final Draw and the 2010 FIFA World Cup itself in an entertaining dialogue lasting several minutes. Giancarlo Abete, President of the Italian Football Federation, then handed over the holders' FIFA World Cup Trophy to Mr Blatter, confirmation that sport's holy grail is in South Africa and ready to be contested next year.

Legendary Portugal striker Eusebio, born in neighbouring Mozambique, was introduced to the crowd before examples of the 'Win in Africa, With Africa' campaign were showcased before an expectant audience. Beninese singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo duly took to the stage to perform her Grammy-nominated song 'Agolo'.

The first duty of the show's guest presenter, Academy Award-winning actress, Hollywood producer and proud South African Charlize Theron, was to show off the official 2010 Match Ball, adidas's Jabulani, a name meaning 'to celebrate' in Zulu. Soweto's Gospel Choir continued the theme of happiness with a lively rendition of Pata Pata before the arrival of Draw Master and FIFA Secretary General, Jerome Valcke, signalled the moment of truth.

Some of the assembled coaches will have headed away feeling confident, others concerned by the task presented here, yet at least all now know what lies in store as they begin their planning and preparation for next year's showpiece.

africagoodnews

20091207

The 2nd review conference of the anti-personnel landmine ban treaty has concluded in the Colombian city of Cartagena with two African countries announcing they are mine free.
Mines_warning_sign

Rwanda and Zambia met the goal, along with Albania and Greece, set more than a decade ago when the mine ban treaty was first signed. The conference dubbed the Cartagena summit was attended by over 1000 activists, survivors and government delegates.

At the summit more than 120 governments adopted the Cartagena Action Plan, a detailed five-year plan of commitments on all areas of mine action including victim assistance, mine clearance, risk education, stockpile destruction and international cooperation.

"The United States for the first time attended a formal meeting of the treaty, and announced that it has initiated a review of its landmine policy," said Bob Mtonga, a campaigner from Zambia and a member of the advisory board of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

He said the U.S. attendance was significant because although the country has not yet joined the Mine Ban Treaty, it is the largest donor. "As a country, the United States is the largest donor. They have so far put into the program [ICBL] $1.5 billion," he said.

Mtonga noted that Zambia and Rwanda were able to achieve the mine-free status because of a committed leadership in the respective countries and the international cooperation. "The partners came through for Rwanda; they came through for Zambia and that pushed the agenda forward."

He revealed that in Zambia land mine victims have benefitted from laws meant to protect people with disabilities.
"There are programs that address the issues of the disabled, Mtonga said, "and land mine victims have been served well by these programs."

He said that even communities around the land mine victims have benefited from such programs.
Assistance to landmine survivors, their families, and communities figured prominently throughout the summit

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a global network in over 70 countries that works for a world free of antipersonnel landmines and cluster munitions, where landmine and cluster munitions survivors can lead fulfilling lives.

The Campaign was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its efforts to bring about the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.

VOA