2010-04-20
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell has asked Nigeria's supreme court to overturn a ruling that requires the firm to forfeit its residential headquarters in Port Harcourt, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

An appeals court ruled in favour of the Mgbesilaru community in the Port Harcourt oil hub last week, saying their land was illegally given to Shell by the federal government.

The case has inspired a similar lawsuit against Shell by the local community on Bonny Island, where the company has its main crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.

Relations between foreign oil companies and local community groups have long been fragile in the Niger Delta, which is home to Africa's biggest oil and gas industry and where poverty is widespread.

Decades of neglect and frustration in the region led to the rise in militancy and criminal activity in recent years.

Shell's spokesman John Barnden said the company immediately appealed to the supreme court against the April 15 ruling. He declined to comment further about the case.

Shell paid rent to the Mgbesilaru community for decades until it was given ownership of the land by the federal government in 1999.

The court ruled the government did not have the right to give Shell the land.

"The bad faith of Shell is glaring. It is an intolerable conduct of a tenant," said Emmanuel Asido, one of the lawyers representing the Mgbesilaru community.

A lower court in a similar case ruled in favour of the Bonny community last year, saying Shell must forfeit land ownership on the island. The company has also appealed that decision.

Shell's oil facilities at Bonny can process and export up to 1.25 million barrels per day, making it the largest terminal of its kind in Africa.

2010-04-20
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch Supreme Court said on Tuesday it had quashed a lower court's decision to acquit a Dutch businessman accused of smuggling arms to former Liberian President Charles Taylor and ordered a new appeal hearing.

Guus Kouwenhoven was sentenced in 2006 to eight years in jail by a Dutch court for smuggling arms to Taylor's government between 2001 and 2003 in contravention of U.N. sanctions, but acquitted of war crimes for lack of evidence.

However, an appeals court in The Hague acquitted Kouwenhoven of arms dealing in 2008, saying it was not convinced of the trustworthiness of the testimony of some witnesses and that there was not enough other evidence to convict him.

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that the appeals court had given insufficient reasons to refuse a request by the public prosecutor to hear two anonymous witnesses during the appeal.

It granted a new appeal filed by the public prosecutor based mainly on these grounds, a spokesman for the Supreme Court said.

"The court of appeal of Den Bosch will re-examine the case and that court has to hear those two witnesses," said Savornin Lohman, spokesman for the Supreme Court.

Known as "Big Gus" in Liberia, the former executive of the Oriental Timber Corp. and the Royal Timber Co. was accused of selling arms in exchange for timber concessions in Liberia, dubbed the "blood timber" trade by campaigners.

The charges stem from Liberia's civil war that started in 1989, spilled across borders, killed a quarter of a million people and spawned a generation of child soldiers.

Former Liberian President Taylor has been on trial in The Hague since June 2007 at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and is the first African ruler to stand trial for war crimes.

2010-04-20
CAIRO (Reuters) - Protesters gathered in central Cairo on Tuesday, condemning calls by politicians and officials loyal to President Hosni Mubarak for security forces to open fire on pro-democracy demonstrations.

About 70 people joined the protest, the third in two weeks calling for more political freedoms and an end to an emergency law that allows indefinite detentions.

Though small, the demonstrations could gain traction ahead of a parliamentary poll later this year and a 2011 presidential vote that might mark an end to Mubarak's 29-year rule.

Hundreds of police stood watch on Tuesday's protesters, who included the Sixth of April Youth movement and political opponents to Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP).

The protest came two days after a lawmaker loyal to Mubarak said demonstrators should be shot at.

"I would have questioned the Interior Ministry for being soft on these outlaws ... Do not use water hoses to disperse these outlaws, shoot at them directly," NDP member Nashaat al-Qasas told Egypt's parliament.

Protests have been rare in Egypt but briefly gained momentum around the first multi-candidate presidential vote in 2005, when Washington was pushing for more democracy in the Middle East.

Rights advocates say security forces have used rubber bullets and tear gas to quell protests in the past, methods they say are meant to crush dissent and keep the government in power.

Officials say Egypt allows freedom of speech, but the independent al-Shorouk newspaper quoted Hamid Rashid, an aide to the interior minister, as saying that "the law permits police and security forces to use force and open fire on protesters if they disrupt national security."

He said protesters broke the law by taking to the streets on April 6, when security forces beat and detained some of them.

An emergency law instated after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 gives authorities scope to detain people indefinitely under the banner of national security.

Washington has criticised Cairo's handling of the protesters, but Egypt, one of the biggest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, has dismissed the comments as interference.

While the NDP is expected to win a huge majority in parliament, Mubarak has not said if he will run again. Even if he steps down, many Egyptians say the 81-year-old, who recently underwent surgery, will try to hand power to his son, Gamal.

Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, could shake up the race if he runs.

Even though Qasas later backed away from his statement, Ayman Nour, a well-known opposition politician who was imprisoned for alleged forgery after challenging Mubarak in 2005 polls, said the MP should be tried for inciting violence.

"If the NDP does not issue a statement refuting or denouncing the incitement of violence ... then the party, the government, and the Interior Ministry are partners in this statement," said Gamal Zahran, a leading independent lawmaker.

2010-04-20
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somali pirates hijacked three Thai fishing vessels with 77 crew members over the weekend in one of their most daring raids so far, a maritime official said on Tuesday.

Patrols by European Union warships since December 2008 to deter hijackings have done little to dent the enthusiasm for piracy among Somalis.

"This was in the Indian Ocean but far away from the east coast of Africa," said Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme. "This is the farthest hijacking to date. They are now operating near the Maldives and India."

Somali pirate attacks have continued apace and have spread south to the Seychelles and farther out towards India.

The European Union Naval Force said the three ships belonged to a Thai-based company, PT Interfishery Ltd, and were named Prantalay 11, 12 and 14. The Thai crew members were safe and well and the vessels were headed towards the Somali coast.

"These latest hijackings are the furthest east of any pirate attacks in the area since the start of EU NAVFOR's Operation Atalanta in December 2008, almost 600 miles outside the normal EU NAVFOR operating area," it said on its website.

According to the International Maritime Bureau, Somali pirates accounted for more than half the reported piracy incidents worldwide in 2009 and nearly all of the hijackings, with 47 successful captures.

2010-04-20
ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian police shot dead a 31-year-old Eritrean migrant on Tuesday as he tried to sneak across the border into Israel, security sources said.

Two more migrants -- one Eritrean and one Sudanese -- were injured and were taken to a hospital in Arish, in north Sinai for treatment, a medical source said.

The Sinai border is a major transit route for African migrants and refugees seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egypt has come under pressure from Israel to staunch the flow. Rights groups complain about the methods of the border police.

Egyptian police have killed at least 14 migrants this year, compared to 19 for the whole of 2009.

The United Nations and Amnesty International have called on Egypt to check its border guards' use of excessive force against unarmed migrants.

Security forces say they fire at migrants only after repeated orders to stop are ignored, and say that in some cases smugglers who ferry migrants to the border have opened fire on security forces.

2010-04-20
ABOARD USS GUNSTON HALL (Reuters) - Men in blue overalls haul on the ropes alongside American crewmen sporting hardhats shaped as Stetsons and decorated in the stars and stripes.

"Pull harder! Coil the ropes!" one of the Americans barks at the "ship riders", a term used for the West African sailors aboard the U.S. amphibious landing vessel as she slips her moorings in the port of Dakar.

This is a floating academy, part of an effort by the U.S. military to train local navies and coast guards to combat rising instability in the Gulf of Guinea -- an increasingly important source of oil and other raw materials for western markets which has drawn huge international investment.

The United States says the destabilizing effects of piracy, drug smuggling, and illegal fishing in the area are also costing West and Central African coastal economies billions of dollars each year in lost revenues.

"You have an area that is traditionally a landward-focused region which is awakening to the impact of the maritime domain," said Captain Cindy Thebaud, commander of the U.S. Navy's Destroyer Squadron Six Zero and head of the project.

After two weeks of training in Senegal, the African officers and deckhands will spend a week at sea on the USS Gunstall Hall alongside their U.S. counterparts learning skills ranging from basic navigation to anti-piracy techniques.

The training is part of U.S. efforts to make Gulf of Guinea maritime security more robust but, with navies often coming low in the pecking order in African militaries, there is a need for increased investment in boats and other equipment.

"There are challenges with resource allocations everywhere in the region," Thebaud said. "But the education and the visibility is continuing to increase and, bit by bit, we are seeing increases in allocations in resources."

THREATS HUGE, IGNORED

The Gulf of Guinea, which runs down from West Africa through Nigeria and Angola, is becoming increasingly important due to its vast potential energy reserves.

Ghana will soon join traditional Gulf of Guinea oil producers Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon, while Liberia and Sierra Leone have also made offshore energy finds.

Critics say U.S. policy is purely in self-interest, as the world's top consumer will rely on the region for a quarter of its oil supplies within the next five years.

But sailors said countries in the region were keen on the project as they understood the threat insecurity posed to governance and economic growth.

"(Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea) is not the same level as Somalia but it could have the same consequences," said Lt Commander Emmanuel Bell Bell, a Cameroonian officer onboard.

Earlier this month Cameroon partly blamed piracy for a 13 percent fall in oil production last year.

"In Cameroon we have shipping and oil. The slightest act of piracy creates an atmosphere of fear. It could lead to things shutting down," Bell Bell added.

The training is part of Africom, the U.S. command centre for Africa, but European nations have begun to take part in an effort to broaden the programme and cooperation.

Commander David Salisbury, a British naval officer, said a thwarted hijacking of a ship off Benin and a Ghanaian raid on a fishing vessel in December were evidence of improvements. But he warned that threats were "huge and had been largely ignored" and "we should talk about progress in decades".

"GRANDPA ZODIACS"

The size and power of the USS Gunston Hall -- a heavily armed ship that can deploy smaller landing vessels, machine gun-mounted speedboats and hundreds of soldiers -- is far cry from the kit most of the sailors onboard are used to.

"We are working with grandpa zodiacs with 42 horse power motors," said Blawah Charles of Liberia's newly established Coast Guard.

Some navies in the region are so limited in boats and fuel that their patrols cannot venture far out to sea and pose little threat to illegal fishing vessels or smugglers.

Instability in the Gulf of Guinea has also attracted the interests of private military contractors.

U.S. private security company MPRI, a division of L-3, earlier this year announced it had won a multi-year contract worth $250 million improve maritime security for Equatorial Guinea.

Some fear this pointed to increased competition and the potential for military confrontation. But Thebaud said private military companies' involvement would be "complementary".

2010-04-20
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda's top opposition leader called on the international community on Tuesday to help guarantee a fair election next year and not wait till it is too late as was the case with Kenya's post-election bloodletting.

After a disputed election in 2007, Uganda's neighbour slid into bloodshed that ended only after a power-sharing pact brokered by former U.N. head Kofi Annan. The violence has become a benchmark for outside observers eyeing east African polls.

Kizza Besigye of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change told Reuters in an interview that outside actors such as the African Union and the United Nations must come to Uganda and help ensure a fair vote.

"The time to engage is now ... not to send Annan walking over corpses. They should come in now and cause a situation where all parties sit around the table and agree upon how to have a credible election," Besigye said.

"We always engage all these people to intervene at the appropriate time but they don't ... they come to put out the fire," he told Reuters.

The former guerrilla is widely expected to face a rematch -- after losing the previous two ballots -- against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in the 2011 election.

Besigye clinched the role as his party's flagbearer last week, but must still face-off with other opposition leaders to stand for an alliance against Museveni's ruling National Resistance Movement.

Besigye, who was Museveni's doctor in a bush war, said the alliance would likely pick a presidential candidate by end of June.

Ruling party spokeswoman Mary Okurut said that Ugandan elections had been free and fair. "(Besigye) wants to set the stage (to contest the election in court) ... that's one of their methods," she said.

After years of political upheaval, Uganda has enjoyed two decades of steady growth and economic stability after Museveni's rebels took power in 1986.

OIL CONTRACTS

East Africa's third largest economy has seen increasing interest in its oil sector and debt markets. Foreign oil players have found an estimated two billion barrels and are expected to enter the production phase over the next few years.

Besigye said that oil contracts -- which have not been made public -- would be reviewed if he took power next year.

"A review can lead to any kind of outcome, it could lead to a renegotiation, it could lead to cancellation, it could lead to any form of outcome depending on what we find."

Foreign investors in Uganda's debt markets are not widely expected to roll over positions in government Treasury bills and some analysts say capital expenditure and some investments might slow as the election approaches.

Besigye said there was no way the 2011 poll -- the previous ballots had been marred by allegations of fraud -- would be fair, and there were credible fears of violence.

"We've had very violent elections ... There is therefore a basis from within our own experience for having that fear," he said. "There is a lot of pent up anger within the population."

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates hijacked three Thai fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean during the weekend, a Kenyan maritime official said on Tuesday.

"This was in the Indian Ocean but far away from east coast of Africa," said Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme. "This is the farthest hijacking to date. They are now operating near the Maldives and India."

HARARE (Reuters) - Hundreds of foreign firms in Zimbabwe have submitted plans to sell majority stakes to local blacks, state media said on Tuesday, despite confusion over an affirmative action law that has divided the unity government.

Zimbabwe's Youth, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, an ally of President Robert Mugabe, last month ordered firms to report details of ownership and plans to achieve majority local control.

Under the regulations, which took effect on March 1, foreign-owned companies must submit plans to show how they will sell 51 percent of their shares to black Zimbabweans within five years.

The power-sharing government formed by Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last year is divided over the regulations, which Tsvangirai has said were issued without consulting the cabinet.

A spokesman for Tsvangirai said last week the regulations had been suspended, a statement that was quickly denied by both Mugabe and Kasukuwere.

Kasukuwere told the state-controlled Herald newspaper on Tuesday that foreign firms were complying.

"We have so far received more than 400 submissions from various companies and as government we are happy with such an overwhelming response," he told the newspaper.

Units of British American Tobacco Plc, Unilever and South Africa's Impala Platinum are among the companies that have submitted plans, the newspaper said.

Firms that have not yet submitted plans will get a 30-day extension from the April 15 deadline, Kasukuwere told the newspaper, adding the government could terminate licences of companies that did not comply.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF government passed an indigenisation and economic empowerment law in 2007, before the formation of a unity government with Tsvangirai's MDC last year.

Analysts have said the empowerment policy would discourage foreign investment and hurt efforts to fix Zimbabwe's crippled economy.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Some 50,000 workers could go on strike at South Africa's port, rail and pipeline operations after wage talks with logistics group Transnet failed, a transport union said on Tuesday.

A strike at monopoly Transnet could cripple transport of coal and iron ore exports, distribution of fuel and shipping in Africa's biggest economy.

The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) said Transnet had offered to raise wages by 8 percent, while the union demands increases of 15 percent. The country's inflation rate stands at 5.7 percent.

The union said it will present Transnet's final offer to its members on April 22, when it will decide on whether to strike.

"Conciliation in a wage dispute between the two recognized unions and Transnet came to an end late last night, making way for the possibility of strike action across South Africa's port, rail and pipeline systems," Satawu said in a statement.

Transnet's staff are represented by Satawu and the United Transport and Allied Trade Union (Utatu).

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's outspoken ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema will not be disciplined by the party despite defying President Jacob Zuma's warning to stop inflammatory comments, a youth league source said on Tuesday.

The source said it had been decided after a five hour meeting of the top six officials of the African National Congress, including Zuma, that the Youth League should deal with Malema rather than the ruling party.

"His comments were made on behalf of the Youth League and not the ANC. We are independent and if there needs to be any disciplinary hearing it should be conducted by us," said the source who attended the meeting.

ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe declined to comment saying that the party's position would be revealed at a press conference later on Tuesday.

Malema came under fire from Zuma earlier this month over his support for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and his controversial land reform policies.

Zuma also rebuked Malema for continuing to sing apartheid era songs that racially polarised South Africans and embarrassing the ruling party by throwing a foreign journalist out of a news conference.

"Malema's comments were made on behalf of the Youth League and individuals should not be singled out," the source said.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa will face a power supply crunch between 2011-13 and 2018-24 unless more power plants than are planned are built, state-owned power utility Eskom said on Monday.

Eskom has launched an extensive power generation expansion programme, but Head of Generation Brian Dames said that much more needed to be done to meet fast rising demand in Africa's biggest economy.

"We are confident for the World Cup and we must say that since 2008 we've had no interruptions," Dames told a National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) conference.

"But the period between 2011 and 2013 when there is no major additional capacity coming online and again in 2018 after we've had Kusile (plant) commissioned, then again we will have quite a capacity crunch in the country."

The power utility is under pressure to build new power plants after the national grid nearly collapsed in early 2008, forcing mines and smelters to shut for days and costing the country billions of dollars.

Dames said some 50 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity needed to be built by 2028 to meet demand. Eskom's own expansion programme for now plans for 18,000 MW of new capacity, out of which nearly 5,000 MW has been built since 2005.

He said Eskom was committed to completing the Medupi and Kusile power stations, each expected to supply 4,800 of MW, with Medupi's first unit due in 2012 and that for Kusile in 2013.

The new power needs to partially compensate for ageing power plants which must be decommissioned, Damas said, adding some plants, with a total capacity of 10 GW, are nearing the end of their life. Continued...
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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has issued a new rule allowing corporations and other bodies to issue bonds in batches once they receive approval from the regulator, the ministry of investment said on its web site.

Egypt, seeking to spur its bond trading, has been streamlining its rules for both corporate and government instruments and plans more measures in the coming months. It hopes to set up a secondary bond market this year.

Under the new rule, a company can sell bonds in tranches for up to a year after the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority approves their issuance. This will give companies greater flexibility when it seeks to raise funds, the ministry added.

Bonds currently must be issued all at once.

"This comes within a plan to develop, deepen and promote the Egyptian bond market into an effective market for mobilising savings and funding companies operating in Egypt," it said.

The government also plans to reactivate its repurchase agreement (repo) market and introduce bond lending, an investment ministry official told Reuters earlier this year.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's government will endorse a new mining charter next month to increase black ownership in the sector after the previous agreement failed to do so, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Monday.

Shabangu said she had received sufficient feedback from mining sector players in the first major review of the country's Mining Charter -- an agreement requiring mining companies to sell a portion of their ownership to black people, to reverse decades of exclusion under white apartheid rule.

She said so far the current charter had been a "disappointment", because not much had been achieved in its aim of de-racialising the mining industry in Africa's largest economy, and the top platinum and major gold producer.

"So far it (transformation) has been a disappointment," she told Reuters.

"The changes to the charter have not fundamentally shifted the goal posts, but aim to enhance compliance with black economic empowerment. We have set no new targets."

She said all feedback from mining companies would be in by the end of April, but declined to give details, saying these would be disclosed once the charter is endorsed by the cabinet.

"(In) early May, the cabinet will endorse the changes and it will strengthen this tool of transformation," Shabangu said.

She spoke at a function at the Wits University in Johannesburg where gold miner Gold Fields said it would spend 26 million rand over three years in the mining engineering faculties to help fight skills shortages.

When she took charge last year, Shabangu said her first task would be overseeing the review of the charter, which oversees the mining industry -- a key pillar of the economy and a major employer.

Analysts have said the revised charter will seek to plug loopholes that have allowed the marginalisation of black people in the mining sector to continue, five years after the agreement to transform ownership was signed.

BLACK OWNERSHIP

The charter set a target to transfer 26 percent of ownership to black people by 2014, and the review was prompted by concerns that this target may not be met.

The revised charter will seek to speed up black ownership, skills development, employment equity, procurement, housing and living conditions, and mining beneficiation, Shabangu said.

The slow pace of transformation in the industry is seen as fuelling demands by the ruling party's youth wing to nationalise mining companies, analysts said.

Media reports say about 10 percent of the industry was in black hands last year, far from the 15 percent target set by the mining charter.

Shabangu declined to comment on these reports.

Mining companies have said they hope there will not be major changes, which could affect their operations and costs.

Shabangu said the mining department had finalised an inventory of all mineral resources still under state control and would present these findings to the government, which would next month decide whether to keep all the assets or sell some.

Shabangu said rather than grabbing mines, the country would run a state-owned firm focused on strategic minerals such as coal and uranium, which were required for power generation.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) agreed on Monday pipeline and liquefied natural gas suppliers should not compete with each other and should work to raise gas prices on a par with oil, but did not agree to coordinated output cuts.

The GECF, whose members hold about 70 percent of the world's conventional gas reserves, met on Monday in Algeria to plan an escape from a gas glut that has pitted LNG and pipeline gas suppliers against each other, driving down prices and profits over the last year.

"All ministers agreed that our aim is to continue to support the linking of gas to oil parity ... We also believe that there should not be competition between different types of gas," Russian energy minister Sergei Shmatko said after the meeting.

"We believe that there is today a certain conflict between long-term contracts and the spot market."

Russia, the world's largest pipeline gas exporter, has seen its sales to Europe shrink because of competition from LNG sellers who have been forced to find markets for fuel earmarked for North America before a surge in U.S. shale gas production.

Plentiful supply has driven gas prices down on both sides of the Atlantic, slashing profits for LNG sellers too. Gas currently sells for less than $4 per million British thermal units in the U.S., down from a 2-1/2 year peak of $13.69 in mid-2008, and $5 in Britain.

With oil trading in a range of $80-85 over the last month, oil parity would mean gas selling for around $11.

Algerian energy minister Chakib Khelil said earlier this year the forum -- which is dominated by Europe's three biggest suppliers Russia, Algeria and LNG giant Qatar -- should agree to coordinated cuts in spot market supplies to support prices.

But the GECF has made no serious attempt to coordinate supply policy so far, and ministers did not discuss practical cuts on Monday, the GECF's Russian secretary general Leonid Bokhanovsky said.

"The (Algerian) proposal was not discussed in detail... No practical steps on the percentage of the cuts or the segment of the cuts were discussed in the open session," Bokhanovsky told Reuters after the meeting.

Although often refered to as "gas OPEC", many analysts say it cannot hope to emulate the power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries soon because most gas is delivered under long-term contracts and competition for spot sales from non-members is strong.

"When you drop the (OPEC) quota, someone else is not taking your place, but in gas, you have two important countries that are not members -- the United States and Australia," Khelil told journalists after the meeting, adding the group had instead decided to strive for oil-gas parity -- someday.

"How you do that is for each country to achieve that with the sales contracts that they have," he said.

OFFICIAL DECLARATION

The GECF, which Bokhanovsky said would hold its next ministerial meeting in Qatar on December 2, 2010, hopes instead to convince customers that they should pay more for gas to ensure the investments needed to secure supplies of the cleanest burning fossil fuel in future.

"We agree that ensuring adequate and reliable supplies of gas at prices reflecting parity with oil prices and the advantages of natural gas is a challenge," the final GECF declaration, read by Khelil, said.

"Natural gas is an essential part of the fuel mix and plays an important role in satisfying the global need for an environmentally friendly energy source."

The declaration says the GECF wants big gas consumers to participate in more upstream gas projects in producing countries, while allowing gas exporters to invest in mid and downstream networks in consuming countries.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday Sudan's elections were neither free nor fair but it will deal with the victors to try to settle internal disputes before a referendum that could bring independence to southern Sudan.

Early results from the election, the oil-producing nation's first in 24 years, suggest President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his party are headed for a strong win in presidential and parliamentary polls marred by boycotts and alleged fraud.

Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face charges of war crimes in Darfur, scored majorities of up to 90 percent in a sample of results from northern Sudan reported by state media.

"This was not a free and fair election," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "It did not, broadly speaking, meet international standards."

"That said, I think we recognize that the election is a very important step" toward carrying out a 2005 peace deal that gave the south autonomy, a share of oil revenues and a route to independence via referendum by January 2011, he told reporters.

The so-called Comprehensive Peace Agreement was designed to end a 22-year civil war between the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in Sudan's mostly Muslim north and the largely Christian and animist south.

"EMERGENCE OF A NEW COUNTRY"

Crowley said many of those elected in the Sudanese poll, however flawed it may have been, would play important roles in whether "we have a credible referenda process that, quite honestly, is likely to yield the emergence of a new country."

His comment was an allusion to the widely held expectation that southern Sudan will choose to secede from the north.

"So while we understand that there were flaws and failures in terms of this electoral process, we will recognize that there is a lot of work to be done," he said. "The United States will continue to work with the government in the north, the government in the south, as we move forward with ... the vitally important referenda that'll happen in January of next year."

In a separate statement, the United States, Britain and Norway said Sudan's elections were marred by poor preparation and other suspected irregularities and they called on Sudanese officials to take to fully implement the 2005 peace accord.

"We note initial assessments of the electoral process from independent observers, including the judgment that the elections failed to meet international standards," the three countries, guarantors of the peace deal, said in a statement.

"We are reassured that voting passed reasonably peacefully, reportedly with significant participation, but share their serious concerns about weak logistical and technical preparations and reported irregularities in many parts of Sudan," the statement said.

European Union and Carter Center observers have said the elections did not meet international standards, but stopped short of echoing opposition charges of vote-rigging.

The three countries noted the limited access of observer missions in Darfur and voiced regret that electoral officials did not do more to address such problems before the voting.

"It is essential to build upon the progress made so far to expand democratic space in Sudan," the statement said, adding that Sudanese officials should "draw lessons" to ensure future polls and a referendum due next year on independence for South Sudan do not suffer from the same flaws.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - South Sudan's main party on Monday accused the north of building up troops in the country's highly sensitive Blue Nile border state during a vote count at the climax of troubled national elections.

Blue Nile, on Sudan's north-south border next to Ethiopia, was one of the main battle grounds in the 1983-2005 civil war between north and south Sudan.

It remains a potential flashpoint as the oil-producing country moves through elections towards a 2011 referendum on southern independence.

The elections were set up under the 2005 peace deal that ended that conflict and were supposed to help bring the country back to democracy.

A Sudanese police source said they were increasing their presence ahead of the results announcement. "They are executing the security plan that was set out for them ahead of the elections," the source said. "These are ordinary measures."

The southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a former rebel group, said it had information the north had been building up troops in the region over the past two days and said it would not accept any attempt to influence the results of a hotly-contested race for state governor.

"They are building up forces there ... They are trying to rig the elections ... It is unacceptable. It is a red line and we will not accept it," SPLM presidential candidate Yasir Arman told Reuters after a news conference.

Arman would not say what the SPLM would do, but said his party's leadership would discuss a response.

An SPLM official in Blue Nile, Suleiman Osman, told Reuters more than 2,000 heavily armed police with 18 vehicles mounted with machine guns moved onto the streets of the state capital of Damazin overnight.

Senior NCP member Rabie Abdelati said: "The early figures show that the NCP will get the victory in Blue Nile. Yasir Arman knows this and this is why he is making these falsehoods."

HOTLY CONTESTED

Both SPLM and NCP have claimed victory in the hotly contested state ahead of the announcement of official results.

Northern and southern leaders could not agree on the future of Blue Nile and neighbouring South Kordofan when they negotiated the 2005 peace deal.

Both states remain in northern Sudan but the residents were promised "popular consultations" giving them a vague right to voice a desire for more autonomy if they are unhappy with the government in Khartoum.

Sudan's elections were marred by poor preparation and suspected irregularities, the United States, Britain and Norway said on Monday, calling on Sudanese officials to take further steps to fully implement the country's 2005 peace accord.

Early results -- Sudan's first open polls in more than two decades -- suggest President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his party are heading for an overwhelming victory.

Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court to face charges of war crimes in Darfur, scored majorities of up to 90 percent in a sample of results from northern Sudan reported by state media.

Elections officials told Reuters it would likely be some days before presidential results are announced because of technical delays in the reporting systems.

European Union and Carter Center observers have said the elections did not meet international standards, but stopped short of echoing opposition charges of vote-rigging.

The SPLM and other parties boycotted large parts of the voting.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israel may come under new pressure next month at a U.N. meeting on atomic weapons as the United States, Britain and France consider backing Egypt's call for a zone in the Middle East free of nuclear arms, envoys said.

The 189 signatories to the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will meet at U.N. headquarters in New York for a May 3-28 conference on the troubled pact whose credibility, analysts say, has been harmed by the atomic programs of Iran and North Korea and the failure of the big nuclear powers to disarm.

Israel, like India and Pakistan, never signed the treaty and is not officially attending the conference. The Jewish state is presumed to have a sizable nuclear arsenal, although it has never confirmed or denied having atomic weapons.

NPT review conferences take place every five years. At the 1995 meeting, member states unanimously supported a resolution backing the idea of "a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons as well as other weapons of mass destruction."

In a working paper Egypt submitted to fellow treaty members ahead of next month's meeting, Cairo said the conference should formally express regret that "no progress has taken place on the implementation of the (1995) resolution" and call for an international treaty conference by 2011.

The point of such a conference would be "to launch negotiations, with the participation of all states of the Middle East, on an internationally and effectively verifiable treaty for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East," the Egyptian paper says.

Egyptian initiatives at NPT meetings are nothing new.

But Western diplomats familiar with the issue said the five permanent U.N. Security Council members -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- might be ready to support such a conference, although not with a negotiating mandate.

The diplomats, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the three Western powers might also encourage Israel to participate, although their position was that there could be no mandate for negotiating such a treaty now, when many countries in the region refuse to recognize Israel.

Egypt is one of several Arab states that recognize Israel.

SHIFT IN U.S. APPROACH

Diplomats said backing from the five permanent Security Council members -- the NPT's five official nuclear powers -- would help ensure broad support for Egypt's plan next month.

One Western envoy said Egypt's insistence on a conference with a negotiating mandate was the main "sticking point," while another expressed the hope that Egypt would compromise during intensive negotiations on the issue in the coming weeks.

But Egypt's U.N. Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz told Reuters the sticking point was Israel's reluctance to participate.

"We want the Israelis to sit at a table and negotiate," he said.

"We're flexible on the location and the format of the conference," Abdelaziz said, adding that one possible idea was to have U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon oversee it.

Western diplomats said the U.S. willingness to entertain the idea of supporting such a conference highlighted the sharp shift in Washington's approach to Israel under President Barack Obama compared with his predecessor George W. Bush.

U.S. support for a regional nuclear conference could further alienate the Israelis at a time when relations are already tense due to disagreements over Israel's settlements policy in occupied areas the Palestinians want for a state.

One Western diplomat said the Israelis were "understandably reluctant" to take part, even if the conference's outcome would be merely symbolic. But it would be difficult to refuse if Washington began to put pressure on the Israelis, he said.

"They (the Israelis) have an interest here," another diplomat said. "If the Arabs get something they want on Israel, they'll be more supportive on Iran's nuclear program and further sanctions. Israel would benefit from that."

Israel, like the United States, European Union and others, suspects Iran is developing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies. Iran, whose president has said Israel should be wiped off the map, says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Israel's U.N. mission had no official comment on the Egyptian proposal. But an Israeli diplomat told Reuters the Jewish state will be ready to discuss issues like establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone once there is peace in the Middle East.

Several diplomats told Reuters that Egypt has made clear it sees Israel as a higher priority than Iran and has threatened to prevent the NPT conference from reaching any agreements next month if it does not get what it wants on Israel. Decisions at NPT meetings are made by consensus.

The 2005 NPT review conference, which was widely seen as a failure, was unable to reach any agreements after Washington worked to focus attention on Iran and North Korea, while Egypt and Iran attacked Israel and accused the United States and others of reneging on disarmament promises.

2010-04-19
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said on Monday it will submit the fourth review of Liberia's loan program to its board in June, which could result in the country receiving an additional $6.8 million.

In a statement, the IMF said it also expected a document to pave the way for Liberia to clear its debt under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative would be reviewed by the IMF and World Bank management, parallel to the loan review.

"Significant progress was achieved in advancing structural reforms critical to the extended credit facility program and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative," the IMF said.

It said a preliminary understanding had been reached with Liberia on fiscal policies for the financial year beginning July 1 and on a revised debt strategy to prevent the reemergence of unsustainable levels of debt.

The West African country cut its foreign debt to $1.7 billion in August through a $1.2 billion buyback of outstanding government debt that had been in default since the 1980s, a key step in normalizing relations with the investment community.

Most of the remaining debt will likely be canceled when Liberia reaches the HIPC completion point, either through the HIPC program or under World Bank and African Development programs.

"The draft budget envisages concessional external financing and moderate domestic financing from a newly created treasury bill framework. The central government deficit is projected to remain below 2 percent of GDP," the IMF said.

Liberia, Africa's oldest independent republic, is still recovering from a 1989-2003 civil war, and the IMF said it expected economic output to rise at a faster pace in 2010 than last year, with growth estimated in the range of 6 percent.

2010-04-19
NAIVASHA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan flower farmer Jack Kneppers was forced on Monday to throw 6.5 tonnes of his exquisite roses into a compost pit after flights headed for Europe were cancelled because of the ash cloud.

Kenya's horticulture industry has already lost $12 million to the European airspace closure and it will take several weeks to recover even if flights resume now, its association of exporters said.

Kneppers' farm by picturesque Lake Naivasha in southwest Kenya produces 11 varieties of pristine roses worth tens of thousands of dollars every day.

"We have to throw them into big pits and turn them into compost," Kneppers said, standing in front of rows of boxes full of flowers that he fears will meet the same fate.

"Every day this happens it will cost us $35,000, more as we approach European mothers' day ... If you want to know what is being lost across the local industry, times that by sixty."

Horticultural exports are the leading hard currency earner in east Africa's largest economy, raking in 71.6 billion shillings last year. The sector provides thousands of jobs in a country with a high unemployment rate.

Flowers accounted for more than half of horticulture export earnings in 2009.

"It is bad. We have lost $3 million a night so that is a total of about $12 million as of last night," Stephen Mbithi, the head of the Fresh Producers Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) told Reuters from his Nairobi office.

SPANISH CORRIDOR

Mbithi said the country flies out 1,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables every night at this time of the year and only about 100 tonnes departed on Monday morning, destined for Spain.

"We want to see if we can open a corridor into Spain then we can send everything from Spain straight to Germany, Netherlands Belgium and everywhere we sell," he said.

Foreign exchange traders said the Kenyan shilling was likely to remain under pressure against the dollar as the flight ban was bound to hit hard currency inflows.

"This week there will be further losses whatever happens, even if cargo services resume, because there might be too much supply at once when the smoke stops," Mbithi said.

"If everything goes back to normal, we expect that within two-three weeks, then we will go back to normal, that is prices and everything," he said. "So it is going to be a major short-term loss."

Mbithi said a cargo flight was scheduled to take off Monday evening, but 10 flights every day were required to clear routine stock, not including the backlog.

Kenya Airways' Managing Director Titus Naikuni told a news conference the carrier was losing $1 million each day from cancelling flights to London, Amsterdam and Paris.

Neighbouring Ethiopia's smaller horticulture business, which earned $150 million in 2009, was also hit by the disruption.

"During the last six days we have lost 700 tonness of exports, equivalent to 1.75 million euros," Haileselassie Tekie, director general of the Ethiopian Horticultural Development Agency, told reporters.

"The horticulture industry has been seriously affected. Over 80 percent of our produce is marketed in Europe."