11/16/09

Luanda – The world is commemorating this Monday (November 16) the International Day for Tolerance, established by the United Nations Organisation (UNO) in recognition to the Paris Declaration, signed on November 12, 1995, by a total of 185 States.

The UN Declaration was part of the event on the international effort of the United Nations Year for Tolerance.

In this declaration, participating states reaffirmed the "faith in the fundamental human rights" and also in dignity and value to human life, besides curbing successive generations of war resulting from cultural issues, stressing the encouragement to tolerance and peaceful socialisation among neighbouring population.

They then suggested the November 16, during the signing of the establishment of UNESCO in 1945. The same proposal was them submitted to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

In 1996, the General Assembly invited Member States to observe the International Day for Tolerance on 16 November, with activities directed towards both educational establishments and the wider public (resolution 51/95 of 12 December).

This action came in the wake of the United Nations Year for Tolerance, 1995, proclaimed by the Assembly in 1993 (resolution 48/126).

The Year had been declared on the initiative of the General Conference of UNESCO. On 16 November 1995, the UNESCO member States had adopted the Declaration of Principles on Tolerance and Follow-up Plan of Action for the Year.

portalangop

11/16/09

Luanda - Nigeria is studying modalities to have direct flights with Angola in the coming months, said on Monday the West African country’s ambassador to the country, Layiwola Laseinde.

During an interview to Angop, the Nigerian diplomat said “we are studying ways to have an air flight from Angola to Nigeria to reinforce bilateral cooperation between the two peoples.

According to Layiwola Laseinde this flight will bring about benefits to people and goods transported from one country to another.

Angola and Nigeria are members of OPEC, UN and AU and share common interest in a specific area because of their territory similarity like in oil, fish, education and others.

portalangop

11/16/09

Luanda – The Angolan ambassador to Ethiopia and permanent representative to the African Union (AU), Manuel Domingos Augusto, Sunday in Addis Ababa, urged a greater attention to the phenomenon of illegal immigration in Africa as it poses threat to peace and stability.

Manuel Augusto was speaking at the activities that marked the 34th anniversary of National
Independence, celebrated on 11 November.

"The experience teaches us that the stability of any nation demands the exercise of sovereignty
and the authority of the State within the national territory and effective supervision of its borders", he stressed.

The Angolan diplomat acknowledges the hospitality and solidarity as pillars of the African Union, apart from calling for a careful reflection on the illegal immigration which is now representing a true threat to peace, stability, order and cooperation among States.

According to Manuel Augusto, the creation of a regime of migration to regulate the entry and
exit of foreign citizens is a key condition for the defence of the State sovereignty.

He added that such measure should be taken in accordance with the real capacity of each
state of receiving and keeping the residence of foreigners, within the premises of African
hospitality and dignity, without undermining the internal stability and specially the national
interests.

The Angolan ambassador advised for an interstate cooperation aiming at discouraging and
eliminating illegal immigration, thus promoting confidence in the good neighbourhood relations
among States.

Manuel Augusto recalled that the Angolan government had taken steps to respond to the
challenges of illegal immigration based on national provisions and international practice.

To commemorate the 34th anniversary of the National Independence was held a photo
exhibition that highlighted the participation of the President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos
Santos, at G-20 Summit, in Aquilla, Italy and the visit to Angola of the Pope Benedict XVI.

The visits to Angola of Russian president, Dimitri Medved, South African leader, Jacob Zuma,
United States’ State secretary, Hillary Clinton, were also portrayed at the event.

portalangop

11/16/09

Luanda - The Inspector-General of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), general Rafael Sapilinha Sambalanga, is expected Tuesday in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, to attend from 17 to 22 November a troika meeting gathering the working group of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) General Inspectors of Defence.

During the meeting, the inspectors of defence from Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe (the countries integrating the troika) will analyse and approve the statute and manual for instructions of the activities of group comprising the 14 member states of the regional bloc.

Speaking to Angop, general Sambalanga said that the documents will be later sent to the SADC’s Interstate Defence and Security Committee (CIEDS) headquarters, based in Botswana.

The sources stressed that the two documents will be submitted for approval during the meeting slated for March, 2010 in Mozambique.

Experts from Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, in charge of inspection, have been engaged, since last week in Tanzania, working out the documents.

Angola, in representation of FAA Inspector general, general Sambalanga, assumed as since August, 2009 a one year- term presidency of the working group of General Inspectors of Defence, whose acronym in English is called DWIG/SADC.

SADC Inspectors General are instructed to verify the effective and efficient use of human, material and financial resources available at the staff of SADC Stand by Brigade.

SADC groups Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Mauritius, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, DR Congo, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

portalangop

16 November 2009

Joram Abiero remembers it was not too long ago that his neighbours went to bed hungry. Now they and thousands of others in the lowlands of western Kenya are able to get year-round work as farm labourers or earn money from their once-neglected rice paddies.
RiceField

The government's investment in a rundown irrigation project has revived a rural economy that was in the dumps for years.

The discernable change a season's harvest of rice has brought to the western Kenyan town of Ahero also helps illustrate a message the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has trumpeted this year: governments need to invest more in agriculture to reduce the number of people who need food aid - currently one in six people on the globe.

Heads of state and government from around the world gather in Rome today at an FAO summit to explore new strategies. The summit's top goal is to rally the world behind a change in aid policy, and to secure a pledge to spend more money to develop agriculture in poor countries.

Kenya's program could serve as a model for a radical change in aid policy - getting people to feed themselves.

"When they wake up, there is somewhere they can go and work," Abiero said of his neighbors Friday as he sat at the edge of the four-acre (1.6-hectare) paddy he's had since 1968. "Before they used to go to sleep hungry and did not know whether they will be able to get food the following day."

At a different plot, Erka Adhiambo Okiki echoed Abiero's thoughts as she trudged through the paddy, pulling out weeds. Okiki said she prefers to work as a laborer in the rice fields, even though she grows maize and arrow roots on her own small plot.

"I have found maize does not do so well because it either rains too much or too little," Okiki said. "I come here (the rice paddies) to get my daily income." Okiki earns at least $3 a day. Importantly, there is work throughout the year.

Ahero rice farmers have been able to sell their surplus to the U.N.'s World Food Program, Kenya's national food agency, the National Cereals and Produce Board, among others.

Mugambi Gitonga, a senior official of Kenya's National Irrigation Board that revived the Ahero Irrigation Scheme, says there is a dramatic change in people's lifestyles.

For Ahero's carpenters, "the best selling items were coffins.

People were dying of so many diseases," says Gitonga, the board's chief planning officer. "Now the best selling items are furniture.

Ahero is thriving
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, which is hosting the three-day summit at its Rome headquarters, says the share of international aid allocated to agriculture has plummeted from around 19 percent in 1980 to 3.8 percent in 2006.

Only recently has this trend started to reverse, but in the meantime high food prices and the financial meltdown have pushed the number of hungry people this year to a record 1.02 billion people - nearly a sixth of the world's population.

Small farmers in the developing world could feed themselves and their compatriots if only they had access to basic items like seeds, tools, irrigation systems as well as training and infrastructure such as storage facilities and roads from fields to markets, FAO says.

But with food prices relatively low until the spike in 2007-2008, government and private investors felt there was less need to put money into agriculture, said FAO economist Kostas Stamoulis.

Money was diverted instead to less complex and more attention-grabbing projects.

"Agriculture lost its glitter," Stamoulis told The Associated Press. "It's much more media-friendly to go cut a ribbon in a hospital or a school rather than mess around with agriculture research or water projects."

The 2,200-acre (900-hectare) Ahero Irrigation Scheme in Kenya offers an example of how a poor nation's government investing its own money in agriculture, with some outside help, can make farming attractive once more.

The National Irrigation Board revived the scheme in 2005, repairing or replacing equipment neglected for close to a decade and re-establishing contact with farmers. FAO then provided enough seeds, fertilizers and pesticides to be used on 1,000 acres (400 hectares).

Slowly, more and more farmers returned to rice. Last year the farmers harvested about 5,600 tons of rice, says Abdi Ahmed, the project's manager.

The board had administered the project up to the late 1990s and stopped, leading to its collapse and Ahero's economic decline. At the time the board had full control, telling farmers when and what to plant, providing them with seeds and fertilizers on credit, and milling and selling the rice.

Farmers at a similar but larger project in central Kenya rose against the board in the late 1990s, demanding a better price for their produce and more control over their farms. That revolt pushed the government to restructure the board and it rethought its relationship with farmers.

Ahmed says the board now concentrates on running and maintaining the irrigation infrastructure, charging the farmers a subsidized fee for each acre. The board is no longer involved in production or marketing. As part of reviving the Ahero scheme, however, the government got its agriculture financing agency to lend them money to buy seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.

"They (the farmers) were able to return 100 percent of what they were lent by the Agriculture Finance Corp.," Ahmed says. "We were able to overcome the challenge that existed, that is farmers not getting critical inputs."

After the success of the Ahero Irrigation Scheme, the government has decided to extend the model to other government-built and run projects as well as privately managed ones in western Kenya, covering a total of 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares), Ahmed said.

Sapa-AP

16 November 2009

Egypt's communications minister on Sunday announced the introduction of the first Arabic domain, in a step easing Internet access to millions of Arabic speakers around the world.
Internet

From midnight (2200 GMT), registration was to begin for the .misr country code top-level domain, Tarek Kamel told the fourth meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"Now we can really say that Internet will speak Arabic," Kamel said at the opening of the four-day conference, hours before the launch.

The announcement follows a decision by the US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to end the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses, allowing Internet users to write an entire website address in Chinese, Arabic, Russian and several other scripts.

At present, all domain names -- the part of the website address after the dot, as in .com and .org -- end in letters from the Latin alphabet.

"The voice of developing world must be heard," Sha Zukang, the UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, told the Sharm el-Sheikh conference.

"Good and democratic Internet governance is a means of achieving development for all," he said.

The IGF groups more than 1,500 representatives of government, non-governmental organisations, advocacy groups and the private sector to discuss the future of the Internet.

Under the banner "Creating Opportunities for All", this year's forum is to discuss increasing accessibility, development of local content, encouraging cultural and language diversity, the promotion of safe use of the Internet, means of combating cybercrime, and management of critical Internet resources.

For hosts Egypt, the information and communication technology industry has been vital for the economy, bringing in eight billion dollars of investment over the past four years, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told the IGF.

Egypt now has 54 million mobile phone subscribers from a population of 80 million, and 15 million Internet users in 2009, Nazif said.

But Egypt's Internet success story has also been marred by accusations of censorship from international rights groups, with several bloggers and Internet activists arrested, often for "security reasons."

Last year, an Egyptian rights group accused authorities of censorship and violation of privacy after a new measure was set up forcing cyber cafes to gather personal information on Internet users.

The measure means that clients at Internet cafes must provide their names, email and phone numbers before they use the Internet.

Once a date is provided, they receive a text message on their mobile phones and a pin number allowing them to access the Internet.

Censorship, security and freedom of expression is also on the agenda of the IGF forum, which was set up after a World Summit on Information Society in Tunis in 2005. Its mandate runs until 2010 but can be renewed.

Sapa-AFP

November 16 2009
South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee's (Sascoc) Tubby Reddy says his organisation has no choice but to obtain a High Court interdict to prevent Athletics South Africa (ASA) from interfering with the administrator's duties.

This after ASA warned that it would not take the take-over of the federation by a Sascoc administrator lying down. ASA's general manager Molatelo Malehopo has served the Sascoc appointed administrator, Ray Mali, with legal documents saying that Sascoc has no jurisdiction over ASA.

Malehopo has apparently also locked certain rooms and offices in the building occupied by ASA in Houghton. Mali took over the administration of ASA today after Sascoc suspended federation president Leonard Chuene and the board for their handling of the Caster Semenya gender saga.

Mali says an interim board will soon be established to solve the problems athletes are facing in the country. Mali, who has been appointed caretaker administrator of Athletics South Africa, started his duties this morning. He held a meeting with staff at the ASA offices and general manager Molatelo Malehopo, after which he addressed the media. Mali says he's ready to work with a soon-to-be established board.

sabcnews

November 16 2009

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has called for a clear plan of action to alleviate the plight of over a billion people suffering from chronic hunger globally. He was addressing world leaders today at the World Food Summit taking place in Rome, Italy. The Summit is aimed at enhancing food security against the background of a rising world population and climate change.

Motlanthe says: "We need strong accountablility, follow-up mechanisms, monitoring, evaluation and matching funding to implement our decisions. The world cannot afford another summit in the face of increasing numbers of hungry people; let this summit help end hunger."

Motlanthe also urged world leaders to transform international financial and economic regimes to reduce world hunger. Motlanthe says while there are signs that the global economic crisis is easing in some sectors of the developed world, developing countries are continuing to experience negative growth rates.

sabcnews

16 November 2009

Nigeria's president held "frank and fruitful" talks with former oil rebel leaders on Saturday in an effort to end the conflict in the Niger Delta region, his spokesman said Sunday.

President Umaru Yar'Adua met the ex-chiefs of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main rebel group.

Militants have waged a violent campaign against facilities in the oil-rich area for more than three years, saying they are fighting for greater share of oil wealth for their communities.

Olusegun Adeniyi, Yar'Adua's spokesman, said Saturday's discussions were "frank and fruitful" and the president "used the session to reiterate his commitment to the overall peace and development of the Niger Delta."

The Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka also took part in the talks, Adeniyi said.

MEND, represented at the talks by Henry Okah and Farah Dagogo, said in a statement the two hours of talks were "frank, cordial and useful."

"This meeting heralds the beginning of serious, meaningful dialogue between MEND and the Nigerian government to deal with and resolve root issues that have long been swept under the carpet," the statement read.

Rebel activities slashed Nigeria's oil output by around a third, from 2.6 million barrels a day in 2006 to around 1.7 million.

In June Yar'Adua decided to offer an amnesty which saw thousands surrender their arms, and though MEND did not take part in the amnesty, it did declare an indefinite ceasefire on October 25 to allow talks to go ahead.

Sapa-AFP

16 November 2009

Ghana is set to begin oil and gas production at a new off-shore field. Officials expect the increase in output to bring the country as much as $1 billion a year. Lawmakers want to ensure that those profits are spent responsibly.
Oil_platform

Ghana's offshore Jubilee Field is set to begin producing oil and natural gas next year that could earn the country as much as 20 billion dollars over the next 20 years.

But the new government need look no farther than neighbouring Nigeria to see how quickly squandered oil wealth can bring resentment, violence, and environmental destruction.

So lawmakers in Ghana want to make sure they have a plan in place for spending that oil revenue responsibly before the money starts coming in.

Parliamentarian Catherine Afeku says expectations are high in Ghana and the benefits to come must be shared by those who live in oil producing areas. "For the longest [time] we have not had this kind of resource, and everybody associates the black gold with real social infrastructure. Coming from the Nzema area where the oil is there must be a bill, a law promoting the use of local content in some of the real jobs that the people of the area would be able to use," she said.

Abdulai Daramani is the environmental program officer for the Accra-based advocacy group Third World Network-Africa. While expectations are high, he says the risk that Ghanaians will be disappointed is just as high unless there is a proper legal framework to disclose how much money is being made and where it is going. "I am not too sure the level of impact that the oil will make if we don't have safeguards against waste, safeguards against corporate exploitation and safeguards against abuse of power and political discretions. So for us to be able to meet those high hopes we need to manage the oil revenue effectively, and that requires the need for us to put in place concrete terms and conditions that optimize the oil revenue for us," he said.

Lawmaker James Afedzi is Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee. He says President John Atta-Mills' government is drafting legislation to regulate oil revenue and will soon present its recommendations to legislators. "We are waiting for the legislation to come from the executive to the House, and then we will look at the options that are available to the government. Then we will take a decision. But my expectation is that the revenue that will be generating from that find must be used in a way that will benefit everybody," he said.

A study by the aid agency Oxfam America and Ghana's Integrated Social Development Center says the transparent management of oil funds not only improves public spending but gives the public greater confidence that their money is being spent wisely.

Parliamentarian Afeku wants the new law to include mandatory investments in job training and education. "We should be able to create a fund that is transparent so it would actually promote education in those sectors - our engineers, pipeline designers - people who would be directly involved in the industry from Ghana, so that they would take on when we are gone. We are still a developing nation I would rather see it used in developing the infrastructure of the nation. So children can actually go to better schools equipped with IT to prepare them for the industry," she said.

The next test for Ghana's government is overseeing the sale of Kosmos Energy's stake in the Jubilee Field - a stake that is worth more than three billion dollars. Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum, and China's National Offshore Oil Company are all bidding for that stake.

Industry analysts say Ghana's government hopes to find the financing to acquire the Kosmos stake itself, then sell it off to the highest bidder and reinvest the profits in the National Petroleum Corporation, which already holds 13 percent of the Jubilee Field.

VOA News

ROME (Reuters) - Government leaders and officials meet in Rome on Monday for a three-day U.N. summit on how to fight global hunger, but anti-poverty campaigners are already writing off the event as a missed opportunity.

With the world's hungry topping one billion for the first time in history, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation had called the summit, hoping that leaders would commit to raising the share of official aid spent on agriculture to 17 percent of the total -- its 1980 level -- from 5 percent now.

That would amount to $44 billion a year, up from $7.9 billion now.

But a published draft of the final declaration to be adopted on Monday includes only a general promise to pour more money into agricultural aid, with no target nor a timeframe for action.

A pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025 was also taken off the draft, which now states that world leaders commit to eradicate hunger "at the earliest possible date".

"The real causes of hunger and food insecurity are not even on the agenda or in the draft declaration," said the London-based think tank International Policy Network, which blames trade restrictions for the rise in malnutrition.

Last year's spike in the price of food staples such as rice and wheat sparked riots in 60 countries, hoarding and a scramble by rich food importers to buy foreign farmland, pushing food shortages and hunger up the political agenda.

Food prices have fallen back since, but they remain high in poor countries and FAO warns sudden price rises are very likely.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Stowed away on cargo ships and unsure where their dangerous journeys will take them, increasing numbers of African immigrants are arriving in Latin America as European countries tighten border controls.

Some head to Mexico and Guatemala as a stepping stone to the United States, others land in the ports of Argentina and Brazil. Though many arrive in Latin America by chance, once in the region they find governments that are more welcoming than in Europe.

"One night I went to the seaport. I was thinking I was going to Europe. Later I found out I was in Argentina," said Sierra Leone immigrant Ibrahim Abdoul Rahman, a former child soldier who said he escaped his country's civil war by sneaking onto a cargo ship for a 35-day voyage.

In Brazil, Africans are now the largest refugee group, representing 65 percent of all asylum seekers, according to the Brazil's national committee for refugees.

There are now more than 3,000 African immigrants living in Argentina, up from just a few dozen eight years ago. The number of asylum seekers each year has risen abruptly, to about 1,000 a year, and a third of them are African.

"We're seeing a steep increase in the number of Africans coming to the country and seeking asylum," said Carolina Podesta, of the Argentine office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

This is still low compared to the tens of thousands of immigrants who make the journey to Europe each year, but Africans are expected to come to Latin America in increasing numbers.

"It's a search for new destinations," Podesta said, adding that many were being pushed by tougher European immigration and security policies put in place after September 11, 2001.

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - OPEC president Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos said on Monday it was still too early for the oil exporters' group to make a decision on production changes before its December meeting, as the market remained oversupplied.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Luanda, Angola, on December 22 to decide on its oil production policy.

"The situation is not (yet) stabilised... I think the market has, at this time, a lot of stocks... and we need to wait until the meeting," he told Reuters.

Botelho de Vasconcelos said the market was still "a little bit" oversupplied, putting current global oil inventories now about 62 days of forward cover.

"Ideally the forward cover should be around 52 to 53 days," he told reporters later, ahead of a speech on energy security.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) last week said that stocks of oil in OECD countries remained very high at the equivalent of 60 days of forward demand at the end of September, down from 60.9 days at the end of August.

Compliance in the producer group with its output targets was currently around 65 percent, he said. The IEA, which advises 28 industrialised economies, said last week that compliance among the group's members had slipped.

"I'm happy with compliance, I think our organisation is at 65 percent," Botelho de Vasconcelos said.

* Kabila pressures UN to consider reducing peacekeepers
* Withdrawal will take at least two years - UN official
* Situation in eastern Congo remains very fragile

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is quietly preparing an exit strategy for its troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the biggest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world, diplomats and officials said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, diplomats and U.N. officials said President Joseph Kabila was putting pressure on the U.N. and Security Council ahead of the country's 50th anniversary next year to come up with a plan for ending the peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC.

MONUC has been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of Congo as it struggles to reestablish state control over the vast central African nation following a 1998-2003 war and humanitarian disaster which have killed an estimated 5.4 million people.

"It's partly a question of dignity," one Western diplomat told Reuters. "Kabila's eager to show that his government's reliance on U.N. peacekeeping is decreasing. It's understandable. No leader wants to give the impression that he needs U.N. peacekeepers to stay in power."

Kabila, who won the country's first democratic election in four decades 2006, is expected to run for re-election in 2011.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling ANC and its allies agreed to look at broadening the mandate of the central bank from merely tackling inflation, ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday.

Mantashe told reporters the alliance, which includes the South African Communist Party and the labour federation COSATU, had formed a team to study the effects of a strong rand, following warnings about the repercussions of its strength on the economy.

The ANC and its allies met for three days to iron out their differences, with the government under pressure to shift economic policy to the left.

COSATU and the SACP want higher spending and for the inflation targets that guide monetary policy to be scrapped.

Mantashe said the partners had agreed at a "robust" meeting to look at the central bank's mandate.

"The summit agreed that the alliance task team on macroeconomic policy must remain seized with reviewing and broadening the mandate of the Reserve Bank," he said at a briefing after the meeting, adding that monetary policy should be in line with the aims of fiscal policy.

The Reserve Bank has the task of fighting inflation, keeping it between 3 and 6 percent. In September, inflation was 6.1 percent year-on-year, compared with almost 14 percent a year ago.

Critics say this had led to interest rates that are too high, which COSATU blames for exacerbating poverty. They want the target scrapped and interest rates cut to help pull the economy out of its first recession in nearly two decades.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling ANC and its partners are "uncomfortable" with power utility Eskom's request for price increases of 45 percent a year, ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday.

Eskom submitted an application in September asking for the yearly tariff rise for the next three years, or for prices to be increased 146 percent in one go.

Both suggestions were widely criticised by economists and industry, which said increases of that nature would stoke inflation and force industrial majors to shut parts of their operations.

The government has backed Eskom's need for higher prices but opposition from the alliance -- which includes the ruling party, trade union federation COSATU and the South African Communist Party -- may see it lower its request.

"We were uncomfortable with the 45 percent tariff rise over three successive years. The multi-year price determination by Eskom will negatively impact on society," Mantashe said at a briefing after a three-day alliance summit.

Eskom will submit a final tariff rise request to the country's power regulator by the end of this month.

The utility needs the tariff increases to raise money for its 385 billion rand power supply expansion programme, needed to supply fast-rising demand in Africa's biggest economy.

AngloGold Ashanti Chief Executive Mark Cutifani said last week that the government was expected to reject Eskom's initial proposal due to the impact it would have on the gold sector.

He said the government had signaled rates would likely double over three years, not triple as suggested by Eskom.

(Xinhua) -- The Somali Islamist rebel group of Al-Shabaab on Sunday accused the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) of being "an obstacle" to the war ravaged country's agricultural production.

Spokesman for the militant group, Ali Mohamoud Raage, said the UN food agency "deliberately" imports food aid during harvest seasons in Somalia to discourage farmers from growing food grains.

"WFP is an obstacle to the agricultural production of Somalia because they bring in spoilt grain when farmers are harvesting their crops," Raage said as he spoke in the southern port town of Merka, 100 km south of Mogadishu.

The Islamist official claimed that his group found out from farmers and intellectuals they consulted that the UN food agency was discouraging farmers from growing food grains, saying the local farmers have been given "money and machinery so that fruits and vegetables be grown instead of food grains".

"We can do without WFP' spoilt maize. If we put our trust in Allah we will have prosperity," the Islamist official said.

The Islamist Al-Shabaab movement which controls much of south and center of Somalia have previously banned the operations of several UN agencies in areas under their control.

The group which is alleged to have links to Al-Qaeda considers the UN as a tool used by the west and in particular the United States which they see as their sworn enemy.

WFP has scaled down its operations in the south and center of Somalia following the deteriorating security situation which led the death, injury and abduction of several local and international aid workers.

Nov 15, 2009
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian rebels fighting for independence for a region with potentially significant oil and gas reserves said on Saturday they had captured seven towns near the border with neighbouring Somalia.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) wants autonomy for the Ogaden region, whose population is ethnic Somali. The area is drawing interest from foreign oil and gas companies who think its deserts might be rich in mineral deposits.

"The operation ... to capture Obolka, Hamaro, Higlaaley, Yucub, Galadiid, Boodhaano and Gunogabo involved thousands of ONLF troops and resulted in two days of heavy fighting," the rebels said in a statement.

"A significant number of Ethiopian troops have been killed and their military hardware captured or destroyed."

Ethiopian government officials were unavailable for comment, but they routinely deny ONLF statements and say the rebels have been defeated.

Addis Ababa says the ONLF are "terrorists" supported by regional rival Eritrea. The ONLF accuses the Ethiopian military of killing and raping civilians and burning villages in the region as part of its effort to root out insurgents.

The regular accusations from both sides are impossible to verify. Journalists and aid groups cannot move freely in the area without government escorts.

The ONLF statement said its fighters had been "warmly welcomed" by residents in the seven towns and were giving treatment to civilians hurt in the fighting.

Nov 15, 2009
DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - African states must integrate immediately or some will not survive, Mo Ibrahim, who funds the world's biggest prize in support of leadership on the continent, said late on Saturday.

Ibrahim was speaking at the opening of a two-day event promoting good governance in Africa, which appears to have slipped following a spate of coups in the past two years.

"Some of our countries, and I'm really sorry to say this, are just not viable," the Sudanese mobile phone tycoon said.

"We need scale and we need that now -- not tomorrow, the next year or the year after."

Several overlapping regional groupings throughout the continent are trying to knit their economies closer together, but the pace and extent of integration is slower than hoped.

"Intra-African trade is 4-5 percent of our international trade. Why? This is unacceptable, unviable, and people need to stand up and say this," Ibrahim said.

"Who are we to think that we can have 53 tiny little countries and be ready to compete with China, India, Europe, the Americans? It is a fallacy."

The $5 million Ibrahim Prize, which has previously been awarded to outgoing presidents Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Festus Mogae of Botswana, was not awarded this year.

Nov 15, 2009
LAGOS (Reuters) - The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said on Sunday it had started formal peace talks with President Umaru Yar'Adua, three weeks after reinstating a ceasefire in the region.

The Movement for the Niger Delta (MEND) said a team of representatives including Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka and two retired senior military officers met Yar'Adua for more than two hours on Saturday.

"This meeting heralds the beginning of serious, meaningful dialogue between MEND and the Nigerian government to deal with and resolve root issues that have long been swept under the carpet," MEND said in an emailed statement.

Attacks claimed by the militant group have battered Africa's biggest energy industry over the past three years, preventing Nigeria from pumping much above two-thirds of its capacity and costing it around $1 billion a month in lost revenues.

The group and other armed factions say they are fighting for a fairer share of the oil wealth in the Niger Delta, one of the world's biggest wetlands where villages remain mired in poverty despite five decades of oil extraction by foreign firms.

But MEND has been severely weakened since its main field commanders and thousands of gunmen accepted a presidential offer of amnesty earlier this year and handed over their weapons.

The group reinstated a ceasefire three weeks ago after Yar'Adua met with Henry Okah, believed long to have been MEND's most senior commander and one of the first prominent militant figures to accept the amnesty.

MEND said Okah and Farah Dagogo, its former overall field commander, attended Saturday's talks as observers.