November 06, 2009


Zimbabwe's prime minister has ended his boycott of the country's unity cabinet, saying he wants to give the body time to work out its difficulties.

Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted the government three weeks ago after accusing the country's president, Robert Mugabe, of not implementing the power-sharing agreement and sanctioning the harassment of opposition MDC supporters.

Tsvangirai's decision on Thursday followed a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, with members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

"We have suspended our disengagement from the GPA (Global Political Agreement) with immediate effect and we will give President Robert Mugabe 30 days to implement the agreement on the pertinent issues we are concerned about," he told reporters.

He said his return to the cabinet would give the southern African group time to mediate.

Tsvangirai and Mugabe formed their coalition in February at the urging of the SADC.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) began boycotting cabinet meetings with Mugabe's ZANU-PF last month, although he said at the time that his withdrawal was only a temporary move.

The MDC leader has accused Mugabe of being a "dishonest and unreliable partner" for refusing to implement power-sharing fully, particularly regarding decisions over senior appointments.

Nonetheless Tsvangirai has said he sees the coalition as the only way to rescue Zimbabwe from economic ruin and political violence.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has accused Tsvangirai and the MDC of not doing enough to persuade Western nations to lift travel and financial sanctions targeted at ZANU-PF leaders and their business allies.

Western donors have said they are reluctant to send funds to Zimbabwe until a stable government creates a democracy that can implement political and economic reforms.

aljazeera

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Senior Officials Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) wrapped up in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday.

Senior officials from China and African countries concluded a meeting here, having made final preparations for the fourth Ministerial Meeting scheduled on Nov. 8-9.

At the opening ceremony of Friday's meeting, Ibrahim Ali Hassan, secretary general of the fourth Ministerial Meeting, said "today's meeting is to make preparation for the fourth Ministerial Conference of the FOCAC to be held in two days."

He said Chinese and African leaders will exchange in-depth views on further development of Sino-African relations at the forthcoming ministerial meeting, and blueprint their future all-round cooperation in various fields.

Friday's Senior Officials Meeting is the seventh in the framework of FOCAC.

"The meeting is to review and adopt the draft program of work of the fourth ministerial conference," Hassan said.

Up till now, around 20 heads of state or government would take part in the ministerial meeting, according to Hassan.

"Great progress has been achieved and the Chinese-African relations have witnessed stable progress in the past few years," he said.

Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhai Jun said at the opening ceremony "The global economic crisis has spread; hence, under such circumstances, this conference will be significant to further China-Africa cooperation."

"The meeting will map out plans for China-Africa friendly cooperation," he added.

Ambassador Ahmed Rezek, Egyptian coordinator for FOCAC, said Chinese and African officials have reached the declaration of Sharm el-Sheikh and the revised draft of the action plan.

China and Africa have witnessed closer cooperation in various fields since the Beijing Summit in 2006, said Zhang Ming, secretary-general of the Chinese Follow-Up Committee of FOCAC and director-general of the Department of African Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

"In the action plan, China included plans to promote cooperation between the two sides in the future," said Zhang, adding "It also includes our priorities in the years to come."

"The relations between China and Africa are timely and beneficial," Philippe Le Gall, ambassador of Seychelles to China, told Xinhua on the sidelines of the Senior Officials Meeting.

"China-Africa forum, as a strong identity of its own, is a long-lasting one and we are so ambitious when we talk about what is going to happen in the years to come," he said.

"Seychelles has participated in all the meetings organized by FOCAC because we think the outcomes of the previous meetings were extremely concrete and result-oriented, as we don't meet for rhetoric but for action," he added.

Representative of Libya delegation told the senior officials meeting, "We hope to advance the cooperation between China and the African countries in political area, trade, health, medicine, science and technology on the basis of equality and transparency, in order to achieve mutual benefits and common interests to help the African states to evolve, specifically under the circumstances of the global financial crisis."

"China is considered one of the third world countries that stand together with Africa and support its issues. On the other hand, Africa granted its support and voice to China," he added.

Meanwhile, representative of Sudan delegation told Xinhua, "The FOCAC reached a very progressed level of South-South cooperation, which means interests of both sides."

"What is essential now for the forum is to implement what have been agreed on through the action plan and the declaration," he said, adding that great changes have taken place from Beijing Summit to Sharm el-Sheikh meeting.

The main agenda of the upcoming ministerial conference here is to review the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Program for China-Africa Cooperation in Economic and Social Development and the two documents adopted during the first ministerial meeting of the forum held in Beijing.

The meeting is also expected to explore new initiatives and measures on the way toward Sino-African cooperation in priority areas such as human resources development, agriculture, infrastructure development, investment and trade.

The FOCAC is a mechanism for collective dialogue and cooperation jointly established by China and Africa to cope with new challenges and facilitate common development.

Since the launch of FOCAC in 2000, three ministerial conferences have been held in Beijing, Addis Ababa and Beijing respectively.

Nov 5th 2009

The neighbours of a shaky west African state fear that its instability could spread

WHEN Moussa Dadis Camara, a 45-year-old captain, seized power at the end of last year, many Guineans and foreigners were by no means unhappy. He seemed sure to be better than his corrupt and dictatorial predecessor, President Lansana Conté, who had just died after 25 years in charge. But hope evaporated at the end of September, when security forces smashed up an opposition rally in a stadium in Conakry, the capital. Soldiers and police killed at least 150 demonstrators and raped scores of women, says Human Rights Watch, a lobby based in New York.

A worldwide storm of outrage ensued. The African Union has frozen the assets held abroad by junta members. The European Union has imposed an arms embargo and has also, along with the United States, stopped giving visas to Guineans close to the regime. France, the former colonial ruler, has cut military ties. Its foreign minister has called for “international intervention”, so far unspecified.

But such pressure may—it is argued—split the junta rather than remove it. Captain Camara has blamed errant officers for the September killings, exacerbating tensions in his own ruling group. He has described himself as a hostage to competing factions. Some say Colonel Sekouba Konaté, the defence minister, could lead a mutiny. Others say that General Mamadou “Toto” Camara, one of a group of older officers, may seek to topple the captain.

So there are fears that Guinea could descend into civil war. This prospect worries other governments in the region, whose leaders recall how civil strife in one country has infected neighbours and sucked in foreign troops. Guinea shares borders with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, all of which have ended bloody civil conflicts in the past decade, often with foreign help. America and the UN sent peacekeeping forces to Liberia after a ceasefire in 2003. Britain dispatched soldiers to Sierra Leone, a former colony, in 2000.

With various ethnic groups straddling the borders, several of Guinea’s neighbours fear they could be drawn in. Liberian fighters are said to be moving across their border into Guinea’s forest region, Captain Camara’s home area. Barack Obama has written to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s president, to express his concern about Guinea. Tension is rising ahead of elections in Côte d’Ivoire that are scheduled for the end of this month.

On November 3rd Guinean opposition leaders met in Burkina Faso, whose president has been asked to mediate by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a 15-country regional group, and again told the junta to stand down. Mouctar Diallo, who heads an opposition party called the New Democratic Forces, is banking on outsiders to squeeze the captain out. In particular, the opposition is putting faith in a promised UN inquiry into the September massacre.

But the captain is unlikely to heed such calls. Guinea, which is rich in bauxite and gold, is said to be set to earn $7 billion in return for mineral and oil rights recently granted to a Chinese company, so it could get by without help from its old friends in the West. Captain Camara has yet to declare his candidacy in a presidential election due in January. In fact, he has not said whether there will be an election at all.

economist

The top United Nations envoy to Sudan has praised the disarming, demobilisation and reintegration so far this year of over 15,000 former combatants from the African nation's north-south civil war.
bullets

It is hoped that as many as 180,000 ex-combatants across Sudan will return to civilian life under the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) scheme that was launched in February as part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the war.

"The momentum built up thus far is impressive and continues to grow as new sites will become operational in the Three Areas and Southern Sudan," the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan Ashraf Jehangir Qazi told a gathering of partners involved in implementing the DDR on Tuesday.

The DDR process "has given hope to ex-combatants and their communities as they see something concrete being done to promote peace," said Qazi, adding that the UN has started to work with its Sudanese partners to extend DDR operations.

Mr. Qazi, who also heads the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), stressed that the return to society of former fighters from the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), Popular Defence Forces and Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was "critical to creating a conducive environment for the upcoming elections."

Highlighting a funding shortfall faced by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in their efforts to demobilize child soldiers, Mr. Qazi that it is "important we regain momentum on the release and reintegration of children associated with armed forces to prevent children from returning to life in the barracks."

At the partnership meeting, held in the Sudanese city of Kadugli, the representative from Norway announced an additional pledge of around $5 million to support adult and child DDR.

Demobilized combatants are provided with opportunities for alternative livelihoods in agriculture, micro-businesses, vocational training or formal education. The North and South Sudan DDR Commissions implement the programme with support from the Integrated UN DDR Unit, comprised of UNMIS, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

africagoodnews

06 November 2009
climate

Determined not to get a "raw deal", Africa has emerged with "the most unified voice" compared with other negotiating blocs at the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Barcelona negotiations.

African negotiators in Barcelona on Thursday told journalists in Johannesburg, that they would "boycott" discussions regarding the Kyoto Protocol at the Barcelona negotiations until developed (Annex-1) countries made real commitments on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. Participation in the discussions on other matters continued.

"We need certain commitments. We know the scientific evidence. We know the impacts on agriculture, health and so on. We know what action needs to take place. And we are expecting that there have to be ambitious targets taken on by Annex-1 countries - and at the moment they are not coming up with that," emphasised Lesotho Ambassador in Germany and coordinator and chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) within the IPCC Makase Nyaphisi.

africagoodnews

06 November 2009

Zimbabwe says that it will ramp up power production at the Hwange thermal power station from the current 450 MW to at least 750 MW and restart another idle thermal station by June 2010 with help from neighbours Namibia and Botswana respectively.

Zimbabwe Energy and Power Development Minister Elias Mudzuri said that Namibia's NamPower will continue to assist in reviving the Hwange power station to optimum production levels, which he said should soon peak at 750 MW with the addition of two more generation units later this year. NamPower invested $45-million in the Zimbabwe power project.

Botswana Power Corporation will help Zimbabwe revive the Bulawayo thermal power station, one of the four which the State power utility tried to revive last year but abandoned due to crippling coal shortages. "Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) is investing $8-million in the revival of the Bulawayo station. It has a capacity of 90 MW, but that can be boosted up to 120 MW. We expect to have a 50:50 share with BPC, so both countries will get substantial benefits out of this deal," Mudzuri says.

africagoodnews

06 November 2009

The government of Saudi Arabia on Thursday removed an 11-year ban on livestock imports from Somalia after fears of Rift Valley Fever were allayed, senior Somali officials said.
cow

The decision was well received across Somalia as hundreds of thousands of farmers heavily rely on animal exports to the oil-rich Middle East. Under the new arrangement, Saudi officials will closely examine animals before they are shipped off to Saudi soil.

"This is a tremendous decision for Somalis across the Horn of Africa," said Idiris Ibrahim Abdi, the livestock minister of Somaliland, the self-declared republic in northern Somalia, which has developed one of the most sophisticated animal processing plants in its port town of Berbera.

According to news accounts, the Saudi agricultural ministry said the decision is based on years of cross examination and monitoring of animal farms in Somalia.

Animal trade is one of the few surviving economic engines of Somalia''s largely destroyed economy. Business leaders and animal farmers have welcomed the Saudi decision with widespread jubilation.

"This decision will allow me to triple my animal sales to shipping companies," said Mohamed Hassan Kahde, an animal farmer in the central town of Beledweyn. He said the ban was not only bad for business, but it was also bad for the animals.

An official with the Puntland Meat Processing Authority told the VOA that they expect to export more than half a million heads of goats and cows to Saudi Arabia in time for the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage, which will be performed by early December.

africagoodnews

06 November 2009

Algeria stands out as one of the countries least affected by the global financial crisis, a new analysis shows. The non-oil sectors of economy are growing by around 9% this year, and only low oil prices contribute to a GDP retraction.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its newest analysis of the Algerian economy released today concludes that the North African country "has not been directly affected by the global financial crisis." Economic growth and diversification has gone on unabated in Algeria during this year of crisis everywhere else.

"Despite a deteriorated international environment, Algeria has continued to post good economic performance, consistent with its trend in recent years, and characterised by solid non-hydrocarbon growth, control of inflation, and reduction of unemployment, which however remains high, especially among the youth," IMF analyst Joël Toujas-Bernaté said in Algiers yesterday.

africagoodnews

06 November 2009

President Barack Obama is complimenting Botswana for its economic management and political governance and its president, Seretse Ian Khama, for his leadership.
Ian_Khama

Obama welcomed Khama to the White House on Thursday, three weeks after Botswana voters re-elected the retired lieutenant general's Botswana Democratic Party, the only ruling party in the southern African country since it won independence from Britain in 1966.

"Although Botswana is not a large country, it is truly one of the extraordinary success stories in Africa. Since the mid-'60s it has moved on a path of good economic management and outstanding political governance," said Obama.

Sitting beneath a painting of George Washington, the first U.S. president, Obama used the word "extraordinary" several times in describing Botswana's progress and to describe relations between the United States and Botswana.

"President Khama I think has been showing his own extraordinary leadership in helping to move his country forward on a range of issues, from how to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis to addressing economic development to dealing with some of the regional problems that exist."

Khama said the presidents' discussion covered climate change and the upcoming Copenhagen summit, trade, health policy and how their countries are handling the world economic downturn.

africagoodnews

05 November 2009

Researchers behind the world's leading malaria vaccine candidate announced a major clinical trial involving thousands of children in seven African countries is well underway and on schedule. Top experts are converging in Nairobi from around the globe this week to attend the largest malaria conference in four years.

syringes_and_vial

The vaccine, known as RTS-S, is the first malaria vaccine to ever reach Phase III testing. RTS-S is designed primarily to fight malaria in Africa, where 91%of children killed by the parasite are found.

The critical vaccine trial is expected to enrol up to 16,000 African children, 5,000 of which have already been recruited.

Spreading the testing across a variety of sub-Saharan nations was necessary in order to ensure a diversity of malaria breeding grounds were represented. In some areas malaria is a seasonal threat, whereas in others transmission can happen year-round.

Under a best case scenario, the researchers say the vaccine could be introduced into the market in as little as three years, although more realistically the process will take longer. Research first began in Belgium two decades ago, with initial testing in the United States starting during the mid-1990's.

The British pharmaceutical company behind the malaria vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline, said last week that it was committed to keeping the drug affordable should it reach the market.

Nairobi is host this week to the 5th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan-African Conference, which was last held in 2005.

More than 800,000 people die each year from malaria, most of its victims having not yet reached the age of five.

Dr. Wen Kilama, a long-time malaria researcher and one of the conference organizers, says some African countries have made significant progress in the fight against malaria, including Eritrea, Zambia, and Ethiopia. But Kilama says many other states in the region are still losing the malaria battle. He places the blame for this discrepancy on the shoulders of the failing nations' governments.

"It is good governance; it is political will; it is the commitment - because financing to me is not as big a problem as it used to be. So it is putting their act together and getting the work done," said Dr. Kilama.

He also cautions against treating the RTS-S vaccine as panacea solution, saying that most likely more than one vaccine would be necessary to completely finish the fight against the parasite.

An additional study presented at the conference concludes that mosquitoes are shifting their feeding times to earlier in the evenings in order to adapt to the widespread use of malaria bed nets in at-risk areas. The researchers urge combining use of the bed nets with mosquito repellents for full protection.

africagoodnews

04 November 2009
Morocco announced on Monday a solar energy project worth $9 billion which officials said will account for 38% of the North African country's installed power generation by 2020.
Solar_panel

The project will involve five solar power generation sites across Morocco and will produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020, Energy Minister Amina Benkhadra said at a ceremony in Ouarzazate, south of the Atlas Mountains, to launch the scheme.

Funding would be from a mix of private and state capital, she added. The ceremony was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Moroccan king.

Morocco's power utility ONE Chairman Ali Fassi Fihri said the project would make the country a pioneer in renewable energy generation.

"The project would add in terms of power generation the equivalent of the current electricity consumption of the country's commercial capital Casablanca," Fihri added.

Morocco is the only North African country with no oil production of its own and eager to develop renewable energy sources to cut its oil and gas imports.

"This is a bold but realistic project. We will guarantee all the technical and financial resources to make it succeed," Benkhadra said, adding that foreign energy operators would be involved in the project.

"We look for the most sophisticated technology available in the world to use for this project," she said but gave no date when the tenders would be launched for the solar scheme.

africagoodnews

TUNIS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The African Development Bank (AfDB) has lent Botswana $225 million to finance an energy project in the country, the bank said on Thursday.

"Botswana will receive $225 million to finance the Morupule B Power Project, which involves the construction of a 600 MW coal-fired power plant and associated transmission infrastructure," the Tunis-based AfDB said.

Botswana relies on imported electricity to meet the bulk of its needs. In 2008, 80 percent of the electricity supplied in the country was imported from South Africa and other neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile the African Development Fund, which is the AfDB's window for soft loans, granted Nigeria a loan of $157 million to finance economic and power sector reforms. (Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

* Southern African leaders to meet on crisis on Thursday

* Political feuds threaten new Zimbabwe government

(Adds Mugabe, Kabila quotes)

By Nelson Banya

HARARE, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Three southern African leaders will meet on Thursday to tackle a crisis threatening Zimbabwe's unity government, a Zimbabwean official said on Monday.

Swaziland's King Mswati III, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and Zambian President Rupiah Banda will hold talks in Mozambique, hoping to help narrow differences between Zimbabwe's leaders.

Zimbabwe's unity government, which was formed in February, plunged into a new crisis last month after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party boycotted President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF over the implementation of their power-sharing agreement.

"The troika will meet in Mozambique this Thursday as part of ongoing efforts to break the deadlock," Tsvangirai's spokesman James Maridadi told Reuters. The three will represent the Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc.

The stand-off is the biggest crisis to hit Zimbabwe's new government, which has managed to stabilise an economy ravaged by hyperinflation, but is still severely strained by political disputes.

* Gold a few dollars below last month's record

* IMF sells 200 tonnes of gold to India's central bank

* SPDR gold holdings unchanged at 1,103.519 T

By Lewa Pardomuan

SINGAPORE, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Gold rose towards last month's
record on Tuesday as the dollar slipped ahead of a U.S.
interest rate decision, and on news the IMF had completed half
of a planned gold sale.

The International Monetary Fund said on Monday it sold 200
tonnes of gold to the Reserve Bank of India for $6.8 billion,
quietly executing half of a long-planned bullion sale that had
threatened to slow gold's rally. [ID:nN02468120]

Spot gold XAU= was quoted at $1,064.70 an ounce at 0304
GMT, up $5.55 from New York's notional close. It hit a near
two-week high of $1,066.15, within sight of a lifetime high of
$1,070.40 struck on Oct. 14.

"The fact that they've sold the gold to India would suggest
there's going to be fewer official sales by the IMF on the
market. So that might be a positive theme for the gold price,"
said David Moore, commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank
of Australia.

The IMF sale is part of an agreement struck earlier this
year among IMF member countries to sell 403.3 tonnes of the
body's gold stocks to diversify the Fund's sources of income
and to increase low-cost lending to poor countries.

U.S. gold futures for December delivery GCZ9 added $11.6
an ounce at $1,065.60 on the COMEX division of the New York
Mercantile Exchange, within sight of last month's record of
$1,072 an ounce.

"We used to think it was all dollar related but gold seems
to behaving by itself, helped by a couple of encouraging
reports on central bank activity," said Commodity Broking
Services' Chief Executive Jonathan Barratt.

"I think if it takes out that $1,070 to $1,071 range then I
am quite happy to add positions," he added.

The U.S. dollar and the yen edged down in thin trade on
Tuesday ahead of a series of central bank meetings on interest
rates. The euro EUR= edged up to $1.4775, having gained 0.35
percent on Monday. [USD/]

The U.S. Federal Reserve starts its two-day meeting on
Tuesday and, while it is expected to keep rates unchanged,
there is speculation that it might drop or alter its pledge to
keep rates low for an "extended period". [nFEDAHEAD].

Persistent weakness in the dollar had spurred fund buying
of gold, which sent cash and futures to record highs last
month. Gold is seen as a hedge against both inflation and a
depreciating dollar.

The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR
Gold Trust (GLD: Quote), said its holdings stood at 1,103.519 tonnes
as of Nov. 2, unchanged from the previous business day.
[GOL/SPDR]
PRICES
Precious metals prices at 0304 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg Day ago pct MA 30
RSI Spot gold $1064.70 $5.55 +0.52% +18.70% $860.10
60
Spot silver $16.61 $0.18 +1.10% +38.65% $11.29
44
Spot plat $1348.50 $14.50 +1.09% +1.97% $1331.29
52
COMEX gold $1065.60 $5.70 +0.54% +1.97% $1037.86
60
Currencies
Euro/dlr $1.480 $0.003 +0.19% +0.55%
Dlr/yen 90.31 -0.02 -0.02% +0.76%
(Additional reporting by Bruce Hextall in SYDNEY; Editing by
Michael Urquhart)

YENEGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell on Monday began helping retrain former oil militants in Nigeria responsible for years of attacks on its pipelines, part of efforts to ensure an amnesty programme brings lasting peace.

The Anglo-Dutch giant, Nigeria's longest-standing foreign oil partner, is working with the federal government and local authorities in the Niger Delta to try to ensure that gunmen who laid down weapons earlier this year do not return to violence.

The government says thousands of fighters handed over their weapons during an amnesty period which ended just over a month ago, the most serious bid yet to stop unrest which has prevented Nigeria pumping much above two thirds of its oil capacity.

Thousands of guns, grenades and rounds of ammunition may have been surrendered during President Umaru Yar'Adua's two-month amnesty, but analysts say peace will only be sustained if work can be found fast for those who disarmed.

"In co-operation with the government and the states, we are taking on ex-militants to train them in business development, to teach them what real business is all about," Shell's Africa communications director Olav Ljosne told Reuters.

"We of course look at their education and the background of the guys so that we can see that they can make use of it and develop from it," he said.

Years of pipeline bombings, attacks on facilities and the kidnapping of oil workers have prevented Nigeria from pumping much above 2 million barrels per day of oil.

The instability was costing the country $1 billion a month in lost revenue, according to the central bank, and last year helped push world oil prices to record highs near $150 a barrel.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Recovering commodity prices are reviving Chinese investors' interest in African resource deals, after nearly a year in which infrastructure projects dominated Chinese investment in the continent, the head of Standard Bank's China operations told Reuters.

When Industrial and Commercial Bank of China took a 20 percent stake in Standard Bank in 2007, Standard Bank executives like Craig Bond expected its Chinese clientele to use the new banking channels into Africa to snap up resource projects.

Instead, resource deals have only perked up in the last few months, after a crash in commodities prices in the second half of 2008 left more opportunities for Chinese companies in infrastructure tenders, Bond said in Beijing on Monday.

"In the first six months of this year, Chinese companies ... were really waiting to see what was going to happen with commodities prices. They didn't want to overpay," Bond said in an interview.

"What's happened is the Chinese SOEs have now decided, 'OK, the market's starting to turn, we can't leave it much longer, we've done our homework and these are the specific resources we want to see'."

Oil and copper prices rose strongly in the first half of 2009, stabilised in the third quarter and ticked up again in October, reflecting renewed raw materials appetite from China where the economy is growing by over 8 percent this year.

Resources prices had crashed in the second half of 2008, as Chinese and global demand dried up and the global economic crisis caused a sell-off in futures markets.

ICBC is using Standard Bank's extensive network in Africa to help its clients, mostly Chinese state-owned enterprises, to access deals in the continent .

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania's high court has sentenced four men to death by hanging for killing a 50-year-old albino man, local media reported late on Monday.

Television footage showed the men, who killed Lyaku Willy and removed his head and legs, leaving the courtroom in Shinyanga region under heavy police escort.

Willy's killing was one of a spate of attacks on the country's estimated 200,000 albinos in the past two years, mostly in the remote northwest of the country near Lake Victoria, where superstition runs deep.

Their body parts are prized in some regions of Tanzania, where witchdoctors say albinos -- who lack pigment in their skin, eyes and hair -- bring luck in love, life and business.

Albino hunters kill their victims and harvest their blood and body parts such as hair, genitals and limbs for potions.

"We are glad that the family and friends of Lyaku can finally have a sense of justice after this horrific loss," Peter Ash, founder of Under The Same Sun, a Canadian campaign group, told Reuters in an email.

"We urge the authorities to swiftly act on the sentence. Justice delayed is justice denied."

The convictions bring to seven the number of people sentenced for murdering albinos, following the first conviction of three albino killers in September.

Nov 3, 2009
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo is deploying police and soldiers to stamp out a new armed uprising blamed for killing dozens of police in an attack in the country's isolated northern border region last week, a government spokesman said on Monday.

Armed men killed 47 policemen sent to quell ethnic clashes between two villages in Equateur province last week, United Nations-supported Radio Okapi reported.

Information Minister Lambert Mende said on Monday security forces were being sent to the area. "They will suppress anyone found with a weapon. They will arrest those who murdered our policemen. The operations have started," he said.

Residents from the neighbouring villages of Enyele and Monzaya, representing two different ethnic groups, have been involved in feuding over fishing rights.

Nearly 1,000 civilians have crossed the border into neighbouring Congo Republic to escape the violence, a government official said on Congo Republic state radio.

"The nationals of the DRC, nearly a thousand, including women and children, arrived in the town of Dongou where we have received and begun to bring them assistance, including some among them who are injured," he said.

The clashes are not linked to simmering fighting in Congo's eastern borderlands, where the army, backed by thousands of U.N. peacekeepers, is attempting to stamp out local, Rwandan and Ugandan rebels who roam the mineral-rich regions.

The United Nations said on Monday it was suspending support for some Congo army units it says it believes deliberately killed civilians in the east.

Nov 3, 2009

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian opposition parties say nearly 450 of their members have been jailed to stop them running as candidates in national elections in May next year.

Documents given to Reuters by four opposition parties listed the prisoners' names, the dates on which they were arrested and the jails in which they were being held.

One party, the All Ethiopia Unity Organisation (AEUO), has recorded seven murders of members over the last 12 months that it says were politically motivated.

"These jailings are to stop our members running in elections," Gizachew Shiferaw, deputy leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, told Reuters. "It has become a strategy for the ruling party. Ethiopia is a one-party state."

Most analysts say the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) will easily win the 2010 elections -- but opposition parties say that is because government harassment will stop their members contesting.

The authorities strongly deny the claims and say only criminals have been arrested.

"Nobody has been imprisoned or killed for political activity, to my knowledge," Bereket Simon, the Ethiopian government's head of information, told Reuters, adding that the authorities would further investigate the documented names.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates that these people are engaged in real crime," he said. "We can't release criminals because they are opposition members."

CAIRO, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." Eleven-year-old Egyptian girl Janna Gohar used Confucius words to highlight her fierce yet touching story of battles and revenge.

"Revenge is one of the messages in my book," said Janna, "and the Chinese philosopher's saying means when you take a revenge, you're going to hurt not only your enemy but also yourself."

Janna, a fifth-grade student with the Misr American College in a middle-class residential area in Suburban Cairo, wrote her second book, titled "World War III: Cats and Dogs" in 2008.

In the book, an American dog and an Iraqi cat went together to stop a violent war between their compatriots. The cat succeeded in stopping the war, but the dog was hailed as a hero by the media, as the cat was wounded and hospitalized. Irritated by the dog's dishonesty, the cat took revenges and eventually killed him.

Janna said she came up with the idea of writing this book, when she was learning the Second World War at school, and watched news coverage on the Iraqi war with her parents at home.

"I also saw a lot of conflicts between my dog and my cat, so I decided to write about a war between the two animals," the girl smiled, patting her white Persian cat in her bedroom.

"The dog is from the United States and the cat is from Iraq, because America has a big population and big missiles," said Janna." Iraq also has, but not as much."

Her book, illustrated with cartoons by her elder sister Nadia Gohar, described and reflected on the war through a child's perspective.

"Stop the war now! Why are you doing this? You have loved ones waiting in your homes to see you alive and well. They don't want to see your dead and bloody bodies," the cat cried when she saw her husband's dead body at the battle field.

The cat, after killing her dog companion whom she thought had stolen her glory, regretted over the revenge. She would go to the dog's grave every day, present a rose and pray for him.

"The lesson here is to show that revenge hurts both you and your victim," said Janna. "My mother and I searched for quotes related to revenge to put on the cover of the book, and finally decided that we liked Confucius words."

Janna's mother inspired her to write out her first book "Sharktanic" in 2007, and helped with the editing and publishing of both her books.

Janna said almost all of her teachers and classmates had read her books and encouraged her to write more.

"I don't know much about American-Iraqi war," said Janna. "But I think there must be a better and nonviolent way besides going into the war...They should discuss all possible solutions before they jumped into war."

Janna has a 11-year-old classmate from Lebanon, who told her that he used to hear the bombs every night, exploding near his home during the war.

"I cannot imagine going to bed every night being scared that something would happen, because we are in the range of the war," Janna said.

"The kids should have their own opinions heard, and should be able to say 'we want peace', or 'we want to leave the country before you try to do whatever you want to do'," she said.