Aug 19, 2009

* Non-refundable payment upped to 28 million shekels

* Shares down 6 percent vs 1.1 percent on Tel Aviv bourse

* Deal completion delayed by six days

JERUSALEM, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Israeli conglomerate Africa Israel Investments (AFIL01.TA) said on Wednesday the completion of a deal to sell its 50 percent stake in the Gottex swimwear firm to its joint venture partners had been delayed.

Africa Israel said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that the deal would now be completed on Aug. 24, six days later than initially agreed, and that the non-refundable cancellation payment had been increased to 28 million shekels.

In addition, the unnamed buyers had paid an additional 7 million shekels in advance, bringing the total advance payment received by Africa Israel to 51 million shekels.

The company said in June it would receive 166 million shekels ($43.5 million) for its stake in Gottex and that its partners had paid 44 million shekels in advance, 24 million of which would not be refunded if the deal was not completed, barring a breach of contract by the seller.

Its shares were down 6 percent at midday in Tel Aviv, trading at 61.9 shekels, compared with a 1.1 percent drop on the broader bourse.

In January, Africa Israel signed a memorandum of understanding to sell its stake in Gottex to two foreign businessmen who currently own the other half. The company gave no further details about the two businessmen.

Africa Israel will post a pretax gain of 92 million shekels from the sale and will also receive an additional payment of $7.5 million depending on the sale of clothing brands Zara and Pull and Bear in Israel over the next four years.

Gottex designs beachwear in Israel and abroad through Gottex Models Ltd and Christina America Inc. It also markets clothing brands Zara, Pull and Bear and Massimo Dutti in Israel under licence from Spain's Inditex SA (ITX.MC).

Africa Israel has said Gottex was not core to the group's activities, which focus on residential, commercial and hotel real estate development, construction, infrastructure and industry in Israel, Russia, former Soviet Union countries, the U.S. and Eastern Europe. (Reporting by Joseph Nasr) ($1 = 3.82 shekels)

reuters

Aug 19, 2009

* Union says mobilising workers to strike

* Parties fail to agree on wages, duration of pay deal

(Adds quotes, details)

By James Macharia

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The main South African miners' union said on Wednesday it would start an indefinite strike next week at Impala Platinum, the world's No.2 platinum producer, over a wage dispute.

South Africa is the world's biggest platinum producer. A strike at Impala Platinum could hurt broader investor sentiment as it follows a wave of industrial action in South Africa in the past few weeks that has led to above-inflation pay settlements.

Lesiba Seshoka, spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) -- the country's biggest union -- told Reuters the union had rejected the company's latest pay offer and would mobilise its members for the strike.

"The strike could start either on Monday or Tuesday next week, and it will last until the issue is resolved," he said.

Impala Platinum officials could not be reached for comment.

Seshoka said the parties had failed to agree on both the size of the pay rise and the duration of a new agreement.

He said Impala Platinum had offered pay increases of between 9.5 and 10 percent to different categories of workers, while the union wanted a 10 percent rise for all workers.

"We also disagreed on the duration of the deal. We want a one-year deal so that we can re-negotiate after one year when prices of platinum may have recovered, but they offered a two-year wage deal," Seshoka said.

He said the mediating authority overseeing the talks had granted the union a certificate to strike after the breakdown of negotiations late on Wednesday. The union declared a dispute over pay in June, which meant the issue was referred to mediators, who were unable to broker an agreement.

The NUM called off a strike set for Thursday last week at state power firm Eskom [ESCJ.UL] that could have led to power cuts and further damage to Africa's biggest economy. The parties said they had reached a pay deal.

Last month the NUM reached above-inflation settlements with gold- and coal-mining companies. (Reporting by James Macharia, editing by Tim Pearce)

reuters

19 Aug 2009

Pro-government militia forces have reportedly captured a second town from rebels as President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's fragile administration seeks to uproot insurgency in the lawless country.

The heavily armed Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca militiamen swept into the southwestern town of Luuq -- 400 kilometers northwest of the capital Mogadishu -- and regained control of the town from Hizbul Islam fighters without firing a shot, witnesses told Reuters.

Luuq, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia, is the second town seized from insurgents.

On Monday, the Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca forces forced another insurgent group, al-Shabaab, out of Gedo's Bulahawa town without firing a shot.

Government forces have also recently captured the towns of Mahaas and Wabho in the center of the impoverished country.

Militant groups are locked in a fight with government forces and each other for control of the Horn of Africa state. Al-Shabaab and its insurgent allies have been in control of much of the southern and central regions.

Somalia has been mired in anarchy since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.
presstv

20 Aug 2009

Somalia's militant group al-Shabaab has recaptured the southern town of Beled Hawo, in the Gedo region along the border with Kenya.

Witnesses told Press TV on Wednesday that fierce fighting erupted after al-Shabaab fighters re-entered the town from the southern side, overpowering the Ahlu-Sunnah Wal-Jamaa forces which seized the area on Monday.

At least five people, all of them combatants were killed while seven others were injured in the brief fighting, the report said.

The recapture comes hours after the fall of the southwestern town of Luuq, which is approximately 400 kilometers northwest of the Somali capital of Mogadishu, to Ahlu-Sunnah forces.

Heavily armed Ahlu-Sunnah Wal-Jamaa forces entered the town without confrontation from the Hizbul Islam fighters who were controlling the town.

Somali armed groups are engaged in a deadly battle over the control of the southern region.
presstv

Aug 19, 2009

* Qtel sees '09 profit, EBITDA, revs better than guidance

* Keen on controlling stake in Morocco's Meditel

* Says investing $800 mln in '09 on Indonesia network

By John Irish

DUBAI, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Mobile phone operator Qatar Telecommunications Co QTEL.QA expects full-year profits to exceed its expectations and will grow organically and through acquisitions in 2009, but ruled out moving into sub-Saharan Africa.

In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, chief executive Nasser Marafih also said the group, which operates in 17 countries including Indonesia, Iraq and Algeria, was in the "middle of evaluating" a bid for a stake in Meditel, Morocco's second largest telecoms company.

"We don't revise our guidance ... yes I think we will do better than the guidance."

The former monopoly forecast in March that net income in 2009 would rise between 9 and 11 percent from 2.27 billion riyals ($623.4 million) last year, adding that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBIDTA) could rise 18 to 20 percent and revenue in a range of 20 to 22 percent.

Qtel said on Aug 16 quarterly profits jumped 59 percent, buoyed by a one-time gain at its Kuwaiti unit National Mobile Telecommunications (NMTC.KW) (Wataniya).

Marafih said the group saw Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait and Indonesia as key markets to boost earnings in 2009 and was pressing ahead with broadband expansion into Pakistan and the Philippines, where it hoped to begin operations by year-end.

"We are revamping Indosat (ISAT.JK) and it will take some time for us and believe Indonesia will be one of the main contributors for us going forward."

Qtel owns a controlling stake in Indonesia's second largest mobile phone operator in terms of market share, which contributes about 26 percent to its revenues. It is investing $800 million to improve its network in the world's most populous Muslim nation, Marafih said.

"This is critical for our growth this year and next year," he said. "We know we will go through major dips, but believe it will improve in the coming quarters."

FOCUS ON MIDEAST, ASIA

Faced by intensifying competition in their home markets, Gulf Arab telecom firms have been expanding abroad, snapping up assets in Asia and Africa worth billions of dollars.

reuters

JOHANNESBURG, 19 August 2009 (IRIN) - For thousands of years, subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa have been at the mercy of the voracious Red-billed Quelea bird; sky-blackening flocks of the tiny “feathered locust” still decimate fields across the continent.

"Its main characteristic is that it occurs in extremely big numbers," Clive Elliot told IRIN. This retired quelea expert spent the better part of his 31-year career at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) trying to help farmers and governments in Africa cope with the pest.

Nomadic super-colonies can grow to millions of birds, making quelea not only the most abundant bird in the world but also the most destructive.

Small bird, HUGE damage

Although they prefer the seeds of wild grasses to those of cultivated crops, their huge numbers make them a constant threat to fields of sorghum, wheat, barley, millet and rice.

The average quelea bird eats around 10 grams of grain per day - roughly half its body weight - so a flock of two million can devour as much as 20 tons of grain in a single day.

With an estimated adult breeding population of at least 1.5 billion, FAO estimates the agricultural losses attributable to the quelea in excess of US$50 million annually.

Irrepressible

Quelea populations are notoriously robust; millions of birds are killed every year, but "reducing their numbers is highly problematic - they are highly mobile, have few natural predators and breed extremely fast. Man has been unable to make a serious impact despite the arsenal of weapons available," Elliot said.

"A new population can swiftly move into an area you just killed out ... [and] because they breed three times per year, with an average of three eggs per clutch, one pair of quelea birds can produce up to nine offspring annually."


The birds are long-distance migrants with a range covering well over 10 million sq km of Africa's semi-arid, bush, grassland and savannah regions. "It's a pest in many different African countries, stretching from South Africa, north through countries like Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, and all the way across the Sahel to Mauritania," said Elliot.

Intensive farming and an increase in cereal crop production throughout the continent resulted in an explosion in their numbers; according to some estimates quelea populations have increased anywhere from 10 to 100 times since the 1970s.

Since the beginning of 2009 relief agencies in Africa have reported quelea bird swarms with a direct impact on food security in Kenya in January, in Zimbabwe in April, in Malawi and Tanzania in May, in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in June, and in Namibia and Tanzania in July.

It is difficult to invest in national eradication programmes because flocks have no respect for national boundaries, and "The destruction is patchy - at a national level a country loses only up to 5 percent [of crops], but for the individual farmer whose entire crop is wiped out that is little comfort," Elliot commented.

Beyond control

The most common way of controlling the pest is by large-scale spraying of infested areas, "usually with a chemical called Fenthion - also known as quelea-tox - where they breed or roost" said Elliot.

"Another way is blowing them up - finding places where they concentrate and using fire bombs or dynamite." In some areas the use of flamethrowers on roosts had also been tried, but with little success.

According to the Natural Resources Institute, a UK-based development group, some 170 control operations are executed in South Africa each year, killing 50 million birds on average.

But, according to the Encyclopaedia of Pest Management, "Despite the annual destruction of millions of quelea birds by use of pesticides, damage has continued to increase annually." Besides being only marginally effective, Elliot noted that modern control methods also often had serious negative environmental consequences.

Most small-scale farmers have no access to aircraft, fuel, chemicals, dynamite or flamethrowers, and have instead relied on age-old traditional methods that are more effective, and certainly more environmentally friendly, but hugely time-consuming.

"The traditional way of control is mainly through bird-scaring. People go into the fields when their grain crop is vulnerable, using anything from catapults to banging and noisemaking - quite effective in the majority of cases," Elliot noted.

"One person can protect a hectare but it's very hard work," because the crops are vulnerable from dawn until dusk and could need protection for a whole month, he said.

If you can't beat them, eat them

More recent discussions about quelea bird pest control have turned towards predicting breeding based on weather patterns, deterrence mechanisms like netting, boosting natural predators, and even the development of a quelea virus.

Harvesting the birds as a natural resource might mean "two birds with one stone", Elliot suggested. "We have been trying to develop systems to catch the birds and turn them into food for people - they would make a great source of protein."

irinnews

Aug 20, 2009

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 20 (Reuters) - The following company announcements, scheduled economic indicators, debt and currency market moves and political events may affect South African markets on Thursday.

- - - -

GLOBAL MARKETS

Chinese shares clawed back up on Thursday after a two-week sell-off, giving a boost to Asian stock indexes and commodities, but many investors were nervous that the Shanghai slide may have more room to run.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC was up 1.5 percent, helped by reports that the stock regulator had approved new mutual funds this week to help underpin the market that has slid nearly 20 percent since hitting a 14-month high earlier in the month. [.SS] Japan's Nikkei average .N225 was up 0.7 percent, while the MSCI benchmark of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 1 percent. [ID:nLK336095]

SOUTH AFRICAN MARKET

South Africa's rand fell slightly against the dollar on Wednesday but was off its day's low as risk aversion waned, while local stocks edged higher after a positive open on U.S. equities.

The JSE Top-40 index of blue chips .JTOPI rose 0.11 percent to 21,872.92 points and the broader All-share index lost 0.02 percent to 24,259.54 points. [ID:nLJ255599]

CIPLA MEDPRO SA LTD (CMPJ.J)

Cipla Medpro SA said on Thursday first half headline earnings per share rose 8 percent to 15.3 cents. It added that revenue increased 19.8 percent to 555.4 million for the six months to end-June. [ID:nWEA7172]

EXXARO RESOURCES (EXXJ.J)

South African diversified miner Exxaro (EXXJ.J) on Thursday reported an 8 percent rise in first-half headline earnings per share, but said that lower prices and a stronger rand would weigh on second-half figures. Earnings at the company's coal business were boosted by higher sales to utility Eskom [ESCJ.UL] and international clients, but were hit by lower prices and weaker demand from local consumers other than Eskom. [nLK497236]

GRINDROD (GNDJ.J)

Africa's biggest shipping company Grindrod (GNDJ.J) posted a 56 percent fall in first-half headline earnings per share as the global economic slowdown hit cargo volumes and rates. Grindrod, which drives more than 80 percent of its profit from shipping resources such as iron ore, coal and fuel, said on Thursday headline EPS for the six months to end-June fell to 105.7 cents, in line with its own forecast for a 50-60 percent fall. [nLJ657822]

GOLD XAU=

Gold was steady above $940 an ounce on Thursday, underpinned by light physical buying as investors eyed the currency market for clues on the precious metal's direction.

Spot gold XAU= stood at $941.90 an ounce at 0400 GMT, almost flat from New York's notional close of $941.55. It hit a three-week low below $930 per ounce on Monday. [GOL/]

WALL STREET

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, shaking off a slide in China's equity market, as investors responded favorably to a surprising drop in crude oil stockpiles that might suggest an improving demand outlook.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 61.22 points, or 0.66 percent, to end at 9,279.16. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX rose 6.79 points, or 0.69 percent, to 996.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC advanced 13.32 points, or 0.68 percent, to 1,969.24. [.N]

reuters

NAIROBI, 19 August 2009 (IRIN) - With about 4.5 million people in Kenya needing food assistance and neighbouring Somalia being described as "one of the most dangerous places for aid workers in the world", the humanitarian challenges facing the region remain formidable, say UN officials.

"The humanitarian needs are growing faster than the ability to deal with the drivers," said Jeanine Cooper, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kenya.

The drivers include not only natural disasters, such as drought, but also global mega-trends, including the food and financial crisis, water scarcity, population pressure and migration, said Cooper during an event to mark the inaugural World Humanitarian Day in Nairobi.

In Kenya, she said, the poor performance of the rains had led to severe water shortages and contributed to the doubling of food prices. Malnutrition rates above emergency levels have also been recorded in the northern areas of Mandera, Marsabit and Turkana.

On 18 August, the Kenyan government launched a response programme with a set of interventions to deal with the effects of a fourth consecutive year of rainfall failure.

The interventions, which include buying up livestock and borehole drilling, will complement relief food distribution to some 2.6 million adults, 1.5 million children and 250,000 others in supplementary feeding.

Somali dangers

Since January 2008, 42 aid workers have been killed and 33 abducted in Somalia, according to Graham Farmer, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

"Somalia is one of the most dangerous places for aid workers in the world," Farmer said, paying tribute to the Somali staff of humanitarian organizations, who "continue to work tirelessly, endure the highest risks, and suffer the harshest consequences.

"In parts of Somalia, humanitarian space is shrinking at an alarming rate," he said. "In recent months, several humanitarian aid agencies’ offices and warehouses in Somalia have been entered, robbed and some occupied by armed groups.

"The true victims of these actions are the poor and vulnerable populations that the humanitarian community is prevented from assisting," he said, urging “… all those who control territory in Somalia to recognize and respect humanitarian agencies and to support their unhindered access to populations in need.”

In 2008, the UN General Assembly decided World Humanitarian Day should be marked on 19 August every year to increase public awareness about humanitarian assistance activities and to honour humanitarian personnel, in particular those who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Said Cooper: "There's always an element of risk in the work we carry out."

irinnews

Aug 19, 2009

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A South African miners' union said on Wednesday it would start an indefinite strike next week at Impala Platinum, the world's No.2 platinum producer, over a wage dispute.

Lesiba Seshoka, spokesman for South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), told Reuters the union had rejected the company's latest pay offer and would mobilise its members for the strike. "The strike could start either on Monday or Tuesday next week, and it will last until the issue is resolved," he said. (Reporting by James Macharia, editing by Tim Pearce)

reuters

19 August 2009

Washington — Fifty advocacy organisations are calling on the U.S. Congress to put a stop to investment funds which purchase heavily indebted countries' debt and jeopardise the impact of bilateral and multilateral debt cancellation to over 30 countries.

The groups - which include the NAACP, the Jubilee USA Network, TransAfrica Forum, the American Jewish World Service, the United Methodist Church and Africa Action -are seeking a stop to what they have dubbed "Very Unscrupulous Loan Transfers from Underprivileged countries to Rich, Exploitive Funds".

These so-called VULTURE funds purchase heavily indebted countries debt at pennies to the dollar and then "aggressively pursu(e) their claims through the seizure of assets, litigation and political pressure, seeking repayments that are far in excess of the amount that they paid for the debt," the groups say.

The strategies used by VULTURE funds act in direct contradiction to international efforts to cancel debt for the world's poorest countries - a movement which has already cancelled over 90 billion dollars in debt.

"Since 1996 donor countries - including the U.S. - have committed 90 billion dollars in bilateral and multilateral debt relief to over 30 countries. VULTURE funds profit from this debt relief," Michael Stulman, associate director of policy and communications at Africa Action, told IPS.

Such funds have used U.S. courts as a venue for suing poor countries for the debts they incurred in the past.

In one case cited in a letter cosigned by the members of the coalition, FG Hemisphere Fund successfully sued the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for 105 million dollars for a 30-million-dollar loan incurred in 1980 by the infamously corrupt Mobutu Sese Seko government. A judge in Washington ordered the DRC to pay up to 80,000 dollars a week as a result of the lawsuit.

"The DRC is being forced to siphon these desperately needed resources from initiatives like health care, education, combating HIV/AIDS, and access to clean water to its impoverished citizens to pay off wealthy corporations such as FG Hemisphere," said Melinda St. Louis, deputy director of the Jubilee USA Network.

Jubilee is an alliance of 80 religious denominations and faith communities, development agencies, and human rights groups working for debt relief.

"This runs totally counter to the progress made by the U.S. and the international community on debt cancellation, through the World Bank's Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) effort," St. Louis said.

In another judgment, Zambia was forced to pay Donegal International 15 million dollars on a debt that Donegal acquired for three million dollars. The judgment represented 60 percent of the debt relief Zambia received in 2007.

"When vulture funds sue for such exorbitant amounts it's clearly taking away money that should be invested in health, education, infrastructure and other social problems and goes to line the pockets of already wealthy investors," said Stulman.

In a statement on its website, Donegal International warns that legislation to block the ability of funds to sue indebted countries would do severe damage to the secondary debt markets as well as force lenders to raise their interest rates on unsecured loans.

"If a country were to change its laws to prevent an investor from purchasing the debt and either converting it or recovering on it, the floor price will go away and defaulted claims on severely indebted lower income countries would go to zero. Importantly, lenders will become more reluctant to lend to impoverished countries on an unsecured basis or will require extraordinarily high interest on their loans," the firm said.

The civil society groups urge Congress to pass House Resolution (HR) 2932 - introduced on Jun. 18 by Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters and Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus - which would limit the ability of VULTURE funds to use U.S. courts to garner exorbitant profits.

"We cannot allow vulture funds to erode the progress that has enabled many of the world's most impoverished nations to reduce poverty," Waters told IPS in an email message.

"Over the past year, we have seen how the actions of a small number of unscrupulous and exploitative investors can hurt innocent people and cause economic chaos. We cannot allow the world's poorest countries to be exploited by these bad actors," she said.

Of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) list of 41 countries eligible for debt relief, at least 20 have been threatened or subjected to legal action by commercial funds who make their profits from recovering loans given to HIPC.

The resolution would serve to both limit the profits which funds could make from trading in HIPC debt as well as require increased transparency from funds filing lawsuits in U.S. courts.

Funds would be required to disclose how much they paid for the debt on the secondary market.

allafrica

Aug 19, 2009
LAGOS, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Nigeria's central bank has published a list of the largest defaulting customers of five banks rescued in a $2.6 billion bailout and warned the debtors to pay up or face legal action.

The list of more than 200 companies and individuals includes scores of securities brokerages and local oil and gas companies as well as larger firms including conglomerates Transcorp (TCNP.LG) and Dangote Industries and fuel distributors African Petroleum (APET.LG) and Oando Plc (UNIP.LG). (For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: af.reuters.com/ ) (Reporting by Nick Tattersall, editing by Mike Peacock)
reuters

18 Aug 2009
Seven people have been killed and 17 are feared dead after an overcrowded ferry sank in the Lake Malawi off the coast of Mozambique.

Police said on Tuesday that the ferry with a capacity of 40 set off from Niassa province in the southeastern African nation with 50 people aboard.

Only 26 people were rescued from the sinking ferry, said government spokesman Abudo Momade.

Seven bodies have been recovered and the remaining 17 are feared drowned, the spokesman added.

Jose Mahunguele, the provincial police commander, said he did not know the ages of the victims, but initial reports showed many of those aboard were children.

Lake Malawi, Africa's third-largest, is situated between Mozambique, Tanzania, and Malawi.
presstv

18 Aug 2009
The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) says drought in Kenya has left over one million people in dire need of food aid.

"What we have here is an extremely difficult situation and people are saying it is the worst drought since 2000," Gabrielle Menezes, a spokeswoman for WFP, said Tuesday.

The agency is already providing emergency food aid to 2.5 million people in the country, but another 1.3 million still need help, Menezes added.

She appealed to donors to come forth and help alleviate the situation.

The areas hardest hit by the drought are the semiarid southeastern regions and parts of central Kenya, the Associated Press reported.

Those areas generally have only one harvest a year of maize - Kenya's staple - usually after autumn rainfall called the short rains. But the rains have largely failed this year.

Esther Kiplimo says she has given up farming her 1-acre plot of land because of the failed rains. Now she breaks rocks in a quarry with her family, earning less than $1 a day.

"On some days we have to sleep hungry," she said.
presstv

NAIROBI, 18 August 2009 (IRIN) - The weekend attack on a UN World Food Programme (WFP) compound in central Somalia was the fourth "deliberately targeted" incident in two months, according to the agency.

The 16 August attack in Wajid came less than a month after militants raided two UN compounds in Baidoa and Wajid, stealing equipment and vehicles and forcing the closure of some operations.

"This direct, deliberate and sustained attack on aid organizations and aid workers is intolerable," acting UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Graham Farmer said.

Last week, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued a warning of increased suffering for malnourished Somali children if humanitarian supplies continue to be destroyed or looted.

"We are worried about the recent destruction and looting of humanitarian aid supplies in certain areas of central and south Somalia," Bastien Vigneau, UNICEF's chief of emergency in Somalia, told IRIN. "If the situation does not improve, we are looking at dramatic consequences for affected acute malnourished children in the next four to six weeks."

The disruption in delivery of aid would put at high risk at least 1.2 million children under-five and 1.4 million women in central-south Somalia.

On 13 August, UNICEF postponed the distribution of hundreds of tonnes of nutritional supplies for more than 85,000 children in central-southern Somalia because of what it termed "increased hostility towards aid organizations".

South-central Somalia has a nutritional demand "above emergency thresholds", Vigneau said. UNICEF and implementing partners were trying to reach at least 150,000 children countrywide suffering from acute malnutrition.

The violence has also disrupted the distribution of anti-malaria bed nets to more than 100,000 women and children.

"[The postponement of aid delivery] will have an adverse impact, especially in the Middle Shabelle region, where we were involved in campaigns against malaria, diarrhoea and other diseases," a local contractor in central-south Somalia for UNICEF, who requested anonymity, told IRIN.

Supplies looted

UNICEF said it was seeking concrete assurances from local authorities that it would be safe to continue delivering and storing supplies in-country.

"We hope these assurances will be forthcoming very soon so that we can continue our operations at a level that matches the needs of children and women and prevent the deaths that will otherwise certainly occur," Rozanne Chorlton, UNICEF's Representative to Somalia, said in a 13 August statement.

On 17 May, armed men took over UNICEF's compound in the central Somalia town of Jowhar, destroying or looting large volumes of humanitarian supplies and communications equipment. Emergency supplies stored in a partner's warehouse in Jamaame, Lower Juba region, were reportedly taken in early August.

On 20 July, members of the Islamist Al-Shabab militia group, which is fighting the Somali government and controls parts of the central and southern regions, looted equipment and vehicles from the UN compound in Baidoa.

They also raided the UN office in Wajid, 340km northwest of Mogadishu, and later broadcast a message on a local Somali radio station calling for the closure of several UN offices in the country.

IRIN

OUAGADOUGOU, 18 August 2009 (IRIN) - Health authorities estimate that less than 25 percent of HIV-infected children in Burkina Faso who require treatment are taking life-saving drugs while thousands of at-risk children are undiagnosed because their families refuse to have them tested.

The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS estimated that as of 2006 10,000 children were infected with HIV in Burkina Faso, with 4,600 needing antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.

Only 46 percent of HIV patients in Burkina Faso who required treatment as of June 2009 – 23,000 people – are taking ARV drugs, according to the government’s national HIV and sexually transmitted diseases council.

“We know the numbers [requiring treatment] are higher because of children who are born to HIV-positive mothers,” said the council’s director of health services, Joseph André Bidiga. “We do not offer prevention of mother-to-child transmission [PMTCT] services in all our health centres.” He said more than 20 percent of the country’s health facilities do not offer this service.

Multiple studies have shown that ARV treatment combined with abstaining from breastfeeding can cut the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission to less than 5 percent. But in 2007 only 33 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women worldwide took ARVs, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO estimates that more than 400,000 children worldwide were newly infected in 2007, mostly through their mothers.

Fleeing HIV tests

The HIV council’s Bidiga told IRIN parental refusal to test children masks child HIV infections. By law children under 18 require parental permission for HIV tests in Burkina Faso.

Some parents cannot fathom their babies could be infected, said paediatrician Alice Zoungrana with Charles de Gaulle paediatrics hospital in the capital Ouagadougou. “We are in 2009 and it is sad, but many families…still think [HIV] is a purely sexual disease that does not affect children,” the doctor told IRIN.

She added that while 75 percent of families grant permission for their children to be tested at the hospital, authorization is given only reluctantly. “It takes time because [families] refuse and accept to test only when their children fall ill a second time. It is during the second hospitalization that they accept.”

''We are in 2009 and it is sad, but many families…still think [HIV] is a purely sexual disease that does not affect children''
It is not uncommon to see parents leaving the hospital with their children in the middle of the night to avoid the test, Zoungrana told IRIN. “These adults have not been tested themselves and do not want to know their children’s status.”

A nurse who works east of Ouagadougou and is infected with HIV told IRIN: “I had my suspicions when my son had swelling on his body and was constantly sick, but I never imagined he could have had AIDS.”

She said both she and her eight-year-old son now take ARVs.

National HIV council health director Bidiga told IRIN adults are the gatekeepers to HIV testing. “We target adults for [HIV] awareness and outreach, but we are not reaching the numbers we would like. For adults who are not tested, their children are worse off because it is the adults who bring the children in for testing.”

Message blocked

Paediatrician Zoungrana said messages about HIV are not getting through. “We have to revisit messages we are sending out to the population so they accept that HIV infections are possible in both adults and infants.”

Women are less resistant than men to having their children tested, said Jacques Sanogo, director of the NGO “Espoir” – hope in French – in Burkina Faso’s second-largest city Bobo-Dioulasso. “Often mothers test their children without letting their families know.”

A 45-year-old widow, infected with HIV by her late husband, told IRIN she was able to get tested only after his death in 2001. “Both he and his family refused that I and my children get tested after I accidentally discovered his ARVs in the house.” In 2002 she learned she was infected with HIV while her three children were not.

To overcome reticence about HIV tests, community health workers visit families to talk about preventing mother-to-child transmission and the importance of HIV testing, NGO director Sanogo told IRIN.

Paediatrician Zoungrana said the confidentiality of house visits by trusted community members boosts acceptance of the message. “These community approaches work best because they are closest to the population and messages get across better.”

An estimated 2.7 percent of Burkina Faso’s population – 150,000 people – were infected with HIV as of 2006, according to the government.

irinnews

NAIROBI, 17 August 2009 (IRIN) - Some rains have fallen in northern Somalia, but this has not stopped an exodus of drought-affected people from rural areas to urban centres in Somaliland, local officials said.

"We know that hundreds of thousands have [been] displaced to urban centres," said Abdihakim Garaad Mohamoud, Deputy Minister at the Somaliland Ministry of Resettlement, Reintegration and Rehabilitation.

"Every city in Somaliland has a huge number of displaced people because of the recent drought," he added. "It has affected 60 percent of the rural population, whether they are pastoralists or agro-pastoralists. From east to west, south to north, every place in Somaliland has been affected."

Across towns in the self-declared republic, such as Burao, Berbera, Erigavo, Las’anod and Badhan, temporary shelters have sprouted as rural dwellers arrive from the countryside.

"The government has planned to deal with the problem, but our capacity is limited," Mohamoud told IRIN in Hargeisa. "Sixty percent of animals have been lost. One [man] who had 200 sheep has lost 110-120, and one who had 20 camels lost half.”

The governor of Togdheer region, Jama Abdillahi Warsame, said his government, with local NGOS, was trucking water to 78 villages.

"We estimate [that] more than 8,000 people moved to Burao [the main livestock market town] from rural areas," he told IRIN.

He named the most vulnerable districts in Togdheer region as Hod, Ina Afmadobe, War-Imran, Ilka-Cadays, Bali-Hiile, Suryo, Lebi-Guun, Adow Yurura, Isku Dhoon, in Burou and Qoryale, as well as Qori Dheere in Ainabo districts of Sool region.

Late rains

The deputy minister said some rains had started in most of Somaliland, but the emergency was continuing. Prices of food, for example, had remained high.

"Some rain has started, but animals and people are so weak and [may not be] able to survive the wet situation," he added. "We are calling on the international community to help the drought-affected people."

Business people in the port city of Berbera said sugar prices had increased by about 70 percent in the past few weeks.

Mohamed Ahmed Imbir, owner of a food store in Berbera, told IRIN: "We were selling one sack of sugar at US$28, but now we are selling for $34." He did not know why prices had risen.

On 22 June, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) warned that the drought in Somalia's central region had extended northwards into the key pastoral areas of the Sool plateau, Nugaal valley, and Hawd livelihood zones.

The situation threatened more than 700,000 pastoralists and a significant number of urban households, whose income and food sources are strongly linked to livestock marketing and trade.

irinnews

NAIROBI, 18 August 2009 (IRIN) - The weekend attack on a UN World Food Programme (WFP) compound in central Somalia was the fourth "deliberately targeted" incident in two months, according to the agency.

The 16 August attack in Wajid came less than a month after militants raided two UN compounds in Baidoa and Wajid, stealing equipment and vehicles and forcing the closure of some operations.

"This direct, deliberate and sustained attack on aid organizations and aid workers is intolerable," acting UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Graham Farmer said.

Last week, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a warning of increased suffering for malnourished Somali children if humanitarian supplies continue to be destroyed or looted.

"We are worried about the recent destruction and looting of humanitarian aid supplies in certain areas of central and south Somalia," Bastien Vigneau, UNICEF's chief of emergency in Somalia, told IRIN. "If the situation does not improve, we are looking at dramatic consequences for affected acute malnourished children in the next four to six weeks."

The disruption in delivery of aid would put at high risk at least 1.2 million children under-five and 1.4 million women in central-south Somalia.

On 13 August, UNICEF postponed the distribution of hundreds of tonnes of nutritional supplies for more than 85,000 children in central-southern Somalia because of what it termed "increased hostility towards aid organizations".

South-central Somalia has a nutritional demand "above emergency thresholds", Vigneau said. UNICEF and implementing partners were trying to reach at least 150,000 children countrywide suffering from acute malnutrition.

The violence has also disrupted the distribution of anti-malaria bed nets to more than 100,000 women and children.

"[The postponement of aid delivery] will have an adverse impact, especially in the Middle Shabelle region, where we were involved in campaigns against malaria, diarrhoea and other diseases," a local contractor in central-south Somalia for UNICEF, who requested anonymity, told IRIN.

Supplies looted

UNICEF said it was seeking concrete assurances from local authorities that it would beto continue delivering and storing supplies in-country.

"We hope these assurances will be forthcoming very soon so that we can continue our operations at a level that matches the needs of children and women and prevent the deaths that will otherwise certainly occur," Rozanne Chorlton, UNICEF's Representative to Somalia, said in a 13 August statement.

On 17 May, armed men took over UNICEF's compound in the central Somalia town of Jowhar, destroying or looting large volumes of humanitarian supplies and communications equipment. Emergency supplies stored in a partner's warehouse in Jamaame, Lower Juba region, were reportedly taken in early August.

On 20 July, members of the Islamist Al-Shabab militia group, which is fighting the Somali government and controls parts of the central and southern regions, looted equipment and vehicles from the UN compound in Baidoa.

They also raided the UN office in Wajid, 340km northwest of Mogadishu, and later broadcast a message on a local Somali radio station calling for the closure of several UN offices in the country.

irinnews

August 18th, 2009
Nigeria’s central bank sliced through the hubris of the business elite with its $2.6 billion bailout out of five banks and the sacking of their heads in what looks as though it could be a new era for corporate governance in Africa’s most populous country.

Recently appointed Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said lax governance had allowed the banks to become so weakly capitalised that they posed a threat to the entire system, and described the move as the beginning of a “restoration of confidence” in sub-Saharan Africa’s second biggest economy.

The 1.14 trillion naira ($7.6 billion) in bad loans run up by the banks is roughly equivalent to the combined annual income of the poorest 20 million people in Africa’s most populous nation, each of whom live on around $1 a day.

Yet the “Friday massacre”, as one newspaper dubbed it, set Blackberries buzzing in Lagos champagne bars not because of the breathtaking scale of the money involved, but because of the might of the corporate aristocrats felled by Sanusi’s axe.

“Ordinarily in Nigeria there is a sacred cow culture,” said Reuben Abati, a respected leader writer and chairman of the editorial board of Nigeria’s Guardian newspapers.

“Once someone is prominent in a particular industry you assume those persons are untouchable. What Sanusi has done now is to say nobody is too big to be held accountable, whether they are an Ibru or an Akingbola.”

Cecilia Ibru and Erastus Akingbola — the former chief executives of Oceanic Bank and Intercontinental Bank — were arguably the highest-profile casualties of the cull, titans in a corporate elite dominated by egos and empire builders.

Ibru is from one of Nigeria’s most powerful business families, whose interests range from shipping and hotels to oil and media. Akingbola is president of Nigeria’s Chartered Institute of Bankers and brimming with honorary doctorates.

“Some are born great, others achieve greatness, while others still have greatness thrust upon them. But rarely do we have these three attributes combined so well in an individual as is the case in our Dr. Erastus Bankole Oladipo Akingbola,” blasts the biography on his website.

In his trademark bow-tie and frameless spectacles, Sanusi’s slight physique and measured rhetoric mark him out from some of the more flamboyant personalities it is his job to regulate.

Some Nigerian commentators have argued that the cull by Sanusi, a northerner, targeted southern bank executives and that it was a retaliation for consolidation four years ago which saw some northern banks absorbed by their southern peers.

But the forensic precision of Sanusi’s public statements left the numbers to speak for themselves.

The loans they racked up — including credit to speculators on a stock market which fell 60 percent over the past year and unsecured financing to fuel importers who have seen oil prices halve — meant the five were constant borrowers of public money.

They accounted for almost 90 percent of exposure to the central bank’s discount window, a facility which allows banks to meet short-term obligations by borrowing central bank funds.

The results of Sanusi’s audit have left many wondering how the five banks managed to survive for so long.

Intercontinental and Oceanic had both won national and international banking awards. Analysts from brokerage Renaissance Capital were shown Intercontinental Bank’s balance sheet in April and published a report saying it had enough capital to absorb its asset risks and there was no threat to its solvency.

Ibru was quoted in this month’s edition of McKinsey & Company’s business journal McKinsey Quarterly as saying: “In five to 10 years, we expect to be a well-known, established bank beyond this sub-region of Africa.”

One Nigerian analyst commented “When the dust settles, one of the most shocking aspects of this crisis is going to be the magnitude of the gap between the rot in the system and what its leaders wanted us to believe.”

Will this be a new era for Nigeria’s companies? For Nigeria itself?

reuters

Aug 18, 2009

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Niger delta gunmen who hand in their weapons under a Nigerian government amnesty will undergo three months of reorientation and then education or skills training, a state governor said on Tuesday.

A 2004 amnesty failed to make a lasting impression on the militancy that has severely disrupted oil output since those who laid down their weapons quickly reverted to violence in the absence of long-term job prospects.

However, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi said the central and state authorities in Nigeria -- now challenged by Angola as Africa's leading oil producer -- would not make that mistake again.

"The amnesty comes with training. When you drop your arms, you don't just go home. You go into the camp, and at the camp arrangements are made for reorientation," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a delta investment conference in Johannesburg.

"Reorientation takes three months. You are then taken into the training centre depending on what field you choose. If you want to go into education, you are sent into secondary school or university, depending on your age or qualification."

Amaechi said he had no figures for the central government's retraining budget, or any information about the take-up of the amnesty in the delta, a network of creeks, marshland and swamps stretching over nine states.

Rivers State includes Port Harcourt, the hub of the delta's oil and gas industry.

The 60-day amnesty started on Aug. 6 and is due to end on Oct. 4. Amaechi did not say what would happen after its expiry, other than that he would "enforce the law and order".

Thirty-two members of Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main militant group, met President Umaru Yar'Adua on Aug. 7 after laying down their arms, but said unrest would resume if the grievances of the poverty-stricken region were not addressed.

The violence has prevented Nigeria from producing much above two-thirds of its potential capacity in the past few years, costing the world's eighth biggest oil exporter billions of dollars in lost revenues each year.

Militant attacks on pipelines and infrastructure of international oil companies has added to the volatility of world energy prices. (Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

reuters

Aug 18, 2009
DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria will give Tanzania $111 million for treated bed nets to fight malaria, a senior U.N. envoy said.

The Tanzanian government says the disease, which kills nearly 1 million people worldwide annually, claims between 60,000 and 80,000 lives every year in the east African country. Worst affected are pregnant women and children.

The Global Fund is helping the nation of 40 million people through the distribution of treated nets, among other things. To date, it has given Tanzania at least $128 million for malaria.

"Global Fund representatives ... have committed to sign the Round 8 Grant agreement next week and they are ready to disburse the money," Ray Chambers, U.N. special envoy for malaria, told experts meeting in Dar es Salaam late on Monday.

"The money is going to go to 14 million bed nets for universal coverage."

Tanzania's government says malaria takes away about 3.4 percent of the country's economic output.

Chambers, who is accompanying World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan on a visit to highlight Tanzania's success in fighting malaria, said the challenge in Africa was convincing people to use nets once they got them.

"The average, it appears, in Africa, (is that) one out of two people will not sleep under a net unless they are reminded, encouraged, there are inspirational messages on the radio," Chambers said.

"So everyone is really going to cooperate ... to make sure people are sleeping under a net and nobody is using them to catch fish." (Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

reuters