2010-04-12
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's elections commission on Monday announced a two-day extension to voting until April 15, after many voters experienced delays across Africa's largest country in the first open elections in 24 years.

"There is a two-day extension throughout the whole country," Sudan's National Elections Commission Secretary-General Jalal Mohamed Ahmed told Reuters.

"It is to give more time to the voters," he added.

South Sudan's main party on Sunday asked for a four-day extension in the south where a mostly illiterate population was grappling with 12 ballot papers and where decades of civil war had devastated infrastructure.

The complex presidential, legislative and gubernatorial polls, which began on Sunday, is aimed at transforming Sudan from a nation emerging from decades of multiple civil wars to a democracy.

After a boycott by the main opposition in the north, the vote now looks likely to confirm the 21-year rule of Bashir -- the only sitting head of state wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, which alleges he was behind mass murder and rape in Darfur.

Across the country -- even in the capital Khartoum -- voting materials were not delivered to stations, the wrong ballots arrived at many centres and opposition and independent candidates said their names or symbols were either missing or incorrect.

Many had complained and asked for an extension to the voting to compensate for the delays and resolve the problems.

20100412
IPS

Durban and Cape Town — Eugene Terre'Blanche, killed on his farm on Easter weekend, is catalysing racial tension in South Africa in death much as he did in his life.

Thousands of supporters and sympathisers attended the funeral of the head of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) in the rural town of Ventersdorp, in South Africa's North West Province on Apr. 9. The leader of the white supremacist organisation was killed on his farm on Mar. 29, allegedly by two of his black employees, now in custody.

The killing has put the spotlight on the tensions and violence that persist in rural South Africa between landowners - predominantly white - and black farm workers and farm dwellers.

The killing comes just as a prominent member of the ruling African National Congress party's Youth League, Julius Malema, was cited for hate speech for singing an ANC struggle song that calls on listeners to "kill the farmer". Agricultural unions representing landowners say as many as 3,000 white farmers have been murdered on farms across the country since 1994.

Farm worker organisations challenge the figure, and say black people remain subject to harassment, dispossession and assault by landowners. Terre'Blanche himself served time in prison for assaulting an employee who survived the attack, but sustained serious brain damage.

Several hundred kilometres away from Ventersdorp, in the 60 kilometres between the towns of Newcastle and Volkrust, on the northern border of KwaZulu-Natal, the landscape is tranquil enough: grazing cattle and sheep, occasionally interrupted by fields of maize, soya beans and wheat.

But race relations between the mainly white farmers and black farm-workers, and tenants in this area have been tense for decades.

Mangaliso Kubheka, leader of the Landless People's Movement (LPM), says his organisation has recorded thousands of cases of farm workers and farm dwellers being assaulted, denied water, grazing land, burial rights, cropping areas and through-ways to move from one place to another by farmers.

Apartheid legacy

Busisiwe Mbatha, an 84-year-old widow, says her family lived on what is today the Wykom farm, near Newcastle, for many years. In the 1960s, she says, their land was divided into several livestock farms and many of their neighbours forced out of the area.

"Only a handful of families were left behind and our men provided labour to the farms. When my husband died, my children also worked on the farm. The previous farmers were okay because they allowed us to keep livestock and we had plots where we planted our fruits and vegetables. But when the latest of these farmers sold their land in 2003, a new and harsher farmer took over."

Mbatha says that he tried to evict the family, but they resisted. "Three years ago he just came into our kraal and took all my 17 cows. He went for the cows of four other families living on the same farm. He didn't utter a word and I tried going to the police without any help," she says tearfully.

She says this farmer has since leased the farm and left without compensating them for their livestock. Residents on the farms say the majority of landowners mistreat farm tenants and farm labourers alike.

"Many people in the farms still live in fear, grinding poverty and landlessness. Some are forced to drink dirty water that they share with cows because farmers deny them access to clean water. Our people are assaulted and are prone to diseases because of living in these inhumane conditions," Kubheka told IPS.

Robin Barnsley, the president of the KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union (KWANALU), admitted that some farmers in the province are abusing the rights of farm workers and tenants but he said farm relations in the province have come a long way.

"One would not want to generalise, but there are places where there are tensions and frustrations and there are areas where relationships are good and sound. There are farmers who are mistreating people living in the farms. But these farmers are a tiny minority. I would say it boils down to personalities and other issues related to those personalities," he said.

Barnsley said most of the tension results from the slow pace of land reform. "I think the officials dealing with land reform are not doing their jobs properly and this leads to frustrations from communities who have lodged claims are waiting years for their claims to be finalised."

He adds that some farmers have taken the initiative to help farm labourers by providing them with land for free. "There a number of these initiatives. One that comes to mind is between Ladysmith and Bergville and another one in Melmoth. Apart from this, (there is the) KWANALU development desk which helps mentoring small farmers and communities engaging in commercial farming."

Land rights activists concede that there some farmers have accepted and even participated in land reform and the dismantling of apartheid's legacy in rural areas. Philani Kubheka (no relation to the LPM's Kubheka) is head of a project near Ladysmith, where a farmer has donated a few hectares to farm tenants, where they have planted potatoes, cabbages and other vegetables.

"Families living in this farm keep some of the food and sell the rest. We are grateful to this farmer and wish other farmers could take a leaf from him," says Philani.

Speaking from a modest office in the provincial capital, Pietermaritzburg, Musa Zakwe, the deputy director of the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), says his organisation has compiled a list of hot-spots where most abuses take place, including the district in which Newcastle and Volkrust fall. AFRA has been chronicling abuses on farms and and trying find solutions since 1979.

"Although the South African Constitution and laws protect people in the farms against abuses, the reality on the ground is that their rights are abused on a daily basis. What is even worse is that police don't take their concerns seriously because they tend to listen to farmers (rather) than to farm labourers or tenants," he told IPS.

Zakwe adds that government agencies have been too lenient on abusive farmers and that land reform policies have been far too slow to have any effect in improving the lives of people living in the farms.

He says in the main farmers are clinging on to land they barely use in the hope that government will pay more for it eventually, but unrest is on the increase amongst landless people as the wait for land drags on.

"We have tried to meet with (farmers) to resolve these issues and find amicable solutions so that we could live together and share the land, but many of them ignore us," says the LPM's Kubheka. "They tell us that we must go to the government and solve the problem there," he said.

"It is not that we like or condone what happened to Terreblanche," Kubheka says. "Many people think his killing was planned but I beg to differ. Why do you think a 16-year-old boy (developed) such hatred that propelled him to commit such a crime? If my child grows up seeing me being assaulted and belittled daily, he grows up with that hatred and one day he may want to avenge my sufferings, without any instigation or incitement from me."

2010-04-12
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Four U.N.-African Union peacekeepers are missing in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the joint mission, UNAMID, said on Monday.

"Four peacekeepers left their base in Nyala (South Darfur) and were going back to their accommodation yesterday," UNAMID spokesman Kemal Saiki said. "They have not been heard from or seen since then."

Darfur has seen a wave of kidnappings of expatriates, including UNAMID soldiers, in the past year, mostly by armed young men demanding ransom.

Saiki said he had no idea what had happened to the four peacekeepers, who had begun the 7 km drive from the base to their accommodation at 4 p.m. (1300 GMT).

"We have immediately informed the Sudanese authorities ... and we are expending all our resources in the region to get information on their whereabouts," he added.

The last foreign hostage in Darfur, Red Cross worker Gauthier Lefevre, was released last month after 147 days in captivity.

Aid workers in western Sudan had hoped his release would mark an end to the kidnappings, which had limited their ability to help the more than 2 million Darfuris who have fled fighting and sought shelter and food in miserable camps.

The abductions began after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir last year, accusing him of war crimes in Darfur. He denies the charges.

Bashir hopes to be elected president in the first open polls in Sudan in 24 years which began on Sunday in defiance of the ICC warrant.

Since a revolt by mostly non-Arab rebels seven years ago, carjackings and banditry have been rife in the remote region bordering Chad.

2010-04-12
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's finance minister said on Monday he was ready to consider a new cigarette tax to boost healthcare spending for low income groups, which is being discussed in parliament.

Egypt is overhauling healthcare and insurance to improve services for its 78 million people, of which about 20 percent live on less than $1 a day, according to the United Nations.

"We (the Finance Ministry) haven't discussed it so far," Youssef Boutros-Ghali told Reuters by telephone, adding that he was ready to discuss a cigarette tax if parliament sought it.

He said parliament wanted to add 1 billion Egyptian pounds for low-income groups to spending already earmarked in a draft health insurance law.

One company, Eastern Company, has a monopoly on cigarette production and sales in Egypt.

Investment bank Beltone Financial said in a research note the tax would lead to a rise in prices without necessarily affecting companies' profits, unless the companies raise the cigarette prices by more than the tax.

"The decision would have a negative impact on inflation, however, with tobacco constituting 2.6% of the urban consumer price index, leading to a one-off rise in inflation," the note said. Core inflation was at 7.04 percent in the year to March.

The daily al-Masry al-Youm on Monday cited Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly as saying the tax proposal would be referred to the Cabinet, which could decide on it within weeks.

The state health insurance authority is also looking to raise student subscriptions in the medical insurance system to 8 pounds from the 4 pounds in the draft bill, the paper said.

"Raising student subscriptions from 4 pounds to 8 pounds will generate annual revenues of 70 million pounds, while taxes on cigarettes will raise around 700 million pounds," al-Masry al-Youm quoted the health minister as saying.

The 20 percent of the population that has no fixed income and another 8 million government employees will be exempt from paying health insurance contributions, Hamdy el-Sayed, head of the parliament's health committee, told Reuters.

"That is why the Finance Ministry has a problem, as it will pay a lot of money to provide them with the service," he said. "And that is why we are suggesting resources to help the government establish the needed funding for the project."

"We are asking the government to force new taxes on cement and cigarettes to be able to fund our project, which is very important to the solidarity of the society," El-Sayed added.

Al-Shorouk newspaper quoted el-Gabaly as saying last week that the government should raise funds for public health expenditures from polluting industries such as tobacco and cement.

20100412
BUA NEWS

Pretoria — President Jacob Zuma is among world leaders participating in the Nuclear Security Summit which aims to find effective measures to secure nuclear material and to prevent nuclear terrorism.

South Africa hopes that the summit would push international cooperation to ensure safety of nuclear materials and facilities, as well as the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

South Africa gave up its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 1993 making it the first and only country to start abandoning a weapons programme voluntarily.

It has also consistently condemned acts of terrorism and shares the international community's concern over nuclear security.

"South Africa maintains that it is important for countries to pool their resources and work together through strengthened multilateral institutions to combat all forms of organised transnational crime, including terrorism," said Zuma's office.

Zuma, who arrived in Washington on Sunday, held a bilateral meeting with convener, US President Barack Obama ahead of the two-day summit.

During the meeting, Obama praised South Africa for being the first country to abandon a nuclear weapons programme.

With the summit, the United States is hoping leaders and representatives from 47 countries can agree on specific steps to make nuclear material more secure, preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear materials and weapons.

Zuma is being accompanied by Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of Energy Dipuo Peters, Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele among other senior government officials.

20100412
ALLAFRICA

The Obama administration praised South Africa and Kazakhstan as examples of nations that have given up their nuclear weapon capabilities and achieved greater security and stability as a result.

President Obama met separately with South African President Jacob Zuma and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on the eve of the April 12-13 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

In remarks with Zuma April 11, Obama said South Africa "has special standing in being a moral leader" on the nuclear issue.

"South Africa is singular in having had a nuclear weapon program; had moved forward on it, and then decided this was not the right path; dismantled it; and has been a strong, effective leader in the international community around nonproliferation issues," the president said.

South Africa can help "guide other countries down a similar direction of nonproliferation," Obama said.

In an April 11 press briefing with members of the National Security Council (NSC), Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, described South Africa's 1989 decision to dismantle its nuclear weapons program as "one of the most important and dramatic nonproliferation developments that we've seen take place."

By choosing to meet its international nonproliferation obligations, the country "has found greater security and prosperity within the international community," Rhodes said.

Obama's meeting with Kazakh President Nazarbayev highlighted similar decisions by the Kazakh leader and his country to close its nuclear test site, remove all nuclear weapons and material from the country, and cooperate with the United States in destroying any remaining nuclear material.

Kazakhstan took the decision to close the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in 1991, soon after it gained independence from the former Soviet Union.

NSC official Laura Holgate said U.S.-Kazakh cooperation has continued with joint efforts to decommission a nuclear reactor and to manage the safe destruction of its remaining nuclear fuel. Holgate is the NSC's senior director for weapons of mass destruction terrorism and threat reduction.

"We're also cooperating at a different, smaller research reactor near the former capital of Almaty that uses highly enriched uranium," she said. "We're working to convert that to use low-enriched uranium that is not weapons-useable, and to destroy the highly enriched uranium that remains."

The NSC's Mike McFaul, who is senior director for Russia and the Caucasus, said the president praised Nazarbayev as "one of the model leaders in the world" on nonproliferation and nuclear safety. Kazakhstan is "an excellent example" of how a country can forgo nuclear weapons and achieve greater security and economic prosperity, McFaul said.

By "giving up nuclear weapons, they received security assurances from all the countries in the region, and that has helped to make Kazakhstan one of the most stable countries in the region," he said.

And because it gave up nuclear weapons, Kazakhstan went from a country that might have been isolated to one that is open to the international economy and is attracting foreign investment, McFaul said.

Nazarbayev, Zuma and more than 40 other heads of state are participating in the two-day Nuclear Security Summit, which aims at securing all of the world's nuclear material to prevent it from being seized or stolen by terrorist groups or other non-state actors.

"If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically, and from a security perspective would be devastating," President Obama said in his meeting with Zuma. "And we know that organizations like al Qaida are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon -- a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using."

Many participating countries have already embraced the goal of agreeing upon a specific work plan and a time frame to secure nuclear material, he said.

"They're coming to this summit, not just talking about general statements of support but rather very specific approaches to how we can solve this profound international problem," Obama said.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)

2010-04-12
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan assured the international community on Monday that Africa's most populous country would hold free and fair elections next year.

Jonathan has made overhauling the OPEC member's electoral system a top priority to avoid a repeat of the flawed 2007 polls, which brought President Umaru Yar'Adua to power.

"I promise Nigerians and the rest of the world that the 2011 elections in Nigeria will be credible," Jonathan said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

The acting president, on his first foreign trip since assuming executive powers two months ago because Yar'Adua was too ill to govern, sought to put to rest any question over who was in control of sub-Saharan Africa's second biggest economy.

"This is our time. Either we continue with more of the same or our change begins," Jonathan said.

"From now, the focus must be on electoral reform, delivering peace dividends to the Niger Delta and the rest of the country."

An uneasy truce is in place in the Niger Delta, where militants have severely disrupted output in the country's main oil-producing region.

Reform legislation is currently before parliament. But time is quickly running out for changes to be implemented in time for next year's elections, which are due by April 2011.

Former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida on Monday became the first major politician to announce he would run for president next year, and campaign for a smaller federal government.

The United States, by far Nigeria's biggest trade partner, has been unusually outspoken about the West African country's chances for free elections.

A senior U.S. official said this month that Nigeria's election chief, Maurice Iwu, should be replaced if the country stands a chance for holding fair national polls.

Iwu oversaw the last presidential elections in 2007, which were so marred by ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation that local and international observers said they were not credible.

20100412
ALLAFRICA

Two years after its initial release, the documentary film Courting Justice continues to inspire audiences around the world with its story of South African women who fought against all odds to win judgeships in the country's highest courts.

The film looks at seven women -- but most especially the black women -- who never gave up hope during the terrible years of apartheid and now make up some 18 percent of South Africa's judiciary. Among the black African women justices highlighted in the film are Yvonne Mokgoro, Bess Nkabinde, Mandisa Maya and Pat Goliath. Most came from humble beginnings and had to overcome severe prejudice because of their gender as well as their race.

The documentary, by American filmmaker Ruth B. Cowan, has been shown worldwide and has won numerous accolades, including the Audience Award of the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa. It has been shown to South Africa's Parliament and to South African children in at least 60 schools, and has had three television airings by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Teachers in New York City have urged that the film be shown in classrooms in all the districts in that school system, Cowan said. "The purpose is not to talk about South Africa," Cowan explained, "but to show them [the students] what they can do in their lives."

Audiences in Washington had an opportunity to view the documentary and meet Cowan, thanks to a special event hosted April 9 by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Introducing the film was Ambassador Melanne Verveer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women's issues. The stories of these women judges, Verveer said, make all who hear them realize "how one brings the human rights provisions of the [South African post-apartheid] constitution -- and everything the constitution represents -- to reality, and that is very powerful." This film's story, she said, "is about the great promise of human rights and judicial reform. And that can only take root and sprout and be nurtured where there are committed people in a democracy."

Cowan said she was awed by the strength of the women judges she got to know. "Those women were so strong," she said. She said some had trained and worked as magistrates during apartheid, while a few others made huge sacrifices to study law in the United States. Many black South Africans determined to advance their education were able to do so via a distance learning course offered by UNISA (University of South Africa), she said.

Cowan acknowledged that the path for women in South Africa, as in many other countries, is not easy. . "There are many women who go to law school and graduate; they work in law firms for a while. But there is a huge dropout rate from the profession -- there is only so much people [women] are willing to take," Cowan said. On-the-job discrimination -- both subtle and blatant -- is common, she said; this is mentioned in the film by the women judges themselves.

Cowan has had her own battles with sexism. In the 1970s, she was an assistant professor of political science at one of the community colleges of the City University of New York. Although she was the only tenured woman in the department, she was denied promotion even as her male peers were advanced. She, along with other women in similar situations, filed a grievance against the college and won. She called the experience "transformative." With a new appreciation for women's rights, Cowan went on to complete a distinguished 30-year academic career. In 1990, she became the founding president of the board of directors of Pro Mujer, an international women's development and microfinance organization that provides training and small startup loans to poor but aspiring women entrepreneurs.

Cowan also serves on the board for the Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA), a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that provides guidance to rural Afghan men and women on how to develop sustainable farm enterprises. Her experience with Pro Mujer and GPFA convinced her of the overriding importance of good governance. South Africa's new post-apartheid constitution caught her attention, as did the women who were beginning to win appointments to the high courts in that country. After traveling to South Africa to study the courts, as well as the work of the South African Women's Legal Centre, Cowan was inspired to tell the story of South Africa's female judges in a documentary.

Courting Justice is available through Women Make Movies, a nonprofit media arts organization that facilitates media produced by and about women.

Film clips of the documentary can be seen on YouTube.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)

2012-04-12
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe prosecutors said on Monday they were withdrawing charges of illegally keeping grain against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ally Roy Bennett, a former white farmer who is already on trial for terrorism.

Bennett, treasurer-general in Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), will know on May 10 whether a High Court will drop the terrorism, banditry and sabotage charges that carry a possible death penalty.

The MDC said the grain charges were further proof that the former legislator was being politically persecuted by Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, which is opposed to him being sworn-in as deputy agriculture minister in the unity government.

In his most recent court appearance last month, police detectives served Bennett with a summons to appear in court in eastern Zimbabwe on new charges of unlawfully possessing 92 tonnes of maize at his farm in 2001 before it was seized by President Robert Mugabe's government.

"We are withdrawing those (grain) charges against Roy Bennett," Chris Mutangadura, a state prosecutor told Reuters. He declined to give a reason.

The state's terrorism case -- that Bennett planned to fund a 2006 plot to blow up a major communications link and assassinate key government officials -- hinges on e-mails prosecutors say link the former commercial farmer to the crime.

But the case was dealt a blow last month when its chief witness, 49-year-old former policeman and arms dealer Peter Hitschmann, disowned the e-mails and denied Bennett was involved.

2010-04-12BONN/LONDON (Reuters) - Delegates from 175-nations agreed on two extra sessions of U.N. climate control talks this year at the end of a tortuous meeting in Bonn that presaged big battles ahead over the non-binding Copenhagen Accord.

The Copenhagen Accord seeks to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times but does not spell out how.

Reached at a fractious U.N. climate summit in December, the accord was strongly backed by Washington and bitterly opposed by some developing nations, though it also holds out the prospect of $100 billion climate aid a year from 2020.

"This process has big problems," said Annie Petsonk of the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund, at the end of the meeting in Bonn.

The session had been due to end on Sunday, but delegates wrangled deep into the night over a two-page plan to guide negotiations, with several hours spent on the wording of what appeared to be uncontroversial phrases.

The final text skirted one of the biggest problems -- the fate of the Copenhagen Accord. The December summit had disappointed many by failing to come up with a binding treaty.

"We have just about worked out the procedural kinks -- save the big one, which is what to do about the way in which we will respond to the Copenhagen Accord," Dessima Williams of Grenada, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters.

The accord was not mentioned by name in the Bonn workplan.

Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, who chaired the U.N. talks and will draw up new draft texts by May 17, said the phrasing had a "constructive ambiguity...to me it seems to cover the work that was done to produce the Copenhagen Accord."

The Accord has backing from almost 120 of 194 member states, including top emitters China, the United States, the European Union, Russia and India.

It faces opposition led by countries such as Bolivia, Cuba, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Some developing nations complained that rich countries pledged insufficient action under the Accord to stop disaster for millions of people from floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia fears a shift from oil to renewable energies.

Bolivia said that the Bonn meeting had ruled the Accord out of negotiations that will culminate in a ministerial meeting in Mexico in November and December.

"Despite continual attempts by the U.S. to make the completely unacceptable Copenhagen Accord the basis for future negotiations, I am glad to say they failed," said Pablo Solon, Bolivia's chief delegate.

The U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, said he did not expect a breakthrough to achieve a new treaty in Mexico.

For a $125 billion carbon market, failure to agree a global legally binding deal would be "regrettable" but tough national policies were more important, said one expert.

"It is cap and trade which is driving this market," said Andrei Marcu, head of regulatory and policy affairs at oil trading firm Mercuria.

Cap and trade schemes control industrial carbon emissions by forcing companies to buy from a fixed quota of emissions permits.

A European scheme is at the centre of a carbon market which could grow significantly if the United States passes a climate bill this year.

"I'm looking very much to what the U.S. will do," said Marcu, who was upbeat that the Bonn meeting had re-launched talks which "fell apart" in Copenhagen.

2010-04-12
MIDRAND, South Africa (Reuters) - Uncertainty over a global treaty to cut carbon emissions has slowed investment in clean energy in South Africa, where only a handful of such projects have started compared to other emerging markets.

A senior official from South Africa's agency for assessing domestic clean-energy projects told an African conference on biofuels on Monday the country, the continent's worst emitter, has lagged global trends in launching such projects.

Under the Kyoto protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), countries are required to cut carbon emissions by 5.2 percent by 2012.

"One of the barriers to CDM projects in South Africa is the uncertainty around the post-2012 regime, on whether the accord will continue or not," Ndiafhi Tuwani, the official at South Africa's Designated National Authority (DNA) said.

"Some of the potential project developers are reluctant because of that ...there is need for a new protocol or a new accord. The previous Copenhagen accord did not come up with a new protocol (beyond) 2012."

According to Tuwani, South Africa has 17 CDM projects registered to date, of which only 4 have been issued with CERs. The top two nations in the scheme, according to U.N. figures, are China with 787 projects and India with 498.

The CDM is part of the Kyoto protocol climate pact whose first phase ends in 2012 and there is no decision yet to extend it or agree on a separate climate treaty.

Under the agreement, rich nations that invest in clean-energy projects in developing countries earn certified emissions reductions (CERs) that can in return be sold for profit or used by polluting firms to meet their mandatory emissions targets.

A U.N meeting in Bonn, Germany on Sunday agreed to revive talks on a new deal to slow global warming after December's Copenhagen summit fell short of a binding deal.

CDM Africa Technical Manager Marco Lotz was optimistic projects aimed at cutting emissions would continue beyond 2012.

"Protocols come and go but it is not the end of the world if the Kyoto (protocol) expires. There is a whole industry that has evolved," said Lotz.

2010-04-12
DAKAR (Reuters) - Gabon's main oil industry trade union called on its members to go on strike from Tuesday after government talks on labour regulations collapsed.

"We have broken off discussions with the authorities," ONEP union spokesman Engadji Alandji Arnaud said by telephone from the capital Libreville. "The strike will be unlimited in time," he added, saying the exact starting time had not yet been decided.

Gabon is Africa's seventh largest producer, with output of some 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Foreign investors include France's Total and Canada's Canadian Natural Resources.

2010-04-12
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian archaeologists carrying out excavations at the site of a planned youth centre have found 14 tombs dating back to the third century BC, including one with a female mummy adorned with jewellery.

The Greco-Roman tombs, in Bahariya Oasis, 300 km (190 miles) southwest of Cairo, were discovered during probes that indicated they may be part of a much larger necropolis, Egypt's Culture Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

A 97-cm (38-inch) tall female mummy, found in the stair-lined interior of one of the rock-hewn tombs, was cast in coloured plaster inlaid with jewellery and eyes.

Archaeologists, who dug at the site ahead of the planned construction of a youth centre, found the tombs contained other treasures as well. The area has now been turned over to Egypt's antiquities authority.

"Early investigations uncovered four anthropoid masks made of plaster, a gold fragment decorated with engravings of the four sons of Horus, and a collection of coins, and clay and glass vessels," the ministry's statement quoted Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass as saying.

The four sons of Horus -- Imsety, Duamutef, Hapi and Qebehsenuef -- were ancient Egyptian gods. The engravings show the influence of Egyptian religion well into the Greco-Roman period.

The gods were believed to protect the stomach, liver, intestines and lungs of mummified bodies.

Bahariya Oasis is home to Egypt's famed Valley of the Golden Mummies, where a collection of 17 tombs with about 254 mummies was discovered in 1996.

2010-04-12
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambian 2010 wheat output rose 13.7 percent compared with the previous year to surpass domestic consumption, and the southern African country plans to export part of this surplus, a senior industry official said on Monday.

Ndambo Ndambo, the executive director of the Zambia National Farmers' Union (ZNFU) said wheat production in the 2009/2010 season rose to 216,000 tonnes from 190,000 tonnes in the 2008/2009 season thanks to favourable policies, making Zambia the only southern African nation to be self sufficient in wheat.

Zambia's annual wheat consumption is about 160,000 and farmers were currently in talks with the government over the planned export of excess wheat and wheat flour to countries within the region, he said.

Zambia's wheat production fell to as low as 30,000 tonnes a year in the 1990s, but in the last five years, annual average output has been about 130,000 tonnes.

Ndambo said production of wheat had expanded because of a well coordinated trade policy environment, plus huge private sector investment into irrigation systems.

"Given the export potential, the future looks bright except that government support will be critical in managing the transition successfully," Ndambo said.

"It will be important to ensure that a conducive trade policy environment is sustained for the private sector to continue producing."

"The private sector has provided the government with initial indicative figures for exports and we expect further discussions that should pave (the) way for the government to engage other governments in the region," Ndambo said.

Ndambo said the main constraint farmers faced was the high cost of production, which made Zambian wheat and wheat flour less competitive in other countries in the region.

"The other big problem is most countries in the region do not produce wheat, subsidised wheat imports are commonly sourced into the region and this creates unfair competition for Zambian wheat in the regional markets," he said.

Ndambo said the future of wheat farming would depend on how successfully Zambia managed the surplus production situation to move to a point where producer prices remained at a level where farmers could make a profit.

2010-04-12
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan troops killed 41 Karamojong warriors last week in a fierce gun battle after intercepting them stealing hundreds of cattle from a rival tribe, the local Daily Monitor newspaper said on Monday.

Located in the isolated northeastern corner of east Africa's third largest economy, Karamoja is one of Uganda's poorest regions, plagued by frequent inter-tribal clashes.

The battle took place last Wednesday as warriors from the Jie tribe attacked the neighbouring Dodoth tribe, the Daily Monitor said, quoting a local elder. The region's desperately poor infrastructure means news often takes days to filter out.

"They (the army) have killed very many Jie warriors here. We have counted up to 41 and they are still pursuing others," local councillor Akol Nakwang told Uganda's leading independent daily.

Uganda's army, the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), has been trying to disarm Karamoja's cattle-rustling tribes for several years after the warriors exchanged their traditional spears for automatic rifles.

Tribes from the region, and across the border in Kenya, have traditionally stolen cattle to use as dowry payments and bolster prestige, but the use of automatic weapons has upped the stakes.

The UPDF was not immediately available for comment. Earlier the commander of the 5th Division based in the region told the Daily Monitor his soldiers had killed 14 warriors and recovered more than 1,250 cattle.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation on Monday conceded shortcomings in its handling of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, including a failure to communicate uncertainties about the new virus as it swept around the globe.

Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's top influenza expert, said the U.N. agency's six-phase system for declaring a pandemic had sown confusion about the flu bug which was ultimately not as deadly as the widely-feared avian influenza.

"The reality is there is a huge amount of uncertainty (in a pandemic). I think we did not convey the uncertainty. That was interpreted by many as a non-transparent process," Fukuda said.

He was addressing a three-day meeting of 29 external flu experts called to review WHO's handling of the first influenza pandemic in 40 years.

Critics have said the WHO created panic about the swine flu virus, which turned out to be moderate in its effect, and caused governments to stockpile vaccines which went unused.

Some questioned its links to the pharmaceutical industry after companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis made big profits from producing H1N1 vaccine.

H1N1, which emerged in Mexico and the United States almost exactly a year ago, has killed 17,770 people in 213 countries, according to the WHO, which declared a pandemic underway in June. Most victims were young, with an average age of 37, versus 75 for seasonal flu.

The WHO will need another year or two after the pandemic is declared over to determine a final death rate from the virus. The pandemic is still officially underway.

FEAR AND CONFUSION

The separate but highly lethal H5N1 bird flu virus -- which has killed 60 percent of those infected since 2003 -- "injected a high level of fear about the next pandemic", Fukuda said.

It had been difficult to meet public demands for advice as the H1N1 virus spread quickly across borders, and blogs and other new media generated speculation and criticism, according to the WHO official.

"Populations around the world have very high expectations for immediate information," Fukuda said. "In many ways it is unforgiving out there."

One big surprise had been that only one dose of vaccine was needed to provide immunity, whereas most planning had been built around two doses being required, he said.

This meant that some countries were left struggling with an oversupply of unused vaccines while poorer ones had little or no access to supplies.

"Confusion about phases and level of severity remains a very vexing issue," Fukuda said, referring to the WHO's six-level scale for pandemics which takes into account the geographic spread of a virus but not its severity.

The WHO tried to come up with quantitive basis for measuring the pandemic's severity using death rates, but this proved difficult as countries provided different levels of information. Many lack even basic birth and death registries.

"Many countries don't have the actual capacity to determine reliably the severity of the virus," said Dr. Martin Cetron of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the experts taking part in the review.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said her agency welcomed a frank, critical review of its handling of the pandemic to help it prepare for future public health emergencies.

"We want to know what worked well. We want to know what went wrong and, ideally, why. We want to know what can be done better and, ideally, how," Chan told the session.

DAKAR (Reuters) - Growth rates that outstrip the developed world are drawing emerging markets asset manager Silk Invest to open a 100 million euro fund to invest in African food processing and sales, the company said.

The London-based firm, which takes its name from the 'Silk Route' historical trade paths linking Europe and Asia, plans to launch the Africa Food Fund in June, it said at the weekend.

Unlike many investments in Africa, it is not a bet on raw commodities, but instead on their local processing and distribution to African consumers.

"(The) focus of the fund is to invest in companies across the food value chain and we especially like the companies who are servicing the local African consumers," chief executive Zin Bekkali told Reuters.

"Examples of target companies that we are analysing are ...

(a) fast food chain which wants to accelerate the number of outlets that it has, a cocoa processing company which wants to sell more of its own branded products, a flavoured fizzy drinks producer which is building capacity in mineral water, and a biscuit maker which is importing currently 50 percent of the products it sells but wants to replace it by its own goods."

Many Middle Eastern investment agencies are spending money to grow crops in Africa for shipment to their domestic markets to alleviate food insecurity in the Arab world, but Silk Invest is looking for companies that sell to African consumers.

"Moving to packaged sugar, milk or flour is a big driver of growth. In most African countries, food is still pre-dominantly sold through non-branded items," Bekkali said.

"(In) the last years we are seeing a dramatic change and African food companies are servicing the local need without increasing the cost of the product. Consumers are able to buy a higher quality branded food item for the same price."

POLITICAL STABILITY SOUGHT

The International Monetary Fund will forecast euro zone growth of 0.8 percent in 2010, according to a report this month, far below the fund manager's expectations for Africa.

"African growth on average is de-coupled from the Western world ...We think that Africa will move back to its pre-crisis annual growth level of 5 percent," Bekkali said.

The firm said it is looking for countries institutionally strong and politically stable enough to sustain high economic growth, and its investor presentation names Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco and Nigeria as initial targets.

"Within this list we have excluded countries like Somalia. Many investors in Africa do not fully understand that Africa is moving on and that countries like Somalia are as much an exception in Africa as Afghanistan is in Asia."

As Ivory Coast, formerly one of Africa's economic powerhouses with world-leading cocoa exports, slips further away from elections that were slated for 2005, many commentators suggest foreign investors are staying away from the country until its political crisis is resolved.

"Ivory Coast is not in the focus list but is not in our exclusion list," Bekkali said. "It is definitely one of the countries which has a higher risk profile than let's say South Africa. On the other hand it remains one of the African countries with a reasonably well developed infrastructure."

Silk Invest is marketing the fund to development finance agencies, family offices, and private equity firms, but has found the latter the most resistant to the idea.

"The private equity industry is still focusing mostly on management buy-out deals or trying to find the next Google," Bekkali said. "When they look at Africa (it) is almost entirely focused on commodity type of investments which we see as the least attractive sector in Africa."

Nigeria’s immediate former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has returned back to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party he left due to political disagreement between him and the former president Olusegun Obasanjo.
Atiku’s media aide, Garba Shehu, said the former vice president and his supporters decided to rejoin the PDP following disagreements within Mega Summit Movement (MSM), a movement initiated by the opposition political figures to dislodge the PDP from power come 2011.
Beside Atiku’s involvement in the MSM, he is equally involved in another political alliance, the National Democratic Movement (NDM) which is mainly a northern political movement in the country where Atiku hails from.
His return to the PDP, however, was described by the head of secretariat of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) Alhaji Sule Hamma as the reunion of politicians with similar thinking and ideological inclination.
He said, “It is a normal realignment of political forces” signifying that people of similar mind set “will always flock together.”
Before his return, Atiku has been involved with General Muhammadu Buhari, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, ex-Senator Bola Tinubu in the NDM to form a broad based political party to remove the PDP from power in 2011. Alhaji Sule said the move is good for Nigeria to move forward stressing that there is no ideological compatibility between Atiku and most of the political actors in the NDM.
Alhaji Sule insisted that the current political struggles eventually create groups that share the same thinking and allow each group to identify its opponent, adding that he was not surprised over Atiku’s decision to abandon the group.
However, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), an umbrella body of opposition political parties in the country said the return of former vice president Atiku Abubakar to the Peoples Democratic Party is a blow to opposition which poses a threat to their plans to wrestle power from the ruling party.
CNPP’s National Chairman Alhaji Balarabe Musa said dethroning PDP would now be a very herculean task, adding that Atiku’s return to PDP is a “great loss” to politicians who want to bring meaningful democratic change in the country in 2011.
The CNPP chairman however said Atiku’s reunion with the PDP did not take them by surprise, because the former VP and his supporters only left the PDP in 2007 due to disagreement with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

Hundreds of Nigerian people have been reported to have died of food borne disease according to the country’s Consumer Protection Council (CPC) report.
Director General of the Council Mrs. Ify Umenyi has said that already a total of 559 people died of food borne diseases out of the 2.5 million recorded cases in 2006 and 2007 in the country.
Mrs Umenyi who spoke in Abuja at the pre-workshop press conference on quality and safety of street vended food in Nigeria, jointly organized by CPC and the National Orientation Agency (NOA) said, “some of the cases could be directly linked to consumption of contaminated street vended food.”
She said in 2008, the council survey on street vended foods within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was depressing in terms of quality and safety which presupposed that the situation could be worse in the hinterland where most facilities like potable water, electricity are in shorter supply.
In his remarks the Director General of National Orientation Agency, Alhaji Idi Faruk said the upcoming workshop which would be in collaboration with the wife of the Benue State government Mrs. Yamisi Dooshima Suswam.
He said it will feature training for food vendors, exhibition of foods and beverages and agricultural produce as well as cooking competition, adding that the objectives of the workshop include educating of food vendors on the best practices in ensuring quality of street food and safety of consumers.
The workshop will also set model in areas of food presentation, preparation and preservation, to mobilize consumers to support the campaign to regulate street vended food in Nigeria among other things.
Participants for the three-day workshop would be drawn from the 36 states of the federation including Abuja and starts April 13, 2010 in Markudi, Benue State.

The newly sworn-in Minister of State for Finance Mr. Remi Babalola has placed a ban on government officials and other public servants especially working in the various agencies under the ministry to stop using public funds to pay for first class tickets during official trips.
Also, he warned heads of parastatals under his supervision to desist from travelling with public funds using first class ticket which he said was only a sign of misappropriating public funds and attesting to lack of priority by such officials.
Babalola reminded the heads of parastatals to adhere to existing public service rules and code of conduct that bar ministers, members of boards of parastatals and other public officers from travelling by first class with public funds.
He gave the directives in Abuja at a meeting with the heads of the five parastatals and officials of the ministry to review the operations and performance of the agencies. He chairs the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
The parastatals include: the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Insurance Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigerian Export Import Bank, and the Investments and Securities Tribunal.
He said, “As much as possible, foreign trips should be pruned to only very essential ones that can add value to your mandates. He also added that, “Non-performance and abuse of office would not be tolerated.”
Babalola solicited the cooperation of all the heads of parastatals and reminded them that time was of essence and should therefore “hit the ground running”.
On their part, the heads of parastatals assured the minister of their support and promised to work assiduously to achieve the mandates of their respective agencies and the government in general.