{{Kenya is expected to receive lower-than-normal and poorly distributed rains in the last quarter of 2013 which could impact agricultural production and power supply from hydro-electric dams, the Meteorological Department said on Friday.}}
East Africa’s biggest economy relies heavily on agriculture and power from dams. Analysts watch the forecasts to gauge the impact on inflation, which could be pushed up if harvests are weak and cheap hydropower is in short supply.
Inflation rose to 6.67% in the year to August from 6.02% a month earlier.
“Generally depressed rainfall is expected over most agricultural areas of the country. It is also expected that the rainfall will be poorly distributed,” the department said.
“This will impact negatively on the agricultural activities in most of the areas. Food security is expected to deteriorate especially in the eastern sector of Kenya during the October-December period,” it said in a statement.
Kenya has two rainy seasons, the so-called short rains of October to December and the long rains of March to May.
The Meteorological Department said the short rains outlook in the food-growing areas of the Western, Nyanza and Rift Valley regions would be for near- or above-normal rain.
It said some other food-growing areas such as Central, Southeastern and Coastal regions would have near-normal rains.
For hydropower generation, the department said catchment areas in western Kenya would have near- to above-normal rainfall, improving water levels in some dams.
But normal to below-normal rains in the Tana and Athi River catchment areas were likely to lead to low flows to major dams, it said, adding that this could reduce hydro-electric power capacity.
The department said parts of the country’s Northeastern and Eastern provinces, which border Somalia and Ethiopia which are already drought prone, would receive scant rainfall.
{{Ivory Coast cocoa exporters have rejected a price structure proposed by the industry regulator for the 2013/14 season, saying it underestimated their costs, and have called for government mediation, industry sources said.}}
The standoff highlights disagreements that have plagued the sweeping reforms that the government has put in place in an effort by President Alassane Ouattara to guarantee farmers a minimum price for their crop.
The main cocoa exporters, including Cargill, ADM , OLAM and Armajaro, have called for an increase of 27 CFA francs per kilo in the price structure from last year to take into account additional costs, notably in transport and taxation.
“We are asking for a 27 CFA franc increase in next season’s cost structure because it was underestimated so much last year,” the head of one international cocoa exporter based in Abidjan said on Friday. “We are asking for costs to be adjusted to the reality on the ground for the 2013/2014 season.”
The Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) set a farmgate price of 725 CFA francs ($1.46) per kg for the October 2012 to March 2013 main crop and a price of 700 CFA francs/kg for the April-to-September 2013 mid-crop beans. It has not yet unveiled the farmgate prices for 2013/2014.
Ivory Coast uses an estimate of the costs for exporters to set a farmgate price for growers, based on the international market price. It is therefore a major factor in determining exporters’ profits, at a time when many companies say they are being squeezed by the government reform.
Farmers and buyers have said that some merchants in Ivory Coast were buying below the CCC prices towards the tail-end of this season due to weaker demand. Some farmers were accepting offers between 500 CFA and 600 CFA.
Traders said buyers who adhered to the set price were feeling the pinch.
“Most people are worse off except for the farmer. Most people who operate have to bear a lot of risk but less reward,” a European trader said.
{{Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who has been receiving medical treatment for three months for a lung ailment, is still in hospital in Pretoria in a critical but stable condition, the government said on Saturday.}}
The presidency said reports by some international media that the revered anti-apartheid leader, who is 95, had been discharged and returned to his home were “incorrect”.
“Madiba is still in hospital in Pretoria, and remains in a critical but stable condition,” the presidency said in a statement, using the traditional clan name by which Mandela is affectionately known in South Africa.
“At times his condition becomes unstable, but he responds to medical interventions,” it added, repeating a medical bulletin it had issued a week ago which had said the ailing Nobel Peace Prize laureate was showing “great resilience”.
News of Mandela’s hospitalization in June with a recurring lung infection attracted worldwide attention for the revered statesman, who is admired as a symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation.
Mandela celebrated his 95th birthday in hospital on July 18, showered with tributes from around the world.
He spent nearly three decades in prison before being released and being elected South Africa’s first black president in multi-racial elections in 1994 that ended apartheid rule.
Mandela’s 27 years in prison under white minority rule included 18 years on the notorious Robben Island penal colony. His lung infection dates back to this time, when he and other prisoners were forced to work in a limestone quarry.
{{The first Japanese astronaut to live aboard the International Space Station is preparing for a return flight, this time to serve as commander, officials said on Wednesday.}}
Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is due to leave in November with a pair of veteran astronauts from the United States and Russia.
Wakata, 50, is expected to take command of the orbital research outpost in March, marking the first time a Japanese astronaut will lead a human space mission.
“It means a lot to Japan to have its own representative to command the International Space Station,” Wakata told a news conference broadcast from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“It’s a big milestone for Japan … to have this experience,” he said.
In 2009, Wakata became the first astronaut from Japan to live aboard the $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.
Japan, one of 15 nations participating in the project, provided the station’s largest and most elaborate laboratory, named Kibo, as well as cargo resupply ships.
Wakata, who was part of two missions on NASA’s now-retired space shuttles, is training for his fourth flight along with NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, both 53.
Mastracchio, a veteran of three shuttle missions and one of NASA’s most experienced spacewalkers, will be making his first long-duration flight. Tyurin will be living aboard the station for a third time.
Command of the station typically rotates between a U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut. In 2009, Belgium astronaut Frank De Winne became the first European to command the station. Canada’s first commander, Chris Hadfield, was in charge from March until May.
Wakata, a native of Saitama, Japan, holds a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering, a master’s in applied mechanics and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from Kyushu University. Before being selected as an astronaut in 1992, he worked as an aircraft structural engineer for Japan Airlines.
Wakata’s first two spaceflights, in January 1996 and October 2000, were aboard NASA space shuttles. He was Japan’s first live-aboard space station resident from March to July 2009. Upon returning to the station in November, Wakata will serve as a flight engineer before taking over command in March.
{{Switzerland’s economy will gain momentum in the coming months, buoyed in part by an improvement in business sentiment in surrounding euro zone countries, the leading Swiss indicator suggested on Friday.}}
The KOF barometer, a gauge of the economy’s performance in about six months’ time, rose to 1.36 points in August, its highest level since November 2012, from a revised 1.25 points in July, beating expectations for 1.33 in a Reuters poll.
“The year-on-year growth rate of Swiss Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the near future can therefore be expected to be positive,” the KOF institute said in a statement, adding the core GDP module of the indicator was pointing sharply upwards.
Switzerland’s economy has fared better than those of its austerity-hit European neighbors although sluggish exports to the Europe Union, its biggest trading partner, remained a concern in July.
However, recent data from the euro currency bloc, including business sentiment and private sector growth in Germany, has been more upbeat.
In June, the Swiss government slightly increased its 2013 growth forecast to 1.4 percent, while the Swiss National bank (SNB) stuck to its forecast of 1-1.5 percent growth.
“The KOF says Swiss industry is doing better, that is no surprise. As Europe improves you see the key impact it has on Switzerland,” J. Safra Sarasin economist Alessandro Bee said.
Swiss exports have been supported by a cap the SNB imposed on the soaring franc currency in 2011. But the central bank has warned that the franc remained overvalued and continued to pose risks to the economy.
SNB board member Fritz Zurbruegg said this month the cap on the safe-haven currency would be kept in place for as long as needed.
The Pentagon is taking a harder look at proposed foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies given the increasing financial complexity of such deals, but continues to encourage foreign investment, a top U.S. defense official said this week.
“If you have a deal that is in the interest of the U.S. economy and does not impinge on national security, we will approve it,” said Brett Lambert, the Pentagon’s representative on an interagency committee that reviews foreign takeovers.
Lambert, who retires Saturday after four years as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial policy, bristled at the suggestion that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was making it difficult for foreign investors to acquire U.S. companies.
“It’s completely the opposite,” Lambert told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
He said foreign interest in U.S. companies remained high, given the continued importance of the U.S. defense market despite recent budget cuts, and said he expected the number of foreign transactions reviewed by CFIUS to double in coming years from more than 100 last year.
“You have foreign capital that wants to come in, which we want, which we encourage. The question is how do we allow that foreign capital to come in while protecting national security,” Lambert said.
He acknowledged that the Defense Department and other agencies involved in the CFIUS review process were often taking longer to review transactions but said that was largely because of the increasing complexity of the transactions.
Lambert said high-profile cases that were rejected tended to generate headlines but the majority of cases were approved, including some with conditions.
He declined to discuss specific CFIUS cases under review, including a $4.7 billion bid by a Chinese company to take over Virginia-based pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc.
The most recent CFIUS report to Congress showed that the committee reviewed 111 transactions in 2011, of which 40 were investigated under a longer 45-day review. Six of the notices were withdrawn. Data for 2012 has not been released.
U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about various takeover bids by Chinese firms in recent years, but CFIUS approved plans by China’s largest auto parts maker in January to buy car battery maker A123 Systems Inc.
In February, CFIUS approved the $15.1 billion purchase of Canadian oil firm Nexen Inc by China’s state-owned CNOOC Ltd., although it imposed conditions limiting its operation of wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
CFIUS rejected a bid by another Chinese-owned company, Ralls Corp, to build wind farms near a U.S. military site in Oregon, but the company has challenged that decision in court.
Lambert said the Nexen case showed U.S. authorities were willing to work with companies seeking to invest in the United States as long as they showed a willingness to compromise. “We can come to accommodations. We will work with the companies but they have to respect our national security concerns.”
Lambert said foreign companies seeking to invest in the United States should hire lawyers who had already shepherded other deals through the process.
He said government officials also welcomed contact with companies involved in mergers or acquisitions, noting that senior officials in the proposed merger of Europe’s EADS, the parent of Airbus, and Britain’s BAE Systems had been forthcoming about their plans.
Lambert said meeting those officials helped him keep Pentagon leaders informed about the merger, which ultimately collapsed.
Lambert co-founded a national security consultancy, DFI International, in 1989 and then sold it in 2007 to Detica, a London-based firm that was subsequently taken over by BAE Systems. He said he reviewed the CFIUS files on the DFI sale after coming to the Pentagon to understand the process better from the government’s point of view.
In Britain, Two Tory ministers who missed the crucial vote on Syria were in a room just yards from the Commons where they did not hear the division bell, it has emerged.
Justine Greening, the development secretary, and Mark Simmonds, the Africa minister, were reportedly in a small, soundproofed meeting room called the Reasons Room directly behind the Speaker’s chair, near where the doorkeepers shout “division”, discussing the situation in Rwanda. The House of Commons authorities told PA that the room is “solidly constructed” with a “well-fitting door”.
Both ministers were present for a vote on the Labour amendment, but missed the controversial coalition motion directly afterwards, claiming they did not hear a bell calling them back to the chamber.
{Justine Greening and Mark Simmonds said they did not hear the bell calling them back to the chamber for the coalition motion. }
{{U.N. experts left Syria on Saturday after investigating a poison gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians, and the United States said it was planning a limited response to punish Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad for the “brutal and flagrant” assault.}}
U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States, which has five cruise-missile equipped destroyers in the region, was in the planning process for a “limited, narrow” military action that would not involve boots on the ground or be open-ended.
In a sign the United States may be preparing to act, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on Friday to the foreign ministers of key European and Gulf allies, as well as the head of the Arab League, a senior State Department official said.
A Reuters witness said the team of U.N. experts arrived at Beirut International Airport on Saturday, after crossing the land border from Syria into Lebanon by foot earlier in the day.
The 20-member team, including experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, have been into the rebel-held areas in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus three times, taking blood and tissue samples from victims. They also took samples of soil, clothing and rocket fragments.
They will be sent to laboratories in Europe, most likely Sweden or Finland, for analysis. The U.N. experts have already been testing for sarin, mustard gas or other toxic agents.
The analysis should establish if a chemical attack took place but not who was responsible for the August 21 attack on a Damascus suburb.
Final results might not be ready for two weeks, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Security Council members, according to diplomats.
The United States released its own unclassified intelligence report on the attack, which Kerry said killed 1,429 Syrian civilians and was clearly the work of Assad’s forces.
“If we choose to live in the world where a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity” it would set a bad example for others, such as Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea, Kerry said.
Syria blames rebels fighting to topple Assad for the attack. Its main ally Russia, which has repeatedly used its U.N. Security Council veto to block forceful action against the Syrian leader, says any attack on Syria would be illegal and only inflame the civil war there.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry repeated its denial that the government had used chemical weapons against its own people. Kerry’s accusations were a “desperate attempt” to justify a military strike. “What he said was lies,” the ministry said.
{{Countries in the WHO African Region on August 31, celebrate the African Traditional Medicine Day under the theme “Traditional medicine research and development”. }}
This theme draws attention to the urgent need for research and development (R&D) to enhance the role of traditional medicine in health-care delivery.
Current WHO estimates show that for 80% of the people in the developing world, traditional medicine is the main—and sometimes the only—source of health care. In our Region, traditional medicine has strong historical and cultural origins.
It is regrettable that traditional medicine R&D has not been given adequate funding.
The celebration of the African Traditional Medicine Day 2013 provides an excellent opportunity for stakeholders, including governments, researchers, traditional and conventional health practitioners, nongovernmental organizations, communities, and development partners, to share information and experiences on traditional medicine R&D, plan for collaborative projects and mobilize resources for generation of knowledge and new traditional medicine products.
The history of traditional medicine in Africa dates back thousands of years before the advent of modern medicine. Yet, within a comparatively short period modern medicine has developed adequate methods for efficacy proving, quality assurance, safety testing and standardization of manufacturing practices for its products.
In our Region, some countries have made commendable progress in traditional medicine R&D.
It gives me great pleasure to report that in 2012 the number of traditional medicine research institutions had increased to 28 from 18 in 2000; 13 countries were using research results to authorize marketing of some traditional medicine products for treatment of malaria, diabetes and sickle-cell disease; and 8 countries had traditional medicine products in their national essential medicines list compared with only 1 country in 2000.
As we commemorate the African Traditional Medicine Day 2013, I appeal to governments in the African Region to increase investment in traditional medicine R&D. This will yield positive returns for the Region, where traditional medicine products have high acceptance.
Governments need to include traditional medicine R&D in their national health research agenda and create budget lines to support the implementation of the traditional medicine strategy adopted by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa.
On its part, WHO will continue to support countries in their endeavour to make traditional medicine a viable component of their national health systems.
I call for stronger partnerships involving governments, donors, the private sector and relevant stakeholders to take forward this important undertaking of traditional medicine R&D.
{{Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda have agreed to have a joint tourist visa to attract more visitors to the countries, a principal secretary has said.}}
Mohamed Ibrahim of Kenya’s Commerce and Tourism said the visa is to facilitate and ease international arrivals to partner states.
“To promote regional tourism, the partner states further agreed to allow their people to use national identity cards while crossing respective borders and air travel within the states,” Dr Ibrahim said.
Addressing a World Tourism Organisation General Assembly in Zimbabwe, Dr Ibrahim said in a speech made available to the Nation that national borders should not be barriers to tourism growth.
Dr Ibrahim said as an East Africa regional air travel hub, Kenya has embarked on an expansion process of its key airports.
“We believe our success in this effort will spur tourism growth in Kenya and within the region,” Dr Ibrahim said.
