IGIHE

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  • US Kidnap Victims Describe their Torment in Diaries

    {{Diaries kept by three young women held captive for a decade in an Ohio home helped US prosecutors describe their suffering in a memo released ahead of their tormentor’s sentencing hearing Thursday.}}

    The entries spoke of rape, vicious beatings, of being chained to a wall and locked in a dark room, of “being treated like an animal,” of “anticipating the next session of abuse,” and of “his threats to kill,” prosecutors said.

    The women also wrote of “dreams of some day escaping and being reunited with family,” of “missing the lives they once enjoyed” and of their overwhelming desire for freedom.

    Their tormentor, Ariel Castro, last week agreed to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table.

    The former school bus driver, 53, is expected to speak about his catalogue of crimes when he is formally sentenced Thursday.

    “Although he admits his disgusting and inhuman conduct, the defendant remains remorseless for his actions,” Cuyahoga county prosecutor Timothy McGinty wrote in the sentencing memo released late Wednesday.

    At least one of Castro’s victims Michelle Knight, 32 may also deliver a statement by video or even in person, media reported.

    Knight was the first to be snatched off the street in 2002 when she was 20. Next came Amanda Berry, kidnapped the night before her 17th birthday in 2003.

    Then came Gina DeJesus who was just 14 and a friend of Castro’s daughter when she was abducted in 2004.

    {agencies}

  • Fifa moves Ethiopia & Senegal World Cup Qualifiers

    {{Ethiopia’s crucial World Cup qualifier away to Central African Republic in September has been moved to neutral Republic of Congo, the Ethiopian Football Federation said on Wednesday.}}

    Football’s world governing body Fifa took the decision because of security reasons after after CAR’s president was overthrown this year.

    The final Group A game match has been relocated to Brazzaville.

    Fifa has also switched Senegal’s decisive final Group J game against Uganda to Morocco because of the ban on Senegal’s main football stadium.

    Both games are scheduled for 7 September.

    Ethiopia now must win to guarantee its progression to Africa’s 10-team play-offs for next year’s World Cup after it forfeited a victory over Botswana for fielding an ineligible player earlier in the competition.

    A draw could be enough for the Ethiopians depending on the result of South Africa’s game with Botswana on the same day.

    Ethiopia, who have never been to the World Cup, leads the group by two points ahead of the final round after the point totals were readjusted when Ethiopia was stripped of the Botswana win by Fifa.

    Senegal’s place in the play-offs will be decided in Marrakech against Uganda in their winner-take-all match.

    The Teranga Lions lead their group by a point but haven’t been allowed to play at Leopold Senghor Stadium in Dakar after being punished for a riot at an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Ivory Coast late last year.

    The Confederation of African Football imposed a one-year ban on the venue and Senegal played its last home qualifier in Guinea.

    {Standardmedia}

  • Uganda’s Umeme Makes First Trade at Nairobi Stock Exchange

    {{Uganda power distributor’s shares traded for the very first time on Wednesday at the Nairobi bourse, following the activation of the regional inter-depository transfer mechanism (RITM).}}

    Umeme’s shares were cross-listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) seven months ago but the lack of an appropriate infrastructure to allow for the quick transfer of shares has hindered trading, despite the counter being one of the most traded at the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE).

    The counter saw a trade of 1,000 shares at the NSE at Ksh13 ($0.15) compared to 125,059 shares traded at the USE at an average price of Ush360 ($0.14).

    NSE said that the shares traded following the successful transfer of Umeme shares at the USE’s Securities Central Depository (SCD) to Kenya’s Central Depository and Settlement Corporation (CDSC) using the new system which went live early this week.

    “This will benefit investors and issuers of cross listed securities such as Umeme. It gives great leverage to shareholders as they are able to decide on which exchange to trade and in which currency,” said Peter Mwangi, chief executive officer, NSE.

    He said that the successful implementation of the regional inter-depository transfer mechanism would enhance the efficient movement of securities across the East African Community region.

    Last week, members of the East African Securities Exchange Association (Easea), at a meeting in Zanzibar signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of the inter-depository transfer system.

    Easea, which brings together the NSE, USE, Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE), Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE), Kenya’s Central Depository and Settlements Corporation (CDSC) and Burundi’s yet to be established securities market, had said the system would go live on Monday.

    The activation of the RITM cuts down the time it takes to move the assets by electronic settlement, to at most four days from more than two months.

    In the past, the lengthy clearance process hindered the trading of cross-listed shares in other markets other than where they are primarily listed.

    Apart from increasing the liquidity of cross-listed shares and providing exposure for the companies, investors will also be able to take advantage of pricing differences in the different markets, if they can make a profit from the strategy.

    Shares of Nation Media Group (NMG) and KCB Group which are primarily listed on the NSE are cross listed on the USE, DSE and RSE while East African Breweries Limited (EABL), Kenya Airways and Jubilee Holdings are also cross listed on the USE and DSE.

    Data from the Dar es Salaam bourse shows that in the first six months of this year, none of the cross listed counters traded at the DSE, compared to 200 Kenya Airways shares traded in 2012 and a combined 11,834 NMG, Kenya Airways and EABL shares traded in 2011.

    In the first half of this year, 1,094 Centum, 8,205 Equity Bank and 200 NMG shares were traded at the USE compared to only 591 KCB Group shares traded last year.

    In 2011 at the USE, Centum traded 5.4 million shares; Equity Bank traded 2,088 and KCB Group 1,850 shares.

    {Businessdaily}

  • I deserve State privileges, says former PM Raila Odinga

    {{Raila Odinga has said he deserves some State privileges by virtue of being a former Prime Minister.}}

    Mr Odinga dismissed claims by government spokesman Muthui Kariuki that he has mounted an illegal siren in one of his cars to manoeuvre his way through traffic.

    But responding to the accusations, Mr Odinga said he is entitled to some of the privileges he enjoys and deserves to have vehicles and bodyguards seconded to him by the government for having been a Prime Minister and a co-principal to former President Kibaki in the grand coalition government.

    “I am a former Prime Minister of this country and was a co-principal in the grand coalition government and so I am entitled to some of these privileges,” he told journalists at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi Wednesday night after arriving from Texas, US.

  • Ukrainian Confectioner Suspends Exports to Russia

    {{Ukraine’s leading confectioner Roshen has suspended its exports to Russia after chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko banned the products, saying that they don’t meet quality and safety standards.}}

    The Federal Consumer Protection Service inspected Roshen’s products from Moscow stores and found that they had “toxic impurities” while milk chocolate produced by the company even held traces of benzopyrene, a carcinogenic chemical, according to an announcement published on the service’s website.

    The faulty products were shipped from four of Roshen’s Ukraine-based factories. The chocolates manufactured at the Lithuanian and Russian factories did not incur the same condemnation.

    “The quality and safety requirements have been breached,” Onishchenko told Interfax this week. “There are grounds to talk of systemic violations of our country’s current legislation on protecting consumer rights.”

    But Roshen’s representatives said they have not received any formal complaints about their products from Russian authorities and neither have their Moscow distributors from which the samples were taken. But the company has decided to voluntarily suspend the supply of their products until the situation clears up.

    “Roshen has always complied with all the rules for certification of confectionary products and met all the necessary health standards,” according to the company’s statement.

    Roshen doubts that the Federal Consumer Protection Service used the right samples in their quality checks, the statement continued. They also noted that the presence of benzopyrene in the chocolates can not be in violation of Russian regulations because the country has no official norms for how much of this substance can appear in confectionary products.

    Roshen is not the first Ukrainian producer to get banned from Russia. Onishchenko stopped the supply of Ukrainian cheeses to the country in February 2012, though supplies were later resumed, and has now concentrated his efforts on an inquiry into Ukrainian baked goods.

    As with previous bans, experts suspect that there are political motives for the decision. Ukraine has increased an emergency car tax in March to protect local producers from a high volume of imports. Russia has lost an estimated $36 million as a result of this tax, with the ban on Roshen chocolate seen by some as retaliation.

    Pavel Rozenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, said the move is likely Russia’s answer to his country’s continued refusal to join the Russian trade bloc, which already includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.

    He added that he expects other similar measures to be taken by Russia as Ukraine readies to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union, the New Region news agency reported.

    Onishchenko, however, disagreed with the suggestion. He said the consumer rights watchdog had asked Ukrainian authorities to set up a quality control system when they were dealing with the cheese ban. He added that otherwise, more bans would be imposed in the future.

    The Moscow Times

  • South Sudan’s Kiir names new Cabinet

    {{South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has named new cabinet ministers, but he is yet to name a vice president.}}

    In a presidential decree on Wednesday evening, Mr Kiir named 19 ministers and 10 deputies, barely a week after sacking his former Vice President Riek Machar and dissolving the entire cabinet.

    Mr Machar has indicated that he is now eyeing the presidency.

    The list is a mixture of new and old faces. Notably, President Kiir named the governor of the restive Jonglei State and career soldier, Kuol Manyang Juuk, as the new defence minister.

    A former member of the Sudan’s Islamist Popular Congress Party who ran against President Omar al-Bashir in April 2010, Abdhalla Deng Nhial, has been named minister for Electricity, Dams and Water Resources.

    Mr Kiir also named the former chairman for the-then southern sector of Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party, Mr Riek Gai, as the new health minister.

    Ms Awut Deng Achuil, who had resigned as Labor and Public Service Minister, has been taken to the gender docket.

    Most of the former ministers have been dropped.

  • African Private Equity Funds tops 11% Annual return for decade-long period

    {{A new index of institutional-quality private equity funds in Africa posted an 11.2 per cent annualised return for the 10 years ending September 30, 2012}}

    The total fund capitalisation is US$7.3bn from 40 institutional-quality private equity and venture capital funds based in Africa that invest third-party limited partner capital. The vintage years covered are from 1995 to 2012.

    According to the first quarterly report of the Cambridge Associates LLC African Private Equity and Venture Capital Index, African private equity funds outperformed US venture capital and are roughly in line with the broad Cambridge Associates emerging markets private equity and venture capital index for the most recent 10-year period.

    The Cambridge Associates LLC African Private Equity and Venture Capital Index is a collaboration between the African Venture Capital Association (AVCA) and Cambridge Associates, the global investment advisor that maintains databases and tracks performance data of private investments around the world.

    Eric Johnson, managing director at Cambridge Associates, said, “The data revealed that for the earlier 10-year periods – for instance, those ending in 2008 to 2010 – African private equity outperformed the 10-year emerging market benchmark.

    “Except for the most recent periods, African private equity has performed in line with or ahead of Asian and Latin American private equity.”

    Johnson said more than 40 per cent of the funds in the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Index beat the broad emerging markets median fund for their vintage year.

    “The strongest performing sectors within the private equity funds in the African index were IT and telecoms, industrial, manufacturing and consumer. Other than the consumer sector, all of these have outperformed their other emerging market peers,” he said.

    Johnson’s comments echo those made by Hurley Doddy, CEO of Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), who said recently, “I think telecoms – including services like data and money transfer and infrastructure connected to that sector – will remain a strong growth market and therefore a prime target for the next decade.

    “In addition related industries like pay television and other media businesses are at the low levels of penetration that cell phones were at six or eight years ago and are poised for very strong growth.”

    ECP is a pan-African private equity firm that has raised more than US$2bn for investment across the African continent, including the Francophone regions.

    The company has put its investors’ capital to work in more than 40 countries through seven private equity funds and directly supports more than 50,000 jobs.

    It has made more than 50 investments, and completed more than 20 exits, maintaining a strong portfolio of remaining transactions.

    Johnson said African funds from the older, more mature vintage years (1996 to 1998 and 2002 to 2004) have outperformed African, emerging markets and developed markets stocks on a Public Market Equivalent (PME) basis.

    “African funds from the 2005 to 2007 vintages are trailing African and emerging markets stocks to date, but are slightly ahead of developed markets stocks on a PME basis,” Johnson remarked said, adding that many of the funds in the African benchmark remain early in their lifecycle and are largely unrealised, making comparisons to public markets for more recent vintages less meaningful for now.

    A much smaller proportion of African funds are showing a partial or total loss than U.S. venture capital over the vintage years 1995 to 2008, he said.

    The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Index comprises 40 institutional-quality private equity and venture capital funds based in Africa that invest third-party limited partner capital.

    The benchmark excludes captive funds, real estate funds and funds with open-ended structures. The total fund capitalisation is US$7.3bn, and the vintage years covered are 1995 to 2012.

    The 40 funds include investments in more than 350 companies headquartered in more than 25 African countries, as well as a small number of Africa-focused companies headquartered outside the continent.

    Cambridge gathers data by tapping verifiable data sourced directly from each fund’s financial statements. Additional funds will continue to be added to the dataset over time.

    “We are delighted to be working with AVCA to provide the first institutional-quality, pan-African private equity performance benchmark,” said Johnson.

    “We believe it will go a long way to help limited partners assess and participate in private investment opportunities in Africa. Without systematic coverage of a broad group of funds – both ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ – it can be hard for limited partners to gauge the landscape and evaluate individual fund managers.

    “We look forward to further expanding the dataset of private investment performance in Africa and reporting additional results as the industry continues to build its track record,” he added.

    Michelle Kathryn Essomé, CEO at AVCA, commented, “This launch marks a monumental moment for African private equity investment. For the first time, investors looking at the continent have a performance benchmark akin to those that well-established emerging markets have enjoyed for some time.”

    {Africanreview}

  • Ghana’s Aluminium Sector to Create 2.3million Jobs

    {{Ghana’s Integrated Aluminium Project will be expected to generate more than 2.3mn jobs and inject close to US$8bn in the sector giving a boost to the country’s economy}}

    As part of the Integrated Aluminium Project, an aluminium refinery will be constructed to refine the rich bauxite deposit at Nyinahin into alumina.

    The metal will then be processed into aluminium by VALCO, and sold to the several downstream industries as aluminium ingot and billet.

    The government has already begun the process of identifying suitable investors to lead the project.

    Companies like Aluworks, Western Rod, Tema Steel, packaging companies and the numerous aluminium accessories manufacturing industries have expressed interest in the project.

    According to a report on the Business Standard, aluminium production will be highly dependent on electricity and thus there could arise a need to use hydro-sourced power to support aluminium smelters.

    The decision to dedicate hydro power for alumimuim smelting has been identified by the Ghana government as not only crucial to reduce the cost of generation but also important if Ghana was to remain committed to creating more jobs and reducing the number of unemployed youth.

    {agencies}

  • Japan Deputy PM Taro Aso retracts Nazi comments

    {{Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso has retracted remarks suggesting that the country could learn from Nazi Germany’s constitutional reform.}}

    Mr Aso said on Monday Japan could “learn the technique” Nazi Germany used to change the Weimar constitution.

    The remarks come amid debate in Japan over its pacifist constitution, which restricts the military to a self-defence role.

    Mr Aso’s comments drew criticism from neighbouring China and South Korea.

    “I retract my remarks in which I cited the Nazis as an example, as it has ended up leading to misunderstanding,” Mr Aso, who is also finance minister and a former prime minister, told reporters on Thursday.

    “It is clear from all my remarks that I have an extremely negative view of the events involving the Nazis and the Weimar constitution.”

    Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters: “I want to make it clear that the [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe cabinet will never view the Nazi government positively”.

    On Monday, Mr Aso had said in a speech that: “The German Weimar constitution changed, without being noticed, to the Nazi German constitution. Why don’t we learn from their tactics?”

    In 1933 after a fire burned down the German parliament, Adolf Hitler, who was chancellor at the time, and President Paul von Hindenburg enforced a state of emergency, suspending civic freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.

    Hitler then successfully passed the Enabling Act, which meant he could pass laws without consulting parliament – a move viewed as crucial to consolidating his grip on power.

    Retracting the remarks on Thursday, Mr Aso said he highlighted the case as “as a bad example of changes made without a substantial debate or understanding by the citizens”.

    In response to Mr Aso’s Monday speech, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that Mr Aso’s comments had alarmed Japan’s neighbours, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

    “We demand the Japanese side reflect on its history, fulfil its commitments on historical issues and win the trust of Asian neighbours and the international community through concrete actions,” Mr Hong said.

    South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said the “remarks definitely hurt many people”.

    “It is clear what such comments on the [Nazi] regime mean to people of the time and to those who [suffered] from Japan’s imperialistic invasion”, he said.

    {{‘Expand and deepen’}}

    Constitutional reform is a delicate issue in Japan. Under Article 9 of its post-war constitution, Japan is blocked from the use of force to resolve conflicts except in the case of self-defence.

    But Mr Abe – who now controls both houses of parliament after a win in last month’s upper house polls – has indicated he wants to re-examine the role of Japan’s military to meet the changing security environment in the Asia-Pacific region.

    Mr Abe has said he wants to “expand and deepen” debate over the constitution in order to ease tight restrictions on the armed forces – something China and South Korea, which were invaded by Japan during WWII, are opposed to.

    Mr Aso, his deputy, has made verbal gaffes in the past. During his term as prime minister, he accused doctors of lacking common sense and called the elderly a “feeble” group – despite his party relying heavily on older voters to keep it in power.

    In May, Osaka’s Mayor Toru Hashimoto came under fire after he said that “comfort women”, women who were forced to become prostitutes for Japan’s WWII troops, were “necessary”.

  • Egypt protesters defy cabinet threat to end sit-ins

    {{Thousands of supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi have defied a new warning from the military-backed cabinet and are continuing their sit-ins in the capital, Cairo.}}

    The country’s interim leaders have ordered police to end ongoing protests at two sites in the city.

    But Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood said they had no option but to continue the month-long sit-ins.

    The United States has again urged Egypt to respect freedom of assembly.

    Pro-Morsi demonstrators want to see the Islamist leader reinstated. He was removed by the army on 3 July, after just one year in office.

    They have defied previous threats of removal, despite clashes with security forces that have left dozens dead.

    The Egyptian interior ministry says gradual steps will be taken to disperse the crowds.

    “The continuation of the dangerous situation in Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda squares, and consequent terrorism and road blockages, are no longer acceptable given the threat to national security,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Police had been tasked to end the demonstrations “within the law and the constitution”, it added.

    {agencies}