IGIHE

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  • Jackie Chan to visit Madagascar for Martial arts Tournament

    {{Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan is expected in Madagascar for an upcoming martial arts competition.}}

    The 5th edition of the kung fu wushu African Cup takes place in Antananarivo on September 5-10.

    Six Shaolins from temples in China will also give shows at the competition, according to the Malagasy federation’s head, José Ramaherison aka Master Gao.

    The global movie star Jackie Chan is a talented wushu fan.

    The visit of Mr Chan, an idol to millions of boys around the world, is highly anticipated on the island.

    The practice of Shaolin martial art rooted first on Malagasy soil in the 1990s and has recruited thousands of fans since.

    Madagascar has struggled to host the African Cup since 2009, according to Master Gao, a Chinese who teaches the martial discipline in the country.

    The dream will finally become true this year, he said.

    Officials from the Wushu African Confederation including its secretary general, Tarek Kiralla, are currently in the capital to follow-up on preparations for the tournament.

    {agencies}

  • Rwandan Students Wins Second Prize in Global Aids Day Poster Contest

    {US ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec awards Patrick Ismael Liewa a certificate of merit on Thursday after he won the top award in the US State Department’s Global World Aids Day Poster Contest}

    {{Kenyan students have beaten their counterparts from four African countries in a HIV/Aids poster competition, where their drawings came tops.}}

    Patrick Ismael Liewa, whose parents died of the disease when he was six years, led contestants from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Swaziland.

    The students took part in the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) World Aids Day poster contest.

    Six Kenyans were among the 11 finalists, with Liewa, 20, from Ukwala Boys High School in western Kenya’s Siaya County, taking the top prize and 20-year-old David Niwewe from Rwanda taking the second prize.

    Another Kenyan, 15-year-old Felix Owino Odhiambo, who is a Form One student at Ndenga Secondary School, also in Siaya County, was third overall.

    The winners, who were drawn from three age groups between five and 20 years, received prizes at the US embassy in Nairobi Thursday, where ambassador Robert Godec was the chief guest.

    Pepfar, an initiative of the US government to assist those living with HIV and Aids, launched the World Aids Day poster contest last year to educate the youth against risky sexual behaviour that could expose them to the virus.

    “When I was six years old, I could not tell what had killed my parents, and now that I know, I am willing to make a difference,” Liewa said.

    His drawing portrayed an older generation that had been ravaged by the disease contrasted with a younger group that had apparently overcome it, and were living free of the disease due to increased awareness.

    {{Medication challenges}}

    Mr Godec said the posters created by the students would be part of a global awareness campaign against HIV and Aids.

    He noted that Kenya was “turning the page in combating the disease”, as infections rates had reduced drastically.

    He attributed the reduction to scientific breakthroughs in the HIV and Aids war, political commitment and determination in the shared goal that an Aids-free generation could be achieved.

    “Make no mistake, your accomplishments are impressive and would be part of a global campaign to combat HIV/Aids, one of the worst pandemics of our time,” he said.

    According to the Kenya’s Ministry of Health figures, the country had already achieved targets set for 2015 to reduce new infections by 50 per cent, with people being infected reducing from 166,000 in 2007 to 91,000 in 2012.

    However, out of the 1.4 million Kenyans infected, only 620,000 were on anti-retroviral (ARVs) therapy, with Pepfar, the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders working to ensure those out of the loop were brought under medication.

    The National Aids Control Council (NACC) deputy director in charge of coordination and support, Dr Sobbe Mulindi, said most patients who tested positive in hospitals failed to go to health centres where they were referred to for medication and counselling.

    “We are facing challenges from patients who test positive but fail to go for referrals in hospitals where they are advised to go,” he said.

    He said NACC was working with other stakeholders to help close the gap between when patients are diagnosed and the time they are advised to go for referrals to ensure as many of them as possible were put on medication.

    NMG

  • Fusion Acquires Stake in Rusororo Aggregate

    {{Fusion Capital has acquired a 46.5 per cent equity stake in Rwandan large scale aggregate mining company Rusororo Aggregate.}}

    Fusion said it will partner with the existing management team to take the business operation to a new level of efficiency and mechanisation.

    Rusororo Aggregate specialises in stone crushing for commercial purposes and owns multiple sites in the region.

    Fusion said that its investment will be directed into the mechanisation of the quarry, to increase production capacity to more than 100 cubic meters per hour to meet the country’s growing construction demand.

    A Rusororo Aggregate spokesperson said, “We are delighted that Fusion has shown this confidence in us. It is great to have a financial partner with the experience Fusion has to offer. The company has helped us in every step and this investment will allow us to increase the output of our business at least eight times.”

    Fusion Kigali office director Kajuju Kageenu said, “It is great to play a part in enhancing a business which is so vitally important to Rwanda’s development objectives. We are delighted to be on board.”

  • Africa Must Boost Regional Trade – UN

    {{African governments should give more support to entrepreneurs to help boost regional trade flows, to allow businesses to benefit from growing consumer demand and insulate the continent from global financial crises, a UN study said.}}

    In a break with past recommendations on African trade, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said boosting regional trade would require solutions that do more than simply remove trade barriers.

    While trade with the rest of the world has grown quickly, inter-Africa trade – at $130.1bn in 2011, up from $60bn in the 1990s – has halved to represent just 11% of the total.

    By comparison, half of Asia’s trade is with its neighbours while intra-European trade accounts for 70% of the total.

    The UNCTAD study showed that Africa’s oil-exporting countries such as Libya, Angola and the Republic of Congo were especially dependent on trade with non-African markets, exporting less than 5 percent of their merchandise to the rest of the continent.

    But the group said expanding regional trade would help cushion the continent from outside risks and foster growth.

    A World Bank report showed that consumer spending accounted for more than 60% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s buoyant economic growth. This is helping to account for high growth rates estimated at between 5-6% for Sub-Saharan Africa.

    “The report recommends to try to build capacity through entrepreneurship development. There needs to be a mechanism between the state and the private sector,” UNCTAD secretary general Supachai Panitchpakdi told reporters.

    This could help address the problem of the so-called “missing middle” whereby African companies rarely graduate from small businesses to mid-size or large firms.

    Restrictions

    Thin regional trade also makes Africa vulnerable to external financial crises and overly reliant on expensive imports of items such as food even though UNCTAD data show it is has 27% of the world’s arable land.

    High custom fees and transport restrictions mean that it is often cheaper for African countries to import raw materials such as cotton from Asia, even though many are available from neighbours.

    The UNCTAD report said governments should help improve access to finance, for example by establishing credit bureaux.

    “We see an incredibly high cost of trading,” said Frank Matsaert, chief executive of Trade Mark East Africa, a not-for-profit organisation helping to coordinate regional integration.

    “The key question is how to address those really big, high cost bottlenecks. Let’s face it, consumers pay for those inefficiencies.”

    One factor hampering integration is a proliferation of regional bodies with overlapping memberships.

    Africa has eight regional economic communities recognised by the African Union, UNCTAD said. Most countries are members of several, with a mere three African governments restricting themselves to joining only one.

    “My impression is that Africa wanted to buy the carpets before building the mosque,” said Hakim Benn Hammouda, special adviser to the president of the African Development Bank, at a discussion on African trade in Geneva this week.

    “We built the most complicated institutions and in the end, we haven’t got integration.”

    News24.

  • South Africa Says its Troops not in Goma Battle

    {{The SA National Defence Force denied on Tuesday reports that its soldiers were engaged in combat with rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).}}

    “The SANDF wishes to categorically state that our members in DRC have not been engaged in any battle with the rebels’” spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said.

    “Over the past 36 hours there have been various reports coming through various sources and we would like to put it on record that there have been no SANDF engagements in the eastern DRC with rebels.”

    The Times Live website reported on Tuesday that soldiers of the Six SA Infantry Battalion had been deployed in the DRC in a United Nations “intervention brigade” and were in the middle of a “very intense firefight”.

    It reported that the brigade consisted of 2 069 soldiers, of whom 850 were South African, and fell under the authority of the UN’s broader 19 000-strong Monusco peacekeeping mission in the Congo.

    According to the report, Lieutenant Colonel Felix Prosper Basse, a spokesperson for the Monusco force, said on Monday that the South Africans were ”in the middle” of the fierce fighting around Goma, the provincial capital.

    “The [Monusco] operational base in Monigi has always been a South African base. It is on a hill dominating Goma,” said Basse.

    The South African troops were reportedly involved in two other clashes in the past week, sparked when another rebel group, the Mai Mai, attacked a nearby M23 base.

    However, on Tuesday news agency Agence France-Presse reported that the brigade, which comprised troops from Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania, were expected to be active within the next few weeks.

    Dlamini requested the media to stop “speculating” about what was happening in the eastern DRC and try and get factual information.

    “Reports on the ground indicate that Sunday/Monday’s attacks by the government troops on positions of the M23 at Mutaho near Goma were predetermined,” he said.

    “The FARDC [government troops] employed various capabilities and succeeded to dislocate the M23 from Mutaho. The SANDF was not in any way affected by the clash between government forces and M23.”

    He said the SANDF consistently indicated that it had not engaged any rebel forces in the DRC.

    SAPA

  • South Sudan to shut down oil production by end of July

    {{South Sudan plans to sell 6.4 million barrels of oil worth $300 million before shutting down its entire production by the end of July due to a row over its alleged support for rebels in neighboring Sudan, its oil minister said on Saturday.}}

    Sudan, the sole conduit for South Sudan’s oil exports, said a month ago it would close two cross-border oil pipelines within 60 days and insisted output be shut by August 7 unless South Sudan gave up support for the rebels. Juba denies backing insurgents.

    The shutdown is bad news for both countries, which fought one of Africa’s longest civil wars before separating in 2011.

    Diplomats worry South Sudan might collapse without oil, the main source for the budget apart from foreign grants. They point to recent looting of aid agencies by soldiers as a sign that Juba is struggling to pay salaries.

    Closing the wells is also grave news for Sudan, which has been struggling with turmoil since losing most oil reserves with South Sudan’s secession. Oil fees from Juba are essential to bringing down soaring inflation, which stokes dissent.

    South Sudan had only resumed oil production in April, after turning off wells pumping around 300,000 barrels per day in January 2012 when both sides failed to agree on pipeline fees.

    Oil industry insiders say once the pipelines are closed it will take several months to restart production as they would have to be flushed of water and cleaned first.

    South Sudan sold 1 million barrels of crude in June and had contracted further sales of 2.2 million for shipment in July and 3.2 million in August, Oil Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau told Reuters.

    “There is enough crude in the pipeline to meet this,” he said. Sudan has said it would allow the sale of oil which has already reached pipelines on its territory or the export terminal on the Red Sea.

    Dau repeated South Sudan was not backing any Sudanese rebels. “We are committed to the flow of the oil. It is in the interest of the two countries. We don’t see that this shutdown can bring any peace or stop internal rebellions in Sudan.”

    “It will have a negative impact on Sudan and South Sudan. Our economies will suffer,” he said. Sudan will get pipeline fees of around $100 million until the shutdown, he added.

    Khartoum accuses Juba of supporting the “Sudanese Revolutionary Front” (SRF), a rebel alliance, which complains of neglect at the hands of the wealthy Khartoum elites. The SRF in April staged an attack on central Sudan, embarrassing the army on whose support President Omar Hassan al-Bashir depends.

    South Sudan in turn accuses Sudan of backing rebels in its eastern Jonglei state, where fighting is making it impossible to realize government plans to search for oil with the help of France’s Total (TOTF.PA) and U.S. Exxon Mobil (XOM.N).

    Rahmatullah Osman, undersecretary in Sudan’s foreign ministry, told al-Akhbar newspaper Sudan would not allow any passage of South Sudanese oil unless Juba cut all ties with insurgents.

    “There won’t be any reversal,” he said, adding that Sudan hoped like South Sudan that China would mediate. China dominates the oil industries in both countries, and state firm China National Petroleum Corp is most affected as it runs the oilfields in the South with Malaysia’s Petronas (PETR.KL) and Indian firm ONGC Videsh ONGCVD.UL.

    {agencies}

  • Libyan oil port ‘stormed by armed protesters’

    {{Armed protesters have stormed the eastern Libyan oil port of Zueitina in an attempt to stop export operations, a witness has said.}}

    The raid on Tuesday at the port, 850km east of Tripoli, came hours after workers temporarily suspended a strike and resumed production at oilfields that pump to the terminal.

    It was not immediately known what the protesters wanted, but an engineer working at the port recognised them as being part of a group of civilian demonstrators who shut down the terminal for several weeks earlier this year demanding jobs.

    “The group arrived and asked that operations be shut down,” the engineer told the Reuters news agency by phone.

    “A ship bound for Italy was being loaded with crude and I had to negotiate with them to allow the loading to continue.

    “It was difficult to convince them but the ship is being loaded. All other export activities are shut down.”

    A senior Libyan oil industry source confirmed the disruption and said export operations were affected.

    The incident occurred just hours after workers at Libya’s Zueitina Oil Company suspended their strike that had shut down oilfields and halted operations at the Zueitina terminal, demanding a change in management relating to a dispute over work conditions.

    {agencies}

  • Egypt seeks assertive role, worries about Nile dam

    {{Egypt’s new military-backed cabinet made clear on Saturday it wanted to play an assertive role in regional politics, urging Ethiopia to attend talks over a dam on the Nile and stressing it sought change in Syria.}}

    “Egypt’s leadership is inevitable,” said Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, a member of an interim government sworn into office just four days ago following the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi on July 3.

    Fahmy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the United States, put forward a similar array of priorities to Mursi, albeit with a different tone, stressing that the ongoing domestic upheavals would not undermine Egypt’s international clout.

    “I seek to activate Egypt’s international role, especially on issues related to national security and regain Egypt’s Arab and regional status,” he said.

    Under Mursi, Egypt took an increasingly strident stance against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is battling rebel forces seeking to oust him from power.

    Mursi said last month that he backed a no-fly zone over Syria and had cut all diplomatic ties with Damascus. Fahmy told reporters this decision was under review, but said the interim cabinet still wanted change in Syria.

    “We support the Syrian people and their aspirations for freedom,” he said, adding that he would meet Ahmad Jarba, the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, on Sunday.

    However, Fahmy firmly distanced himself from Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which last month joined a call by Sunni clerics for a jihad, or holy war, against Assad and his Shi’ite allies.

    “There are no intentions for jihad in Syria,” he said.

    {agencies}

  • Trayvon Martin’s parents lead rallies in US

    {{Trayvon Martin’s parents have been joined by celebrities, civil rights activists and other protesters as they led rallies in New York and Florida to show their anger at the acquittal of the neighbourhood watch volunteer who shot and killed their unarmed teenage son.}}

    Sybrina Fulton led a protest of more than 1,000 people in New York, along with veteran civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton, where she told the crowd that the picture painted of her son, Trayvon, during the trial depicted a man she did not recognise.

    “He was a child,” she said during her speech to the hundreds-strong crowd.

    “We have moved on from the verdict. Of course we’re hurting of course we’re shocked and disappointed, but that just means we have to roll up our sleeves and continue to fight.”

    Singers Jay Z and Beyonce also came out to the New York rally.

    In Miami, a crowd of hundreds singing the protest song “We Shall Overcome” joined Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, to demand that George Zimmerman, acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter exactly a week ago, face civil charges.
    Al Jazeera’s Cath Turner, reporting from New York, said that the Martins and other organisers had continually called for the protests to remain peaceful.

    “There is still a lot of emotion one week after the sentence was handed down. The purpose of these rallies is to pressure the Department of Justice in to bringing civil charges against George Zimmerman,” our correspondent said.

    {{Racial debate}}

    Zimmerman has always maintained he shot Trayvon in self defence.

    Critics contend Zimmerman, who is white and Hispanic, wrongly suspected Martin, 17, of being a criminal because he was black.

    Zimmerman called police to report Martin, then left his car with a loaded handgun concealed in his waistband.

    A fight ensued in which Zimmerman suffered a bloody nose and head injuries before he shot Martin once in the heart.

    Marches, under the banner of “Justice for Trayvon”, also took place at federal courthouses in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and dozens of other cities.

    Violence at protests earlier this week led to arrests in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

    ‘Insult to injury’

    Speaking at the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama cautioned against violence, as he urged all Americans to try to understand the Martin case from the perspective of African-Americans.

    “There is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws,” he said.

    “A lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush … If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario … both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”

    Beverly Bond from the mentoring group Black Girls Rock told Al Jazeera that the black community wanted people to know that this was not an isolated incident.

    “This is an injustice we have seen in our community over and over and over again. It is amazing to me that people don’t know why we’re upset,” she said.

    “The trial added insult to injury because it was like he was being put on trial for his own murder.”

    aljazeera

  • Chinese Economy set to Turn Around, no Hard Landing: Finance Minister

    {{China’s finance minister denied that the world’s second-largest economy was entering a crisis period, adding that he believed growth could even accelerate, as quoted by the official Xinhua news service in an interview.}}

    The report quoted Lou Jiwei, speaking on the sidelines of the G20 conference on Saturday, saying he expected China’s economic growth to end the year at 7.5 percent, the official target rate.

    A Xinhua report on July 12 that quoted him saying he expected growth to come in at 7 percent caused brief market confusion, but Xinhua later changed the report to quote him as saying 7.5 percent.

    “We see domestic power generation and electricity consumption increased by 4 percent, and the service industry’s usage of electricity increased 8 percent,” Lou said, arguing that the increases showed efforts to shift China’s economy towards services from manufacturing were bearing fruit.

    “None of my fellow delegates think China is going to have a hard landing.”

    The interview was published late on Saturday, a day after Beijing announced it would remove the floor under bank lending rates in a move to free up interest rates, which planners hope will put China’s economy on a more sustainable growth path.

    Lou said China would continue tax reforms to promote growth, in particular by converting sales taxes to value-added taxes (VAT), while cutting down on paperwork and application requirements for Chinese businesses.

    His views were more mixed on the country’s real estate industry, which regulators and economists fear is distorted by speculation and fuels inflation.

    The industry should play a “normal” role in economic development, he said, adding that its place in China’s urbanization project required further study.

    Lou said that people talked about rising housing prices, but the industry faced other issues, including surplus housing in some cities and insufficient land supply in others.

    “Many developers lack confidence and many buyers are holding back,” he added. “Therefore the State Council needs to continue to research the long-term mechanism of real estate development,” he said in a reference to China’s cabinet.

    Lou also warned the United States against exiting from its monetary easing program without considering the impact of the move on the economies of other countries.

    {agencies}