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  • Libya Demands US return al-Qaeda Suspect

    Libya Demands US return al-Qaeda Suspect

    {{Libya’s top political authority, the General National Congress, has demanded that the United States hand back the alleged al-Qaeda operative its forces seized from the capital, Tripoli, in a weekend raid.}}

    A Congress statement on Tuesday read out by spokesman Omar Hmidan stressed “the need for the immediate surrender” of Abu Anas al-Liby and described the US operation as a “flagrant violation of [Libya’s] national sovereignty”.

    The text, which was passed by the Congress, also called for the “need to allow the Libyan authorities and members of his family to get in touch with him and guarantee him access to a lawyer”.

    It was the first official statement from Libya that clearly condemned the operation in which Liby was snatched by US forces in broad daylight in Tripoli on Saturday.

    Prime Minister Ali Zeidan insisted earlier on Tuesday that all Libyans should be tried on home soil.

    The Congress declaration came after Libya’s Justice Minister summoned US Ambassador Deborah Jones to answer questions about the surprise raid.

    Liby – whose real name is Nazih Abdul Hamed al-Raghie – was on the FBI’s most-wanted list with a $5m bounty on his head for his alleged role in the 1998 twin bombings of two US embassies in East Africa that left 224 dead.

    His wife, Uma Abderahman, told media that her husband was taken from his home by masked men.

    “There were at least ten of them and they were all armed, with silenced weapons,” she said. “It seems like they had drugged him.”

    In a statement, Human Rights Watch called on the US to ensure Liby was quickly charged before a judge and given access to a lawyer in accordance with international law, adding that he should be tried in a civilian court.

    A US interrogation team is questioning the alleged senior al-Qaeda figure who was whisked onto a navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea, US officials said.

    Libya-US ties

    The Libyan Prime Minister said that the US raid would not hurt Libya’s relations with Washington.

    “Our relationship with the USA is important, and we care about that, but we care too about our citizens, which is our duty,” Zeidan said at a press conference with his Moroccan counterpart Abdelilah Benkirane during a three-day visit to Rabat.

    “They helped us with our revolution. Our relationship will not be affected by this event, which we will settle in the way that we need to.”

    US officials declined to say if the Libyan government was given advance notice of the raid.

    {wirestory}

  • CAE Wins Contracts to sell 4 aircraft Simulators to Africa & China

    CAE Wins Contracts to sell 4 aircraft Simulators to Africa & China

    Canadian Aviation Electronics (CAE) has received contracts from African and Chinese custromers for four full-flight simulators and flight training devices worth US$50mn

    According to Montreal Gazette, CAE said that Ethiopian Airlines has ordered a Boeing 787 simulator while the Zhuhai Flight Training Centre of China has ordered a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter simulator. Two other simulators were ordered by an undisclosed customer in Africa.

    Ethiopian Airlines, which purchased a Bombardier Q400 simulator in 2011, also ordered training devices and an upgrade for three full-flight simulators.

    Meanwhile, the S-92 simulator will be the 26th CAE-built unit to be deployed at the Chinese training centre.

    About halfway through its fiscal year, CAE has sold 27 simulators, with the company saying it expected to sell a record 40 units this year, up from 35 last year.

    africanreview

  • Number of African billionaires ‘higher than previously thought’

    Number of African billionaires ‘higher than previously thought’

    {{There are far more African billionaires than previously thought, Ventures magazine said Monday in a report on the continent’s mega-rich, but the number of Africans living in extreme poverty has also shot up.}}

    Previous Africa-rich-lists named as few as 16 billionaires, but Ventures said its exhaustive research had identified at least 55 on a continent where the wealthy often fiercely protect details about their fortunes.

    The pan-African business magazine said it was able to uncover dozens of new billionaires by using “on-the-ground knowledge” to overcome hurdles that may have “hampered” other researchers.

    Of the 55, 20 are Nigerian, including several oil barons, while South Africa and Egypt boast nine and eight respectively.

    Ventures’ supported reports by Forbes which listed Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote as Africa’s richest man with a fortune of $20.2 billion (15 billion euros).

    Dangote, who made his fortune in cement, heads a multi-interest empire, profiting from products including flour and sugar, while eyeing a massive investment in oil refining.

    The continent’s richest woman is Nigeria’s Folorunsho Alakija, whose Fama Oil owns an offshore oil block, which she acquired in 1993 “at a relatively inexpensive price”, likely through a helpful connection, the magazine said.

    Alakija studied fashion in London, then made dresses for Maryam Babaginda, the late wife of Nigerian military dictator Ibrahim Babaginda.

    The former designer “is believed to have ridden on the crest of this relationship to acquire an oil block,” off the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria, said Ventures.

    The most prominent South African named is Nicky Oppenheimer, worth an estimated $6.5 billion, whose fortune came largely from the diamond mines his family controlled for decades, which were operated by De Beers. Oppenheimer sold his family’s stake in De Beers two years ago.

    ‘Under-estimate’

    The figure of 55 is “actually an under-estimate” of Africa’s billionaires, Chi-Chi Okonjo, the founder of Ventures, told news agency AFP.

    “People are not comfortable disclosing their wealth,” he said.

    Corruption is rife on the continent and the rule of law still unevenly applied. African business moguls often face accusations that their fortunes were illegitimately earned, including with extra-legal help from political patrons.

    The apparently rising number of ultra-rich Africans has come amid broader economic growth on the continent, which has seen an average of five per cent GDP expansion since 2010.

    But economic growth has not kept up with a rising population.

    “There are more than twice as many extremely poor people living in sub-Saharan Africa today (414 million) than there were three decades ago (205 million),” the World Bank said in April.

    It is the only region where “the number of poor people individuals has risen steadily and dramatically,” over the last 30 years, the bank said.

    {wirestory}

  • South Africa winning malaria fight: Report

    South Africa winning malaria fight: Report

    {{South Africa has turned the tide on malaria, cutting mortality rates by 85 per cent over the last 12 years, and hopes to soon eliminate the disease, a report stated Wednesday.}}

    Last year, only 70 people died from the mosquito-borne disease, compared to 460 deaths recorded in the year 2000, said the report delivered at a Pan African Malaria conference in Durban.

    The number of people who caught malaria has come down to about a 10th of the cases recorded that same year.

    “South Africa is well on its way to being a malaria-free country,” Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi said.

    Worldwide, the disease kills an estimated 660,000 people each year, 90 per cent of them in Africa with the majority being children.

    Countries severely affected by malaria in the continent include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique.

    Authorities in South Africa believe the continent’s wealthiest and most developed country is closer to eradicating malaria, but admit that there was no quick fix.

    They aim to rid the country of the disease by the year 2018.

    However, the fight to control infections has not been without controversies as the country relies on the highly contentious insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, otherwise known by its acronym as DDT, to kill the malaria transmitting vectors.

    The chemical, which is sprayed inside houses, is linked to genital defects, infertility and cancer and is banned in many parts of the world.

    {{Hormonal risks}}

    After being halted in 1996, South Africa reintroduced it in 2000 as part of a plan to curb a major malaria outbreak.

    According to the report, the insecticide has been used cautiously in recent years, “with targeted spraying only in high risk areas”.

    Its safety has always been questioned, with local authorities maintaining that it is less expensive but more effective amid a spike in insecticide resistant vectors in recent years.

    Those at the receiving end of DDT are normally impoverished households in the northeastern Limpopo region, which borders Mozambique and the part of the southeastern province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where malaria is endemic.

    Prevention has seen cases drop to less than one per 1,000 people in affected districts, according to the report.

    “Strategies need to be well thought out, practical, systematically and robustly implemented,” said Mr Motsoaledi.

    University of Pretoria’s Professor Tiaan de Jager acknowledged the adverse genetic and hormonal risks linked with DDT, adding however that its efficacy cannot be discounted.

    “We are not saying that people should rather die than using DDT,” he said.

    A combination of factors like improved housing and sanitation and education around the disease should form part of the control strategies.

    “We can’t rely on DDT, we should also look at safer methods that can lead to elimination,” said Prof De Jager.

    This week, researchers at the Durban conference revealed that a groundbreaking vaccine could be available by 2015.

    GlaxoSmithKline is seeking approval for the prototype vaccine that reduces the risk of malaria by almost half among children aged between five and 17 months.

    If it gets the green light, the vaccine is likely to be distributed through agencies such as Unicef and the GAVI Alliance, a public-private health partnership.

    {agencies}

  • Over 1 million Ethiopians ‘Graduate’ from Poverty

    Over 1 million Ethiopians ‘Graduate’ from Poverty

    {{Over one million Ethiopians were lifted out of poverty within a year from July 2012 to end of June 2013 fiscal year, said the government.}}

    The development, explained the State Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Abraham Tekestea, was due to the 9.7 per cent economic growth the country registered last year.

    The minister was briefing the media in his office Wednesday about Ethiopia’s economic performance during the last fiscal year ended July, 7, 2013.

    “As a result of the 9.7 per cent GDP growth rate we registered last year, we are able to lift over one million people out of poverty,” he said.

    “Our growth is broad-based and the GDP growth we registered last year is above the minimum requirement to halve poverty as indicated in the Millennium Development Goals. It is also above the sub-Saharan GDP growth,” added the minister.

    He disclosed that currently, Ethiopia’s GDP per capita had reached $550 from $510 last year, while the country’s GDP was $47 billion.

    Last year, Ethiopia’s infant industry sector grew by 18.5 per cent followed by 9.9 per cent service sector. Agriculture grew by 7.1 per cent, from 4.9 per cent the previous year.

    Currently, 45 per cent of Ethiopia’s economy is dominated by the service sector, followed by agriculture and industry, which contribute 43 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.

    According to economists at the World Bank, who conducted a live video conference with African journalists this week, 1 per cent GDP growth in different countries could reduce poverty by 0.7 per cent.

    “Growth is necessary, but it is not sufficient to reduce poverty in Africa,” said Mr Punam Chuhan-Pole, lead economist of the World Bank, who said that currently almost one out of every two people in Africa lived in extreme poverty.

    The economist suggested that growth in Africa should focus on providing basic services to the very poor at their doorsteps and fight corruption, while introducing good governance to bridge the inequality gap.

    Claiming that the effect of Ethiopia’s growth on poverty reduction was different from many African countries, Dr Abraham said: “Our economic growth is all inclusive, we focus on the rural people where the majority of the poor people live”.

    NMG

  • State Funeral For Italy Migrants

    State Funeral For Italy Migrants

    Italy is to hold a state funeral for the hundreds of migrants who died after their boat capsized close to the island of Lampedusa last Thursday.

    Prime Minister Enrico Letta made the announcement during a visit to the island with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

    Mr Barroso pledged 30m euros ($40m; £25m) of EU funds to help refugees in Italy.

    Divers have recovered 302 bodies from the wreck.

    Of more than 500 people who had been on board the boat, mostly from Eritrea and Somalia, only 155 survived.

    On Wednesday afternoon, the bodies of two women and two men were brought to the surface.

    The sinking is one of Italy’s worst disasters involving a boat carrying Europe-bound migrants from Africa.

    Lampedusa is a key destination for such boats and many residents have long complained that the authorities in Italy and the European Union are not doing enough to deal with the thousands of migrants who come ashore each year.

    {agencies}

  • Dutch Apologise for Russian Diplomat Arrest

    Dutch Apologise for Russian Diplomat Arrest

    The Netherlands has issued an apology to Russia over the arrest and detention of a Russian diplomat by police at The Hague.

    Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said on Wednesday that an investigation established that the arrest of Dmitry Borodin late on Saturday was a breach of the Vienna Convention that regulates diplomatic relations between nations, including diplomatic immunity.

    For the breach, “the state of the Netherlands offers the Russian Federation its apologies,” said Timmermans in a statement.

    He also said that he “understands” the action of police officers who arrested Borodin – a statement unlikely to appease Russian demands for action against officers involved.

    He added that the two countries “remain in talks” about the situation.

    ‘The most gross breach’

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called Borodin’s detention at a police station for several hours on Saturday night “the most gross breach of the Vienna Convention”, and demanded an apology.

    Dutch police have declined to comment on the case, but Dutch media reports have cited police documents alleging that Borodin was detained after police found him drunk and barely able to stand after neighbours said he was mistreating his two young children.

    The Russian foreign ministry on Tuesday accused Dutch police of raiding Borodin’s apartment in The Hague and beating him up before taking him to a police station for hours of questioning on the accusations.

    Ties between Russia and the Netherlands have deteriorated sharply since Russian investigators last week charged 30 crew members of a Dutch-flagged Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise, with piracy over a protest against Arctic oil drilling.

    The Netherlands responded by launching legal action to free the activists, who face up to 15 years in jail.

    Source: Agencies

  • UN Watchdog: Syria task Deadline can be Met

    UN Watchdog: Syria task Deadline can be Met

    {{The head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog said on Wednesday that the group’s timeline in Syria “is extremely tight,” but denied that the deadlines, including the destruction of all production facilities by November 1, were unrealistic.}}

    “If we can ensure cooperation by all parties, and if some temporary ceasefires could be established in order to permit our experts to work in a permissive environment, I think the targets could be reached,” Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) head Ahmet Uzumcu told journalists in The Hague on Wednesday.

    Uzumcu said that Syrian officials had been “quite cooperative” in the early stages of the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

    Syria submitted a declaration of its chemical weapons arsenal to the OPCW last month, but the details have not been disclosed.

    “Much depends on the situation on the ground, that’s why we have urged all parties in Syria to be cooperative,” Uzumcu said. “The elimination is in the interest of all.”

    ‘Areas which are dangerous’

    Inspectors have already visited one chemical site in Syria and are visiting another on Wednesday, with some weapons already destroyed. “There are 20 sites to be visited in the coming weeks,” Uzumcu said.

    Speaking at the same press conference, Uzumcu’s political advisor Malik Ellahi said “at the moment there are certain sites that are located in areas which are dangerous.”

    Ellahi added that most sites to be inspected at this stage were in Syrian government-controlled areas.

    Some 19 OPCW arms experts and 16 UN logistics and security personnel are in Syria and have started to destroy weapons production facilities, with footage of their work broadcast on Syrian television.

    UN chief Ban Ki-moon has warned that the weapons inspectors face unprecedented danger, saying it would take 100 foreign experts to complete “an operation the likes of which, quite simply, has never been tried before”.

    The mission will have bases in Damascus and Cyprus.

    Chemical weapons experts believe Syria has roughly 1,000 tonnes of sarin, mustard and VX nerve gas, some of it stored as bulk raw chemicals and some of it already loaded onto missiles, warheads or rockets.

    Under a Russian-US deal brokered last month, Syria must render useless all production facilities and weapons filling equipment by November. Its entire chemical weapons programme must be destroyed by June 30, 2014.

    aljazeera

  • Winners Take Chemistry into Cyberspace

    Winners Take Chemistry into Cyberspace

    Three U.S. scientists won the Nobel chemistry prize on Wednesday for pioneering work on computer programs that simulate complex chemical processes and have revolutionized research in areas from drugs to solar energy.

    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, awarding the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.25 million) to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, said their work had effectively taken chemistry into cyberspace. Long gone were the days of modeling reactions using plastic balls and sticks.

    “Today the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube,” the academy said in a statement. “Computer models mirroring real life have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today.”

    Chemical reactions occur at lightning speed as electrons jump between atomic nuclei, making it virtually impossible to map every separate step in chemical processes involving large molecules like proteins.

    Powerful computer models, first developed by the three scientists in 1970s, offer a new window onto such reactions and have become a mainstay for researchers in thousands of academic and industrial laboratories around the world.

    {agencies}

  • Mursi faces trial as U.S. reviews aid to Egypt

    Mursi faces trial as U.S. reviews aid to Egypt

    {{Egypt’s ousted President Mohamed Mursi will face trial on November 4 on charges of inciting killings at protests, a prospect sure to raise concern in Washington, already considering cutting aid to Cairo to press for democracy.}}

    Mursi has been held in a secret location since his overthrow on July 3. If he is brought before the court, it will be the Islamist leader’s first public appearance since then.

    The trial could further inflame tensions between the Muslim Brotherhood and the army-backed government and deepen the political instability that has decimated tourism and investment in the most populous Arab state.

    The upheaval worries Cairo’s Western allies, who were hoping the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule would turn the region’s biggest country into a democratic success story.

    The United States and European Union had wanted an inclusive political process in Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel and controls the Suez Canal waterway between Europe and Asia.

    Mursi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, and other Brotherhood leaders accuse the army of staging a coup that reversed the gains of the 2011 revolt against Mubarak.

    The army, which says it was carrying out the people’s will, presented a roadmap it said would bring free and fair elections.

    Judge Nabil Saleeb said Mursi and other Brotherhood members had been charged with “inciting the killing and torture of protesters in front of the Etihadeya (presidential) palace”.

    U.S. REVIEWS AID

    The charges relate to the deaths of about a dozen people in clashes outside the presidential palace in December after Mursi enraged protesters with a decree expanding his powers.

    Egypt has been in turmoil since the army removed Mursi following mass protests against his rule and then launched a tough crackdown against his Brotherhood, killing hundreds at protest camps and marches and arresting about 2,000.

    Mursi supporters and security forces clashed again on Sunday, one of the bloodiest days since the military took power, with state media reporting 57 people dead and 391 wounded.

    The United States is leaning toward withholding most military aid to Egypt except to promote counter-terrorism, security in the Sinai Peninsula that borders Israel, and other such priorities, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

    reuters