IGIHE

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  • Report Says Uganda Market to Get More Volumes

    Report Says Uganda Market to Get More Volumes

    {{Market observers have given a positive outlook predicting that Uganda’s economic recovery will accelerate further this year.}}

    A Crested Stocks and Securities outlook posted Wednesday afternoon noted that the Ugandan stock market will also post more activity than in 2013 owing to a stable economic climate which supports investment in listed securities.

    “We expect more corporate actions, particularly in banking and insurance, as companies look to access capital and meet industry capital requirements, the spotlight on emerging and frontier markets by off shore investors presents more opportunity for growth of the stock market,” says the report.

    Agriculture and services are anticipated to be the main driver of this growth while the expected oil explorations and other activities which are aligned to the commencement of this quickly establishing sector will see more investments.

    The stock brokerage firm also predicts that the banking sector will recover from the effects of the high non-performing loans that were accumulated in 2011-2012 therefore the sector is projected to perform better than in 2013.

    The main market indicator is currently trading in the mid 1,400s.

    “The USE Index has had a similar trend of low at the beginning of the year, reaches its highest in the middle of the year as most listed companies close their registers for dividend payment before becoming stable at the end of the year,’ observes the report.

    NV

  • South African Visa Applications to Be Done in Person

    South African Visa Applications to Be Done in Person

    {{Far reaching changes have been proposed to South Africa’s immigration laws and are due to come into effect on 1 April 2014}}.

    Jess Green, who runs Immigration South Africa, confirmed the new regulations will mostly affect foreign nationals wanting to work, study, run businesses or be with loved ones in South Africa.

    {{Predicament for unmarried couples}}

    Foreign national partners of South African citizens could find themselves having to move when the new five-year cohabitation requirement comes into effect.

    Formerly the requirement for was having been together for three-months.

    “If a couple has only cohabited for three years and the foreign national’s life partner permit runs out, then they will not be able to renew it,” says Green.

    “If the foreign national does not qualify for a different visa, that person will need to leave the country. The constitutionality of this requirement is highly doubted.”

    South Africans living abroad with foreign national partners will also be forced to wait the five years before they can return home with their partners.

    “The message to young, unmarried couples living abroad appears to be, ‘Neither you or your foreign national loved ones are welcome in South Africa. Find another country to live in together for five years, then you can return home.’” says Green.

    {{All visas applications to be done in person}}

    Arguably the most significant change says Green is that all visas, including visitor’s visas, must in future be applied for in person.

    Raising the question, “”Why is South Africa turning a blind eye to electronic means of communication and the efficiencies of the global courier network?”

    Current policy allows applicants to submit via mail or courier service, said to be especially useful in Australia.

    “Under the new policy, prospective visitors from Perth will need to travel the breadth of the continent, a distance roughly equivalent to Kinshasa from Cape Town, in order to apply for South African visas,” says Green.

    “The overwhelming majority of instances of immigration fraud occur right here in South Africa. Anti-fraud measures could easily have been targeted at home and other high risk territories.

    “Regrettably, applicants from territories such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Western Europe and Great Britain, where very few instances of immigration fraud occur, have now been placed on the altar for the sins committed elsewhere.”

    {{Exceptional skills influx into SA at risk}}

    The proposed changes also raise the question of how the inflow of valuable foreign skills will be affected, since the Exceptional skills visas is set to be scrapped.

    Under current policy, celebrated sportsmen and women, designers, artists, specialist medical practitioners and chartered accountants could enter the country on exceptional skills work permit permits, regardless of whether they had already secured employment or not.

    Nicola Lochner, immigration manager at Immigration South Africa confirmed that an a new Critical Skills visa might be an alternative but the list of professions to be included for this category have not been detailed as yet – and some exceptional skill professions might not be considered “critical”.

    Some welcomed changes:

    {{Habitual over-stayers to be blacklisted}}

    Immigrant workers who overstay their visas a prescribed number of times will be banned from future entry into the country.

    This is expected to alleviate the frustration of immigration officials who find that immigrant workers who habitually overstay simply settle their fines and return at a later date.

    {{Clamp down on growing issue of child trafficking}}

    Stricter requirements set out in respect of children who travel without their biological parents are also being put in place.

    In future, adults travelling with children will need to produce affidavits from parents proving permission for the children to travel.

    The public has until Friday 28 February 2014 to comment on the proposed changes to the Immigration Act 13 of 2002, which would also be the first major change to South Africa’s immigration policy since 2004.

    news24

  • How Tourists Will Travel in EAC

    How Tourists Will Travel in EAC

    {{Kenyan tour operators’ vehicles will not take tourists directly to national parks and other attraction sites in Tanzania even after last week’s deal reached by the two countries to enhance cooperation in the tourism sector.}}

    Instead, the vehicles from the neighbouring country will be allowed to drop visitors at specific towns in Tanzania before they are taken to the sites by locally registered vehicles, stakeholders in the industry affirmed yesterday.

    The executive secretary of the Tourism Confederation of Tanzania (TCT), Mr Richard Rugimbana, said a meeting held in Arusha under the auspices of the East African Community (EAC) agreed that tourists coming into the country would only be dropped at their destination sites.

    “I am not a spokesman of the government, but the two countries agreed to enhance the 1985 Protocol on Tourism Cooperation, this time on the issue of tour operations,” he told The Citizen over the phone from Dar es Salaam.

    He declined to give more details on the outcome of the ministerial conference of EAC on tourism and wildlife, which was dominated by the contentious issues of tourist/driver guides operations at the border crossings and insecurity.

    Tanzania and Kenya, the leading tourists destinations in the bloc, agreed on a draft protocol regarding tourism in 1985, shortly after the re-opening of the border between the two countries.

    During the six-year closure from 1977, no tourists were allowed to cross overland into Tanzania as was the case before.

    When contacted over the issue, an executive officer with the Tanzania Association of Tour Operations (Tato) Sirili Akko said tourists crossing from Kenya through Namanga would now be dropped in Arusha instead of the border town.

    “For the visitors coming in through Uganda, they will be dropped at Bukoba instead of Mutukula,” he said, noting that the measure has been taken because most of the border posts lacked the necessary facilities for the visitors.

    It is estimated that about 40 per cent of tourists from overseas coming to Tanzania enter the country through Kenya.

    A Kenyan leading weekly Sunday Nation reported at the weekend that the decision followed a pressure from the Kenyan tour operators who have been against the rule that required them to drop tourists at the border with Tanzania for them to be picked up by their Tanzanian counterparts.

    However, it emerged from the Arusha talks that Kenyan authorities have been allowing Tanzanian tour operators to take tourists to even to the national parks and airports.

    The Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for EAC Affairs, Ms Phyllis Kandie, who led her country’s delegation to the meeting, said the new arrangement would also help in marketing the regional as a single tourist destination, adding that the newly found relationship with Tanzania will get the support of key stakeholders.

    According to the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Lazaro Nyalandu, Tanzania and Kenya have been given six months to meet bilaterally and review their existing cooperation in the latest moratorium in Arusha.

    “By resolving these challenges we will promote the tourism sector with a focus on regional integration”, he said.

    {thecitizen}

  • Tanzania’s CCM Party Wants Zanzibar Constitution Reviewed

    Tanzania’s CCM Party Wants Zanzibar Constitution Reviewed

    {{Tanzania’s ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) wants the 10th amendment of the Zanzibar Constitution reviewed, particularly those areas that have been criticised for reportedly undermining the supremacy of the Union Constitution. }}

    The current union system is perceived to be weak because the Constitution has been belittled, the party argues in its push for rejection of the proposed three-government system and retention of the status quo.

    A document purported to have been drawn at the end of a meeting of CCM’s top leadership earlier in the month notes also that the 10th amendment of the Zanzibar Constitution fuelled resentment of the current union system because the changes undermine the Union Constitution.

    The document, dubbed Circular Number 3 on the Draft Constitution from the Political and International Relations Department, notes that the Union Constitution should be respected by both parties in order to address the illegality.

    The document, disowned by CCM Ideology and Publicity Secretary Nape Nnauye despite other sources having confirmed that it was prepared by the party, says a three-government arrangement will not solve the problems.

    “We don’t believe that the number of governments will be a panacea for union problems in the absence of a sustainable system of respecting the Constitution,” the document says. “Failing to respect the Mother Law will definitely undermine a union of any kind, be it of two governments or three.”

    CCM wants the new Constitution to explicitly state that the Union Constitution will be supreme and prevail if a partner’s constitution is in conflict with the Union Constitution.

    CCM also wants the new constitution to categorically state that Union partners will amend their major laws to reflect the needs and requirements of the supreme Union law.

    In order to avoid controversies in future, CCM proposes that the new constitution create a special constitutional court that will be mandated to hear and determine all matters regarding the constitution.

    “The powers of such a court should be extended to enable it deal with all challenges bearing constitutional or legal conflicts,” says another section of the document. “For instance, a conflict resulting from Zanzibar’s move to form armed security forces could be solved through this court.”

    Meanwhile, the document insists on the number of proposals by the ruling party that were not included in the second Draft Constitution, one area being arrangement of the articles of the constitution in order to give it a good outline.

    “Articles 52, 53, 54 and 55, which in the former draft were numbered 50, 51, 52 and 53 respectively, refer to a lot of issues on human rights,” the document adds. “It was proposed that these articles be summarised and shifted to Part Four of the Draft Constitution, which deals with human rights.”

    thecitizen

  • UN Warns of Potential new Bloodbath in CAR

    UN Warns of Potential new Bloodbath in CAR

    {{ÂFrench lawmakers on Tuesday approved an extension of the country’s military operation in the Central African Republic as the UN warned of a potential new bloodbath in the troubled African state. }}

    Despite misgivings among some that French troops have been put into an uncontrollable situation in the former colony, deputies in the National Assembly voted 428-14 (with 21 abstentions) in favour of authorising the mission, which was launched in early December, to continue beyond April.

    The approval had been anticipated with deputies almost unanimously agreeing that, whatever their reservations, pulling out the 2,000 French troops now in the CAR was not a viable option.

    It came as the UN’s refugee body said more than 15,000 people were surrounded and under threat of armed attack in locations in the northwest and southwest of the country.

    UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva that the vulnerable — mainly members of the minority Muslim community — were “at very high risk of attack” and urgently needed better security in the form of more international peacekeepers.

    Although the situation in CAR remains extremely volatile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday it would have been a lot worse if France had not intervened.

  • Nigeria Celebrates Centenary as France’s Hollande jets in

    Nigeria Celebrates Centenary as France’s Hollande jets in

    {{French President Francois Hollande, Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, AU Commission chairperson Nkosazan Dlamini-Zuma and EU Commission President Jose-Manuel Barroso are among the numerous foreign dignitaries who will grace Nigeria’s centenary celebrations Thursday.}}

    The centenary celebrations mark the February 1914 amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria into one state.

    President Hollande heads to Nigeria under pressure to extend his country’s security role in Africa after launching military operations in Central African Republic and Mali.

    He is the only Western head of state due to attend the centenary celebrations and will also take part in a conference on security, peace and development during his two-day visit.

    The conference, where Dr Dlamini-Zuma will also speak, is themed on “Human Security, Peace and Development – Agenda for 21st Century Africa.”

    French officials have been keen to talk up the Socialist leader’s status as an honoured guest at the centenary celebrations as a positive sign for France as she seeks to expand its investment and trade footprint in a country increasingly seen as the continent’s emerging economic powerhouse.

    But Hollande, who hosted more than 40 African leaders for a summit on the continent’s security in December, also faces calls for France to do more to help Nigeria and other countries in the region address the threat posed by the growing strength and influence of Islamist groups.

    {{Boko Haram}}

    The issue was placed in sharp focus on Tuesday, when 43 students sleeping at a government boarding school in north-eastern Nigeria were burned, shot or hacked to death in an attack thought to have been the work of militants from the Boko Haram Islamist group that operates in the area.

    Nigerian officials believe Boko Haram benefit from the porous nature of the country’s borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger, which means militants can easily move out of reach of their security forces. They would like France to help and encourage its former colonies to do more to seal their frontiers.

    “I think what we need is international cooperation from the French, from the French-speaking west African countries to work together to deal with this problem before it becomes a major problem for France, for western interests operating in west Africa,” Information Minister Labaran Maku said on Tuesday.

    “It will devastate French interests if we allow this terror to go on,” the minister told local AIT television.

    The instability of Nigeria’s north and bordering regions has had a direct impact on France in the form of the recent kidnappings in Cameroon of a French family and a Catholic priest. The victims were all released unharmed after intervention by Nigeria.

    “What France has done with ‘Operation Serval’ in Mali and what Nigeria is doing against Boko Haram are complementary,” a French official said. “France fully intends to continue and deepen its intelligence dialogue with Nigeria.”

    France sent troops into Mali last year to combat Al-Qaeda-linked radicals who had seized control of much of the vast desert north of the country.

    That operation won plaudits internationally and broad support at home. But French voters have been less enthusiastic about this year’s deployment of troops to the Central African Republic to quell sectarian strife there.

    {{Economic interests}}

    Increasingly, Hollande’s domestic opponents are questioning the scale of France’s commitment in Africa and the reluctance of other western powers to provide military or financial backing for operations the president has portrayed as being driven by compelling security or humanitarian concerns.

    After Jacques Chirac in 1999, Hollande is the second French president to have made an official visit to Africa’s most populous country, which formally became a unified British colony and protectorate in 1914.

    On the economic front, Hollande has set French companies a target of doubling trade with Africa in the next five years — a goal that, if met, could generate 200,000 jobs, according to the French Finance ministry.

    Although the value of France’s business links to the continent has continued to increase in absolute terms since its retreat from empire in the 1960s, it has been steadily losing market share and that trend has accelerated as African economies have boomed in recent years.

    French interests in Nigeria are largely confined to the oil sector and both countries are keen to see French companies get more involved in the development of transport and other infrastructure.

    Under an accord due to be signed during Hollande’s visit, the French Development Agency (AFD) is to provide 650 million euros ($892 million) in loans to help facilitate the development of the electricity network in the Abuja region in cooperation with French company Vergnet.

  • Namibia Gas-to-Power Plant to be Built Within 3 Years

    Namibia Gas-to-Power Plant to be Built Within 3 Years

    {{Namibia’s national power company NamPower and Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) have agreed to develop a gas-to-power plant worth US$1.2bn in Kudu by 2017.}}

    The 1,050MW plant will be connected to the Namibian and South African electricity grids for local and regional use.

    CEC will hold a 30 per cent stake in the project, which will source gas from the offshore Kudu field.

    NamPower will provide US$1bn, while CEC is expected to contribute up to US$100mn, reports added.

    NamPower is currently looking for another equity partner to finance the balance US$100mn.

    NamPower and the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) had signed a project development agreement to build the Kudu gas-to-power project in 2013.

    This project reportedly is among NamPower’s largest projects that has the capacity to triple the company’s power generating capacity.

    {africanreview}

  • Mining: France to Invest US$548M in Francophone Africa

    Mining: France to Invest US$548M in Francophone Africa

    {{France plans to invest up to US$548mn in a new state-owned mining company in Francophone African countries.}}

    France’s Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) and the Agency for State Participation (EPA) will be shareholders in Compagnie National des Mines de France (CMF).

    According to the company, CMF’s exploration activities will focus on specialty metals including Lithium, Germanium, Tungsten, Antimony and rare earths in former French colonies in Africa.

    Arnaud Montebourg, French industry minister, said, “Francophone African countries, in particular, would like to work with us rather than do business with foreign multinationals.”

    Montebourg told Liberation earlier that he is visiting Guinea in March 2014 regarding a gold project in the African country.

    {africanreview}

  • Egyptian Military Claims Cure for HIV

    Egyptian Military Claims Cure for HIV

    {{The Egyptian military has developed a device capable of both detecting and curing HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, according to the country’s government, though the claim has been met with widespread scepticism by both scientists and the Egyptian public.}}

    The development of the device was first announced in a government press release issued on Sunday, which said that military scientists had “achieved a scientific breakthrough by inventing systems for diagnosing Hepatitis and AIDS without any need to take a sample of blood from the patient”.

    The invention, dubbed the Complete Cure Device, claims to cure the viruses in a matter of days without the need for drugs or surgery, according to Egyptian media reports.

    The device, which apparently detects the viruses through analysing electromagnetic waves, resembles a handheld box with a large antenna protruding from it and is said to be adapted from bomb detection technology also developed by the Egyptian military.

    Footage broadcast by Egyptian television showed the device’s antenna swinging towards people as they walked past, seemingly making a positive diagnosis.

    It then uses electromagnetic waves to kill the virus and turn it into amino acids, according to a report by Egyptian TV channel Sada al-Balad.

    The device will apparently not be available outside of Egypt, however. Egyptian daily Al-Ahram quoted Major General Abdullah Taher, the head of the army’s engineering authority, as saying the devices would not be exported abroad in order to protect them from “the mafia” of big pharmaceutical companies and nations that control the pharmaceutical industry.

    ‘No evidence’

    Not everyone is convinced of the device’s healing powers.

    “I can find no evidence to support the claims that this device detects Hepatitis C or any other viruses as mentioned in the patent, nor any clear theoretical rationale for how it would work,” Emma Thomson, a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of Glasgow, told the BBC after studying what appears to be a patent application for the device.

    Many social media users, including those in Egypt, were also sceptical of the military’s claims.

    “Egypt’s claim to have an instant cure for HIV and Hepatitis shows the lengths the coup leaders will go for legitimacy,” said one Twitter user.

    The device’s announcement comes at a pivotal time for Egypt’s military. The army’s chief, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is seen as one of the frontrunners in upcoming presidential elections.

    A potential cure for Hepatitis C is likely to strike a particularly important chord with the Egyptian public. The country is home to the world’s highest prevalence of the virus, afflicting 15 percent of the population.

    In an article for The Commentator, Egyptian poet, actor and prominent intellectual Ahmed Abdel-Raheem described the military’s claims as “a political miracle rather than a medical one”.

    “The media message is, of course, clear: We can depend only on Egypt’s armed forces; they’re the hope; they’re the people who can meet all our needs; they’re the men of impossible missions; they’re the best to lead Egypt in the coming years,” he wrote.

    AFP

  • US Governor Vetoes ‘Anti-Gay’ Bill

    US Governor Vetoes ‘Anti-Gay’ Bill

    {{Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed a bill that would have allowed business owners who cited their religious beliefs to turn away gay customers.}}

    Ms Brewer said the bill could have had “unintended and negative consequences”.

    It was touted as a religious liberty protection by social conservatives. Its opponents denounced it as legalising anti-gay discrimination.

    Business groups warned it would tarnish the state’s reputation and discourage companies from moving to the state.

    {{‘Creates problems’}}

    Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Ms Brewer, a Republican, said the bill did “not address a specific or present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona”.

    “I have not heard one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated,” she said of the bill, which passed the state legislature last week with the strong backing of the state’s Republican Party.

    Ms Brewer spent Wednesday huddling with both supporters and opponents of the bill and said she had vetoed it because she believed it had “the potential to create more problems that it purports to solve”.

    “It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and nobody could ever want,” she said.

    In doing so, Ms Brewer sided with the business community – including firms such as Intel, Yelp, Marriott and Major League Baseball and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.

    Loud cheers erupted outside the Arizona capitol building immediately after the governor announced the veto.

    Rebecca Wininger, president of Equality Arizona, told the BBC the veto was “a clear message for those trying to use religion and those with right-leaning rhetoric that we’re done… we’re tired and we’re done with being discriminated against”.

    Even as the federal government, the military, the courts, other states and US public opinion increasingly back gay rights and same-sex marriage, some states have seen the makings of a backlash in recent weeks, analysts say.

    “Religious liberty” bills similar to the Arizona measure have been introduced in seven other US states, but Arizona’s was the only legislature to send a bill to the governor.

    {{‘Distorted the bill’}}

    The bill would have expanded the state’s religious liberty law to add protection from lawsuits for individuals or businesses that cited their “sincerely held” religious beliefs as motivating factors in taking an action or refusing to do so.

    All but three Republicans in the state legislature voted for the proposal, known as SB1062, but some Republican state senators who voted for the bill subsequently called for a veto.

    “We were uncomfortable with it to start with and went along with it thinking it was good for the caucus,” Senator Steve Pierce told the Associated Press news agency on Monday.

    “We really didn’t want to vote for it. But we made a mistake, and now we’re trying to do what’s right and correct it.”

    But supporters, framing it as only a modest update on the state’s existing religious freedom law, had pushed Ms Brewer to sign it in support of religious liberty.

    The president of a conservative policy organisation that backed the bill said Ms Brewer’s veto “marks a sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty”.

    “Opponents were desperate to distort this bill rather than debate the merits,” Center for Arizona Policy president Cathi Herrod said in statement. “Essentially, they succeeded in getting a veto of a bill that does not even exist.”

    BBC