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{{The Export Import (Ex-Im) Bank of the US has agreed to finance a deal worth US$1bn between GE and the government of Angola to purchase railway and energy equipment.}}

The US-based lender will help GE with funds to rebuild Angola’s transport, electricity and communication networks, which were destroyed by war in 2002.

The loans from Ex-Im Bank will include US$350mn for locomotives and US$650mn for power equipment. This deal is part of the Power Africa initiative, where the Ex-Im Bank is set to provide US$5bn for private investments across the continent, said Reuters.

The IMF said Angola’s US$122bn economy is set to grow by 5.3 per cent this year, and then by 5.5 per cent and 5.9 per cent in the next two years.

Angola’s crude oil production alone contributes to 95 per cent of the nation’s revenue and the Ex-Im Bank hopes to help diversify its economy by boosting other sectors.

Jose Eduard Dos Santos, president of Angola, has given the Finace Ministry the “green light to move forward” with the deal after meeting with Ex-Im Bank officials.

The US has always maintained good business relations with Angola. Oil companies like Exxon and Chevron have a solid presence in the country but the US is keen to expand these relations into other parts of Angola’s economy.

Ex-Im Bank has previously financed a US$600mn deal for TAAG Angola Airlines, the state-owned carrier of the country, to buy aircraft from The Boeing Company, according to a BA Analyst Report.

africanreview

{{The African Union on Friday backed a U.N. inquiry call for the Security Council to consider creating a tribunal to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both sides in Central African Republic’s ethnic and religious violence.}}

A preliminary report by a commission of inquiry – submitted to the Security Council last week – found “that ample evidence exists to prove that individuals from both sides of the conflict perpetuated serious breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity as well as war crimes.”

U.N. officials have warned that the conflict between Muslims and Christians could spiral into genocide, although the inquiry said “it is premature to talk of an international armed conflict, of genocide or ethnic cleansing.”

The commission was established in January by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the request of the Security Council.

The mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in Central African Republic more than a year ago, perpetrating abuses on the majority Christian population that triggered waves of revenge attacks, leading to thousands of deaths and forcing about a million people to flee their homes.

Uganda’s Ambassador to the African Union Mull Sebujja Katende, chair of the African Union Peace and Security Council for June, backed the inquiry’s call for accountability in Central African Republic, a resource-rich former French colony.

“A principle within the African Union is that whatever happens anywhere, there should be no killings of innocent people. And that if that happens, whoever does it should be accountable. That is a very strong principle,” said Katende.

Speaking to reporters at the United Nations after a meeting between the AU Peace and Security Council and the U.N. council, Katende said African peacekeepers in Central African Republic were looking out for “any people who abuse human rights.”

reuters

{{Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe on Friday branded his information minister a “devil incarnate”, accusing him of appointing editors of state-owned newspapers who were sympathetic to the opposition.}}

Zimbabwe’s private media say an intense battle to succeed the 90-year-old Mugabe has sucked in the state-owned press.

Vice-President Joice Mujuru and Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangangwa are seen as the frontrunners, while the veteran leader, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, has said the contest is open to other ZANU-PF leaders as well.

Mugabe said Jonathan Moyo, appointed information minister last year, was using the government-controlled newspapers to sow divisions.

“I am saying this in light of what is happening now. When you have our minister of information wanting to pit people one against another, you don’t do things like that,” Mugabe said in remarks broadcast on state-owned radio.

Moyo was a strong critic of Mugabe’s rule while lecturing at the University of Zimbabwe before his first appointment as information minister in 2002. He was fired from the post by Mugabe in 2005 for standing as an independent candidate in parliamentary elections that year.

Moyo was withering in his criticism of Mugabe, calling him a “national security threat” in 2008, before he rejoined ZANU-PF in 2009 and became one of the major architects of Mugabe’s landslide victory in last July’s elections.

On Friday, Mugabe told mourners at a funeral of a senior ZANU-PF official that Moyo, a professor of political science, was trying to use his “knowledge and intellectual ideas” to destroy ZANU-PF by appointing editors sympathetic to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

“I am saying this because all the men that we had, who were leading the newspapers, were fired and replaced by those from the MDC,” Mugabe said.

“You were all thinking you had a trusted person,” he said, referring to Moyo, adding that the minister was in fact “a devil incarnate”.

Moyo has since his appointment last year changed editors at major state-controlled newspapers and also suspended the chief executive of state broadcaster ZBC.

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