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  • Brics nations discuss development bank

    {{Brics nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – meeting in Durban have discussed the formation of a new development bank.}}

    The bank would fund infrastructure and development projects throughout the developing nations.

    Further talks would be needed to decide where the bank is based and how much capital it will have, the group said.

    It would be the first formal institution of the Brics group.

    Some commentators see the bank as a potential rival to the World Bank.

    Following initial discussions on Wednesday morning, South African President Jacob Zuma said: “We are satisfied that the establishment of a new development bank is feasible.

    “We have decided to enter formal negotiations to establish a Brics-led new development bank.”

    He said the bank would help the Brics economies to co-operate with “other emerging markets and developing countries in the future”.

    {wirestory}

  • Pistorius Free to Travel out of South Africa

    {{South African court has lifted bail restrictions on Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, allowing him to travel abroad. }}

    Judge Bert Bam, of the High Court in Pretoria, set aside on Thursday two bail conditions imposed on the murder suspect.

    “I find that the magistrate’s decision not to grant the appellant his passport to travel abroad was wrong,” Bam told the court.

    The 26-year-old’s passport must be handed to his attorney and the “applicant be allowed to use his passport outside South Africa”, said Bam.

    Pistorius, who was arrested on February 14 following the death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was not present for the appeal hearing.

    Pistorius lawyers have appealed against some of his bail restrictions, saying the Olympic athlete might eventually need to return to track competition to earn money.

    Prosecutors have opposed relaxing Pistorius’ bail restrictions.

    But his lawyer Barry Roux said his client’s current bail restrictions amount to “house arrest’.

    {wirestory}

  • DRC Welcomes UN Approval of Peacekeepers

    {{The Democratic Republic of Congo has welcomed the UN decision to create the first-ever “offensive” peacekeeping brigade to fight rebel groups in the country’s east.}}

    “The DRC welcomes this vote, which marks a decisive turning point for re-establishing peace and security in the Kivu” regions, Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo said in a statement.

    He was referring to the North and South Kivu provinces in the resource-rich east of the country, which has been gripped by conflict for more than two decades.

    The launching of the brigade “is the beginning of the end of armed groups and sends a very clear signal to those supporting them”, Ponyo said.

    On Thursday, the UN Security Council unanimously approved the creation of a brigade of more than 2 500 troops with orders to “neutralise” and “disarm” armed groups in eastern DR Congo.

    The intervention brigade and surveillance drones to monitor the DR Congo’s borders with neighbours accused of backing the rebels will be operating by July, according to UN officials.

    The force will launch UN peacekeeping operations into a new era, said diplomats who negotiated its preparation.

    The resolution’s mandate to conduct “targeted offensive operations” has never been given to a peacekeeping mission before, diplomats said.

    The brigade and drones are part of a new UN campaign to end conflict in DR Congo.

  • Report: Climate Change Threatens Food Security of Urban Poor

    {{Policies to increase food security in developing countries focus too much on rural food production instead of ensuring that poor people are able to access and afford food, especially in urban areas.}}

    This is contained in a report published on Thursday by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

    It warns that climate change would only make this policy gap worse because the impact of climate change would affect not only harvests but also systems that are used to transport, store, buy and sell food.

    “Food security is back on the agenda thanks to rising prices and the threat that climate change poses to agricultural production,” says the report’s author Dr Cecilia Tacoli.

    “But policies that focus on rural food production alone will not tackle the rising food insecurity in urban areas. We also need policies that improve poor people’s ability to access and afford food, especially in urban areas.”

    Most people in urban areas, unlike their counterparts in rural communities buy their food.

    And any climate-induced disruption to food production, transport and storage – either in the urban area itself or in distant farmlands – could affect food supply and prices in urban areas.

    Yet, most policies that aim at increasing food security focus solely on boosting productions from farms and fisheries in rural areas.

    “The journey that food takes from a rural producer to an urban consumer involves many steps,” observes Dr Tacoli.

    “It must travel through formal and informal systems as it is stored, distributed and sold. Each one of these steps is a point of potential vulnerability to climate change. For consumers, this will mean sharp and sudden increases in food prices.”

    The report highlights the link between income poverty and food insecurity in urban areas. For most low-income urban citizens, it revealed, food represents a sizeable portion of the money they spend. Even small increases in prices would have big impacts of food security, with citizens reducing the amount and quality of the food they purchase.

    For residents of informal urban settlements, food insecurity is also the consequence of lack of space to store and cook food, lack of time to shop and prepare meals, inadequate access to clean water and often non-existing sewerage systems.

    These settlements are disproportionately affected by floods, typhoons, heat waves and other impacts of climate change because they tend to be located in areas more exposed to these events, and because they lack the most basic infrastructure.

    Tacoli says that governments must rise to these challenges by ensuring that policies protect the urban poor from food insecurity linked to rising prices, inadequate living conditions and the effects of climate change in both rural and urban areas.

    Decent and stable employment is essential but not sufficient, she emphasised, adequate infrastructure and housing and access to formal and informal markets are just as important.

    She concluded that “climate change threatens to multiply many of the big challenges that face the world’s urban poor.”

  • Cameroun sacks over 1,000 Nigerians in Bakassi

    {{IN an unbridled breach of the 2005 Green Tree Agreement (GTA), Cameroun has sacked over 1,000 Nigerians living in Bakassi Peninsula who had accepted Cameroun’s sovereignty.}}

    Already, two women among the returnees have put to bed in their refugee camp in Akwa Ikot Eyo, Akpabuyo Local Council of Cross River State.

    The GTA arrangement, based on the 2002 International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment, specified that Nigerians could decide to live in the Bakassi Peninsula under Cameroun’s sovereignty without any harassment or molestation, but recent development is quite on the contrary.

    Last year, the Cameroun authorities were reported to be harassing Nigerians in the territory, a development the Nigerian government frowned on.

    A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to Bakassi Local Council Chairman, Mr. Eyo Eyo, said the victims of the latest harassment “were living in Efut Obot Ikot and its adjoining settlements have been forcefully ejected by Camerounian authorities.”

    According to one of the returnees, who simply gave his name as Etim, “five people died in the stampede by Camerounian authorities while several others were wounded, as the people now are completely cut away from their sources of livelihood.”

    A spokesman for the displaced people, Chief Asuquo Etim Asuquo, said the incident occurred on March 7 when Cameroun invaded their settlements, accusing them of militancy. According to them, several persons were arrested and taken away, and it is not clear what their fate was.

    Reacting to the incident, Chairman of Bakassi Local Council, Ekpo Ekpo Bassey, said the council was disturbed by the sad development because it shares common boundary with Cameroun in the west.

    He called for the Nigerian government’s intervention, as “such cases and other security challenges were rampant in the area” and a “violation of the Green Tree Agreement which guarantees sovereignty for Nigerians wishing to remain in the peninsula and the right to their sources of livelihood.”

    NGuardian

  • 15 Killed as 16-storey building collapses in Dar es Salaam

    {{Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial city, is in a sombre mood this Good Friday after a 16-storey building collapsed in the city centre in the morning, resulting in the deaths of at least 15 people}}.

    Scores of construction workers remain trapped in the rubble.

    Dar es Salaam Special Zone Police Commander Suleiman Kova told reporters on site that of the 17 individuals who were pulled out of the ruins, only two were alive.

    The latest reports from the scene at Indira Gandhi Street indicate that rescue workers were struggling to reach those still trapped in the collapsed building.

    City officials are working with the National Service arm of the Tanzania People’s Defence Force and Ultimate Security, a private company, to try and reach any survivors.

    Witnesses said there were no sufficient equipment, and that the rescuers only have one functioning crane.

    NMG

  • Bozize Seeks Exile in Benin

    {{The government of Benin says ousted Central African Republic President Francois Bozize is seeking exile in the tiny West African nation.}}

    Benin’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nassirou Arifari Bako confirmed late Thursday that Bozize had asked to come there after initially fleeing to Cameroon, though Bako said nothing had been decided yet.

    Thousands of armed rebels invaded the capital of Central African Republic last weekend, and Bozize and his family fled amid the chaos.

    Bozize, who himself took power after a rebellion a decade ago, had signed a peace agreement in January with the rebels.

    The deal fell apart and rebel leader Michel Djotodia has now declared himself the new president of Central African Republic.

    {Agencies}

  • Pervez Musharraf hit with Shoe

    {{A shoe was thrown at former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as he headed to court to face legal charges after returning from self-imposed exile.}}

    Local TV channels showed video of the shoe being thrown at Musharraf inside a court building in the southern city of Karachi on Friday.

    Musharraf is seen surrounded by a mob of supporters and journalists and it was difficult to tell from the video who threw the shoe or if it hit the former leader.

    Musharraf, who first seized power in a military coup in 1999, returned to Pakistan last weekend.

    He faces legal charges, including some originating from a probe of the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

  • NKorea Orders Rocket Prep after US B-2 drill

    {{ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Friday that his rocket forces were ready “to settle accounts with the U.S.,” unleashing a new round of bellicose rhetoric after U.S. nuclear-capable B-2 bombers dropped dummy munitions in joint military drills with South Korea.}}

    Kim’s warning, and the litany of threats that have preceded it, don’t indicate an imminent war.

    In fact, they’re most likely meant to coerce South Korea into softening its policies, win direct talks and aid from Washington, and strengthen the young leader’s credentials and image at home.

    But the threats from North Korea and rising animosity from the rivals that have followed U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 nuclear test do raise worries of a misjudgment leading to a clash.

    Kim “convened an urgent operation meeting” of senior generals just after midnight, signed a rocket preparation plan and ordered his forces on standby to strike the U.S. mainland, South Korea, Guam and Hawaii, state media reported.

    Kim said “the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation,” according to a report by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

    Later Friday at the main square in Pyongyang, tens of thousands of North Koreans turned out for a 90-minute mass rally in support of Kim’s call to arms.

    Men and women, many of them in olive drab uniforms, stood in arrow-straight lines, fists raised as they chanted, “Death to the U.S. imperialists.”

    Placards in the plaza bore harsh words for South Korea as well, including, “Let’s rip the puppet traitors to death!”

    Small North Korean warships, including patrol boats, conducted maritime drills off both coasts of North Korea near the border with South Korea on Thursday, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said in a briefing Friday. He didn’t provide more details.

    The spokesman said that South Korea’s military was mindful of the possibility that North Korean drills could lead to an actual provocation.

    He also said that the South Korean and U.S. militaries are watching closely for any signs of missile launch preparations in North Korea. He didn’t elaborate.

    North Korea, which says it considers the U.S.-South Korean military drills preparations for invasion, has pumped out a string of threats in state media.

    In the most dramatic case, Pyongyang made the highly improbable vow to nuke the United States.

    {wirestory}