Corr.: Weekly anb03014.txt #7

[anb-bia <anb-bia@village.uunet.be>]

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 01-03-2001  PART #4/7

* Ghana. Transit de la drogue - Le Ghana est de plus en plus utilisé comme 
point de transit par les trafiquants de cocaïne et d'héroïne, indique le 
rapport annuel 2000 de l'Office international de lutte contre les 
stupéfiants, publié le 21 février à Accra par le ministère ghanéen de 
l'Intérieur. Cette tendance est en partie due à l'amélioration des efforts 
du Nigeria pour lutter contre ce fléau. Le rapport fait encore remarquer 
que l'abus de drogue, surtout les substances psychotropes, est en hausse 
dans la plupart des pays africains. "Le nombre de femmes et d'enfants qui 
abusent de la drogue est en hausse, et l'âge de la première prise est en 
baisse", précise-t-il, ajoutant qu'en 1999 les saisies de cannabis, 
d'héroïne et de substances psychotropes ont connu une importante hausse en 
Afrique par rapport à 1998. Les saisies de cocaïne ont toutefois baissé. 
(PANA, Sénégal, 22 février 2001)

* Ghana. 60% petrol price hike - Ghanaians woke up after the weekend to 
discover that petrol prices had risen by more than 60% in one fell swoop. 
The hike has serious economic implications for the West African state 
because Ghana derives 70% of all its energy needs from crude oil or oil 
products. This is a much higher percentage than in industrialised cultures 
where have gas and electricity are more prominent. Many local industries in 
the west African country will simply be unable to absorb the rising fuel 
costs and stand idle. And as well as dramatically higher petrol prices, an 
average Ghanaian also faces much bigger bills for cooking and heating. 
Ghana has no oil or gas production of its own, and is 100% dependent on 
importing fuel. It has one refinery, at the main port of Tema near the 
capital city of Accra, which processes around 45,000 barrels a day of crude 
oil, most of which is bought from neighbouring Nigeria. Nigeria is a member 
of Opec -- the cartel that exists to cut back oil production and ensure 
that oil prices remain high enough. It is the efficiency of this cartel 
over the last 18 months that has seen global crude oil prices rise to over 
$35 a barrel last October, compared to a low of under $10 a barrel the 
previous year. And this leaves importing countries such as Ghana the stark 
choice of paying the vastly increased prices or not supplying its 
industries with any fuel at all. Until recently the state-owned oil company 
subsidised fuel costs, freezing the cost to the consumer, because of the 
presidential election last year. This subsidy was costing the state 
$845,000 a day and contributed to the ballooning domestic debt. A gallon of 
petrol will now be sold at $1.50. (BBC News, 27 February 2001)

* Guinée. Première aide humanitaire - Le premier convoi d'aide humanitaire 
depuis novembre a atteint plusieurs milliers de personnes parmi les quelque 
135.000 réfugiés pris au piège des combats dans la zone du "Bec de 
perroquet" dans le sud de la Guinée, à la frontière avec la Sierra Leone et 
le Libéria, a annoncé le HCR le 26 février. Un convoi de 11 camions 
transportant 58 tonnes de vivres a atteint la ville de Temessadou, de quoi 
nourrir 4.000 personnes dans trois camps. Les réfugiés y étaient quasiment 
livrés à eux-mêmes depuis septembre et le début des troubles. La 
malnutrition y a fait des ravages, particulièrement parmi les enfants, et 
bon nombre de réfugiés sont trop faibles pour marcher. La reprise des 
convois fait suite à une mission du Haut commissaire Ruud Lubbers, qui a 
réclamé la sécurité des travailleurs humanitaires. Des convois quotidiens 
dans la zone sont désormais prévus. - Dans le même temps, des soldats 
guinéens secondés par des hélicoptères de combat sont entrés en Sierra 
Leone, sur le territoire de la rébellion. Selon l'agence Misna, les 
affrontements ont fait 13 morts et des dizaines de blessés civils. Les 
civils seraient utilisés comme boucliers humains par les rebelles du RUF. 
(AP, 26 février 2001)

* Guinea. Aid breakthrough - 26 February: Food aid has reached stranded 
refugees in Guinea fr the first time for several months. The World Food 
Programme says that a convoy of eleven trucks has reached the Parrot's Beak 
in southern Guinea. UN officials describe the delivery by local charities 
as a "breakthrough". The trucks, travelling in the first in a series of 
planned convoys, were carrying 58 tonnes of food, destined for 4,000 people 
in three separate camps. (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 27 February 2001)

* Guinea-Sierra Leone. Guinean forces kill and wound civilians in Sierra 
Leone - On 28 February, Human Rights Watch said that the Guinean military 
has killed and wounded dozens of Sierra Leonean civilians in indiscriminate 
attacks against rebel-held areas of northern Sierra Leone. The Guinean 
military was apparently attacking in the vicinity of Sierra Leonean forces, 
which have been launching attacks across the border and causing massive 
refugee flows from camps inside Guinea back to Sierra Leone. (HRW, 28 
February 2001)

* Guinée équatoriale. Le gouvernement démissionne - Le gouvernement équato- 
guinéen, miné par les affaires de corruption et l'impopularité de certains 
de ses membres, a finalement été contraint à démissionner après des 
attaques virulentes. La décision a été annoncée le 23 février au soir. Elle 
a cependant été accueillie dans l'indifférence par la population qui attend 
la nouvelle équipe pour savoir si les choses ont vraiment changé. (D'après 
AFP, 25 février 2001)

* Liberia. 4 independent newspapers closed - On 22 February, Liberia closed 
four independent newspapers and jailed four journalists after one of the 
papers published a story critical of military spending by the government of 
President Charles Taylor. The four journalists, all with The News, appeared 
in court on 22 February on espionage charges, a crime that government 
attorneys said was punishable by death. Also on 22 February, Taylor's 
government ordered The News and three other independent papers -- the 
Monrovia Guardian, The National and The Analyst --to close. The 
journalists, three top editors and a senior reporter, were arrested late on 
21 February, hours after the newspaper published a report saying the 
government was spending $50,000 on helicopter parts and noting that civil 
servants had not been paid in more than four months. The News report, 
quoting what it called "authentic documents," gave few details. The 
government has at least three helicopters used for military operations. 
While the report did not mention military activity, the writ of arrest said 
"the intent of the paper was to reveal national defense information to 
foreign powers" and accused the men of espionage. A government statement 
later linked the report to the standoff between Liberia and neighbouring 
Guinea. (CNN, 23 February 2001)

* Libya. Africa ponders EU-style union - African leaders have begun 
arriving in the Libyan town of Sirte for a summit on proposals to set up an 
African union similar to the European Union. Sirte is Libyan leader Colonel 
Gaddafi's home town and it is here that he hopes African leaders will push 
forward his grand vision of a continent united. At a summit in Sirte in 
1999 he proposed what he called a "United States of Africa". The response 
from fellow African countries was decidedly mixed, with key regional 
players including South Africa and Nigeria making clear they had 
reservations. But a narrower goal of an African union does now seem to be 
gathering steam, thanks in large part to Libyan largesse. On 27 February, 
Colonel Gaddafi helped pay off the arrears of 10 OAU member states so that 
they could take part in these proceedings. Sirte Two, as this summit is 
being called, is expected to discuss the composition of a pan-African 
parliament. It is one of the central planks of the proposed union, along 
with an African court of justice and an African central bank. A total of 44 
countries belonging to the Organisation of African Unity have now signed up 
to the plan, but it needs to be ratified by two-thirds of them before it 
goes into effect. Colonel Gaddafi will have hoped that would have happened 
before this summit. There is no hint of disappointment, though, in the 
banners adorning Sirte and the capital, Tripoli. One proclaims African 
unity a concrete fact achieved by African heroes, while another describes 
Africa as a land of unlimited prosperity. But not all Libyans are behind 
Colonel Gaddafi's ambitious plan, which they think is soaking up resources 
they would rather see spent on social services at home. (BBC News, 1 March 
2001)

* Malawi. CCAP Church extends its girls voluntary AIDS testing bursary - 
The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), one of the largest 
ministries in Malawi, has announced expansion of its voluntary HIV/AIDS 
testing bursary to secondary schools not affiliated to the Church. This 
follows criticism that the present programme was discriminatory. In recent 
years, the Church, spearheaded by the Blantyre CCAP Synod, introduced a 
bursary for secondary school girls in institutions linked to that Church. 
This meant that those girls who accepted to be tested and were found to be 
HIV negative, would be offered free education as one way of encouraging 
sexual abstinence among girls and save them from immorality. But NGO's 
accused the Church of being discriminatory against HIV positive girls, and 
of choosing only its own schools as beneficiaries. They also accused the 
CCAP of violating girls' rights of access to education. But this week Rev 
Daniel Gunya, general secretary of the Blantyre CCAP announced extension of 
the bursaries to other students from government and private institutions, 
and there are plans to introduce it to boys. The Church has also sought 
cooperation from the Ministry of Health and Population for this project. 
(Hobbs Gama, ANB- BIA, Malawi, 23 February 2001)

* Malawi. Flood misery - In the wake of the continuing floods in most parts 
of the country, President Bakili Muluzi of Malawi has declared 13 of the 
country's 27 districts as disaster areas, and called on the donor community 
for help. Raphael Tenthani, a witness to the floods, says: "Flying in an 
army helicopter over the southern districts of Zomba and Phalombe, we saw 
whole houses and maize, rice and banana fields submerged in water. Whole 
villages were flooded -- it is a miracle only three deaths were reported 
here. But there was worse to come in the southernmost Lower Shire district 
of Nsanje. For two hours we could not find ground strong enough to land 
until we reached the district headquarters. Nsanje District Commissioner 
Charles Makanga told us 217 villages have been affected by the floods, 
leaving 22,454 people homeless and destitute. He said some of them ran to 
villages in the high ground but most ran to the district headquarters. At 
least seven whole villages fled to the Mozambican town of Magaza. At least 
five people have been confirmed dead, three of them after being washed away 
by swelling rivers, while two of them died after their houses fell on them. 
At least 259 villages, said District Commissioner Makanga, lost all their 
crop fields, raising the threat of famine. A number of relief agencies, 
like Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam, Concern Universal and Christian Aid 
for Relief and Development, have responded with relief items but this is 
not enough for people camped at a temporary refugee camp. The government 
has also managed to bring five 30-tonne tractors through the broken roads. 
(BBC News, 25 February 2001)

* Maroc/Algérie. Difficile normalisation - Le 22 février, le ministre 
marocain de l'Intérieur, Ahmed Midaoui, a entamé à Alger une visite de 
travail de 48 heures qui s'inscrit "dans le cadre des relations 
renouvelées" entre les deux voisins. Cette visite intervient alors que les 
relations entre Alger et Rabat, tendues depuis 40 ans, semblent à nouveau 
dans l'impasse. "Rien n'avancera tant que la question du Sahara occidental 
ne sera pas réglée", commente un diplomate. En effet, le 23 février, M. 
Midaoui, lors d'une conférence de presse, a lié la normalisation des 
relations à une solution au conflit du Sahara, étalant ainsi une nouvelle 
fois publiquement les divergences fondamentales entre les deux pays. Rabat 
reproche à l'Algérie de soutenir politiquement et militairement et 
d'accueillir sur son territoire le front Polisario. Malgré une volonté 
affichée au plus haut niveau des deux pays pour relancer l'intégration 
politique du Maghreb, "il n'y aura jamais de normalisation totale, 
complète, franche et définitive, sans que le problème du Sahara ne soit 
réglé", a déclaré M. Midaoui, avant de regagner Rabat. (Ndlr.: Le 27 
février, le Front Polisario a célébré le 25e anniversaire de sa lutte pour 
l'indépendance). (AP, 22-23 février 2001)

* Maroc. Campagne contre la corruption - Le 26 février, une campagne de 
sensibilisation gouvernementale contre la corruption au Maroc a été lancée 
à Rabat par le ministre de l'Economie sociale, Ahmed Lahlimi. "Le droit au 
service de la moralisation de la vie publique" est le slogan retenu pour 
cette campagne qui va toucher 71 préfectures et provinces, 1.680 lycées et 
collèges en plus de 300 maisons de jeunes. La campagne prendra fin le 3 
mars. Le gouvernement a décidé de créer un site internet pour la passation 
des marchés publics afin d'"améliorer la transparence des transactions de 
l'administration". Un autre devra permettre aux citoyens d'avoir "accès à 
la réglementation, aux formulaires et aux informations utiles". (La Libre 
Belgique, 27 février 2001)

Weekly - anb0301.txt - End of #4/7