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Weekly anb09267.txt #8
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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 26-09-2002 PART #7/8
* Mauritanie. Appui de la Banque mondiale - La Banque mondiale a accordé
à la Mauritanie un appui budgétaire de 110 millions de dollars, dans le
cadre du programme de lutte contre la pauvreté initié par les autorités de
Nouakchott, a révélé le 19 septembre un responsable de la banque. Il a
cependant précisé que les décaissements de cet appui feront l'objet d'un
accord particulier entre son institution et le gouvernement mauritanien. M.
Craig, qui a qualifié la Mauritanie de "pays performant", a souligné que
dans le cadre du programme de lutte contre la pauvreté, tous les
indicateurs relèvent une évolution et une croissance soutenues. L'appui
budgétaire est remboursable en 40 ans et assorti d'une période de grâce de
10 ans. (PANA, Sénégal, 19 septembre 2002)
* Mauritania. Woodside boosted by success - On 23 September, Woodside
Petroleum of Australia reported a third successful oil well offshore
Mauritania. The new find on the Banda prospect follows success at the
nearby Chinguetti 4-2 well earlier this month, which was drilled in a move
to assess the commerciality of the Chinguetti 1 find of last year. For
Woodside, success in Mauritania would help it in the quest to dilute its
dependence on Australian assets. North-west Africa is attracting increasing
interest among oil explorers. Two weeks ago, South Africa's Energy Africa
increased its interests offshore Mauritania through a deal with Dana
Petroleum of the UK, and Australia's Fusion Oil & Gas. The group announced
a placing to raise $3m to help fund further work in Mauritania. To the
north, Morocco stirred controversy at the UN last year when it granted
recognisance licences to TotalFinaElf and Kerr-McGee in the disputed waters
of the Western Sahara. (Financial Times, UK, 24 September 2002)
* Nigeria. Seeking to recover $1bn stolen by Abacha - The Nigerian
government is seeking to confiscate more than $1bn of funds stolen by Sani
Abacha, the former dictator, after an out-of-court settlement with his
family collapsed. The funds are in bank accounts in Switzerland,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and the UK. The government is also seeking Abacha
funds in the US. Separately, the Financial Times has established that up to
15 banks in London are to avoid prosecution for handling Abacha funds. An
investigation last year by the Financial Services Authority found 15 banks
with accounts linked to the dead dictator's family had significant
weaknesses in their money laundering controls. City of London police
launched an investigation but decided against pushing for prosecutions.
Nigeria's effort to recover funds looted from the country's central bank
during Abacha's 1993-98 rule resulted in the out-of-court settlement in
April. The Abacha family agreed to return $1bn of funds in exchange for the
dropping of theft and money laundering charges against Mohammed Abacha, the
dictator's son, and Abubakar Bagudu, a business associate. However,
Mohammed Abacha rejected the settlement last week. Enrico Monfrini, a Swiss
lawyer acting for the Nigerian government, said: "The global settlement
agreement has collapsed because Mohammed Abacha did not honour his word.
The Nigerian government has instructed me to deliver a stronger than ever
battle against the Abacha family and their associates, aiming to confiscate
the money which we have frozen so far and to find more money." (The BBC
reports that Sani Abacha's son, Mohammed Abacha, was released from prison
on 23 September, after three years in detention on embezzlement charges. On
25 September, the BBC reported that the deal to return the money from
Switzerland to Nigeria, has collapsed because Mohammed Abacha refuses to
sign vital legal papers releasing the money.) (Financial Times, UK, 24
September 2002)
* Nigeria. Fin de la grève au secteur pétrolier - Les activités
économiques et sociales reviennent à la normale dans la plupart des villes
du Nigeria qui voient disparaître petit à petit les files d'attente devant
les stations d'essence, après que les travailleurs du secteur pétrolier ont
mis fin lundi soir, 23 septembre, à leur "grève d'avertissement". Le lundi,
les travailleurs avaient entamé une grève de deux jours pour protester
contre la privatisation envisagée de la compagnie nationale du pétrole du
Nigeria (NNPC) et de ses filiales. Mais ils ont retiré le mot de grève
après que leurs représentants ont rencontré les autorités du ministère du
Travail et de la NNPC. Le président du collectif des syndicats a déclaré:
"Nous ne leur demandons pas de ne pas privatiser, mais ils ne peuvent pas
tout vendre. Ils ne peuvent pas vendre l'industrie du pétrole". (PANA,
Sénégal, 24 septembre 2002)
* Nigeria. Devaluation hits - Staff at the federal high court in Lagos,
Nigeria's commercial capital, find it increasingly hard to afford the
imported foods sold from wooden tables dotted close to the north bank of
nearby Five Cowrie Creek. Stallholders and customers report sharp rises
over the past year in the prices of common tinned goods such as sardines,
milk and tomatoes. "Our money is not worth anything in dollars," Daniel
Agbo, a court official, says. "There are a lot of things that have the
price always rising." The increases highlight a creeping devaluation of the
Nigerian naira that has hurt ordinary people and led the central bank to
launch landmark and controversial reforms of a currency market long
notorious for abuse. The bank hopes to halt a fall in foreign currency
reserves that has highlighted the vulnerability of the economy of Nigeria,
Africa's most populous nation, to public corruption and unhelpful trends in
the world oil market. "The demand for foreign exchange was getting higher
and higher," the central bank says. "We felt if we were to continue that
way it would deplete all our reserves." (Financial Times, UK, 24
September 2002)
* Nigeria. La procédure de destitution - Le 24 septembre, les députés
nigérians ont fait état de leur détermination à poursuivre le processus de
destitution du président Obasanjo, en dépit des efforts de conciliation des
dirigeants du Parti démocratique populaire (PDP, au pouvoir). A l'issue
d'une réunion du groupe parlementaire du PDP, les députés ont fait part de
leur détermination à "maintenir la motion de destitution". Ils avaient
soumis une liste de présumées violations de la Constitution dont se serait
rendu coupable le président. Celui-ci a réfuté toutes ces accusations.
Selon des sources parlementaires, un plan pour l'exécution de la motion de
destitution a été adopté et doit commencer, le 25 septembre, par une motion
destinée à annuler le pouvoir de veto du président sur la loi électorale
2002 controversée. (PANA, Sénégal, 25 septembre 2002)
* Rwanda/Uganda/Congo RDC. Withdrawals from Congo RDC - 19 September:
Rwanda has ordered the withdrawal of another segment of its troops from the
neighbouring Congo RDC, this time from the cities of Kabalo, Kalemie,
Kongolo and Nyunzu in northern Katanga Province. The withdrawal from the
four cities is scheduled to begin on 21 September, according to Hamadoun
Toure, spokesman for MONUC, citing a letter received from the Rwandan
government. 22 September: France's Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin,
says the start of a Rwandan army withdrawal has revived Congo's peace
prospects and he will now talk to Congo about fulfilling its side of a
peace deal. Rwandan officials say a third and final phase will begin on 27
September, removing soldiers from North and South Kivu Provinces directly
bordering Rwanda. 23 September: Uganda has begun its pull out of troops
from Gbadolite, the birthplace of former President Mobutu. The Ugandans say
they have already pulled their forces out of Beni, but will retain a force
in Bunia until the UN can improve their security presence
there. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 23 September 2002)
* Sierra Leone. Athletes on the run - In its issue of 25 September, the
UK's The Guardian, published the following report. "Sierra Leone sent a
team of 30 to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, UK, this summer. But
after the closing ceremony, when the time came to catch the flight back
home, all but ten had disappeared. Precisely how they did it was, and has
remained, a mystery. One thing is certain: athletes from a poor country had
used a tournament in a rich one to do a runner; it was asylum seeking by
other means. However, recently one of the team agreed to an interview. The
athlete did not want his name used. He sat nervily and gulped orange juice.
But he was forthright about why the team had disappeared. It had not been a
carefully concocted plan, he said; it had been a revolt. Friction between
the team's athletes and officials has started as soon as they arrived in
Britain. They had been training for years in difficult circumstances but
when they arrived at the airport in UK, there was no one to greet them.
Athletes lacked the essentials for taking part in the competition and team
officials were doing almost nothing to help them. Officials were arguing
among themselves about who was owed favours and who was in charge. The
officials often neglected to tell their athletes when and where they were
supposed to be competing. Eventually, some of the athletes staged a walkout
to protest against their officials". (Edited by ANB-BIA, Belgium, 25
September 2002)
* Sierra Leone. Réduction des casques bleus - Le 24 septembre, le Conseil
de sécurité de l'Onu a renouvelé pour six mois le mandat de la mission en
Sierra Leone (Minusil). Mais, suivant une recommandation de Kofi Annan, il
a approuvé à l'unanimité une résolution demandant la réduction du nombre
des casques bleus, même si le conflit au Liberia voisin continue à menacer
la paix dans le pays. La Minusil regroupe 17.000 personnes. La résolution
appelle à une réduction de 4.500 hommes en huit mois. -- D'autre part, le
19 septembre, le FMI a annoncé avoir approuvé un décaissement de l'ordre de
25 millions de dollars à la Sierra Leone dans le cadre de sa Facilité pour
la réduction de la pauvreté et la croissance. On rappelle qu'il existe
d'énormes défis sociaux à relever, notamment la réinsertion des
ex-combattants, l'appui à la réinstallation de la population déplacée et
les soins aux victimes de la guerre. (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 25
septembre 2002)
* Sierra Leone. UN force to stay - The UN military mission in Sierra
Leone will continue for at least another eight months. The Security Council
has agreed unanimously to extend the mandate for the force by six months
and has said that measures to reduce the size of the 17,300 member force
will begin after eight months. A UN statement said that the force would
stay in a bid to support the government's efforts to continue building on
the peace process. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 25 September 2002)
* Somalia. The Puntland region detains Ethiopians - Police in the
breakaway Somali territory of Puntland say they have arrested more than 100
people for entering the area illegally. They say most of the detainees are
Ethiopians waiting to travel to Yemen and Saudi Arabia in search of work.
Speaking by telephone from the port town of Bossaso, police chief Jama Ali
Farah said that those arrested would soon be taken to court. Puntland
declared itself autonomous from the rest of Somalia in 1998 after the
collapse of Siad Barre's regime in 1991 plunged the country into
bloodletting. In recent months, political in-fighting has intensified in
Puntland as two militia factions continued to battle it out for territory
and political influence in the area. (BBC News, UK, 19 September 2002)
* South Africa. Lawsuit over AIDS drugs - South African Aids activists
launched legal action on 19 September against GlaxoSmithKline and
Boehringer Ingelheim, accusing the pharmaceutical groups of charging
"excessive prices" for their Aids drugs. The lawsuit, which has been filed
to the country's competition authorities, alleges that the companies have
abused the patent protection on their drugs to charge prices that have been
"directly responsible for premature, predictable and avoidable deaths" of
Aids patients in South Africa. The companies described the charges as
baseless, but the lawsuit could lead to renewed criticism of the
pharmaceutical industry and its role in the Aids epidemic in Africa. Some
4.7m South Africans are infected with HIV/Aids, more than any other
country. The case has been brought by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC),
the lobby group that won a case in the constitutional court this year,
forcing the government to supply an Aids drug for pregnant women. The
Congress of South African Trades Unions and a group of health workers have
also signed the complaint. They accuse the companies of breaching South
African competition law by charging prices well above the "economic value"
of the drugs and will ask the competition authorities to force the
companies to disclose the real development costs of treatments. "This is
not just a symbolic gesture," said Mark Heywood, TAC general secretary.
"The companies can be ordered to lower their prices and they can also be
sued by people who suffered loss as a result of past excessive
pricing." (Financial Times, UK, 20 September 2002)
* South Africa. Keen to control land redistribution - The violent land
invasions in Zimbabwe have weakened the South African rand, undermined
foreign investor confidence and put unprecedented international pressure on
the Pretoria government to deal more forcefully with its wayward northern
neighbour. The invasions have also turned the spotlight on South Africa's
own land redistribution problems. Yet, despite gloomy forecasts that "South
Africa is next", the Zimbabwean experience appears to have given a new
sense of urgency to both the government and the mainly white commercial
farmers to speed up land reform through negotiation. The government in
Pretoria has been criticised for its soft approach to Zimbabwe's President
Robert Mugabe and his controversial policies. But there has been no hint of
softness in the government's reaction to a spate of copycat land invasions
in South Africa. Last year in Bredell, near Johannesburg, a few thousand
squatters who tried to settle on privately owned land were swiftly evicted
by police and their makeshift shacks demolished. Since then the land
affairs department has made a determined effort to accelerate its land
restitution programme, designed to return land to black South Africans
dispossessed by removals under the apartheid regime. Some 33,510 claims --
nearly half the total lodged -- have been settled, 20,000 of them in the
past 12 months. (Financial Times, UK, 20 September 2002)
Weekly anb0926.txt - Part #7/8