Africa Report
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PROJECT ON BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD AFRICA REPORT Third Quarterly Report on Africa July to September 2008 Volume: 2 Reports for the month of August 2008 Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Ijaz Shafi Gilani Contributors Abbas S Lamptey Snr Research Associate Reports on Sub-Saharan AFrica Abdirisak Ismail Research Assistant Reports on East Africa INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD AFRICA REPORT Third Quarterly Report on Asia July to September 2008 Reports for the month of August 2008 Volume: 2 Department of Politics and International Relations International Islamic University Islamabad 2 BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD AFRICA REPORT Third Quarterly Report on Africa 2008 Table of contents Reports for the month of August Week-1 August 05, 2008 05 Week-2 August 12, 2008 154 Week-3 August 22, 2008 281 Week-4 August 29, 2008 414 Country profiles Sources 3 4 BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD Weekly Presentation: August 5, 2008 Sub-Saharan Africa Abbas S. Lamptey Period: From July 27 to August 2 2008 SUMMARY The Chinese government has made a commitment of N386.1billon ($3.3 billion) for the development of hydropower in Nigeria. Sources at the Ministry of Energy (Power) said the financial commitment by China to the hydropower sector is in line with the Federal Government's efforts at attracting private investment into the power sector. The government has been yearning for investment in the sector, given the current state of the country's hydropower stations and the huge capital requirements needed to standardise and build new ones. Lagos State Government yesterday promised to fully compensate the community members whose 850 hectares land including economic trees and farms were acquired to establish the Lekki Free Trade Zone in conjunction with the Chinese authorities. The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) which is the exploration arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and a Chinese company, the China National Oil Development Corporation (CNODC) are involved in a battle for the ownership of a $2billion oil block presently in possession of the Nigerian company. The oil block had been operated by NPDC as Oil Mining Licence (OML) since 1989 but NNPC was said to have put it for sale as Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 289 under questionable circumstances but NPDC has vowed not to give it up for any reason. Business has been slow for many Ghanaian traders. They blame the situation on not only the influx of cheap Chinese products but also insufficient legal protection and corruption. The concern about the Chinese expansion in business circles was illustrated with the convening of a roundtable discussion in November last year which looked at ways to protect small industries against the intrusion of Chinese products. South Africa's International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) has begun antidumping investigations into stainless steel sink imports from China and Malaysia after local manufacturers claimed that almost half the product value of these imports came from state incentives. THE dualisation and repair of some of Zimbabwe’s major roads got a huge boost yesterday after Vice President Joseph Msika commissioned an assortment of earthmoving equipment bought from China. The equipment, which includes bulldozers, concrete mixers, hydraulic excavators, concrete dumpers, motor graders, tractors, rollers among others was bought at a total cost of US$1,5 million by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. FAKE solar panels imported from China are flooding the local market, a top Ugandan official disclosed on 5 Monday. The Chinese Business Community in Uganda can now comfortably operate their businesses in Uganda. This comes after Federation of Uganda Employers (FUE), with financial support from the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises translated the Uganda labour laws into Chinese to cut the language barrier problem. Ministers of Housing and Urban Development from more than thirty-five African countries yesterday commenced talks in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, on how to provide adequate and sustainable finances for housing provision and integrated urban development. Brussels is tempted to skip the translation of the interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) into the 23 official European languages because of concerns that some African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries may change their minds about signing the final agreements. HOPES of saving a world trade deal were dashed when World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks collapsed last night in Geneva, dealing a major blow to the global economy and raising questions over the continued viability of the WTO.The meeting was the last chance to strike a deal on cutting tariffs and subsidies in agriculture and manufactured goods before the US presidential election in November. Talks collapsed when the main protagonists - the US and India, with the latter supported by China and Indonesia -- failed to reach a compromise on a measure to shield developing countries against massive agricultural import increases. The African continent is loosing up to $12 billion per year of its Gross Domestic Product in scaling up malaria intervention programs, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).WHO country representative, Olusegun Babaniyi said malaria remains a global threat to the attainment of social-economic targets, with three million and more cases and an estimated one million deaths annually. The United Nations has rated human trafficking as the third highest profit earning industry after arms dealing and drugs. This was made known yesterday in Abuja by the Executive Secretary of National Agency for the Prohibition and Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP), Mrs. Carol Ndaguba, while delivering a paper at the 4th Annual Women International Conference organized by Excellent Women International Forum in collaboration with NAPTIP.Ndaguba noted with dismay the alarming rise of the modern slave trade and child abuse which she claimed as becoming almost normal in Nigeria. In Nigeria, the Bauchi State House of Assembly yesterday adopted a motion to re-organise Qur'anic Schools as part of measures to curtail the menace of street begging by children. The Muslim community in Uganda wants a review of the domestic relations bill to cater for their interests before it is finally considered by Parliament. Speaking on behalf of Muslim women at the review of the domestic relations bill, Hajati Kezala Bakiya, said issues concerning women should be articulated in the proposed bill. The domestic relations bill was shelved following 6 resistance from the Muslim community that it doesn't cater for their interests especially on polygamy. Nigeria's Ambassador to Sweden, Dr Godknows Igali, has expressed concern over the influx of Nigerian girls into that country. The envoy told NAN yesterday in Abuja that the Nigerian girls were moving away from Italy to "these Scandinavian countries to carry out their trade”. He said that the girls, who engaged mainly in prostitution, decided to relocate to the Scandinavian countries since the Italian authorities started cracking down on them. As the profits to be made from fishing diminish with rising fuel costs and poor management of the sector, fishermen are increasingly turning to drug and people trafficking to boost their meager incomes, fishermen in Bissau and the Bijagos islands told IRIN. Clashes between insurgents and government troops in Beletweyne, Hiiraan region of central Somalia, have created serious food scarcities in the town, hitting thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) hardest, locals said. “Already, two children are said to have died of hunger; many others are malnourished," a journalist, who requested anonymity, told IRIN on 1 August. A countrywide crackdown on foreign nationals working in Tanzania illegally will start soon. That would be part of a fresh bid geared at barring foreigners from occupying jobs that can be done by Tanzanians, Labour, Employment and Youth Development Minister Juma Kapuya told the National Assembly in Dodoma on Monday. Senator Gyang Dantong has said that Nigerians bent ongoing abroad for medical treatment might not be allowed to do so unless their foreign trip is approved by the Minister of Health. He assured that very soon a national hospital will be established to handle serious health related cases that might be referred from various teaching hospitals across the country, saying that a law being canvassed will deal with health workers who may be found misbehaving in hospitals. Two thousand eight hundred people have received HIV counselling and testing while 900 pregnant women have benefitted from Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in the Niger Delta Region, a statement by members of the hospital advisory committee of the Niger Delta Response (NIDAR) has said.NIDAR which commenced operation in June 2007 was set up to prevent the transmission of HIV and mitigate the impact of AIDS in five states in the Niger Delta Region. A study aimed at establishing the HIV/Aids status on university communities in East Africa is set to start this October. The project will target 18 universities, six from Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya each; according to the officials of the Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA).The Ugandan institutions earmarked for the study include Makerere, Mbarara, Gulu, Nkumba, Kampala International and the Islamic Universities in Uganda. Funded by the Swedish