AfricaDigest 12/3/10

[AfricaDigest Manager]

UN urges calm in Ivory Coast over poll run-off results

The UN mission in Ivory Coast has urged election rivals to keep their
promises and not resort to violence as tensions rise over the run-off
outcome.
The army sealed the borders after the electoral commission head said
incumbent Laurent Gbagbo was beaten by the opposition's Alassane
Ouattara.
The Constitutional Council has declared the announcement invalid and
has a week to publish full results.
The poll is intended to reunify the nation after a civil war in 2002.

Former New Forces rebels still control the north of the world's
largest cocoa producer.
Supporters of President Gbagbo say there was fraud during Sunday's
vote in the north, where Mr Ouattara is popular.
Dramatic scenes
UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure told the BBC the authorities must be
allowed time to sort out the confusion.
"Our job is to remind them of their promises and commitments and
especially not to use violence," he said.

The UN had received reports of violence in parts of the west and north
on election day, but that overall the voting seemed to be peaceful, Mr
Toure said.
"They have to abide by electoral law, they have to keep their promise
during the campaigning that they won't use violence to settle disputes
and they also said they'd abide by the results."
There were dramatic scenes on Thursday, when the head of the electoral
commission announced the results after failing to get consensus from
all members of the body.

Earlier in the week, the president's representative at the electoral
commission publicly tore up the first batch of results amid calls for
votes from the north to be annulled.
But speaking under armed guard at a hotel, rather than from the
commission's headquarters, Youssouf Bakayoko said Mr Ouattara had won
54% of the vote, compared with 46% for Mr Gbagbo.
Not long afterwards, the head of the Constitutional Council went on
national television and said that, as the announcement had come after
Wednesday's legal deadline, the results were "null and void".

"The Constitutional Council - responsible for sorting out disputes in
presidential elections - finds itself in charge, to find a solution to
the disagreements, and proclaim the definitive presidential election
results," said Paul Yao N'Dre, who is a close ally of Mr Gbagbo.
The BBC's John James, in the main city of Abidjan, says an election
result cannot become legally binding until the Constitutional Council
approves it.

Foreign news suspended
Most people in Abidjan have again stayed at home on Friday as the
uncertainty continues, our correspondent says.
On Thursday evening on the streets of the Abidjan, supporters of Mr
Ouattara expressed their frustration because of the lack of
information about the results over the past few days, he says.
Shortly after the military announced the closure of the country's
border on Thursday night, it said all foreign news channels would be
immediately suspended.

Diplomatic pressure is mounting for both sides to solve their
difficulties peacefully.
UN Security Council members "reiterated their readiness to take the
appropriate measures against those who obstruct the electoral
process", the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said after a closed-
door meeting.
The US said that "no party should be allowed to obstruct further the
electoral process", while French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the
Constitutional Council to "respect the will clearly expressed by the
Ivorian people".
His foreign minister said earlier this week that French forces would
be able to intervene in the former colony if French nationals or
interests were affected by unrest.

The International Criminal Court said it would be monitoring acts of
violence.
Both the army and UN peacekeepers have been patrolling Abidjan's
streets since Sunday to prevent an outbreak of violence.
At least four people were killed in election-related clashes in
Abidjan this week.
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Guinea's Diallo concedes election defeat to rival Conde

Guinea's ex-prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo has conceded defeat to
his election rival Alpha Conde, who won with 53% of the vote.
Mr Diallo said he was unhappy with the Supreme Court's rejection of
his fraud complaints during last month's run-off, but he accepted its
decision.
He urged his supporters to remain calm for the sake of a united
Guinea.
The presidential polls mark the end of 52 years of authoritarian rule,
but were marred by violence and delays.
'Stifle frustration'

The BBC's Alhassan Sillah in the capital, Conakry, says even before
the Supreme Court announcement late on Thursday night both candidates
had made impassioned appeals for calm.
Guinea has been under a state of emergency since mid-November, after
violent clashes broke out when Mr Conde, of the Rally of the Guinean
People (RPG), was declared to have won the run-off.

Mr Diallo, of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), won 44%
in the first round in June.
He mounted a legal challenge after losing the second round, saying he
believed there had been fraud in some electoral districts.
But the Supreme Court's president, Mamadou Sylla, rejected the
allegations, saying the UFDG had not submitted sufficient proof that
his supporters were intimidated out of voting in the northern regions
of Siguiri and Kouroussa.
He also rejected a similar complaint by the RPG alleging intimidation
in the region of Labe, a stronghold of Mr Diallo.

"Our complaints were not taken into account despite the strength of
our arguments and the relevance of our evidence," Mr Diallo said on
Friday.
"As Supreme Court decisions are final ... we have no choice but to
abide by this judgement."
He said commitment to peace and a united Guinea "commands us to stifle
our frustration and our suffering, to remain calm and serene and avoid
any form of violence", AFP news agency reports.

As the country awaited the ruling, Mr Conde said he would be the
president of all Guineans if elected and pledged to work towards
national reconciliation.
The fact that the two men represent the two most populous ethnic
groups in the country had marred the run-up to the poll.
Mr Diallo represents the Peul ethnic group - also known as the Fula -
while Mr Conde is supported by the Malinkes.
During the election campaign clashes broke out between the two men's
supporters, prompting a large-scale displacement of Peul from areas of
Upper Guinea in the Malinke heartland.
Guineans are among the poorest people in West Africa, despite the fact
that the former French colony is the world's leading exporter of the
aluminium ore bauxite.
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Dick Cheney faces bribery scandal charges in Nigeria

Nigeria's anti-corruption agency is to charge former US Vice-President
Dick Cheney over a bribery scandal that involves a former subsidiary
of energy firm Halliburton.
The case centres on engineering firm KBR, which admitted bribing
officials.
A lawyer for Mr Cheney said allegations he was involved in the scandal
were "entirely baseless".

Mr Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive before becoming vice-
president to George W Bush in 2001.

A spokesman for the anti-corruption agency, Femi Babafemi, said the
charges were likely to be brought against Mr Cheney next week.
Mr Babafemi said the charges were "not unconnected to his role as the
chief executive of Halliburton".
KBR last year pleaded guilty to paying $180m (£115m) in bribes to
Nigerian officials prior to 2007, when it was a subsidiary of
Halliburton. The firm agreed to pay $579m (£372m) in fines related to
the case in the US.

But Nigeria, along with France and Switzerland, has conducted its own
investigations into the case.
Mr Cheney's lawyer, Terence O'Donnell, said US investigators had
"found no suggestion of any impropriety by Dick Cheney in his role of
CEO of Halliburton".
"Any suggestion of misconduct on his part, made now, years later, is
entirely baseless," Mr O'Donnell said.

Office raid
The bribes concerned the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG)
plant in southern Nigeria.
KBR and Halliburton have now split, and Halliburton says it is not
connected with the case against KBR.
Halliburton denies involvement in the allegations.
It has complained that a raid on its office last week by Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission officials was "an affront against
justice".
Ten people were detained for questioning and later released.

A prosecutor quoted by the Agence France-Presse news agency said those
charged would include former and current leaders of Halliburton and
officials from firms in a consortium involved in the LNG plant.
Nigeria is a member of the oil cartel Opec and is one of the world's
biggest oil exporters.
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Africa 'can feed itself in a generation'
By Neil Bowdler
Science reporter, BBC News

A new book claims Africa could feed itself within a generation, and
become a major agricultural exporter.
The book, The New Harvest, by Harvard University professor Calestous
Juma, calls on African leaders to make agricultural expansion central
to all decision-making.

Improvements in infrastructure, mechanisation and GM crops could
vastly increase production, he claims.
The findings are being presented to African leaders in Tanzania today.
The presidents of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are
holding an informal summit to discuss African food security and
climate change.
Speaking to the BBC ahead of the meeting, Professor Juma said African
leaders had to recognise that "agriculture and economy for Africa are
one and the same".

"It is the responsibility of an African president to modernise the
economy and that means essentially starting with the modernisation of
agriculture," he said.

Stagnation
Global food production has rocketed in recent decades but has
stagnated in many parts of Africa, despite the continent having
"abundant" arable land and labour, says Professor Juma.
He estimates that while food production has grown globally by 145%
over the past 40 years, African food production has fallen by 10%
since 1960, which he attributes to low investment.
While 70% of Africans may be engaged in farming, those who are
undernourished on the continent has risen by 100 million to 250
million since 1990, he estimates.

The professor's blueprint calls for the expansion of basic
infrastructure, including new road, irrigation and energy schemes.
Farms should be mechanised, storage and processing facilities built,
while biotechnology and GM crops should be used where they can bring
benefits.
But what was needed above all else was the political will at the
highest level.
"You can modernise agriculture in an area by simply building roads, so
that you can send in seed and move out produce," he told the BBC.

"The ministers for roads are not interested in connecting rural areas,
they are mostly interested in connecting urban areas. It's going to
take a president to go in and say I want a link between agricultural
transportation and then it will happen."
He believes there is great scope to expand crops traditionally grown
in Africa, such as millet, sorghum, cassava or yams.
He sees areas where farmers will need to adapt to tackle a changing
climate - cereal farmers may switch into livestock, he says, while
others may chose more radical options.

"Tree crops like breadfruit, which is from the Pacific, could be
introduced in Africa because trees are more resistant to climate
change."
He also envisages genetic modification playing a growing role in
African agriculture, with GM cotton and GM maize, which are already
being grown on the continent, just the start of things to come.
"You need to be able to breed new crops and adapt them to local
conditions... and that is going to force more African countries to
think about new genomics techniques."

Kitchen sink
George Mukkath, director of programmes at the charity Farm Africa,
welcomed the study, but said with many African states investing less
than 10% of their GDP in agriculture, politicians had to "put their
money where their mouths are".
"It's what we've been shouting about for several years," he said.
"African productivity is low. If there's an investment then African
farmers are very capable of producing enough food not only to feed
themselves but also for the export market."

But Dr Steve Wiggins, a research fellow at a British think-tank, the
Overseas Development Institute, said that modest practical changes
were preferable to long wish-lists.
"It's perfectly possible to get Africa on a much higher growth rate
but I wouldn't have such a long list of things to do, particularly if
I thought it was going to pre-empt all government investment," he
said. "To make a difference, you don't need to throw the kitchen sink
at the problem."
He also warned that Africa's urban centres could not be ignored, not
least because they provide important markets for African farmers.
--------------
International donors pledge $3.5bn for eastern Sudan
By James Copnall
BBC News, Khartoum

Donors and investors have pledged more than $3.5bn (£2.2bn) to eastern
Sudan at a specially-arranged conference in Kuwait.
The crises in Southern Sudan and the western region of Darfur receive
much more attention.
But eastern Sudan also fought a war against Khartoum, and the region
is seriously underdeveloped.
The conference was conceived to revitalise a region which has been all
but forgotten.
The pledges, announced by a senior Sudanese officials, are intended to
make a huge difference to the region.
It is not immediately clear if the total includes the more than $1.5bn
the Sudanese government has said it will contribute.

Among the donors, Kuwait announced grants of $500m.
Several Arab states are heavily involved in northern Sudan, though
much less so in the non-Muslim south.
The south will vote on possible independence in January, so Arab
states may be looking to shore up their influence in the north.
However there have been complaints that previous financial pledges
have not always been respected.
Eastern Sudan - Red Sea, Gedaraf and Kassala states - has received
hardly any investment or development in recent years.
The exception is Port Sudan, the country's main shipping hub.

Until four years ago eastern rebels fought against the state.
But a peace deal secured many of them government jobs, and in theory
provided for a more equitable distribution of wealth.
All the same, the east remains extremely poor, and frustration is
growing.
The pattern of developing the centre while ignoring the periphery has
proved disastrous but entrenched in Sudan, as the wars in Southern
Sudan and Darfur attest.
--------------
Botswana mulls legalising prostitution to fight HIV

Some politicians have called for Botswana to consider legalising
prostitution to fight against HIV.
Botlogile Tshireletso, a deputy minister, told the BBC it was time for
the government to discuss the issue.
Botswana, which has a high prevalence of HIV, has earned a reputation
for being proactive in the Aids battle.
But a BBC reporter says despite research that infection rates are
worst along commercial truck routes, there is an unwillingness to
legalise brothels.

The BBC's Letlhogile Lucas in the capital, Gaborone, says many people
in Botswana disapprove of sex workers and they are often harassed by
police.
Ms Tshireletso, assistant minister for local government, has broken
ranks with her cabinet colleagues.
"My opinion is: We should consider looking at it because it is there -
we should as government take the initiative to do something to help
these workers," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Opposition leader Dumelang Saleshando agreed but said it would be an
uphill struggle.
"Firstly the majority view is very clear, Botswana is against the
legislation making illegal sex work a legal economic activity," he
told the BBC.
"But at the same time you can't ignore it… the industry itself is one
of the drivers of the virus," he said.

'Condoms confiscated'
Truck drivers often travel through Botswana as they transport goods
from South Africa to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, our
reporter says.
"When I'm going to sleep with a girl I use a condom," a driver at the
Tlokweng-Zeerust border post with Zambia told the BBC.
Commercial sex workers said they also insist their customers use
condoms, but because they work in dangerous places they are open to
abuse and rape.

"[Legalising sex work] will help us to stand up for our rights… and
get support for HIV and Aids," one sex worker in Ledumadumane, a
neighbourhood on the outskirts of Gaborone, told the BBC.

Another commercial sex worker said: "I know I'm not safe because when
I'm doing it outdoors I can get raped or even the client can rob me."
Our reporter says everyone in Botswana is entitled to free condoms
from health centres.
But the sex workers complain that police officers often confiscate
their condoms, telling them their trade was illegal, he says.
Many people on the streets of Gaborone questioned by our reporter said
they did not support the legalisation of prostitution.
"If it is legalised more people are going to engage in commercial sex,
which means there'll be more infections," one woman said.

But a few men did speak in favour of the proposal.
"It should be legalised because it's a lot harder to govern something
you don't have the statistics on," one told our reporter.
Meanwhile, as World Aids Day is marked, the UN said that almost 1,000
babies in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV through
transmission of the virus from their mothers every day.
Botswana's government says through its efforts 97% children born to
HIV-positive mothers are now born free of the virus.
---------------
Shark attacks three tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

Three tourists have been injured by a shark in three separate attacks
at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Virtually all water sports have been suspended at the Red Sea resort
following the attacks.
One of the tourists is believed to be in a critical condition in
hospital in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
The authorities are searching for an oceanic white tip shark, which is
believed to have carried out the attacks.
They want to capture the shark and release it into the open sea.

The Associated Press news agency quoted a local conservation official,
Mohammed Salem, as saying all the victims were Russian.
The suspension of diving and water sports applies to all but a small
area around Sharm el-Sheikh.
Attacks by oceanic white tip sharks are extremely rare and shark
attacks of any kind are very unusual in the Red Sea.
The BBC Cairo correspondent, Jon Leyne, says it is one of the most
popular areas in the world for diving, so a decision to suspend water
sports there would not have been taken lightly.
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Ghana ski centre bid launched by Olympic 'snow leopard'

An Olympic skier from Ghana has launched a bid to build a ski slope in
the tropical West African country.
Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who is nicknamed the Snow Leopard, is
looking for sponsors for the new facility.
He plans to build the artificial slope on 13 acres of land in the
country's hilly eastern region.

Mr Nkrumah-Acheampong is hoping the initiative will develop skiers for
Ghana's national ski team, which will operate the slope.
He launched the bid for financial backing at an event in the Ghanaian
capital, Accra, at which a model of the slope was on display.
Mr Nkrumah-Acheampong told the BBC's Network Africa programme that an
"artificial carpet" would be attached to the ground, while a sprinkler
system would be used to keep it lubricated. He said the materials
would cost around $400,000 (£255,000).
Mr Nkrumah-Acheampong says Ghanaians under the age of 16 will be
offered the opportunity to use the facility for free.

"The best of the best will be taken into the Ghana ski racing team,"
he said, adding: "We're building something for the future."
He said he also expected middle-class Ghanaians and expatriates living
in Ghana to use the facility.
Mr Nkrumah-Acheampong was born in Scotland, but grew up in Accra and
only learned to ski when he returned to study in Britain.
He got a job as a receptionist at a skiing centre in Milton Keynes,
north of London, where he had free access to the artificial slope.
Despite his relatively late start at the sport he managed to meet the
Olympic qualification requirements and represented Ghana at the
Vancouver Winter Olympics earlier this year.

He finished 47th in the slalom event in February.
In response to sceptics who do not think the Ghana ski slope can be
built, he said: "I think I've proven myself enough times now that when
I say we're going to do X,Y,Z we deliver X,Y,Z."
----------------
Ex-President Jean-Bedel Bokassa rehabilitated by CAR

The former president of the Central African Republic, Jean-Bedel
Bokassa, has been formally rehabilitated by presidential decree.
President Francois Bozize published the decree as part of the
country's 50th anniversary of independence, returning Bokassa "all his
rights".
Bokassa was overthrown in 1979 after 14 years in power and died in
1996.

He was variously accused of being a cannibal and feeding opponents to
lions and crocodiles in his personal zoo.
President Bozize, who himself seized power in a coup in 2003, said his
former boss had "given a great deal for humanity".
Bokassa was "a son of the nation recognised by all as a great
builder", Mr Bozize said.
"He built the country but we have destroyed what he built," the
president added as he awarded Bokassa's widow, Catherine, a state
medal of honour.
"This rehabilitation of rights erases penal condemnations,
particularly fines and legal costs, and stops any future incapacities
that result from them," the decree said.

Heart attack
Bokassa came to power in a coup in 1965 and ruled ruthlessly,
torturing and killing political rivals.
He named himself emperor in 1976 but was overthrown in 1979 when his
guards killed scores of schoolchildren during a period of unrest in
the capital, Bangui.
The children were protesting against Bokassa's proclamation that they
would have to wear expensive uniforms only sold by a company that
belonged to one of his 17 wives.
Crowds vented their hatred on a giant statue of him.
For most of his rule Bokassa was backed by former colonial power
France.
Sentenced to death for murder and embezzlement, Bokassa spent five
years in prison before dying of a heart attack in the capital Bangui
in 1996.
Despite the excesses of his rule there had been a movement to
rehabilitate him, with a number of politicians pointing to periods of
stability and patriotism.
---------------
A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. -Thomas
Carruthers
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