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Pan-Africa
“There have been allegations for a long time that China has come to Africa to plunder its resources and practice neo-colonialism. This allegation, in my view, is totally untenable.” -- Wen Jiabao, Chinas premier, following a pledge of USD 10 billion in cheap loans to Africa over the next three years, and refuting claims that the Asian powerhouse is only looking to exploit Africas resources. The loan pledge for Africa was double a USD 5 billion commitment made in 2006.

Wen said eight new Chinese policy measures aimed at strengthening relations with Africa were “more focused on improving people’s livelihoods,” underlining what he called Beijing’s “selfless” engagement in Africa, the Washington Post reported. He said China will construct 100 new clean-energy projects on the continent and gradually lower customs duties on 95 percent of products from African states with which it has diplomatic ties.

The IMF has expressed concern about African governments taking on too much debt from Chinese lenders. But Wen said China would write off some loans it had made to the poorest and most heavily indebted countries. African heads of state, including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir, lauded China’s support. But others said African nations needed to devise their own development plans to take full advantage of Chinese finance. Last year, European Union lawmakers assailed China for courting oppressive African governments, such as Sudan, to satisfy its soaring demand for oil and raw materials. China is very stung by criticism from so-called Western quarters in recent years, Martyn Davies, CEO of Frontier Advisory, a Johannesburg-based research and strategy consulting company, told Bloomberg news.

China is trying to have a softer approach in an effort to rebut the notion that its interest in Africa is extractionist in nature. The pattern of trade -- raw materials going to China and Chinese finished goods flooding Africa -- has angered some Africans. We are sick and tired of the old model, where China comes to Africa and extracts raw materials and goes back to China, Zimbabwean Deputy PM Arthur Mutambara said in the Zimbabwe Times in September. We are not now interested in that.

Cape Verde
A dengue fever epidemic that has already killed six people in Cape Verde has stabilized with less than 600 new cases daily reported in the last two days, authorities said Nov. 9. The Atlantic island nation has recorded 12,000 cases of the crippling mosquito-borne disease since Oct. 1. Last week the number of new cases was on average over 900 daily, the national epidemic surveillance service said. The islands most affected are Santiago, Fogo, Maio and Brava. The drop in cases follows a massive three day campaign to eradicate the breeding grounds for the type of mosquitoes which transmit the disease, for which there is no vaccine. (AFP)

Chad
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Nov. 11 called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of two agency staff kidnapped in recent weeks in Sudan and neighboring Chad. “We are asking for the immediate and unconditional release of our two colleagues,” ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger told journalists. Kellenberger said the ICRC was in “regular” contact with “the two groups concerned” by the kidnappings. However, he added there was no reason to believe that the two incidents were linked, even though they took place in the same region. In the most recent incident on Nov. 9, Laurent Maurice, a French agronomist employed by the Geneva-based humanitarian agency, was seized by armed men in the Chad village of Kawa, just 20 kilometers from the border with Sudan’s restive region of Darfur. Another ICRC aid worker was abducted on Oct. 22 in West Darfur, close to the border with Chad. (AFP)

Congo (DRC)
The number of civilians fleeing tribal violence in the Congo (DRC) into neighboring Republic of Congo since last week has topped 21,800, the UNHCR reported Nov. 10. Details about the clashes between two tribes in northern DRC that began in early November are emerging now that the UNHCR and Republic of Congo authorities have visited the civilians who fled and are scattered across villages along a 160-kilometer stretch of the Oubangi River that separates the two Congos. Fighting first erupted in March between the Enyele and Munzaya tribes over disputes based on farming and fishing rights in the village of Dongo, in DRCs Equateur province. In that first round of clashes, over 200 houses were burned and more than 1,200 residents fled to Republic of Congo. UNHCR said that last weeks clashes forced 21,800 mainly ethnic Munzaya from their homes into the northern Republic of Congo after initially estimating 16,000 refugees had crossed the border in fear. (UN News Service)

Cote dIvoire
Cote dIvoires independent electoral commission has handed over a provisional voters list to the top UN envoy there, a step forward towards holding the much-delayed presidential poll in the West African country, split by civil war in 2002 into a Government-ruled south and a rebel-controlled north. But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons Special Representative Young-Jin Choi warned that important steps remained to be taken. The elections, originally scheduled for as far back as 2005, are now planned for Nov. 29 after repeated postponements, but UN officials have voiced concern at possible further setbacks. Choi called for accelerating the remaining technical steps, such as the printing and distribution of national identity and voter cards. (UN News Service)

Ethiopia
Ethiopias opposition Nov. 10 accused PM Meles Zanawis government of using its access to foreign-funded, anti-poverty programs to gain support for the ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front. Members of the opposition are routinely denied benefits to relief food, microfinance loans and access to civil service jobs, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue, a coalition of eight political parties said. Our members, regardless of qualifying to benefit from these services, are by and large denied access, said Beyene Petros, a member of parliament from the FDD-affiliated United Ethiopian Democratic Forces. Among the affected programs is Ethiopias Safety Net welfare program, which provides food and cash to 7.6 million people in the countrys poorest regions, according to a press release from the FDD. The program is financed by donors including the US, the EU, the World Bank and the UK. (Bloomberg)

Kenya
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced that he will ask the tribunal to open an investigation into the deadly post-election violence in Kenya in December 2007 and January 2008. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, speaking after a meeting this week in Nairobi with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, said he would make a formal request to the ICC next month. “There is a reasonable basis to believe that the attacks against Kenyan civilians during the post-election violence constitute crimes against humanity under the ICC’s jurisdiction,” he said. Article 7 of the Rome Statute, under which the ICC operates, defines a crime against humanity as “a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population.” Moreno-Ocampo said Kibaki and Odinga, who agreed to serve in a power-sharing administration following the violence, had promised to cooperate with any investigation. (UN News Service)

Madagascar
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the power-sharing agreement reached by Madagascar’s current and former leaders and urged them to implement the deal to resolve months of political wrangling in the Indian Ocean country. Madagascar’s four past and present leaders -- Andry Rajoelina, Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy -- struck the power-sharing deal following talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ban “urges the Malagasy leaders to speedily inaugurate the Government of National Unity and to put in place the transitional institutions foreseen in the Maputo agreement,” his spokesperson said in a statement. In early August the four leaders reached a separate power-sharing deal in Maputo, Mozambique, but were subsequently unable to agree on the composition of a transitional government. (UN News Service)

Mali
The head of the UNICEF said greater attention should be paid to the negative impact of climate change on the worlds poorest and most vulnerable people, especially children, as she toured Mali. Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF, discussed child health and climate change with President Amadou Toumani Toure and other officials in the landlocked country, where over half the population lives below the poverty line. One in five children in Mali do not survive to see their fifth birthday. Most of these children are dying from preventable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria, often exacerbated by under nutrition. In Mali, 32 percent of children under 5 years old are under weight. As part of her Nov. 5-8 visit, Veneman visited Timbuktu which has been severely impacted by climate change. (UN News Service)

Niger
Libya has begun repatriating hundreds of Nigerien Tuareg rebel fighters, state television in Niger reported on Nov. 11, the latest sign of progress in pacifying Niger’s north after two years of revolt. The fighters, who are from an MNJ faction of Niger’s Tuareg rebels who launched an uprising in 2007, had laid down their weapons in Libya, a country that they used as a base but also acted as mediator to end the conflict in the uranium miner. Over the last 48 hours, 386 rebels have been flown back to the town of Agadez, in Niger’s north, the television reported. “We are happy to see that these young men who took up arms have returned home to take part in building their country,” Abba Malam Boukar, the governor of the Agadez region, which is home to most of the uranium and was central to the violence, said. (Reuters)

Nigeria
Oil companies operating in Nigeria wont be allowed to flare gas from the end of this year, said Nigerian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Bagudu Hirse. The country needs the gas to meet demand for power generation in the country as well as supply proposed gas pipelines from the Niger River delta, Hirse told reporters in the capital, Abuja. Gas flaring occurs when the fuel is burnt during the course of oil production. Its a government policy, he said. The oil companies will be able to meet the deadline. They have all been informed. Nigeria, with reserves of more than 30 billion barrels of crude and more than 187 trillion cubic feet of gas, loses USD 3 billion a year as a result of flaring of gas, according to the Petroleum Ministry. (Bloomberg)

Rwanda
The trial of a former director of the Commercial Bank of Rwanda charged with helping fund the 1994 Rwanda genocide will go ahead despite his absence due to ill health, a Belgian court ruled Nov. 10. Ephrem Nkezabera, accused of providing funding for extremist Hutu militias, faces charges of war crimes including murder, attempted murder and rape. The 57-year-old’s lawyer had asked the court to postpone the trial, saying that Nkezabera was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer and was too ill to attend. But many relatives of victims feared that a trial would never take place if it did not go ahead now. “We want official recognition, yes or no, of whether he is guilty of these facts,” Dorothee Uzamukunda, a family member of one of the victims, said. Nkezabera has been described by witnesses as one of the engines of the Interahamwe militia, for which he provided funding. (Reuters)

Sierra Leone
Prosecutors at the UN-backed Sierra Leone court will start cross-examining Charles Taylor on Nov. 10, challenging the former Liberian president on his denials of weapons trading in exchange for “blood diamonds.” Taylor, 61, has denied all 11 charges of instigating murder, rape, mutilation, sexual slavery and conscripting child soldiers during the intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in which more than 250,000 people were killed. The first African ruler to stand trial for war crimes, Taylor will end his testimony on Nov. 10 after taking the stand in his own defense on July 14, arguing the case against him was full of lies and that he tried to broker peace in the region. (Reuters)

Somalia
An increasing number of Somali children are being recruited by the Somali armed forces or militia groups in violation of international law, civil society activists have warned. “Children as young as 8-9 are joining militias in greater numbers than at any time in the past,” Abdinoor Ilmi of Peaceline, a Somali civil society group, told IRIN on Nov. 11: “They are being recruited at an alarming rate. Many of the children are joining because their families are unable to provide for them, he said. “For many it is a question of survival and a sense of belonging. Simply put, they get to eat and find some sort of support network. Katherine Grant, a child protection specialist in Nairobi with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Somalia, said violations of childrens rights to protection were widespread, though exact figures were not available. (IRIN)

Sudan
The joint African Union-United Nations mission assisting in restoring peace and stability in Darfur has called on one of the major rebel groups in the Sudanese region to stop impeding its work, while deploring the harassment and detention of its personnel. The call from the mission, known as UNAMID, follows an incident on 4 November in which armed elements from the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid (SLA/AW) surrounded a UN helicopter which landed at Deribat, East Jabel Marra in South Darfur. The group prevented the helicopter from taking off for three hours, before eventually releasing it and the UNAMID personnel on board who were on a field assessment in the area. (UN News Service)

Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s government has proposed that “indigenous Zimbabweans” take 51 percent ownership of all foreign companies, including mines and banks, according to a draft law seen by Reuters last week. An official at the Chamber of Mines expressed surprise and concern at the proposed legislation, prepared by the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenization and Empowerment. “We haven’t seen the regulations but if what we’ve heard is true, then that’s a step back,” the official, who declined to be named, said. The draft regulations said indigenous Zimbabweans should hold a controlling interest in each foreign-owned business with an asset value above ZWD 500,000. Analysts believe that this would unsettle investors and could further damage an economy already ravaged by the collapse of commercial agriculture following President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farms since 2000. (Reuters)

Compiled by developmentex.com