http://ilia307.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/171783
Oxfam ran an ad in the Seattle Times Wednesday urging the corporate icon to give Ethiopian farmers a greater share of the retail value of their coffees. "Starbucks refuses to sign an agreement recognising Ethiopia's ownership of the trademarks of the country's coffees -- the same coffees that millions of poor farmers depend on to make a living," said the ad, which ran with a picture of an old and grey-haired African farmer.

The advertisement disputes statements made by a Starbucks senior vice president in testimony to the British on Feb. 27, in which he is quoted as saying, "We reached an agreement with [the Ethiopian] government to pursue our shared vision around the promotion of Ethiopian coffees."

In mid-February, Starbucks issued a joint release with the government of Ethiopia stating that the company would no longer stand in the country's way to obtain trademarks.

The company also pledged to double its purchases from East Africa and from Ethiopia. It promised to provide technical support and capacity building to Ethiopian farmers through a Farmer Support Centre that it will open in East Africa.

The ad runs statements from a press release the Ethiopian Embassy here distributed to the media on behalf of the Ethiopian Fine Coffee Farmers Cooperative Unions and Exporters, which it doesn't see any effort by the Seattle-based company to make good on its promise.

"When Starbucks announced that it will not block Ethiopia's initiative and also increase its volume of purchase of Ethiopian coffee, we all welcomed it, believing that it is a good first step and would open the door for negotiations with the company," said Hailu Gebre Hiwot, chairman of the Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association in the statement.

"But we have yet to see any efforts made by Starbucks to come to the table and discuss technical issues on the royalty free licensing agreement Ethiopia is asking it to sign."

Coffee is among the most valuable commodities in Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest countries, and these rights could help lift farmers and their families out of poverty.

Africa is the birthplace of coffee and produces arguably the most exotic taste profile of any coffees in the world. Starbucks purchases approximately five percent of its high-quality Arabica coffee from African countries of origin such as Ethiopia and Kenya.

Jim Donald, president and CEO, said Wednesday that the company saw a 22 percent increase in total net revenues to 7.8 billion dollars last year. The first quarter of fiscal 2007 saw a 22 percent increase in net revenues to a record 2.4 billion dollars and net earnings of 205 million dollars, an increase of 18 percent when compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2006.

Starbucks plans to open at least 2,400 new stores on a global basis in fiscal 2007 as well as 1700 stores in the United States. But the issue of how the company treats farmers has been a recurring publicity problem for Starbucks, which operates more than 13,000 retail locations in 39 countries around the world.

Activist groups like Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade and Oxfam have relentlessly prodded the company to practice fair trade, where poor farmers share in some of the hefty profits earned by Western coffee retailers.

The Oxfam appeal on Wednesday comes as the Starbucks Corporation held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders on Wednesday at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle and as the Ethiopian government vowed it will continue to pursue the trademarking and licensing initiative.

"Starbucks has continued to make unsubstantiated claims that Ethiopian farmers will be better off under different marks," said Tadesse Meskela, general manager of Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Ethiopia in a statement. "It seems to us that Starbucks is dodging the issue and making excuses not to take concrete steps towards recognising Ethiopia's ownership of its coffee names."

Oxfam says the company has repeatedly ignored its promises to the farmers. "Starbucks continues to break its promises to the poorest communities," said Seth Petchers, of Oxfam International's Make Trade Fair campaign.

"The company has branded itself as a friend to poor farmers. But when these farmers seek the right to own their coffee brands and compete in the global market on an even playing field, Starbucks refuses to support them," he said.

Starbucks did not return IPS calls for comment on Wednesday. However, earlier this month, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, who is on the list of the world's richest people, told Fortune magazine that "Starbucks is the quintessential people-based business... Everything we do is about humanity."

Such statements are hotly contested by the fair trade activists. "If Starbucks is seriously committed to humanity, it needs to change its position and agree to negotiate a licensing agreement with Ethiopia that respects its ownership of its unique coffee trademarks," said Petchers.

"Starbucks has retailed these Ethiopian coffees for as much as 26 dollars a pound yet most Ethiopian coffee farmers struggle to survive on one dollar a day.]]> Sat, 24 Mar 2007 09:20:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/171783 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/171781
No one was injured in the bombing which damaged four police bicycles, dockets, two typewriters and stationery.

The attack comes as the Zimbabwe Council of Churches yesterday issued a strong condemnation for the orgy of violence that hit Harare recently.

At Sakubva, officers manning the charge office quickly put out the fire before it caused more damage when the attack occurred at around 1am.

Police chief spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the attack yesterday and said investigations were underway.

"The suspects cut a security fence and sprinkled some petrol using a galvanised pipe. Thereafter, they threw a petrol bomb at a three-office module block that houses Victim Friendly and the Community Relations Liaison officers.

"No one was injured in the incident but property, which includes four bicycles, two typewriters and stationery, was damaged," said Asst Comm Bvudzijena.

He said the galvanised pipe was recovered at the scene.

Asst Comm Bvudzijena said prior to the bombing, a police officer on his way to the station was confronted by a group of about 10 youths, who called him names and accused him of supporting the Government.

"The officer fired a shot in the air, scaring the youths away."

Last week, three female police officers sleeping in a house they shared at Marimba Police Station in Harare were injured, two of them seriously, after suspected MDC youths threw a petrol bomb at the quarters.

In Gweru, attackers -- also believed to be MDC youths -- petrol-bombed Nehanda Police Post in Mkoba.]]> Sat, 24 Mar 2007 08:48:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/171781 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/171765 The kidnapped men in Delta were working for, the SETRACO construction company presently undertaking the Warri-Port Harcourt expressway, the report said.
THISDAY gathered that four Indians and four Lebanese were seized by the unidentified gunmen and driven away from where they were working at Agbarho portion of the road. Nobody had claimed responsibility for the latest apparent case of hostage-taking in the region as at the time of filing this report yesterday evening.
The naval commander in Delta State , Navy Captain M. Ajibade, confirmed the incident to newsmen in Warri yesterday, saying security forces had information that some expatriate SETRACO workers had been kidnapped in the early hours of yesterday.
Ajibade noted that details of the attack and abduction were still sketchy, even as he said that the motive of the kidnapping was still mysterious.
However, THISDAY gathered from usually dependable sources that the militants operated rather swiftly and in commando-style, giving the security operatives in the area practically no room to respond adequately.
It further learnt that the militants, after seizing their targets, drove them away from the road construction site to Agbarho Waterside, that is, the creeks, where they apparently had their speed boats waiting.
The hostages were said to have been transferred into the vessels men armed to the teeth, which eventually disappeared with the captives into an unknown destination.
THISDAY also learnt that the gunmen then set ablaze the vehicle with which they had conveyed the kidnapped men to the place they birthed before vanishing into thin air.
The highway CETRACO is working, is a major project of the Federal Government of Nigeria in the Niger-Delta, described as the “ Niger-Delta Super Highway ” by some government functionaries, and is expected to link Delta, Cross River , Bayelsa and Rivers states, through Warri and Ughelli to Port-Harcourt.
Twenty-four Filipino hostages and their ship were last month released at the Warri Port to the Delta State Government after 24 days in captivity.
Governor James Ibori, while thanking President Olusegun Obasanjo for not adopting the military option to secure the release of the Filipinos, had expressed the hope then that such incidence would not occur again in Delta State.
The kidnap of the Dutch at about 7.07 am yesterday in Rivers is coming on the heels of a reported disruption of works at Daewoo camp where host community members alleged the companyrefused to engage them but chose to bring in foreigners to work even as cleaners.
An unnamed militant group had about four weeks ago threatened that they were going to shut downthe company as well as hit Mobil faclities since their interrupoted production was working against their agitation.
Confirming the kidnap, Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu said the Dutch was taken by a yet to be identified group but said efforts were on to unravel all facts sorruounding the incident.
It could be recalled that while releasing the last hostage who was an Italians, some militant groups had vowed to take more hostages as well as to change tactics by exploding more bombs in the region.
It is not however clear if the kidnap has anything to do with the alleged arrest of three boys said to be loyalists of Soboma George, the militant big wig whose arrest led to the burning of the State Criminal Investigations Department and the forceful freeing of Soboma and other detainees at the center]]> Sat, 24 Mar 2007 08:25:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/171765 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45345
libyanguy : animals
me: what about them :) ?
libyanguy: ur end is coming
me :realy , when ?
libyanguy :read our book and u know
me : witch one ? the green book of kadafi ?
libyanguy :no u mother fucker,,we gonna delete u from the map dont forget
me: witch map ?
libyanguy : who lough last he louch much
me: i know.


]]> Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:10:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45345 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45273 good to be in the city again, i even hapled a couple pf french turist to find there way in the city.
good to feel home :)

my trip to ethiopia was good i feel it contributed alot
i just need to keep studyn amharic, so i can practise it with the ethiopian coomunity heare

can not resist the temptation to hug ethiopian children when i see them on he street :)

]]> Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:59:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45273 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45095 unfulfilled. Instead, poverty continues to deepen in most
African countries, and the international financial
institutions have returned to business as usual in 2006.
The clearest indication that old habits are back came at
the IMF/World Bank annual meetings, held in Singapore in
September. There, the IMF's board formally approved a
previously announced reshuffling of voting shares designed
to increase the voting power of four middle income
countries -- China, Mexico, Turkey, and South Korea. The
biggest loser was sub-Saharan Africa; its collective
voting share, already a paltry 5%, was cut in half.

]]> Tue, 03 Oct 2006 07:03:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45095 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45091

01 Oct - Zambia deployed armed police in the capital Lusaka on Sunday amid rising tension after President Levy Mwanawasa overtook the early lead of his populist opponent in the country's election. Some armed members of a crack paramilitary unit patrolled the main business district while others took position at the privately-owned Post newspaper, where supporters of opposition leader Michael Sata staged a protest on Saturday. State radio said the Post newspaper had been placed under police protection. Sata challenged official results released on Saturday showing Mwanawasa surging to a dramatic lead. He warned of "severe consequences" if officials ignored his complaint The populist Sata initially looked set to trounce incumbent Mwanawasa, but the race tightened on Saturday as the president scored big wins in rural areas, drawing protests from Sata that thousands of ballots had been destroyed. Election results released by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) showed Mwanawasa had polled 510,523 of the 1,459,226 certified votes so far, from 69 of Zambia's 150 constituencies. Sata trailed him at 473,332 votes and Hakainde Hichilema of the United Democratic Alliance, a wealthy businessman popular with the middle class, had 441,400. "This represents 34.99 percent votes for Mr. Mwanawasa and the average voter turnout (in the 69 constituencies) is 70.7 percent," Ireen Mambilima of the ECZ told reporters. - Reuters]]> Tue, 03 Oct 2006 06:47:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/45091 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44937 Sun, 01 Oct 2006 04:33:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44937 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44935 Sun, 01 Oct 2006 04:15:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44935 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44933
The raid resulted in the beating and pepper-spraying of a 16-year old boy who turned out to be the son of the LPM Protea South’s Chairperson. The incident marked the second time the Chairperson’s children have been targeted for assault by the police.

At one point in the raid, police opened fire on unresisting residents, but only succeeded in shooting one of their own officers. SAPS reinforcements were then called in as the officer was rushed off the hospital.

An Indymedia reporter on the scene was also assaulted by a police officer who demanded that he stop filming and attempted to break the offending video camera. The name of the assaulting officer was then withheld by the police. When the Indymedia reporter informed the officer in charge that a complaint would be filed against him for not providing the name of the assaulting officer, the Captain in turn demanded the reporter’s press credentials. Without “credentials” the reporter was then unlawfully detained in police custody until the conclusion of the raid.]]> Sun, 01 Oct 2006 04:08:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44933 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44925
The demonstrators marched from Nairobi's main mosque to police headquarters chanting and waving slogans like "Stop harassing Muslims" and "We don't want anti-terror police."

Although rowdy and provoking a round of tear gas from riot police at one stage, the demonstration was non-violent.

Kenya's Muslim community has long complained of being marginalised by authorities, and feels it has been unfairly targeted in the fight against terrorism, particularly since 1998 and 2002 attacks blamed on al Qaeda-linked extremists.

According to the demonstrators, Friday's rally was fuelled by two recent cases: the arrest of a Muslim man outside the Israeli Embassy, and the arrest of a man whose car was implicated in a recent shootout with police.

Local media have linked that shootout with a possible plot to kill Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who was visiting Nairobi this week.

"We came to complain to the government and specifically to the police commission against the anti-terror police unit," 25-year-old demonstrator Halimo Daro said.

"This unit is terrorising Muslims. It is unconstitutional."

Deputy police commissioner Lawrence Mwadime told the crowd to go home, saying: "We have taken your memorandum, I will forward it to my seniors."

"We do not harass Muslims," he later told reporters.

He declined to comment further.

The Kenyan government has been pushing an anti-terrorism law but has met resistance from the country's Muslim community, which complains it is being targeted.

frome : http://www.timesnews.co.ke/29oct05/nwsstory/news3.html]]> Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:57:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44925 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44923
Due to cheap Chinese imports over 67,000 jobs had been lost and more than 350,000 people have been suffering who were engaged in clothing, footwear and textile sectors.

Patel insisted that workers should atleast get R3,000 per month for smooth and better life.

He also proposed that free trade agreement should not be implemented as it promotes imports from foreign countries.]]> Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:53:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44923 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44921 NEWS
September 30, 2006
Posted to the web September 29, 2006

By Omwa Ombara
Nairobi

Africa has not developed for the past 40 years despite receiving foreign aid and grants from donors.

Wealthy Africans and government officials prefer to stash their money in foreign accounts rather than develop their own countries resulting in a poor flow of funds in the Comesa region.

"African Governments must learn to be transparent and predictable and establish rules that can be enforced otherwise the whole issue on aid will be a waste of time," the European Commission Director-General for Trade, Mr Peter Thomson, said.

He was speaking at the White Sands Hotel in Mombasa where he led an EU delegation to the first text -based negotiations between 15 Eastern and Southern African countries and the European Union.

"Africans are not investing in Africa. That is the long and short of it. That is what is the problem," Thompson said.

The European Union is the lead donor to Kenya as it offered grants and not loans unlike the World Bank. "Aid is just another word for help and cannot be a solution in itself," Thompson said.

He called on African Governments to put their act together for businesses to flourish. This, he said, will solve the problem of poverty in the region. Thompson lamented that despite all the aid money and the open global market in Africa, the continent continued to trail.

As compared to India with its huge population of over 305 million people, Africa is doing badly yet their Indian counterparts do not rely on aid. China on the other hand has developed very fast and has a high GDP.

"Why has sub-Saharan Africa been left behind as the world moves on? It is obvious that Africa is not an attractive place to do business," he said.

Thompson cited bureaucracy, corruption and unfair treatment as the greatest bottlenecks to investors in Africa. He called upon African governments to build regional markets and work with their neighbours.

"Forget the US and the EU. Learn to work between yourselves. The EU cannot do it for you," he said.

Thompson denied that the EU was focusing on trade in the region to open up markets for member countries. ]]> Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:38:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44921 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44919


SOUTH Africa's growth rate neared 4% in 2005, for the first time since 1960. The government of President Thabo Mbeki, who took over from Nelson Mandela in 1999, is pulling out all the stops to reach 6%, the target since the historic elections of 1994. The stated aim is to eradicate poverty, which affects 30.9% of the population, and unemployment, which is officially running at 30% (1). But the apparent success in improving the growth rate belies serious failings in Mbeki's policies.

The African National Congress (ANC) has fallen far short of keeping the promises it made for social justice in the new South Africa. According to the social democrat Sampie Terreblanche, doyen of local economic historians, the ANC's economic strategy has deepened inequalities. "Society has been restructured," he says. "Where once it was rigidly divided along racial lines, it is now split just as clearly into social classes" (2).

This social restructuring can be traced to 1996, when ANC policy shifted dramatically from leftist economics towards classic neoliberal philosophy. Pressure from big companies such as Anglo-American, South Africa's most powerful conglomerate, had a hand in this change. The new policy of supply-side economics was inaugurated with the introduction of the growth, employment and redistribution programme (Gear), which called for privatisation of state-owned businesses as part of an economic strategy based on the quest for growth. With this policy, South Africa ended up as the only country on the continent that voluntarily signed up to the adjustment programmes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, more usually imposed on poor countries as a condition for aid or loans.

The line ran contrary to traditional ANC policy, which had been based on Keynesian, demand-side economics, prioritising the fight against inequality over the need for growth. Its initial orientation reflected its social base as a popular movement, and the ideological influence of the South African Communist party (SACP). For a while the nationalisation of banks and mines was central to ANC policy. Mandela mentioned it in an early speech after being released from jail in 1990.

During the 1980s the SACP's influence over the ANC had declined, and South Africa's business community began secretly to court the party. The ruling National party was facing mounting international pressure. It no longer seemed capable of maintaining economic and political stability except through increased repression. According to Moeletsi
Mbeki, Thabo Mbeki's brother: "Gradually sections of domestic capital also started to withdraw their support from Afrikaner nationalism and to demand changes in industrial relations legislation. By the mid-1980s domestic capital opened discussions with exiled political parties in an effort to identify a replacement for Afrikaner nationalism" (3).



Neoliberal triumph

Sampie Terreblanche feels that while the ANC achieved a brilliant political victory over the National party, it did so at the cost of allowing business interests to dominate the party. The secret discussions at the end of the clandestine period had a lasting influence on its orientation. Thabo Mbeki played a decisive role in the triumph of neoliberalism within the party. Gear was adopted on his initiative, while he was vice-president under Mandela.

As vice-president, Mbeki took on a prime ministerial role, running the country while Mandela focused his energies on racial reconciliation. Mbeki, as an economics graduate, was fascinated by the changes that European social democratic parties underwent in the 1990s. British prime minister Tony Blair's "third way" became his model. Mbeki was keen that South Africa should not repeat the mistakes that socialist governments of other African countries had made in the early
years of independence. He surrounded himself with economic advisers, mostly directors of big multinational companies.

The ANC's allies in the SACP and the powerful Cosatu trades union federation were all the more angry about the party's change of direction because they were not consulted. This authoritarian, technocratic and centralised way of running party and country has typified Mbeki's leadership since he was elected in 1999. During his 30 years in exile he came to depend on a close-knit circle of confidants, among them the Pahad brothers, Aziz and Essop: Aziz is now deputy foreign affairs minister, Essop has the title of minister in the presidency. Besides this cliquishness, Mbeki reacts badly to
criticism. Even the internationally renowned and respected Archbishop Desmond Tutu was severely ticked off in November 2004 for a few slight criticisms (4).

Where Gear has delivered social tension and inequality, the policy of transformation -- keystone of Mbeki's African nationalism -- created political tension. Mandela first referred to transformation as a goal for South Africa at the ANC's 50th national conference in 1997. He said South Africa needed to achieve a "fundamental social transformation", in which all the different components of the population would be represented at all levels of society. After such a long history of exploitation and discrimination, there was an urgent need for such a transformation. There is a long way to go: blacks own only 2% of shares quoted on South Africa's stock exchange.

Yet the transformation gradually slid from being a progressive policy to being a policy entirely based on race. The ANC was becoming the party of the black bourgeoisie, rather than that of the poor and the working class. The party justified this drift by saying it was important not to allow social unrest to get out of hand among blacks disappointed that their living conditions had not improved.

The core of this policy is the Employment Equity Act of April 1999 and the broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BEE) of 2003. The former applies to all categories who suffer from discrimination, especially women and the disabled. Women did benefit from the law, but it is now explicitly targeted at blacks. This has led some to accuse the government of applying apartheid in reverse. In trying to correct past injustices, South Africa is getting further away from the non-racialism enshrined in its constitution. Priority could have been given to other criteria separating social groups, such as class or language: South Africa has 11 languages spread across all nine regions. Instead, race has been allowed to remain the single socio-political attribute by which South Africans are defined (see South Africa: the statistics).



Clannish elitism

The main reason for political and social tension is that the BEE has become a front for clannish elitism. The ANC is determined to ensure that the establishment is run by its most loyal stalwarts. Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, an opposition leader under apartheid who led Afrikaners into talks with the banned ANC in Dakar in 1987 (5), described this as
"constitutional co-optation". Joel Netzhitenzhe, President Mbeki's right-hand man and a government spokesman, announced the strategy as early as 1998: "Transformation of the state entails, first and foremost, extending control over all levers of power: the army, the police, the bureaucracy, intelligence structures, the judiciary, parastatals, and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public broadcaster, the central bank and so on" (6).

Accusations of favouritism and corrupt practices are increasing. A few black oligarchs close to the government are almost always implicated in deals done under the BEE, which wants shares in big companies transferred to firms under black control. Moeletsi Mbeki believes that this behaviour, widespread in Africa, is holding back the development of a dynamic private sector south of the Sahara.

Beyond economics, Thabo Mbeki tends to invoke an Afro-nationalist position to justify all his policies. The development of this discourse helps explain his controversial stance on Aids. In the past, Mbeki has repeatedly doubted the link between HIV and Aids in his determination to present the primary causes of the pandemic as social and economic. He blocked the introduction of a specific Aids policy until 2001.

Since then, he has revised his position, but his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, is still keen to promote healthy eating (plenty of African potatoes) rather than anti-retroviral drugs. By 2004 only 55,000 infected South Africans had access to drugs. The United Nations claims some 5.3 million South Africans, including 230,000 under-fives, are HIV-positive. The policy is a catastrophe (7).

Mbeki's economic and political choices are isolating him and his circle from the ANC's social base. Social protest has developed since 2000: groups such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum or the Soweto Crisis Committee have emerged to campaign on specific social issues, while bodies such as the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations are founded on cultural identity. There were constant demonstrations against corruption and insufficient social services in 2005. A revolt began in the countryside in 2004 when thousands of people protested against a lack of basic services in small villages. This March 30,000 inhabitants of the Khutsong ghetto near Carletonville in North West Province boycotted local elections in which the ANC imposed its own candidates.

On 12 June 2005 vice-president Jacob Zuma was sacked over corruption allegations, which threw the political crisis into sharp relief
(8). Some believed that Mbeki was trying to get rid of a potential rival, and saw Zuma's removal as evidence that Mbeki's authoritarianism had gone too far. The ousted vice-president organised big rallies all over South Africa where he capitalised on
anti-Mbeki feeling within Cosatu and the SACP, and among the poor. Zuma presents himself as a leftist, making great play of his charm,
although his known views and positions offer little of substance to justify his leftwards image. Zuma, who is standing for the presidency of the ANC and of the country, will answer the corruption charges in September in the Supreme Court, and threatens to call Mbeki as a witness.

Contestation within the ANC is spreading. The party's Youth League (co-founded by Mandela in 1943) openly questions the president's authority, as does the ANC Women's League. In this March's local elections, hundreds of dissidents ran against the party for the first time. The threat of a split from the SACP and Cosatu is never far away, and Mbeki is trying to dispel it by praising Singaporean and South Korean economic models, where the state has a major role.

He did a little for his allies on the left by postponing some privatisation plans, but not enough to smooth over the differences between the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP. His call for a more compassionate society, made during a speech of tribute to Mandela, did not soothe critics. They say that the government has been undermining that objective for years with its neoliberal policies.

from : http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2ItemID=10978]]> Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:30:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44919 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44911
According to Amnesty International, the two men are being held incommunicado without charge.

Wasihun Melese and Anteneh Getnet are members of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association - the oldest trade union representing some 500,000 teachers.

The ETA has criticised the government in the past and says the authorities have targeted it since last year's

election.

Amnesty International says that Wasihun Melese, a prominent activist in the Addis Ababa branch, was arrested at his home by police and taken to the Central Investigation Bureau where he is still being held without charge.

Shortly after his arrest, three men in plain clothes reportedly entered the ETA's office in the capital and left with Anteneh Getnet, another union activist.

His whereabouts are still unknown.

The Association says government officials have repeatedly tried to close it down.

The union criticized the government's handling of the post-election protests which led to the deaths of about 80 people and thousands of others being arrested.

No one from the government or police was able to comment on the claims.

]]> Sat, 30 Sep 2006 22:06:00 EDT http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44911 52.5166667 13.452.516666713.4 http://ilia307.tigblog.org/post/44905

Even though over the last twenty years many African nations have adopted sometimes draconian economic reforms, the benefits of trade liberalisation that were promised have not materialised. On the other hand, developed nations have enjoyed 70% of the wealth generated by trade liberalisation. In some respects, world trade regulations, defined for the most part by industrialised countries during the Uruguay Round agreements between 1986 and 1994, have only increased Africa’s economic problems.

Before an “ambiguous consensus” [1] was reached at Doha, which was at the heart of the launch of the round of multilateral negotiations that tool place at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the “battle of Seattle” or “Seattle showdown” [2] revealed to the world the growing dissatisfaction of developing countries with regard to the WTO, whose way of working did not appear to respond to their profound desire for economic progress and development.

With the support of powerful groups of NGOs, they then put into practice their power to block negotiations by refusing to submit to a potential consensus. With this action that was previously unheard of, developing countries, and particularly those in Africa, managed to draw the attention of the international community and the representatives of multilateral institutions to the stark inequalities brought about by inequitable globalisation, whose consequences have been hundreds of millions of human beings being reduced to near total destitution and the almost irreversible destruction of the environment.

This is why in Seattle, while the United Nations and Europe were seeking to enter into a “Millennium Round” of large-scale negotiations concerning new and complex issues, particularly in relation to investment policy, competition, electronic commerce and standards in the areas of labour rights and the environment, a large number of African countries advocated a “Development Round” which would allow interlocutors to discuss the implementation of regulations from the Uruguay Round directly concerning developing countries and to urge industrialised countries to honour their commitments. In this way, these nations hoped finally to succeed in opening developed countries’ markets to their exports, eliminating other structural imbalances that were unfavourable to developing nations, removing tariff, non-tariff and technical barriers imposed on the exports of less developed countries, and developing and making official WTO technical aid and capacity building programmes.

From this perspective, the group of African countries proposed to renew and apply the “special and preferential” measures from the Uruguay agreements, which aimed to facilitate the integration of developing countries into the world trading system.

After Seattle failed, the fourth WTO ministerial conference was held in November 2001 at Doha, Qatar, and the members had a common desire to correct the malfunctioning of the multilateral trading system. The developed countries made promises, among which were to reduce or remove subsidies causing imbalances in global markets, to remove obstacles blocking developing countries’ products entering their markets, to recognise and make effective special and differential treatment, to facilitate poor countries’ access to essential drugs and to create the conditions necessary for the greater participation of these nations in trade negotiations through technical aid and capacity building.

On the other hand, the dogged will of the developed countries to defend the interests of some of their privileged citizens and their multinationals straight away took priority over ethical considerations and concerns for the survival of African populations: access to essential drugs for millions of sick Africans is still being blocked due to market interests; millions of farmers sink into poverty each day as a result of the North’s illegal subsidies [3]; and the pressure to increase the liberalisation of basic social services such as water, education, energy and healthcare is about to destroy what remains of African economies.

One of the most tangible characteristics of African poverty is its “femininity”. Statistics show that African women, more so than any other category, suffer the damaging effects of poverty and all the constraints brought about by the current structure of global economic and trade relations. In healthcare as well as education, access to land and economic resources, etc., African women have remained well below world averages.

In such a context, it is not difficult to establish a link between the situation of women in Africa and the world trade system, which, even if it is not the only explaining factor, is at the very least an important factor. The financial collapse of agriculture and African industries, caused by the combined effect of liberal policies imposed by international financial institutions and WTO rules, affects both rural and urban women, as it subjects them to chronic food insecurity, begging and the dangers of the informal economy in African towns and cities.

Greater liberalisation does not give rise to human development

Many studies have tried to establish a correlation between the level of openness to trade and increased economic growth and human development. In effect, there is no proof that the liberalisation of exchanges leads automatically to economic growth and human development. In a study [4] looking at the relationship between trade and sustainable human development, the UNDP drew an interesting comparison between two countries, in relation to their level of openness to world trade, to demonstrate such an assertion. These countries are Vietnam and Haiti.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, Vietnam has undertaken a progressive approach to reform. It is not a member country of the WTO. It has organised world trade at the level of the state, has maintained a monopoly over imports, and has preserved quantitative restrictions and high customs duties (30 to 50%) on imports of agricultural and industrial products. However, despite these measures being contrary to the “formulas” often advocated by those who hold neo-liberal doctrines, Vietnam has had spectacular success by achieving a growth rate higher than 8% per annum since the mid-1980s, which has earned the country a 12% increase in trade, a considerably reduced level of poverty, including in rural areas and in vulnerable groups (women and young people), and has attracted high levels of foreign direct investment.

Haiti, on the other hand, has become involved in an ambitious road to liberalisation and total openness since 1994/1995. The country has brought its customs tariffs down to a maximum of 15% and has removed all quantitative restrictions. For all this, Haiti’s economy has not evolved. Social indicators have even deteriorated and poverty has, in places, reached worrying levels. Although a member of the WTO, Haiti is one of the most marginal countries in terms of integration into world trade.

Looking at Africa, an analysis of the evolution of world trade over the last twenty years shows that the continent has unfortunately not profited from the benefits [5] that were granted and that, despite all the agreements and preferential schemes, Africa’s share of world trade has dropped significantly from 6% in 1980 to 2% in 2004. In effect, since 1980, African exports have increased at the average annual rate of 1.5%, whereas for the world as whole this increased by 5.8% per year.

The social consequences of such economic decline no longer need to be explained. In sub-Saharan Africa, women in certain areas produce up to 80% of basic food products and therefore play a decisive role in food security at the level of both the family and the nation. And in areas where cash crops predominate, reduced earnings resulting from reduced tariff protections and the large-scale entry of imported goods into national markets has exacerbated the vulnerability of women insofar as they have no other option other than to add to the swelling populations of shanty towns to work in order to survive in informal jobs and small trade.

In the industrial sector, WTO agreements concerning rules for market access for non-agricultural goods have imposed drastic cuts in customs duties, which was the only instrument there to protect African industries. This subjects a growing, and consequently vulnerable, African industry to direct confrontation with big corporations from the developed countries, which has quickly worked to the advantage of the latter. The most edifying example today is the African textile industry, in which countries with a definite relative advantage were obliged to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs even before the agreement on quotas was reached in December 2004. And since 2005, China’s powerful entry into the world textile market has heightened the pressure in this sector. Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and other countries are today experiencing the full force of the crisis in this industry, which has a high potential for employment, including a female workforce.

Even if the liberalisation of the textile industry has increased and diversified the supply of goods in African markets, where prices have also tended to drop, such an outcome cannot compensate for the long-term losses that the de-industrialisation of Africa will bring about. This de-industrialisation has only increased the informalisation of the economy by developing trade around goods produced elsewhere.

The WTO ten years on: economic opportunities or fresh risks?

The ten years of liberalisation under the aegis of the WTO needs to be assessed. Disregarding doctrine and squabbles between different schools of thought, it has been widely accepted that for African countries, trade liberalisation has not produced the results one hoped for.

Even if one has to admit that it is often difficult to measure the real impact of WTO rules on the situation of women in Africa, specific studies, of which there is a real shortage in this area, have concluded that this impact is most worrying when compared with the overall assessment of WTO rules on African populations.

Studies conducted into the liberalisation of the water sector in many African countries have shown that it is mainly women who carry the burden of the fresh constraints brought about by the privatisation of these strategic sectors. In the field of work, liberalisation has certainly increased the opportunities available to women in certain countries, but this usually takes place in very poor conditions and often pays much less.

It is remarkable that the mediocre results achieved for African nations after ten years of liberalisation under the aegis of the WTO has not led developed countries to reassess their positions and objectives. If the negotiations have today become bogged down in differences of opinion such that they have been indefinitely “suspended” by the Director of the WTO, this is not because the organisation is trying to take better account of the interests of developing nations, and Africans in particular. The present crisis is mainly down to the battle between the United States and the European Union on the one side, and the G20 [6] on the other. The battle is over the issue of parallelism [7] of forms. The developed countries are calling for the developing countries to impose drastic cuts in customs duties on industrial goods and to commit to the liberalisation of the trade in services, whereas the developing countries are calling for the other nations to reduce their agricultural subsidies.

Given the present crisis and the gloomy prospects at the WTO, the logical conclusion of an evaluation of its ten years of action should be “mission unaccomplished”.

And the question to ask now is what should be the alternative to the WTO? And what would the consequences of a long-term crisis at the WTO be for African people, and women in particular?

It is extremely tempting to respond in a simplistic way by saying that the failure of negotiations at the WTO could only be to the advantage of African countries due to the unfairness of the current rules. However, if one looks at the power relations at the WTO and in the system of world governance, it shows that such a stance does not stand up easily to clear analysis. The failure of trade negotiations would allow the status quo to gain acceptance once and for all, and would reinforce current trade relations, which are mostly to the detriment of African nations.

Therefore, on the contrary, we must relaunch multilateral negotiations and fight, so that the principle of special and differential treatment for African nations is put in place, made effective and made obligatory, in accordance with the Doha mandate in all areas of the negotiations.

Even if the negotiations have still not really advanced the cause of Africa, they at least allow African populations to hold an interest in them, place more popular pressure on governments and negotiators, provide a platform for African states and civil society organisations (NGOs, producer organisations, trade unions, women’s organisations, etc.) to denounce current trade rules and schemes, and reduce the pressure of governments in the North and multilateral institutions who advocate liberalisation in the interests of the rich.

Conclusion

The way in which trade is governed in today’s world leads to necessarily unfair results. But could it be otherwise in a game whose players are not equal?

Whilst the rules that have been set do not allow African nations to develop the means to compensate those who have been damaged by international trade, developed nations have implemented mechanisms to protect themselves from the dangers brought about by liberalisation.

In such a context, the Doha development agenda could only really achieve its goal of creating a framework for development if it allowed the creation of an international environment that guarantees African countries enough flexibility to implement national standards and policies. This would have the effect of helping these nations protect their populations, markets and institutions from the effects of the market.

Such an approach calls upon African leaders to act responsibly. If it is understood that the system governing world trade should take greater account of the opinions of vulnerable populations, one also needs to recognise that this task must first be carried out at the national level. Greater participation of various types of stakeholder, including politicians, NGOs, producer organisations, women, consumers, the private sector, etc., in the development of trade policy is without doubt a pre-requisite in order to make national interests known at WTO negotiations. From the perspective of gender [8], however, even though efforts have been made for years, there remains a serious shortfall that is holding back African negotiation strategies.

* Cheikh Tidiane Dieye is a socio-anthropologist who has been involved in trade and multilateral negotiations on behalf of Enda Tiers-monde, a member of the Africa Trade Network (ATN). He is co-editor of "Footbridges between trade and durable development", a news bulletin on the trade negotiations.

* This is a shortened version of the original French article, which was translated by Timothy Cleary. Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Notes

[1] See Passerelles n° 2 vol 3, November 2001 – January 2002
[2] From a book by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (“Global Showdown: How the New Activists are Fighting global corporate rule”, 2002), recounting the demonstrations of global citizens’ movements which prevented the launch of the WTO’s “Millenium Round”.
[3] Interesting studies conducted by NGOs such as Enda Third World, Oxfam and the ICSTD have shown the disastrous impact of American subsidies on the African cotton trade. On this, read the “White Paper on Cotton”, Enda Diapol, 2005.
[4] “Making Global Trade Work for People”, UNDP, 2003
[5] Among these relative benefits, one can cite in particular the unreciprocal trade preferences between the EU and the ACP which characterised the Lomé Convention, the flexibility offered to LDCs at the WTO and, more generally, to the generalised system of preferences.
[6] The G20 is a large group of negotiators based around the big developing countries exporting agricultural goods, such as India, Brazil, Argentina, China and South Africa. The group emerged just before the Cancun Confernece in 2003 and is fighting against subsidies in the North.
[7] This is a concept defended by the EU in particular in its commitments. Each group stands firm and asks the other groups to make the first commitments.
[8] Few African delegations at the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong included wome

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