Somalia: New Navy Task Force Takes Aim At Pirates

Washington DC — A new multinational naval task force is patrolling the waters off the coast of Africa to scare off pirates who have been regularly attacking commercial shipping vessels laden with oil, fertilizer and iron ore.For now, Combined Task Force 151 comprises three U.S. ships, but other nations, including the United Kingdom, are expected to join the effort that is focused on the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. In the meantime, naval forces from nearly two dozen nations are patrolling in the same waters — in some cases bilaterally — and are often providing escort to merchant vessels bearing their national flags.

Africa: Obama And U.S. Policy Towards Africa

As Obama takes over the presidency of the United States, Horace Campbell contextualizes an Obama presidency in the realities of Africa and the ongoing global finance crisis. He argues that “capitalism should not be reconstituted and rebuilt on the backs and bodies of Africans.” For Campbell, the crisis is not simply a cyclical crisis of capitalism; it is a fundamental shift in the global political and economic order. In light of this fast changing world, Campbell is also interested in the possibilities and our responsibilities in bringing about change in and for Africa.

West Africa: The Return of the Military Coup

Cape Town — The African Union (AU) has condemned the return of coups d’état to the continent, describing the phenomenon as “a very serious setback in the ongoing democratization process in Africa.”Government ministers attending a meeting of the AU’s Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa this week issued three separate communiqués dealing with attempted or actual military takeovers during 2008.

Malaria Vaccine Could Be Licenced in 2011

The most clinically advanced malaria vaccine that is capable of reducing the incidence of malaria by more than 50 per cent in African infants and young children, may be licenced for use by 2011 if results of the final efficacy study commence early next year are anything to go by.Known as RTS,S/AS01, the new malaria vaccine candidate, studies show, can be safely incorporated into existing national immunisation programmes, without interference with commonly used childhood vaccines such as polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenza type b.

Malaria vaccine for Africa

A malaria vaccine trial on children in Africa starts next month researchers have said. The medical trial will take place on about 16,000 children and has come about as the researchers try to create the world’s first malaria vaccine. Malaria kills more than one million children yearly in Africa.The vaccine trials are expected to take place in such countries as Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.Malaria is one of the diseases which is killing more people especially children in Africa and is caused by parasites and spread by mosquitoes.The British drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC is teaming with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is an anti-malaria charity funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, clinics and research centres in Africa to develop a malaria vaccine, according to the NewsDay report.

Shortlist for Africa’s best player out

The Confederation of Africa Football has unveiled the shortlists for the Glo-CAF Awards 2008. CAF Director of Communications, Sulemana Habuba also announced innovations in the event with the aim of making it prestigious. The Media and Technical Committees nominated the shortlists for the two awards.The innovation Habuba said had led to the creation of the Glo-CAF Best Player on the Continent and the Glo-CAF Best Player across the World, according to cafonline.

Museveni: Africa can solve food crisis

Africa has sufficient agricultural potential to become a food basket for the whole world, President Museveni of Uganda said. He said the continent could solve the current food crisis if the relevant production interventions are undertaken during the launch of the P4P at the United Nations.Purchase 4 Progress (P4P) is an initiative of the World Food Programme (WFP) which aims at transforming the way WFP purchases food in developing countries by giving priority to small scale farmers to sell their surplus produce to WFP at competitive prices while giving the food to those who have little or no food at all.According to a press release from the state house in Uganda, the programme which will initially target 21 countries, Uganda inclusive, aims at helping farmers to earn reasonable income and predictable market for their produce. It will initially target 350,000 households over a period of 5 years.The WFP is supported by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffet Foundation.President Museveni launched the programme jointly with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, Rwandese President Paul Kagame and the WFP Executive Director Mrs. Josette Sheeran.President Museveni said that 67% of the farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa have been practicing subsistence agriculture and not fully utilizing the region’s agricultural potential. He said that with the current food shortage in the world, it was time for African farmers to engage in commercialized agriculture and produce food beyond their subsistence needs. He, however, noted that interventions in terms of irrigation, the use of fertilizers and other forms of modern agricultural practices need to be emphasized to enable the region produce optimally.Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete welcomed the programme saying that it would help unlock the potential of farmers in rural Africa since they will be assured of the market for their produce. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda lauded WFP for its support to his country. He said that the organization has responded to the feeding needs of over 54,000 people in Rwanda. He also hailed their support through the School Feeding Programme and welcomed the Purchase 4 Progress Programme saying it was an appropriate intervention.Ms. Josette Sheeran, the Executive Director of WFP, said that in addition to purchasing their produce, WFP would facilitate farmers with modern farm inputs, equip them with modern agricultural skills to boost the quality and quantity of their output.Mr. Bill Gates and Mr. Howard Buffet said they were committed to helping farmers in the developing world to better their incomes because they constitute a large part of the poorest of the poor in the world. They said that they committed their organizations to supporting Purchase 4 Progress Programme because its objectives are in line with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Corruption: Africa’s movers and shakers

Corruption has significantly improved in Nigeria and Mauritius over the last year, according to the Transparency International`s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The southern African country ranked 41 out of 180 countries with a score of 5.5 out of 10. Nigeria (2.7) jumped from 180 to 121.The CPI measures the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in a given country and is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys. The 2008 CPI scores 180 countries (the same number as the 2007 CPI) on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean).According to the report released on Tuesday in Berlin, Botswana leads the league table of top 10 least corrupt African countries at the 36th position with a score of 5.8. Mauritius closely followed then Cape Verde at 47th spot with a mark of 5.1. Africa’s fourth went to South Africa at the 54th slot with a score of 4.9, Seychelles gained 55th and bagged 4.8 and then Namibia landed at the 61st position after scoring 4.5.Others are Tunisia (62) with a score of 4.4, Ghana ranked 67 and scored 3.9, Swaziland (72) and attained 3.6 followed by Burkina Faso at 80th position after it obtained a mark of 3.5.However, Somalia (180), Sudan (173), Chad (173), Guinea (173) topped the top 10 corrupt countries on the continent scoring 1.6 each but Somalia which managed only 1.0. Equatorial Guinea (171) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (171) followed them with a score of 1.7 each. On top of them was ailing Zimbabwe, which is lying at the 166th position and scored 1.8. The remaining medals for the other three corrupt countries went to Gambia (158), Angola (158) and Guinea-Bissau (158) after all three scored 1.9 each.On the global scene, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden share the highest score at 9.3, followed immediately by Singapore at 9.2. Bringing up the rear is Somalia at 1.0, slightly trailing Iraq and Myanmar at 1.3 and Haiti at 1.4, according to TI website. The global anti-corruption watchdog said while score changes in the Index are not rapid, statistically significant changes are evident in certain countries from the high to the low end of the CPI. Looking at source surveys included in both the 2007 and 2008 Index, significant declines can be seen in the scores of Bulgaria, Burundi, Maldives, Norway and the United Kingdom. Similarly, statistically significant improvements over the last year can be identified in Albania, Cyprus, Georgia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Tonga and Turkey.

Fast internet for Africa in 2010

Cheap and high-speed web access via satellite will be provided to millions of people in Africa and other emerging markets by 2010. Google and Europe’s biggest bank HSBC partnering with cable operator Liberty Global would provide the services. Three billion people are to benefit from the project.A group called O3b Networks – stands for the “other 3 billion” people who do not have access to the internet – are helping to roll out the project. Reuters reports say the project will provide high-speed backhaul for telecoms’ operators and Internet providers, which can then sell services to businesses and consumers.South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel hailed the project at a conference in Germany on Monday. “The information gap is very real and clearly whatever we can do to close it must be encouraged,” Manuel told a news conference in Berlin on the U.N.-backed Millennium development goals.”Any initiative that can leapfrog over traditional means of getting information to people must be encouraged. Information is power and it supports democracy and it supports decision-making.”O3b networks said in a statement the satellites would be constructed by Thales Alenia Space and should be operational by the end of 2010. The company’s founder, Greg Wyler, told Reuters coverage would reach from Spain to South Africa, include most of South America, large parts of Asia and all South Pacific Islands. The project intends to offer fibre performance over satellite to parts of the world where it is not commercially viable or practical to deploy a fibre network.Because its satellites orbit earth at lower altitudes than those used to beam TV signals to homes, they work better for Internet access where latency — the amount of time it takes for bits of information to travel from source to destination — is an issue, Wyler said.The project is expected to cost $650 million until the launch, he said. Initial equity of $65 million has been raised, but the final mix of debt and equity has not been set. In some parts of the world, the company will compete with fibre-optic cables currently under construction — for instance, over a dozen cables have been announced connecting Africa to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

M-Net Face of Africa

Malawian girls are too short in height to feature in one of Africa`s top talent search shows according to media reports. The scouting session for the M-Net Face of Africa began on Wednesday but the contestants did not meet the specified minimum height of 1.72 metres and a maximum hip measurement of 96cm.The judges for the sessions said they were looking for an X factor which most of the contestants in Malawi did not have. “The X factor is something you cannot describe but we know it when we see it,” said judge Andiswa Manxiwa.By 12pm on Wednesday, about 50 girls had auditioned in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe but less than five had made it into the next round, a local newspaper Daily Times reported.After the sessions, 24 finalists will be selected to participate in a Model Boot camp which is to be held in Zanzibar, Tanzania where the top 10 will then be selected. The finalists will then head into this year’s glittering Face of Africa finale set to be screened live on DStv in over 40 countries across Africa. It will take place on November 29.Face of Africa is a pan-African talent search showcasing Africa’s beauty and style. The winner of the contest is expected to walk home with US$ 50,000 in cash. Apart from the cash, the winner is also expected to land herself a modeling contract with Oluchi’s O Model Africa Agency.Some of the countries participating include Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Ghana and Malawi.